I decided to watch the Infinity Multiplayer Vidoc again, and when they were speaking about CTF, something hit me.
CTF has always been a team based gametype, but not so much if you brave matchmaking solo. People who play together are obviously going to have more of an advantage over people who go into a game as complete randoms. A party based team will have more strategy then a random based team. The FC was a one man army if you had power weapons when you went to get the flag, now not so much. A FC should rely on their team to help them get back to base. So if your running the flag with no help whatsoever, your pretty much screwed, however people that play together won’t have this problem.
People have looked at the new CTF from a casual and competititve perspective but how about a team based perspective? Now since you can’t drop the flag, you’re gonna be more reliant on your team to cover you as you go to cap the flag. In previous titles, yes that still worked, but sometimes, didn’t you find yourself without help and running the flag on your own? I think this is what 343’s aim is with the new CTF. So that when you ride over in the Warthog to go get the flag, you’re going to want that extra cover from someone in maybe a Ghost or a Banshee, so just incase your Warthog blows up, you’re teammate can get into a Mongoose or one of the enemy teams Warthogs and speed away while your extra help covers you.
I never saw that much in previous titles. You never needed that extra help because you could always have a weapon when you are carrying the flag so you could drop it and defend yourself. Now you have a Magnum but that’s not gonna always help when the enemy team is rushing you. You’re gonna want that extra cover if they decide to come at you with a Tank. Before you didn’t need it since before if you had the Laser, you could just Laser the Tank and keep going, now you don’t have that extra firepower in this new CTF so your team will be that extra firepower and this is where the team based gameplay comes in. It’s making the new CTF be more team based then the normal CTF because you are relying on your team to have your back rather then just tough it out on your own.
I think that once Halo 4 launches, and people experience the new CTF, teamwork will become more focused then it has been.
TL;DR
You don’t have as much firepower to run the flag now. You’re team is now that firepower. You have to be reliant on your team for cover, you can’t just solo run the flag without getting rushed.
Building something to be done only by teams in an environment where a significant portion (if not the majority) will not be in organized teams, will have no voice communication and be reliant only on themselves is setting that thing up for failure.
The new CTF is going to be hated, and 343i is going to have to Title Update it or it will die. The first time someone new to the game or someone who hasn’t been paying attention finds out they can’t drop the flag or that they can’t choose when to pick it up; you’re going to see these forums flooded with complaints, and the CTF playlist will clear out faster than elephants at a mouse convention.
CTF or Capture the Flag was something that became huge in halo 2 and even bigger in halo 3 due to the new strategies that pro team/ players alike thought of. Dropping the flag is tactical because if you’re teammates aren’t able to support you, you could nade the ground in the enemy was in pursuit or try and out shoot them.
Now you don’t have the option to be able to think of escape plans since you’re limited to flag carrier you have to rely on teammates but sometimes you can’t rely on them all the time.
So instead of giving the players the choice on how they want to use teamwork they are forcing us into a single option.
Literally what you are implying is that without forcing the flag carrier to remain the flag carrier and without the beacon above their head people won’t play as a team. What this means is that 343 is trying to “force” teamwork, and it’s not going to be a success. People will avoid the flag now because they don’t want to be stuck with it and now your teammate will get slaughtered consistently because the enemy team knows where they are at all times and the rest of your team only cares about getting kills and will ignore the flag carrier completely.
I don’t think it will be that much of a concern.Surely, a well prepared team has a advantage but not beyond the point of losing. Everyone regardless if random knows the objective, just like Grifball. They have the flag,lay down fire. In fact random acts by random team members gives them a slight edge as it’s unpredictable.
> The real TL:DR -
>
> So instead of giving the players the choice on how they want to use teamwork they are forcing us into a single option.
>
> Literally what you are implying is that without forcing the flag carrier to remain the flag carrier and without the beacon above their head people won’t play as a team. What this means is that 343 is trying to “force” teamwork, and it’s not going to be a success. People will avoid the flag now because they don’t want to be stuck with it and now your teammate will get slaughtered consistently because the enemy team knows where they are at all times and the rest of your team only cares about getting kills and will ignore the flag carrier completely.
>
> It’s going to be a friggin disaster.
Which is exactly what I’m speaking about in terms of randoms, and why party based teams will have more of a success then randoms. If you go in as a random and your team only cares about kills then yes, your going to be screwed over which is why I think it’ll promote more teamwork for randoms then for partys because they are going to know what to do. You see where I’m coming from? I don’t think of it as 343 forcing us to do one single option in regards to teamwork but making the FC realize. You have the flag, this is what you gotta do, we gave you a Magnum, now get your team and get going. That’s what it sounds to me like they are doing. Making the FC have more of a role of being the FC then just being a one man army with the flag.
> now your teammate will get slaughtered consistently because the enemy team knows where they are at all times
Um? When you juggle the flag in previous Halo titles its icon shows up to everyone. So what difference does it make now if the icon is above your head? getting slaughtered all the time? Ye, if you have a garbage team.
The whole random vs party thing can be solved by party matching, I’d rather have a longer search and good game. And I don’t like to whine before games are even out, but the new take on CTF doesn’t look good at all.
343i wants to increase teamwork which I get. These changes could be awesome if teamwork was increased (if you are playing with randoms). But these changes are not going to increase teamwork and like others have said probably.backfire.
In order to increase teamwork they need to make getting the win more important so that all randoms will work together to get the win and not farm kills. I think 343i is trying to do this by giving out more SP (Spartan points) for objective based things. The game will reward you for helping get the flag carrier back and score. If there are more points for objective play then just killing I can see more ppl playing the objective.
> > now your teammate will get slaughtered consistently because the enemy team knows where they are at all times
>
> Um? When you juggle the flag in previous Halo titles its icon shows up to everyone. So what difference does it make now if the icon is above your head? getting slaughtered all the time? Ye, if you have a garbage team.
Well what about most of us who didn’t flag juggle so we could be kept a secret? Flag juggling was just to move faster, which doesn’t matter now thanks to improved movement speed while holding the flag.
> > The real TL:DR -
> >
> > So instead of giving the players the choice on how they want to use teamwork they are forcing us into a single option.
> >
> > Literally what you are implying is that without forcing the flag carrier to remain the flag carrier and without the beacon above their head people won’t play as a team. What this means is that 343 is trying to “force” teamwork, and it’s not going to be a success. People will avoid the flag now because they don’t want to be stuck with it and now your teammate will get slaughtered consistently because the enemy team knows where they are at all times and the rest of your team only cares about getting kills and will ignore the flag carrier completely.
> >
> > It’s going to be a friggin disaster.
>
> Which is exactly what I’m speaking about in terms of randoms, and why party based teams will have more of a success then randoms. If you go in as a random and your team only cares about kills then yes, your going to be screwed over which is why I think it’ll promote more teamwork for randoms then for partys because they are going to know what to do. You see where I’m coming from? I don’t think of it as 343 forcing us to do one single option in regards to teamwork but making the FC realize. You have the flag, this is what you gotta do, we gave you a Magnum, now get your team and get going. That’s what it sounds to me like they are doing. Making the FC have more of a role of being the FC then just being a one man army with the flag.
It won’t work that way. It’s just going to point the enemy team to the person with the flag and a pistol. Nothing is stopping your teammates from ignoring you and doing whatever they want. In past Halo games if that happened you had a means to defend yourself by dropping the flag and using weapons.
This isn’t going to increase teamplay. Teamplay happens when the players want to do it, not when the developers try to make it happen. Forcing the one person who wants to win into a precarious scenario isn’t going to increase team play. That’s entirely up to the community to change that, not 343.
I believe it will work out much better in Halo 4, than CTF does in Reach, thats for damn sure and I think the changes will help get that to going as well. In Reach, I never see a Random team mate even attempt to get the flag, much less provide cover for the Flag Carrier. In general if I choose to win and I always do, I am forced to capture it myself while fending off my soul from a whole opposing team with little to no help.
If the changes actually force people to commit and strive to win, and not just kill farm, even due to the EXP boost from a actual capture, win, then I will honestly start playing CTF once more like I used to.
Otherwise, I will go to Custom’s and simply play it there with my friends who actually don’t give someone -Yoink- over going negative K/D to pull out the win. It feels like winning in general in Reach, just is not a cared about concept, I just hope Halo 4 has more Adult players in general, mind, body,.
if i get a team of randoms to back me up, and they only care about kills, there’s 2 things i can trust them to do;
kill the enemy flag carrier with ridiculous efficiency, what’s better than hunting down enemies? chasing down and slaughtering the guy with an icon above his head!
come get me, my team will expect enemy players to be like them, they WILL go for the flag guy as an easy kill, and effectively i become bait. all i need to do is drag the enemy through bottlenecks and exposed ground.
but in the event i join with friends, or competent players we can co-ordinate these actions and it becomes easier.
if i see a team member with the enemy flag im going to them, that’s where my next kill will be, and they will run, they don’t want to dent their KD and get rid of the flag so they will run to score.
> if i get a team of randoms to back me up, and they only care about kills, there’s 2 things i can trust them to do;
>
> 1. kill the enemy flag carrier with ridiculous efficiency, what’s better than hunting down enemies? chasing down and slaughtering the guy with an icon above his head!
>
> 2. come get me, my team will expect enemy players to be like them, they WILL go for the flag guy as an easy kill, and effectively i become bait. all i need to do is drag the enemy through bottlenecks and exposed ground.
>
> but in the event i join with friends, or competent players we can co-ordinate these actions and it becomes easier.
>
> if i see a team member with the enemy flag im going to them, that’s where my next kill will be, and they will run, they don’t want to dent their KD and get rid of the flag so they will run to score.
Excellent strategy sir and so very truthful :P, its never the problem of a opposing Team Capturing your flag, its the problem of you not Capturing theirs lol.
I believe the new mode was designed with a greater incentive for scoring the flag rather than slaying the other team. Thus, adding an incentive for teamwork. It may take a while for people to figure this out.
> I believe the new mode was designed with a greater incentive for scoring the flag rather than slaying the other team. Thus, adding an incentive for teamwork. It may take a while for people to figure this out.
Agree, I hope it wont take people long to kind of just fall in line with it and get the feel for it in general, I think it looks extremely fun and I have always wanted a better Flag Carrier Experience.
Last time I truly enjoyed playing CTF, and being a Flag Carrier in Matchmaking was in Halo 2, ever since then I have felt like CTF was just not a concept enjoyed by most who played it.
> > I believe the new mode was designed with a greater incentive for scoring the flag rather than slaying the other team. Thus, adding an incentive for teamwork. It may take a while for people to figure this out.
>
> Agree, I hope it wont take people long to kind of just fall in line with it and get the feel for it in general, I think it looks extremely fun and I have always wanted a better Flag Carrier Experience.
>
> Last time I truly enjoyed playing CTF, and being a Flag Carrier in Matchmaking was in Halo 2, ever since then I have felt like CTF was just not a concept enjoyed by most who played it.
People have blown off playing the objective in CTF for 11 years, I don’t see it changing because of this.
> The new CTF is going to be hated, and 343i is going to have to Title Update it or it will die.
> Title Update it or it will die
> it will die
>Implying that CTF makes halo
>Implying that the majority of players even enjoy or play CTF anyway
>Implying that there is no campaign, spartan ops, or other multiplayer gametypes that will most likely be much more popular such as dominion.
> > > The real TL:DR -
> > >
> > > So instead of giving the players the choice on how they want to use teamwork they are forcing us into a single option.
> > >
> > > Literally what you are implying is that without forcing the flag carrier to remain the flag carrier and without the beacon above their head people won’t play as a team. What this means is that 343 is trying to “force” teamwork, and it’s not going to be a success. People will avoid the flag now because they don’t want to be stuck with it and now your teammate will get slaughtered consistently because the enemy team knows where they are at all times and the rest of your team only cares about getting kills and will ignore the flag carrier completely.
> > >
> > > It’s going to be a friggin disaster.
> >
> > Which is exactly what I’m speaking about in terms of randoms, and why party based teams will have more of a success then randoms. If you go in as a random and your team only cares about kills then yes, your going to be screwed over which is why I think it’ll promote more teamwork for randoms then for partys because they are going to know what to do. You see where I’m coming from? I don’t think of it as 343 forcing us to do one single option in regards to teamwork but making the FC realize. You have the flag, this is what you gotta do, we gave you a Magnum, now get your team and get going. That’s what it sounds to me like they are doing. Making the FC have more of a role of being the FC then just being a one man army with the flag.
>
> It won’t work that way. It’s just going to point the enemy team to the person with the flag and a pistol. Nothing is stopping your teammates from ignoring you and doing whatever they want. In past Halo games if that happened you had a means to defend yourself by dropping the flag and using weapons.
>
> This isn’t going to increase teamplay. Teamplay happens when the players want to do it, not when the developers try to make it happen. Forcing the one person who wants to win into a precarious scenario isn’t going to increase team play. That’s entirely up to the community to change that, not 343.
Up to this point CTF was a good place to rack up some kills for your K/D stat. This is why capturing the flag was that other thing you did when you played the game. It was just another slayer variant.
Now you need to do something with the flag when you grab it, and holding the objective to farm kills will be completely pointless.
So, at first many people who have been playing CTF the wrong way will continue to do those other things thinking that it will get them somewhere. These players will soon find themselves being booted by players that actually want to play Capture The Flag. Once the playlists are filled with actual CTF players, they will discover new tricks and techniques that will give them the edge. Who knows what glitches are waiting to be exploited or little known series of movements or places on a map that will throw off the enemy or turn out to be the new cool move that’s hard to master? Finding out this kind of stuff is what makes Halo players what they are.
And anyone who is going to be afraid to pick up the flag shouldn’t be playing Capture the Flag. If you’re on my team and you don’t go after the flag you’re not going to be on my team.