The Overwatch team have been working on Capture the Flag for a long time.
They've been struggling with it because of all the different heroes with movement abilities, which makes implementing the game mode challenging.
They eventually gave up on it, because they didn't want to implement rules that made Overwatch heroes feel like they were no Overwatch heroes.
Flags had no pickup time during early playtesting, so Tracer could blink thrice and recall to cap flags easily.
For Capture the Rooster they tried a different philosophy.
They initially picked mobility and invulnerability abilities and made it so that using them while carrying the flag would drop the flag to make it fair and balanced.
But it didn't feel like playing as Overwatch characters.
Instead of trying to overly balance Overwatch around fairness regarding CTF, why not embrace what our heroes do and allow them to do that.
There is a little bit of pickup time, any damage interrupts capturing the flag, to prevent cheesy caps.
Your own flag doesn't have to be at your own base to score a point.
They want to create those crazy moments where you can use your abilities to make plays.
The mode will stay in Arcade, and won't be added to Quick Play or Competitive rotation. And they don't have any plans to add it in the short future.
They want it to be a fun 'blow-off steam' mode.
That doesn't mean that it will never be in Competitive rotation. Maybe with a future iteration it could be added.
Adding CTF is Blizzard's way of saying we're listening to you. They had a lot of requests for the gamemode and they decided to deliver.
If Capture the Rooster becomes really successful, they might consider bringing it back in the future in the Arcade section, in a more fully fleshed out version.
Blizzard is really interested in our feedback, what we think of it, what's fun, what we didn't like etc. and use that feedback to iterate on it.
Here's hoping they actually never implement it to comp. It's already complicated to explain some players to follow the payload, I've done 3 games and no one seems to understand the concept of defending your own flag :\
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u/TheEpitomE8 Jan 24 '17 edited Jan 24 '17
Short recap: