Early morning thoughts

Ok, this is going to be long. I also wrote this at 1:10AM so.... it may not be written the best. But this is my take on CTF. It's also aimed at increasing retention rates for new players. Some of the stuff here assumes you don't have all the classes and still want credits ect.

P.S. I'm strictly avoiding all discussion about class balance/map balance. I'm assuming I can't change anything about the classes or maps. It's just too much to consider.

I used to play a bit in the MCCTF days, I have only ever played casual. Until about 3 weeks ago when I joined the discord and started playing some PPMs. I also read a bit on the forums. I could sum it up quickly. "Staff bad/biased", "So and so shouldn't have been banned", "So and so is breaking the rules depends on how you read them and should be banned". Oh, and ofc, "ctf is dying".

Every game has players who are vocal about certain things, hate certain mechanics. And if you always listen to your players, your game will never be different or unique. Also, CTF isn't dying. It's just not growing. I have yet to see a day where 2 servers are full. I've seen about 1.5 full, and that was it.

The problems

Offensive play is not rewarding. (Unless you actually cap)

Now, I played offence in a ppm for the first time recently. I don't even play offence in casual. Why? Because I don't want to, I don't find it enjoyable and there's no reward. Would I find it rewarding if I was good at it? Maybe. But I don't have any motivation to improve because it's not enjoyable or fun currently.

The difficulty curve
The difficulty curve, a new player, who can't pvp, will die, and die and die. It's boring for both parties involved. It's not fun. I can stop a play session of an experienced player, and stop a new player from joining the community.

I don't play with friends
Before there are jokes about how I don't have friends, I do, because I play bedwars with them. That is a game that encourages you to play with friends. There's nothing here encouraging group play (casual specifically).

Class availability.
If you're new you have access to four classes. Three of which offer the same basic action. Hit as fast as you can on the enemy. You get one unique class, the archer. In a game where there's so many people playing different classes, it's hard to compete and enjoy the game. Archer is the only class that offers truly different gameplay, and it's pvp action you can get anywhere else.

Team visibility/Mercs
I'll explain this in the paragraph.

So, what can be done?

Offensive Play
This one's probably the easiest to consider a solution for. You have to reward the player for trying. Problem solved? No. It's more than that. You could buff the cap credit count, but that only goes to one player, and only if they manage to reach the flag. There also aren't any other distinct events you could grant bonuses for. Here's some of my solutions:
Make kills seem like an achievement in themselves. Specifically defender kills. A defender can be someone within x blocks of the flag. But each kill pops up in the chat, with 2 credits. As a new player, that's nothing. In bedwars, that person is reset back to their spawn, with a cooldown. In CTF, that means nothing as there's always other players. In Survivial games, you kill a player, they're out. There's nothing special when killing a player. A small bonus could be a slight buff to a player. For example, 3 seconds of speed (a level above what the player currently has) meaning they have a chance to back off. This is a direct counter to ninja though so the effect may need to be thought through a little more. Could also grant 2 absorbtion hearts for 5 seconds. A short effect, won't mean that after a fight, but means that little bonus and makes it extra special. To make this fair, you could make it available to all players.

Difficulty Curve
In many games, there's something to help players when they're losing. In Battlefield 1, it was the blimp, modern warfare has the death streaks. Both something that could turn the tide in your favour. It doesn't have to be massive. But it could also help against the complaints of spawn camping (Check the forum). A small buff could be something like 1/5 of a resistance effect. Various effects could be added when you reach certain death streak milestones. The death streak would be reset (and all buffs removed) when you gain a kill. If you wanted to milk the playerbase, you could make them purchasable with credits and allow you to pick and choose, but I would not advise that at all. It means even more is locked off to new players, and the death streak is designed to help new players. Older players shouldn't go on a death streak (except perhaps a ninja/assassin having a bad day).
Also, I've faced a few players now, who haven't used steak. It's not clear that you don't have to eat it, nor that it increases health. Perhaps a warning in chat when people get down to three hearts if they haven't used it, or if they die, and haven't used much of their steak (bar instakills) they get a little notice (and notification sound) reminding them that they can eat steak to heal.

Subnote, perhaps don't allow people to pick the server. Organise it for them. This would allow you to creates two matches of smaller size (meaning that each kill is more important, and there are fewer defenders, also meaning server sizes could be reduced) and also means that more games go on at once. You can then also group be an estimation of a players ability (using redslime's stats) meaning newer players don't play against players who have a main class and play competitively in teams. Meaning it's fairer. At the end of the match, it also means you could split people up, based on difficult and also make smaller casual matches. However, it would keep parties/squads(explained below) together and allow you to join a friend.

I don't play with friends.
I've brought up me playing ctf a lot, but nobody does ever play. I also never massively encourage them to play. Why?
Part of it is class availability (next point), and the difficulty curve, but there's also no benefits. Perhaps we can get a cap, but then what? Parties mean very little. And teams are far too big. You need something like squads or mini groups to play with. Perhaps you could make squads of up to 5 players, and you get a boost of some such when you're playing the same game? Credits are the obvious thing, but I feel it's got to be something different. A really cool (but probably not money making) would be to allow squads/parties to play classes that someone else has unlocked, but isn't using. For example, if I own assassin and ninja, I can play ninja and someone else in my squad/party could play assassin. It would help with the next point.

Class availability.
Now, this is probably going to be the least likely to happen since it goes against money making system put in place by Brawl to keep the servers running. But, I'm going to throw them out there. It could even make people like stuff and buy more.
The three of the four classes are very similar in gameplay style. So, we could offer more classes. Perhaps a weekly rotation, like in certain mobas, where in casual play, groups (or in this case) just one class is unlocked. I'd still love free Friday to be a thing, but this means that you get a chance to get better at a class, improve over the week, and try something new. It also means that if you've bored, why not try out the free class and see how well you can do?
Class trials. Allow players to earn/buy classes for a day or a week. Nice and cheap, giving them a chance to play with friends or try something new. You could even make a 100 ctf credit purchase for 1 hour of a random premium class. Day or week passes for a certain class could also be donated, meaning friends with all the classes can spend some tokens, and give a friend a class for the day to play with them. They still shouldn't be able to purchase permanent classes for them.
The final thing you could do is allow a scaling for class purchases. This means unlocking your final class could cost 100,000 ctf credits, but unlocking your first, a mere 1,000 (Both a little extreme, but you get the idea). Discounts could also be offered credit wise, but I don't know the benefits this could bring.

Team Visibility/Mercs
Prior to reading this discord, I didn't really know about teams, nor who was on them. I'd propose a little thing before someone's name like [AF] or [TB]. This makes me curious to what it means, but also provides me with info about who's in what team. I know it's yet another thing in front of someones name. But it inspires team loyalty, and is also free advertising for teams. This is the only Minecraft server I know of that actually has a competitive side. Yes, some have tournaments, but few have proper teams and organise matches. It's your time to shine.

I'm new to the understanding of mercs and have not yet been in a team, so this may come off as naive. But, I'll say it anyway. Imo, mercs shouldn't be a thing. 1st, there's less loyalty to a team, and for me, reduces the meaning of the team. It also makes it harder to see who's where. Daveeeeeeeee is on AF, but he's also a merc on many other teams (or at least applied) and I just found it all a little confusing. But there are two reasons I've got.
1. Social things, play with your friends. A private match with some of your mates against someone else's mates. This is nice enough to see, but I don't see why it has to involve teams at all.
2. Used as subs. This is actually a fair reason, other than just having game subs, but then that would just make teams function worse.
So, what to do about it? Only allow a person to merc for two teams maximum. This increases team loyalty, and makes it much easier to understand. Teams become much more distinct and it's more manageable and easier for people to understand what's happening. Overall, I don't like the who merc thing, but that's my opinion and I don't have a good enough reason for them to be removed.

Thanks
Congrats if you read all that. There's no tl;dr, partly because I feel you need to read it all to get it, partly because it's now 2:37AM and I need sleep. I don't have massive experience here, but hopefully at least some of this is useful. If you don't like something, or think something shouldn't happen, include why.

P.S. this is 10404 characters!

 

Been 9 days since I wrote this. Guess I should reply to a few things.

Mercs
At the time or writing, having never been in a team, and only skimming over the team forums, I didn't understand it, and I do more so now. I can see why they're a thing and why people sign up to be mercs for teams. Sorry for using you as example Daveeeee, but you were the one that I came up with at the time.

Friends
I'm clearly on my own on this one. It could just be that I'm not pushy enough, or they spend too much time sweating on bedwars.

Credits
Now that I've started playing more daily due to COVID, and I have begun playing in PPMs, I have earnt credits so much faster. Most of my thoughts on slower credit gain is from me playing casual perhaps one a week, and not being very good at PVP, or playing tactically. It meant that I didn't see the full picture for the community. I also don't have access to any stats, so my credit gain perception was based entirely on my own experiences.

However
I would like to clarify, most of what I was saying was based on a handful on PPMs I'd played recently, and some long experience of casual. Again, I can see the stats, so I don't know how many regular players there are that don't have a forum account linked. I don't know how many players aren't in the community discord, or just play casual. Some of this was written about being friendlier to brand new players.

Replies
I'm just gonna respond to quotes here.

This is something that is hard to change. Many games can do it by forcing players to play a tutorial, but given Brawl doesn't know the quality of the player when they first joined, it's hard to force them into a tutorial. Instead, I'd go for something different:
Players must join the ctf lobby before playing ctf. Yes, a little annoying, but most servers do it when asking you to pick a gamemode or a server in that gamemode.
New players (This means they haven't got a playtime greater than 5 mins) will then receive a chat notification, telling them there's a lobby tutorial. This are is just a simple place, perhaps holograms or signs, telling users the basics about a class, some "suggested" counters? But also some tips on capping or defending. Perhaps also include a classes "suggested" role. It's not much, but it can go a long way to new players. It could also pop-up in chat if people are on a death-streak.

I'm trying to avoid the whole community attitude on this thread. There are plenty of others talking about this. I believe the teams really help the game, and perhaps the staff could do more to promote this as a properly competitive game (the stuff in the lobby is great btw), but I played casual for ages, never got involved in the community much. But then again, I could be an exception.

This is the most unique and different CTF server I've played on. People argue it's similar to Capture the Wool or that Cowboys and Indians game on The Hive. It's not. I'm not going to explain it all. You can play Hypixel's new Capture the Wool game and see the very clear difference in the games. This is the only gamemode I still play that I used to play.

I know I didn't quite make this clear in the beginning, and I've also never played with a proper offence part of a team, but the things I brought up were more about casual than anything else. You gotta play casual before you play the rest of the game.

 

I feel like varying credits for different classes would make it far too complex, and is unlikely that devs would spend time on this. Normally, Ninja is used as a more defensive class anyway, not for getting kills, but dealing damage and distracting high value targets.