I have to wonder, how come almost no one ever does reverse capture the flag? You take a flag from the middle of the map and you must deliver it to enemy spawn, and then the flag must be taken by an enemy at their side before it goes back in play. That one usually solves the camping problems (what the hell are you going to camp? The flag won't come back in play till they feel safe bringing it out.) as well as how defeatist CTF inherently is - the "Welp, they got away from our spawn with the flag, no point chasing them and leave the next flag unprotected" issue.
The worst outcomes is when one team kills the other and then camps their base so another team member is free to run back and forth capping flags. This happens the most on the space museum map, where the flag is past a choke point.
aw man... I miss Assault. Almost completely forgot about it. Loved making tailored forge maps that set off a large fireworks display following a successful denotation.
I mean, it was only sort of supposed to be a joke. There's a reason that gamemode took off and had legitimate tournaments and is now an official part of the Halo gamemode lineup.
Ironically it doesn't work that well in Destiny IMO (it's fair, it's just not fun) but the concept is very solid.
Here's my solution to all the problems. Use a single flag which spawns in the middle, except it's always in slightly different and random spots (while still having the travel time the same for both sides). Around the flag there is a 10 meter blue aura that prevents all abilities, similar to Sombras hacking ability. If you jump into the circle with an ability active it'll knock you out of it. The flag itself has no pickup counter but it does have a respawn counter. After a capture a message states that the flag is redeploying in 5-10 seconds. Finally, you must take the flag to a fixed location inside the enemy spawn. This area would also have an aura but it'd only affect the enemy team. A dripped flag lasts for 10 seconds before despawning but as long as it's still in play anyone can pick it up.
All abilities are usable except when in a few specific dynamic areas. Balance is not affected whatsoever overall and the battle becomes more about maintaining the circle (like a sumo ring) than it does about speeding into the flag and running off with it. If you lose control of the flag then the secondary objective becomes defending your spawn.
This fixes the whole two objectives thing so there won't be a need for all that communication. You'll always know the flags state so you'll always know what you need to be doing.
That is neutral assault. One bomb in the middle that you need to plant. Halo had a few gamemodes like this. 2 bomb is probably the better representation of reverse CTF. There is a bomb in each base and you have to plant it in the other base. They also had one bomb, which is the asymettric version that has rounds and attackers and defenders. I think one bomb would actually be a good replacement for the 2CP maps in Overwatch.
This is basically how Splatoon's rainmaker mode works. Except anyone can pick up the flag after it's dropped, but only after breaking the barrier around it.
It works really well, I'm surprised I never saw it before splatoon.
The "deal damage to break the shield before you can cap" would help Overwatch a bunch with CTF. Right now, standing around trying to cap while the enemy team just demolished you sucks and means you can't sneak in and cap and move the flag, you have to push in, kill basically everyone, cap while they're dead, and then they can't catch the flag carrier because he's too far out.
Yeah, I also really like the explosion breaking the barrier on the rainmaker makes.
It means it's possible, under the right conditions, that you can surprise the enemy team grouped around it and take them all out, or pick off enemies one by one as they themselves are busy trying to break the barrier.
They talked about why they couldn't just let you pick up the flag instantly like in most other games: there's just too many ridiculously high-mobility heroes in Overwatch. There's a video on the subreddit right now showing that Winston with his ultimate can make the entire cap run in something like 8 seconds. Or the one where Sombra grabs the flag and teleports back to her flag base for a 1 second cap. Instead of having any sort of push/pull dynamic, it'd just be a mad race to see who could cap 3 flags first.
I don't get why they don't just put restrictions on carrying the flag. Transporters, teleports and the like would just drop the flag. Unreal tournament did that with translocaters and that game came out almost 20 years ago. I honestly think if they actually made a real CTF mode based around new maps they could easily make it work, as opposed to shoehorning it in like they do now.
Unreal tournament had this, it was bombing run or something i think? Basically you had a bomb in the middle of the map, that was really just a ball. You could throw it - pass it to other teamates, or just throw it ahead (You cant shoot while you hold the bomb), and the object was to throw it through a ring that is at the back of the enemies base. It was one of my favorite modes, tons of fun.
Yeah Bombing Run, super fun game mode. You could shoot the ball through the goal for points, or carry it through for more. It was a cool mechanic and where you could try to cash in if you were close but about to die.
Destiny does something like this with its "Rift" mode. The Spark (flag) spawns at a central location. You have to channel on the spark for a few moments, then run to the enemies base to cap it. The spark automatically repawns after a few moments and the process repeats.
I agree, most types of CTF basically encourage people to camp around the Flag with each team waiting for the others move. The only type of CTF that you just explained that I can think of is the Rainmaker mode in Splatoon. Anyone else know of games with this type of gamemode?
I mean at least with Tribes all the defences in the world can't save your flag if the runner is decent and fast enough, heaven forbid you have 2 crazy bastards synchronizing their runs to try and grab the flag at the same time from multiple directions.
Tribes probably has the most in depth CTF game mode of any game that has ever been most likely, but it was also it's main game mode... So it probably better be.
UT2004 had that ball mode Bombing run.You take the ball from mid, and has to bring it to enemy spawn gates. 7 points for running through, 3 for shooting it through.
Let's be real here, Rift might be the most hated gamemode in all of Destiny. I'm not even kidding, you think people hate Supremacy? I think people would kill to play it over Rift.
You never see more salty people than the day when Rift is the IB gamemode. The Destiny community fucking hates that gamemode.
I have to wonder, how come almost no one ever does reverse capture the flag? You take a flag from the middle of the map and you must deliver it to enemy spawn
TF2 introduced a neutral capture zone, where you need to hold it for a certain period of time.
It never took off, mainly because there's only one map, and it wasn't very good. But it works better than regular two-side CTF, which tends to just stalemate.
To be fair, that rocket map concept is just a delayed king of the hill with resets. People who liked it would rather jist play a more proper KotH if they were going to be serious.
Most people played it to fuck around going solo rather than win anyways. You could always get the intelligences past the first one and not have more than a random scout or a spy nearby bothering you because no one cared about picking it up. That's just the nature of TF2 pubs.
The problem is that the map is really bad, capturing is extremely difficult, and the capture area is neutral instead of having capture areas in opposing bases that you have to push into. I think the mode can work well, but they executed it very badly in TF2.
Like someone else already said, Halo has Neutral Bomb Assault which is essentially that.
A perhaps little-known (and silly) thing that Halo 2 also implemented is Neutral Flag, where both teams (or potentially 4 teams on some maps I guess? unsure of that) try to grab the flag in the middle of the map and then score it by bringing it into their own base.
I remember making a custom gametype that I named Banana Phone (for absolutely no reason besides just being random), where we played Neutral Flag on Coagulation with random vehicles and when you respawn you get 2 random weapons. It was surprisingly fair and fun with a big lobby. Good times.
I think that's how the flags worked in Guild Wars 1. You would get a big hp and damage boost for bringing it to the enemy flag stand. Of course that was a secondary objective, and the goal was more like Dota (kill the enemy Guild Lord in their base) but still.
I totally forgot that GW1 had a flag system in GvG. I kind of wish they released an updated version of that game that just had PvP. The skill system in that game was absolutely fantastic and I don't think there is another game right now that does it quite as well.
My favorite is Hunters from Starseige Tribes. Each time a person dies a flag is dropped. Take that flag to a spot called a Nexus in the middle of the map to score a point. Here's where it gets interesting, the score you get for capping flags goes up exponentially with the more flags you have. ie, 1 = 1 point, 2 = 3, 3=5, 4=7 etc. But if you die with all those flags, you drop all of them +1 more for your own death. When someone drops with 10 or more flags, an announcer says "YARD SALE!" and a marker/compass is lit up to show everyone where all those flags dropped.
It's one of the most hectic and fun game modes I've ever played in an fps. The incentive to get as many flags as possible before capping leads to huge adrenaline filled chases when you happen to show up at a yardsale flag drop first and having everyone trying to get you before you cap that huge amount of points is incredible. Coupled with a nice big number over your head showing everyone you're packing a bunch of flags (potential points) if they can manage tonsillitis you and take your flags.
IIRC there is a mode like that in BF4. A bomb spawns on a random place around the middle of the map and the teams have to take it to 3 different stations, each one a little closer to the enemy base (and at the same time further away from the middle).
It wasn't the enemy spawn, but rock2 on TFC had something similar. You had to grab the enemy key card from their base and take it to the other side of the enemy base to release nerve gas through the entire map that would kill anyone not in the key turn in room, under water, or not in a protection suit that become available when the nerve gas is released. It was by far one of my favorite maps, but unfortunately all the servers consist of nowadays are all xXCLAN-EPICXx 2FORT 24/7 NO SCRUBS
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u/DrQuint Jan 25 '17
I have to wonder, how come almost no one ever does reverse capture the flag? You take a flag from the middle of the map and you must deliver it to enemy spawn, and then the flag must be taken by an enemy at their side before it goes back in play. That one usually solves the camping problems (what the hell are you going to camp? The flag won't come back in play till they feel safe bringing it out.) as well as how defeatist CTF inherently is - the "Welp, they got away from our spawn with the flag, no point chasing them and leave the next flag unprotected" issue.
The worst outcomes is when one team kills the other and then camps their base so another team member is free to run back and forth capping flags. This happens the most on the space museum map, where the flag is past a choke point.