CTF isn't evolving

Hey DmacK, I also played on CTF during MCPvP days. I agree with you, and I think that Brawl needs to make CTF a bit more exciting. Right now the gamemode is catered to the regulars, and the changes being made are usually for our competitive player base. An idea I have to fix this, is to have two different CTF gamemodes, just like how Hypixel has Normal and Insane Skywars. Normal would be the CTF you see now, and it would focus on the competitive side. Then there would be Insane, which would have a bunch of exciting and easy to learn mechanics for the newer players. Obviously these ideas are hard to bring into fruition, because it takes a lot of planning and coding. There's also the argument of not having enough players to sustain two different gamemodes. But if you have any other ideas, PM me!

 

my boy SPITTIN

 

I fully agree with this post. Honestly it is sad to see a server with high potential fall flat.

Personally, I have been around since the McPvP days as well - a time in which CTF was significantly better. Why do I think it was better? It was simple. A cut-and-dry concept with extreme PvP and flag capturing. Yes, classes were overpowered compared to the way they are now and that is why CTF was more appealing to people.
All in all, simplicity within a server works. Keeping a community connected to the core goal of a server, or game, is important. Both of these concepts have faded away to a point where player counts continue to decrease and I see more posts like this being put out. Clearly whatever is being done to "make CTF better" is not working. Player suggestions are over analyzed or quickly rejected. A common theme to "solving" issues is class nerfs/reworks along with map recycling.

Really, this is what needs to be asked here: is the current state of Brawl CTF working? If not, are the changes being made truly improving the server? Are players joining and staying or joining and leaving? Furthermore, what is player retention like?

Aside from that, I have also largely noticed this CTF being divided between casual (the normal servers where nearly 100 people once played to the death) and PPM. What has this really done for the server though? Leaving the issue of lack of evolution, meaningful changes and discussion aside, it has 100% made Brawl CTF stagnant. Gone are the days of teams in an all out brawl. Gone are the days of a simple server concept: PvP, team play and Capturing The Flag.
In my eyes, Brawl CTF is more or less a hangout spot for regulars. PPM exists for those actually wanting to play the game it was intended to, although how would newer players know about it upon joining and playing for a while? This is sad to see. I have always attempted to play the game on defense and PvP the opposing team. Using a laptop is less than optimal, but still was a great time due to the shear simplicity and all out brawl nature the server once had. Nowadays, it is rare to see a full CTF server and a large match of PvP/teams. The PvP aspect has faded into a lot of selective killing as well as assisting the opposite team and watching a battle occur. I won't say this is all that exists to the PvP/team component, although it is a larger part than ever before.

Overall, the core concepts of CTF have faded into a shell of what once existed. Ideas and discussions run into brick walls with over analyzing and a constant desire for class nerfs/removals. All this while Brawl CTF has lost players and a true meaning to the game. I know the response on my viewpoint may not be great - after all it has been the subject of insulting in-game on a few occasions. Although, it is sad to see a server/game once so popular and fun dwindle into a shell of it's former self.

 

I would agree with this, though there of course is still room necessary for improvement overall. The overpowered features removed in your list were long awaited, though it isn't exactly comprehensive and I know some changes haven't gone through with full support (AKA changing engineer/necro from what they used to be). Can't say much else since this strays away from the true issues at hand, but many classes feel stale (as you noted) or hated so much to where you will be targeted for class selection. As a server staff, you will never be able to make everyone happy, although it would be nice to see new life brought to classes soon.

Off topic note: a lot of people ask "why don't you go" when I bring up this type of stuff. Well, the good gameplay exists and spending years somewhere makes it harder to say screw it and leave.

Honestly, these are issues in my opinion. I 100% understand where you are coming from, but having stalled player counts is never a good thing for any server. It is factual that many mini-game servers aren't pulling in many new players. The same can be said for many other server variants as well. Though, I largely attribute that to a general lack of commitment. Gaming is secondary to many people, though with the right amount of commitment and attractive updates, good things can happen. Take Minecraft as a whole for instance. It defines the sandbox game concept and remains popular since it is:
1. True to it's roots.
2. Brings consistent new updates, interest and community commitment.
Now, both of these points is something many servers, Brawl included, simply do not execute.

Yes, Brawl is "no longer just focusing on it's old game modes" although, that isn't exactly something to brag about. You can't change and evolve so much to where the server/game is almost unrecognizable from previous iterations. By doing that, you risk alienating everyone who enjoyed traditional gameplay - and that is what has happened with CTF. Just ask Coca-Cola how their change in recipe played out in the 70's/80's. They thought their new sweeter taste would attract new consumers, but it actually negatively affected sales. I want to make it known that change is good, change is sometimes necessary, but changing too much brings increased risk.

Unfortunately, CTF has lost a significant amount players year-by-year. Matches with 40-50 players is almost unheard of nowadays. That is sad and should not be a positive point whatsoever. Yes, Brawl does not just focus on old game modes, but that doesn't exactly seem to have worked in the long-term. After all, CTF is nowhere near as competitive, or even as fun, as it once used to be. If anyone thinks that is a good thing, you are sorely wrong. CTF having evolved to that point is not a good thing.

I hope what Zernaa mentioned does come to fruition since CTF has changed so much to where player counts are stagnant. That is not a good thing. CTF lacks a competitive, fun, true-to-its-roots nature. Put yourself in the shoes of a newer player. You see CTF. Immediately you would think of a competitive, fun, team oriented, PvP server. Unfortunately, Brawl CTF has lost that foothold unless you know about PPM. I could be wrong about that, but it unfortunately feels all too accurate here.

 

I agree, was an example I had off the top of my head - not a direct comparison by any means.

I personally like Zernaa's idea of dual CTF game modes. I think a problem with Brawl CTF at the moment is the fact there really isn't much competition outside of lesser known PPM. Furthermore, there really isn't an incentive to play the game. It is has steadily trended to a fun hangout rather than a tried and true PvP server.
For example, occasionally I play The Hive. Many mini-games and upwards of 1,000-2,000 players online at any time. Most mini-games there haven't received an overhaul or significant change and still remain popular among 100's of people. It's a simple concept and has tokens to be earned through playing. Those tokens then in-turn can grant you cosmetic items/perks specific to some mini-games. It is a simple concept that has worked for years there. I'm not saying Brawl should adopt this, but it is an example of a simple, less modified mini-game server being successful. Certainly some of that methodology could be applied to Brawl - who knows!
I greatly appreciate the acknowledgement of concerns here. Also, I agree with and understand much of what you have mentioned. CTF, and Brawl in general, have tons of potential to be be harnessed. I have done a lot of posting on this, so I will cool it and let other members respond for now. Can generate some ideas in the near future!

 

I definitely agree with you that we’ve overcomplicated CTF as a whole. In my opinion, I would love to see the OP classes that got me personally into CTF back in action. Nowadays you need skill to be good at the classes offered in CTF, which the newbies just don’t have. It takes a while for you to get into CTF, a newer player logging on once will likely never log on again purely because of this. The gamemode is just too difficult to pickup quickly, which is why I think we’d benefit from an in-depth and interactive tutorial.

As SoCool said above, I really think CTF would benefit as a whole if we had quicker gameplay. Casual is very boring atm, feels slow paced, and games with 30+ people are basically unplayable. I think it’s time to get rid of the idea of 40-50 player matches, and instead try to make smaller games more quality. This would also decrease the likelihood of seven archers headshotting newbies right out of spawn, and three pyros dominating a flag room.

 

In smaller games there is generally very few people defending though and its frustrating for regulars. Need to just try out different player counts for a couple weeks at a time then do polls in games where regulars and new players can vote. Honestly wouldn't be hard so not sure why staff have no done this yet (I know they tried 40 player count ages ago but nothing ever came of that).

 

I fully agree with this - it would be nice to conduct some polls/trials to see what works and get feedback outside of just this thread.
As far as these common 25-10 player small games being frustrating, that is 100% accurate. Very few people are really playing the game (aiding their team, PvPing, trying to offend/defend, etc.) and the ones that do often are targeted for it. I feel bad for newer players who join into a small game only to have a hard time due to a lack of involvement from others. As a result, a new player is more likely to find another server rather than stick around for stalled gameplay. I feel like some more feedback on this topic is necessary.



Responding to Zernaa...

Yeah, unfortunately CTF has become so overthought to the point it really has broken down into primarily a hangout spot for regulars. Quicker gameplay would be more attractive in this age of younger people having shorter attention spans compared to "Boomers" (call me one here ). Anyways, I agree the 40-50 player matches largely serve no purpose at this time. It was fantastic to see almost 100 players online between two CTF servers in the past, although that time has come and gone. I would disagree with 30+ player matches being unplayable as the average match count I see is around 25-35 players nowadays. Typically that is sufficient for a decent game unless casual play overtakes the game (ex: purposely not capping, defending the opposing team, etc.). I know the question of "what if player counts increase over 30-40?" can be raised, although in the short term it is unlikely to pose much of an issue as average player rates are not very high at the moment.

Will pitch the idea of having something along the lines of 2 game modes/versions/servers of CTF. One for casual/slower paced play and one for actual competition. I understand that sort of exists, but it clearly has not been executed great.

 

While reading through everything these comments gave me more of an idea so I thougt I would write something...
I feel the way CTF games are played at the moment is like you can join at any point and you play with a random number of players for 3 quite long games.
This is nice as people can join in easily and not be waiting around. However if you think of more popular games such as bedwars and skyblock they have fixed sizes and you play 1 shorter game and then rejoin with a new set of players for a new game.
This will mean you can create more competition in individual games and also not have people sit around and just join to half play or something like that.
However I dont think reducing the size of players per game too much is a good idea. 10V10 can work although does feel a bit empty and if someone is afk you may struggle. So I would say if you did create fixed sizes for individual games, I would like to see at least 30, 15V15 or possibly 20V20. This may seem like a lot but its not skywars or bedwars where you have lots of smaller teams or one quick objective.... Its CTF where you need to have defensive player, mid players and offensive players for a successful game/competitiveness.
Hypixel capture the wool is something like 30V30 and although a smaller number of players play it compared to bedwars and skywars. It has enough to be able to have larger games which are more balanced and still work.

Not much else to say here for now... Thanks.

 

Test different player counts, its not hard to work out what is optimal and what isn't.

 

I do want to point out some personal concerns that I believe have ruined the game play consistently.
- Comments such as "stop capping", or getting frustrated with other people capturing the flag, in a game where literally the name is "Capture The Flag."
- Selectively killing "randos" and aiding the opposing team
- Targeting based on class selection
- Entire teams not showing any competitiveness (often in smaller games, making the entire concept of CTF pointless).

While we're on a topic of little evolution and player attraction/retention, the game play is on a level so far disconnected from traditional CTF that anyone who was attracted to the server likely is not staying. Capture The Flag is promoted far differently than the game play occurring on the server. This cannot be helping matters in any way. Personally, I have been in matches in which PvP is legitimately frowned upon, yet this is a PvP, team-centric, capture the flag server to my knowledge.
To me, it is stale, plateaued and potentially deceiving to any new players. This I am aware may be more controversial, although cannot be helping growth or interest.

 

I completely agree with you. Casual CTF isn’t a place for player retention to occur anymore. Competitiveness in Casual is very rare to see. However this is something very hard to regulate and fix. You can’t strike someone for throwing in Casual, and it’s very hard to warn someone for targeting without definitive proof. Unfortunately the only way to fix this is to fix the mentality of the player base, and reward those who do well. For example, giving coupons for the store or even a cosmetic for free would possibly work. At the end of the day, there isn’t much staff can do. Some regulars already use PPMs as their stomping ground, so Casual is on a different level. It’s also frowned upon to “tryhard” in Casual, even though this “tryharding” is literally just playing the objective.

 

I hope eventually actually playing the game can be incentivized. All too often I'm seeing insults based on class selection or "not being good" Furthermore, there is targeting of players that pvp - in a pvp server. Brawl CTF has seemed to of simply hit a brick wall. Would eventually be great to see the gameplay actually become what is promoted/advertised of the server, although that is not currently an area of focus (or so it seems). Brawl CTF has simply plateaued and evolution/player retention is not occurring despite ongoing topics relating to it. This is sad and I hope one day it can be changed. End of my posts here, clearly it is a waste of effort.

 

I definitely do not see your posts as a waste of effort. I think what you’re saying is completely justified, and you should be voicing your opinion. Don’t give up merely because things aren’t changing immediately. Problems like this one usually take a while to fix, especially since most of the work done for the server is completely volunteer based. I hope you continue to contribute and relay your ideas to the staff team