Crowded games are so fun

I'm pretty sure I did play, but I paid zero attention to anything which is why I remember so little about those days. All I did was archer-camp with the good ol' 20-block headshot range

I wonder what might give you that feeling. Anyway, "it's not uncommon" is a massive understatement of how many times I will revenge kill an archer for the lols of it, simply because I can. I will also type /archer whenever I'm getting too salty about dying all the time as elf; it's ridiculous how much power I feel with an instakill bow in my (virtual) hand.

Either you clearly did not read much of the OP at all, or you are clearly interpreting this in the opposite way to which I intended. As I said:

Point being, CTFers have a tendency to jam-pack a game full of players simply because that's where the rest of the flow of people is going, and pretty soon you have only three options: 1. play on a way-too-crowded game and have zero fun being headshotted for no particular reason every four steps you take, or otherwise brutally beaten around by enemy defense with no chance of survival; 2. play on a puny little 10-player game where you are the only "regular" CTFer and also have zero fun having zero challenge playing against some people who basically have no clue what a flag is; or 3. don't play CTF in the first place. (Or 4. skrew around on an empty server.) Not very fun.​

That last part is about the most you got right. Not to mention, you said:

That is exactly the point of this thread. 50 people crams all of the regulars on weekends into one server, then the game becomes way too chaotic and miserable to play objectively (unless you count "recovery" as murdering a flag carrier alongside a hundred defenders before he leaves the flag room).

Meh, I wouldn't quite say I blame Brawl for anything--at least, anything relevant to this particular topic. I just asked that this would get noticed by Brawl staff (which it obviously has or I wouldn't be saying this), as many ideas never really get an official word from the staff.

I do remember that survey now that you mention it, though I can't recall whether I voted in it (I guess not, since I don't have a highlighted answer with an asterisk like in other polls). I would like to point out, though, that the option for 40 players only lost by 4 votes. Granted, the data was in favor of larger games, but realistically, what does that do for the game play? Which brings me to the stuff below.

In bigger games, if capping without ninja is at all possible, you still get the skilled regulars carrying the team because anyone with less skill just fails to achieve anything with such a crowd overwhelming them (like me! ^-^). "get gud & practice" is hardly an option when tiny games present no challenge with which to practice, and large games make building skill quite impossible while facing infinite walls of failure.

And what if capping is my fancy? I spent like two and a half years or something (however long I've even been playing this game--not trying to make any claims of being an old-time veteran) playing archer and doing nothing but killing people, and otherwise I would play pyro on defense and still kill people. Just killing people can get extremely boring and ruin the point of playing CTF; it's nice to be able to capture flags for a change, even though I may fail a bunch. What's not nice is when, even though I personally am not the best in crowded games, it's clear that no one is able to capture any flags without well-performed ghost caps or a coordinated offensive swarm.

 

Alright, caught red-handed, some of my complaints have less reason behind them than others. Since I'm on my phone I'll just respond bit by bit without quotes.

I misread your post, I thought you said 35 players per game, not team. I do remember that now, and I do remember that I was one of those idiots contributing to the chaos (as in, one of the people not playing objectively).

As for my options:
1. I keep playing because I like to enjoy a good game of CTF when it comes along. I can't have a good game if I don't stay on for more than a few minutes to find one. If it happens on that day, that is.
2. In reality, if even one exists, there usually is only one server with a good number of people on it. Though I haven't made this very obvious, I never said that good-sized games never happen. It's just that 50 player games are too common. As I said in the OP, lowering the game size for the big servers would increase the number of good-sized ones.
3. I'm only contradicting myself if we share the same definition of "decent."
4. I talk to my friends just as much inside of a game as I do on an empty server (with them on that empty server, of course). But talking to friends isn't the sole reason I play CTF--I want to be able to play the game itself with as little frustration due to overcrowding as possible.

Of course it feels more rewarding to capture flags with more players on, but that's assuming capturing is possible. And it appears we both agree that there is no fun or challenge in capping on really small games.

I've said it twice and I'll say it again: smaller games benefit more than one game at a time! While you say that during the weekends, there are usually enough regulars to fill up one server and overflow into a decent-sized game in the next server, too often does the limit just remain at that one full server. Lowering the game size forces this overflow to occur much more quickly, which brings at-least-slightly smaller and happier games for just about everyone.

 

I have indeed been ignoring the factor of teamwork on the basis that teamwork is scarcely used and difficult to accomplish most of the time. I still think games have too many people and defenses can be composed of way too many people nearly regardless of the number of people working together to capture the flag against them, one of the few exceptions being if entire teams played either offense or defense.

I will actually make an effort to work with some friends next time I try offense; it just might work out better than stubbornly dying all the time . Even so, the point of this thread is not depleted. It'd be nice to have more manageable games overall.