why ctf (and brawl as a whole) is dying

+1

 

I think people tend to underestimate the number of new players Brawl receives. I saw numbers from Paul a while back (within the last few months, not like, years ago) that showed we definitely do get players, they just don't stay. WarZ is a little bit of a different story because that game is literally impossible to play if you don't have years of experience, so the lack of retention is understandable. However if players are willing to join WarZ at least once, I can only assume they're trying out CTF as well, so your point about returning new players is the most crucial to me personally. Everyone tends to throw around player retention as this thing that Brawl just "has to improve", but not a lot of stuff has worked any wonders yet, despite there being a lot of really smart players and staff. It's an understandably tough thing to just come up with, but for starters, I agree that lowering server sizes would help people to realize "hey maybe I should play the objective to win games, get credits, and buy classes instead of sitting idly or PvPing brainlessly". I personally see that as a simpler thing that can be done to alleviate the problem of new players joining and getting stomped or not understanding the "vibe" of casual, if that makes sense lol

EDIT: This does depend on what direction CTF should take; you could get players more involved and less clueless by making casual more like competitive, or you could make it more like a Party type gamemode that doesn't require time and is like a minigame. Up to higher ups tho

As for the other things you mentioned, moderation is really tough. Cleaning up the ****ters is a lot easier said than done. I can say that a lot of the staff put a ton of time in, and while multiple are inactive, there is a lot of effort always being put in. I don't really have a lot of experience with handling the edge cases of CTF so I can't say much about addressing this issue, to be honest. I kind of just played a lot and banned cheaters all day, the policy stuff was never my forte.

But yeah, normalize excommunicating mutes

 

Please don’t apply for staff

 

The reason why they dont stay on CTF is because u get team stackers who target new players by going mage and freeszing them 24/7. the only times i see actual target warnings get dished out is when i go on alts and personally report them to specific mods, cuz whenever i do /report or msg a mod in game that a targeting is happening, it never gets punished

 

It doesnt help when half the cheaters on this server have moderator friends who vouch for them being legit making it difficult to hand out punishments in the first place.

When was the last time a cheater who plays competitive was banned in less than 6 months of people knowing theyre a blatant cheater??

If this **** doesnt get fixed no one will want to play regardless of how good or bad the game meta is period, guilty, end of story, next ****ing case

 

I thought I'd drop in on this conversation to give a viewpoint from a fairly new player (been here about 2 months I think).

When I first joined, CTF was the only gamemode that really hooked me. I love strategic games, and even though some classes are a little questionable, the balancing in CTF is bearable, at least for me.

There were only two main problems:

1) Toxicity: Of course this will be a problem pretty much anywhere, but its only a few people. In my opinion, toxicity is a virus. It spreads throughout playerbases. I may be new to Brawl, but I'm not new to Minecraft multiplayer in the slightest. I have seen other communities ripped apart by toxicity, and so I think that the number 1 problem on CTF isn't hackers or balancing - it's toxicity.

2) Targetters: You expected this, but still. The tragetting is pretty bad. A lot of people in my first few games saw I wasn't used to the game, and both called me out and seemed more focused on killing me than anything else. I was playing Soldier, I think, and when you see 5 mages running at you, spells at the ready... words do not describe.

So yeah, those are the problems from the perspective of a fairly new player. I will be sticking around, and I know some other players who will be too. Have a good day.

 

Yes I agree that the game has a couple of problems that makes it unenjoyable for new and more experienced players.
1.Boredom
The game gets boring very quick and sometimes when you are in a small lobby with players you know and are truced with you will just keep standing there and do nothing. Also the game can get boring on full servers. I have seen players taking a break from this game, bc it got so boring to them(I was one of them). And nowadays I don't play it as much.
2.Problems as a new player(Skill/experience gap)
It is very hard for new players to understand the game. Most players don't bother reading all the class descriptions or don't know how to defend themselves against certain classes. They will lose even if they are a god at pvp.
3.Spawn camping/toxicity
The ability to spawn camp players that are not good at pvp makes them rage quit and never come back. There is so a massive gap between players. Also there are many toxic players in this game and it makes it even worse, when you get trash talked the whole game.
4.Cheating problem
The anticheat is not the best but they are at least trying to make it better, but it can be very frustrating when there is a bhopper in your game and he does not get auto banned and no staff in sight.
5.Chaos in big games/annoying classes
It's no big secret that there are some really easy classes to play that involve less skill and more reward. Take as example a ninja. It's supper hard to kill ppl as ninja. Than there are classes like heavy that blazes through most classes but still involves skill. Last are the classes where you can just spam anything like the head of the necro or the tnt of engineer. Well you could now say but that is not that bad, you are just complaining. But now let's go into a full lobby and it will become impossible to play. One example is the archer class(Yes Ik it involves skill) in a full lobby. There are just so many of them. You might say just go elf, but what most don't realize is that there aren't just archers in a game. While you try to block the arrows a heavy will just appear and obliterate you.

Solutions:
1.Make special events or more unique options to a game that it will not always be the same. There should be a way to make the game interesting to players that played for years.
2.There should be a way to explain the classes easier and not only through text maybe just add some animation for some of the special abilities of the classes.
3. Give harder punishments for toxic players or just for spawn trappers. Btw a good start would be by punishing them in the first place.
4. This is I think more staff side that I can go into a full lobby and I don't see a single staff. Especially in the EU region is the staff lack a big problem. I am very happy though that you did some better changes to your anticheat.
5. Make the lobbies not as big or try to add a cap to classes(a limit of how many players can play the class at once), just like in the ppms. One example would be to have a cap of 3 for the archers, so only 3 players, that are on the same team, can play that class at the same time