As a long time Halo fan, the changes to capture the flag are really quite appalling and a downgrade as far as I’m concerned. Halo 4 has the worst capture the flag mode that I have ever seen an first person shooter( I’ve played a lot of first person shooters)in my entire life. The changes have taken away what made Halo 1/2/3/Reach Capture the Flag an interesting, exciting mode from a player and spectator point of view.
In the current CTF offering in Halo 4, you can no longer drop the flag, and pick it up. This is a huge issue, firstly because you can no longer defend yourself with whatever other weapons you may have. Currently you have the "Flagnum, which solves the problem of the carrier defending himself, fixing a problem that Halo never really had to begin with. It was more interesting to not have a weapon while carrying the flag because you would have to make the decision of dropping the flag and getting the first shot on your attacker; at the risk of dropping the flag unnecessarily and revealing your position to the enemy team via the defend flag waypoint( another issue I’ll address later). In addition this removes the tactic of “flag juggling”, while some might argue that it is annoying to hear the announcer repeat the same lines over and over again; it gave the gameplay depth. Largely due to the decision making involved; if a player decides to juggle the flag, he will be rewarded with a faster capture at the risk of the entire enemy team knowing his position. While if said player were to not juggle the flag, the enemy team would have a harder time knowing his actual position, at the cost of moving slower. All of the following issues could be fixed by allowing flag pickup and dropping with no cooldown, and disabling auto-pickup.
Unfortunatley flag dropping isn’t the only issue, the mode is also plagued by auto-pickup. This is a frustrating mechanic in every objective gamemode. It seizes control away from a player which should be a factor in a first person shooter, which revolves entirely around controlling your movement, and weapon. Once again a very simple fix; remove it. There’s literally no point in this mechanic; once again 343 fails miserably at trying to fix issues with a gametype that the gametype never actually had. People will play the objective if there is an incentive to win, not by forcing them to pickup the objective and taking it to the capture point so they can get rid of it. This incentive could be created simply by lowering the EXP bonus of capturing a flag in exchange for a 500-1000 win bonus.This would also solve the problem of betraying for the flag, or letting your teammates die because you wanted to cap it. By making these changes you are giving control back to players, and creating an objective gamemode that they WANT TO WIN.
Furthermore, the mechanics of a resetting a flag has been changed for the worse. Instead of standing in a close proximity of the flag for a set amount of time, you know have to defend a flag for a full 30 seconds without an enemy player touching it. The problem this creates is that if the enemy team gets any amount of momentum(1/2 across the map), the flag is captured even if their entire team dies twice. That simply isn’t fair to the defending team. A reasonable solution would be to make the flag reset activated by a player standing close to the flag for 5-15 seconds, and then reset automatically after 30. This change is more interesting because it now will now give teams the option to punish a team where all the players in addition to returning their own flag. But wait there’s more…
In the current brew, there is no way to punish a team that loses every player, because players respawn way too fast. You currently have the option to cut the respawn time by 5 seconds by hitting the X button. This make CTF boring; if the enemy team over extends currently they can get back into the game lightning fast and defend easily. If the fast respawn was removed, teams would be punished for losing large amounts of players all at once, and the enemy team in response can push forward and secure map control virtually uncontested to give themselves a small lead. The solution to the issue is to remove the fast respawn button in CTF, and have a straight up, no nonsense 10 second respawn timer.
Don’t worry there’s just a little more.
Another issue is the way that waypoints currently work. In the current mode, waypoints are shown for the flags at all times. Even when the flag is held by an enemy player, it still reveals them fully with the waypoint. This is just bad design, it should require communication to spot a carrier who isn’t juggling(see above.), not a giant kill marker over said person’s head.
In conclusion to this giant wall of text. A lot of the pointless changes that were made, take away the spirit of the gametype for me.They should be reverted in addition to some other changes that will make CTF a more fun, and competitive game mode for casual and competitive players alike.
TL;DR
- Halo 4 CTF Bad
- Halo 3 CTF Good
- 10-20 XP bonus per flag capped per player
- 500-1000XP Bonus to the winning team per player
- Flagnum needs to be removed.
- Auto pickup needs to be removed
- Juggling needs to be made possible.
- Respawn timer needs to be 10 seconds. No nonsense.
- Flag return needs to be changed.
- Flag dropping needs to be enabled.
- Strong incentives for winning, over capping flags.
