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Idea The Future of CTF

Discussion in 'Capture the Flag' started by Forleb, Jan 30, 2022.

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What is your overall opinion on each point?

  1. I support #1

    13 vote(s)
    81.3%
  2. I'm against #1

    1 vote(s)
    6.3%
  3. I support #2

    7 vote(s)
    43.8%
  4. I'm against #2

    3 vote(s)
    18.8%
  5. I support #3

    12 vote(s)
    75.0%
  6. I'm against #3

    1 vote(s)
    6.3%
Multiple votes are allowed.
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  1. Forleb

    Forleb Retired CTF Manager
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    Regardless of how many players we're getting, the game has one major drawback that is truthfully half the reason I applied for this position: Everything requires moderation, specifically competitive matches. We've had to deal with the sometimes unreliable process of tagging a Mod to set up maps & limits just for these matches to function. Then, when we realized that the staff team can't be doing everything for us, the concept of designated PPM hosts came into practice & added another layer of sophistication to make the forced flow of things smoother.

    The time for experimenting is over. There is too much customization in CTF for it to be mainstream, and therefore it needs some clear-cut limits to remove the need for so many moderation factors.



    #1. The Divide
    It's not like having a dedicated competitive zone for a game is foreign, but the approach that this server took on CTF is what caused things to become so privatized. The community was allowed to create official matches & PPMs on terms everybody agreed with - everybody from that time, at least. Brawl boasts having 4 million unique user logins, yet the same 200ish people have been the backbone of CTF for several years. It quickly became locally biased to the point that new players were actively pushed away in many instances, leading to massive stagnation that is currently withering CTF. I'm aware that new players are now allowed to try out PPMs far more than say a year ago, but the fact that I have to use the word "allowed" should spell out the problem simply enough. The community effectively controls who gets to play the game in its current optimized state, forcing everyone else to either learn the starkly contrasted meta of casual, or quit altogether. Intentionally closing off the outside world like this is going to result in a dead game. Communities should be dynamic and sustainable to ensure a game stays healthy.

    #2. Match Sizes
    Having different dedicated game sizes works just fine for several games, but a massive issue happens when that range is adopted into a single version of the game and is allowed to fluctuate freely. Valorant? 5v5, done deal. Bed Wars? 1, 2, 3 or 4-man FFA, done deal. CTF? 3v3 up to a 25v25 with no stopgaps... this is an issue. Valorant? 1 agent per player, each agent is mostly balanced. Bed Wars? Everyone has the same opportunity to buy items depending on skill. CTF? No limits in casual, and varying limits in comp, with some classes being able to clear several of another in one life in any scenario (vs popoff potential in Val)... this is an issue. That much variance has led to very carefully pieced together limits that can be manually set for PPMs & beyond, but balance should be standard for the entirety of a game. I believe that, since Val and CTF are nearing an equal class/agent count, converting CTF to a strict size with a hard limit of 1 of any class would not only relieve the need for so much manual balancing, but also make it far easier to pick up for a new player. This would obviously require that some classes be nerfed or buffed to equalize the current gaps, but with time it is doable in my opinion, and the payoff would be massive in retention. Games should follow clear rules & be naturally balanced.

    #3. Map Regulation
    The current trend for a majority of all the maps that CTF has seen is just to be good enough to not be considered unplayable. Only a handful of maps are considered match-sever-ready, and even fewer are actually liked by the community. This scaling can not be present if the game is to be naturally balanced. To remedy this, I propose a dedicated CTF Map Council (CMC) that can strictly regulate what maps are accepted into rotation. At first you may be thinking that the CMC would just be another expense of time, but the savings we would get from all of these changes would heavily outweigh such an expense. Nostalgia is only relevant for an entire experience; Playing a map that was a fan favorite 7 years ago but with an evolved meta just ruins the effect of the effort. It's time to ditch maps that are played purely for this purpose, as the need for innovation becomes ever more obvious with some maps reaching a rework count of 5 or 6 now. The literal ground for any game should be of just as much concern as the rest of the game. Games should have enjoyable environments across the board.



    I understand that many of these changes would result in abandoning years of existing work, but that doesn't change the fact that some of that work just won't do anything for the future of CTF. Nothing lasts forever, so the community must be prepared to leave behind what is no longer viable & seek out what is viable if we want any meaningful future for CTF. The staff team is working to expand other areas of the Brawl network currently, so there will be a lot of time to discuss these propositions before we can actually consider it, meaning we can hopefully see plenty of preliminary revisions. Leave your thoughts below please.
     
    • Agree Agree x 4
    • Like Like x 3
    • Mod Honor Mod Honor x 1
    • SMod Honor SMod Honor x 1
  2. Bathwater

    Bathwater New Member

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  3. dady100

    dady100 Member

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    I see maps as a pretty big retention problem as well as the other things you said, but I just wanted to make a couple suggestions / highlight a few points in regards to maps:
    - There are some maps on casual, where when they come on more than half the people log off (me included). Remove these please. These were already brought up multiple times on discord and I don't know how they even got into rotation in the first place.
    - Rotations: remove them. This is also not a new suggestion and not originally mine but they don't seem very necessary and would maybe increase the incentive for people to make maps and directly try them instead of waiting half a year for them to not even be tested and forgotten about.
    - Voting on which map to play next would be a big plus, give a list of 5 maps that people can chose from that they want to play next. Other servers have this and I don't see why brawl shouldn't or wouldn't. (I understand that servers are set 3 maps at a time so this would maybe take a little more dev work (if possible at all), but it would solve ****/unpopular maps from making everyone log off)
    - The ender eye taking you to the next map should also be removed and you should just be put onto the other server automatically. This is also where you sometimes lose some new people. (More a qol change, not a main problem)
    - Map building related point: on build you only get 1 or 2 free maps, if you want to actually make multiple maps are you meant to spend money to buy a build map to then make a ctf map? I never really understood this, are people supposed to pay to be able to make ctf maps? Obviously no-one does this lol but just a thing to maybe think about...

    TLDR:
    - some maps **** -> remove
    - make voting for the map you want next a thing
    - no point in ender eye, just take me to the next ctf server automatically
    - you need to pay to be able to build multiple ctf maps?
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
    • Winner Winner x 1
  4. anemoia

    anemoia Member

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    Gosh, this is honestly so overdue. I fully agree with you and I think it's time that maps that are objectively terrible are removed from rotation, and that new maps are added more quickly to the game and not only in new map waves.

    This would be a nice bonus, and since party has something similar maybe it wouldn't be too much work to add it to CTF.

    Agreed.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  5. Forleb

    Forleb Retired CTF Manager
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    You can technically archive maps at any time to free up slots. The only argument I see against that is the # of maps available at one time, but I don't think anybody's really up to working on 3+ maps at the same time. Even outside of the context of just CTF maps, I think the current system works fine, barring people know they can /archive.

    :100:
     
    • Like Like x 1
  6. Slingg

    Slingg OABFAABF

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    Hey Fleb,

    Your thread hits home a bunch of the issues present with CTF very well. I 150% agree with point #1 especially. Many players have tried bringing up the issues about the Competitive CTF divide a bunch of times already, most have been shut down by being told to, "get better." As you said, the issue we are running into here is the community "allowing" certain players to enter into Comp matches. I feel that a major remedy to this issue would be the Priority System implemented into picked for balance PPM's. I'm sure you know how this system would work seeing as you and I have discussed it before, but I'll explain it here for the people who haven't heard of it before. Lets say twenty eight people signed up to play a 12v12 PPM, Winston would randomly pick twenty four people out of the list for Hosts to make teams with. Those four people who didn't get picked would take priority to be picked in the next PPM they sign up for. Overall, I think that the "Buddy Buddy" system of making teams for PFB and Leader Pick PPM's needs to be done away with. Our community is too small to have the same people being excluded from PPM's every single time. If we keep on going the same way we have been, this game will keep on losing players and eventually dig itself into a hole that it cant get out of.


    As for point #2, I agree with some ideas of it. Other ideas will need to be tested for a long time and fine tuned before I can see them working. As far as needing a set game size I 100% agree with you. However, I think the staff team has already come up with a solution to it that is already in the works, the Queue System. Without giving away too many details, I think that class limits, an ELO system, and much stricter cross teaming rules would benefit Casual CTF greatly. When you propose limiting each class to one though, I don't think I agree with this idea. The main "hard hitters" in a match of competitive are your Assassins and Pyros, they each have a limit of one in a match. As far as Ninjas go, the vast majority of the time you'll encounter two Ninjas on the enemy team. I feel that if each team was only limited to one Ninja, the game would be far too unbalanced. I know you said we needed to nerf or buff classes accordingly to account for this massive change, but I'm failing to see how we could buff Ninja to be powerful enough for a limit of one without being over the top powerful. As of right now, I think the game would be a lot more stale if each Class had a limit of one. Unless we gain ideas from community members on how to make this idea work, I'm failing to see how it would succeed.


    I am in full support of point #3. I think the first thing (and easiest thing) to do would be to make the CTF Map Council (CMC). You are very right in the sense that many of the actively played maps in Comp are on their upper limit of reworks. They have been adapted repeatedly to suit the changing Meta of CTF. I feel that if we brought together a group of CTF staff, and well known community members into a Map Council, we would see the benefits of it pretty quickly.
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
    • Winner Winner x 1
  7. Forleb

    Forleb Retired CTF Manager
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    The hole is already measurably deep, which is why I want this point to be the top priority. While I agree that priority queue would be useful for the current system, the main point here is that the current system as a whole can't remain. It is built on the idea that being relevant in the community decides whether people know you exist or not - it continues to amaze me that CTF has made it this long with that kind of behavior, but the end looks to be palpable for the first time in a while. This server should govern itself for the majority of things, and be balanced to the point that special matches such as PPMs are played strictly for the players involved.

    Looking back on this, I realize that match sizes anywhere near a 5v5 like Val would imply hosting a LOT more CTF servers if the server happened to spring back to life. Those resources obviously aren't on the table, so perhaps permanent 8s or 10s would be optimal - we could even consider making separate modes for either size to retain some diversity.

    For the initial council of CMC, I'd say run a poll for the top 5 desirable competitive maps right now, then invite any creators of those maps (barring they're still around). If the majority of the community agrees that the build quality & attention to meta is strong enough for those maps, I'd feel safe allowing their creators to oversee any proceeding maps. Experienced staff members would fill in additional space for feedback.
     
  8. dady100

    dady100 Member

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    This has also been brought up among PPM hosts already a little while ago and I think most PPM hosts have agreed to this in principle. (There were some discussions about having an occasional competitive leader pick in which the signups would not be randomized.) The only thing missing is for someone to tell us where and how we keep track priority, and then for PPM hosts to start using this.
     
  9. rmure

    rmure Well-Known Member

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    none of these are the issues. the issue is that all the regulars just dick around with each other on casual and never play the objectives and when you ask why you get crossed with this attitude

    [​IMG]
    "its casual who cares" where tf else am i supposed to play. go play roblox or club penguin or some **** u wanna role play over a videogame

    you can understand how a game never gets any new stock of players when its current stock discourages and dogpiles people for wanting to play it seriously. if it means banning half the community then so be it because that half the community is choking the server out anyway
     
    • Funny Funny x 1
    #9 rmure, Feb 1, 2022
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2022
  10. Forleb

    Forleb Retired CTF Manager
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    Games shouldn't have to rely entirely on people playing them seriously. While the community is absolutely responsible for the social issues of any environment, casual is still highly unoptimized by design. You can't expect people to take something seriously if the people that made it didn't really try in the first place. Nearly every change we've seen since the dawn of PPMs has been to optimize those PPMs, leaving casual as a sort of sandbox with no means of naturally generating objective gameplay. The comp community mostly acts the way they do because casual has always been horrible. At best, it's where they warm up for 10 minutes and go on with their day. If you factor in how massive the general skill difference is between casual mains & comp mains, and you begin to realize that casual is seriously horrible if the best players around here won't touch it. Banning any number of them won't solve that.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  11. rmure

    rmure Well-Known Member

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    i didnt say ctf has to rely *entirely* on being taken seriously. i said the community has a problem with throwing casual games doing all kinds of stupid **** and then getting on your case when you ask people to play the damn objective, having wanted to play somewhat seriously

    like when i played sometime ago and this guy next to me took the flag at the enemy base, and i said hey do you wanna ****ing cap and they just ran around in circles spamming potions and never leaving the flag room. thern i went on discord about it asnd everyone had a huge ****ing problem with me like *i'm* the one who did something wrong? i just wanted to play the ****ing game

    its like if you go play a soccer game or some **** and some kid runs off the field with the ball and starts pissing on it or something, and people get mad at you for saying "yo what the ****" instead of the kid who ran off the field and started pissing on the ball

    if you, the moderator, cant see how this kind of behavior and community mentality discourages player retention and causes games to die out then ctf really is beyond saving
     
  12. Forleb

    Forleb Retired CTF Manager
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    That's quite a unique analogy - also hardly an appropriate one in the sense that soccer is a respected real-life sport. Your judgement on that instance is fair at the end of the day, but the reason people react like that is because they know it won't change anything. People are like hawks in a soccer match - if just a slightly strange call is made, people hop on it immediately. The difference in casual CTF is that it has 0 meaningful background to most regular players, meaning there's nothing to really justify any claim that something is being done wrong. However, if you see something like that in a PPM, let alone an official match, you will get a very similar response as in a soccer game - that's what the community values. If nobody cares about something, they aren't going to back you up on it out of the blue. I'm not saying that you're in the wrong, but they aren't exactly either - the goal here is to change that.

    I am absolutely aware that CTF has very limited days in its current state. The game itself is in a state so poor that the community has lost hope for it and actively wants it gone forever. This overhaul will hopefully improve the game enough that the community will at least be inclined to back off of that front, and it will work wonders for the new players who will finally have a reason to keep playing. It's a very tricky process.
     
  13. rmure

    rmure Well-Known Member

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    casual ctf is what everyone who sees brawl on a server list will be playing when they join for the first time, and if they go "ok guess ill go get the flag" and then theyre shot down for wanting to play the actual game and get a feel for it instead of touching tips in the corner of the map or some ****ing **** like that, and then get "just play a ppm or something lol its casual its not serious" as a response, do you think that person will

    a) sign up to play a competitive mode for a game they never even effectively learned to play because the community immediately shot them down

    b) leave and never come back?

    when people on the saner side have been saying for YEARS that culling half the userbase that just ****s the server up and brings any kind of progress to a grinding halt is the only real option to save brawl, doesnt it seem like time to entertain that idea just once? the ctf community is horribly toxic and hiveminded and nobody else is there because they've all been driven out already
     
  14. Forleb

    Forleb Retired CTF Manager
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    I used the keyword "most" of the community in there a lot because I agree that there are some people who just want drama - it's unavoidable. The issue is that casual is such a mess that we can't really punish them for a valid reason beyond the standard chat stuff that gets out of hand. I'll keep pushing on this: The game needs to change before we even attempt to "purify" the community. Neither of those is stable right now, but one thing that is certain is that the staff team is not strictly governed by the community. We have the power to make our own collective decisions when necessary. The end result of this proposition will improve CTF in the long run without a doubt; The extent of that improvement then becomes the deciding factor in how we handle the community. Immediately going after your players is extremely foolish when your game has obvious issues that are causing poor behavior. Things must happen in a careful order for an optimal outcome.
     
  15. 604_Films

    604_Films New Member

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    Another idea I have is to revamp or renew the tutorial system so that it is long enough for new players to understand the rules and concept of the game. When I first joined, it took me around 5 games to read all the signs. I would suggest doing smth like War-z does with their tutorial?

    Cheers,

    604_films
     
  16. xRob3

    xRob3 New Member

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    Id have to agree with this. As much fun as it is to dick around and stuff, it can definitely turn new players away. Imagine how confusing it is for a new player logging in to see two seasoned ctfers punching eachother to death repeatedly rather than actually playing the objective. I think if the earned credit threshold was tweaked to allow half credits earned for a smaller lobby (ie 4 or more ppl), this could be partially fixed. I notice that when a game reaches more than 8 in lobby, most people tend to try and play more competitively because the insentive of credits is there.
    Of course, for players who already have all the classes unlocked or dont want credits, this won't do much.
    The half credits idea would also help insentivise players to stay in games less than 8 people, which would make building up a decent size lobby much more likely.
     
  17. _DmacK_

    _DmacK_ Member

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    CTF has historically been a casual-based game to play. I think competitive is a nice aspect but I don't think it should be exclusively competitive focused.... it will literally never evolve because staff will be too afraid to add new classes to make the game feel new again.
     
  18. Forleb

    Forleb Retired CTF Manager
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    We've actually attempted to do this very recently, but you are correct in assuming that the community wouldn't take it very well in some aspects. Official teams have had the same 14 classes to balance around for the last 3 years, allowing them to fine-tune everything to what's ideal in a completely customized game instead of working towards a universal CTF that's naturally balanced. As I said at the top, I'm fine with "Competitive" still being a thing, but it should only exist for the player-specific factor & not be the only "balanced" form of the game as it is currently.

    The goal here is to eliminate that player variance itself. It is one of the major causes of casual being so unbalanced. There are practically no other games out there (that are sustainable) that use the player count logic that CTF does. I'm not trying to shoot down your suggestion, but believe me when I say that we've tried optimizing that logic for a while now & it evidently just doesn't work. Games need to start AND be balanced around 1 set player count, only allowing rejoins like in bed wars or Valorant - not this mess of 2v2 - 25v25 with no whitelisting. I am glad that you mentioned credits & most people owning every class though, as that's something I forgot to tackle in my original post: This overhaul would start every player fresh, 0 credits & classes, archiving current stats & achievements. It will be nearly impossible to push this forward without giving the majority player base something to work towards again, and classes will inevitably be changed a bit anyway.
     
  19. ZBoy3210

    ZBoy3210 Member

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    I've been saying this for ages and often it has come with responses of insults, blatant targeting, etc. The version of CTF promoted out to general players is significantly different than what most people would expect. This has been ongoing for years and is really the fault of the active player base. Although, a lot of times when I bring this topic up, it is met with complete denial.
    In my opinion, we need 1 version of CTF - the CTF with PvP, teams, classes, and capturing the flag. That is all. None of this "casual" and PPM division nonsense. Sandbox/chill servers exist for a reason. If people don't want to play the game, maybe Brawl should have a dedicated server for players to chill & play something simple. This is not a hard concept to adopt and keeps things extremely streamlined as well as true to how most people would expect CTF to play out.
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
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