My average game-time in logged matches was around 20 minutes. The time limit was 25 minutes/map. That means my team or the opposing team capped out in 20 minutes (8 caps for most maps).

I've chimed in on this before so hopefully I'm not repeating too much...

As a long time CTF player this is why I believe CTF doesn't work in TF2, and what would need to happen to make it work:

In TF2 dying is punished severely due to long spawn delays and for "offense", long travel times. Together with the uber /medic mechanics it forces teams to push as one unit to be most effective. This conflicts with the offense/defense setup common to CTF, and when you require both teams to do both at the same time it becomes a half compromise between both roles. It becomes a push and control game, and at that point you might as well stick to CP maps because that's what they are designed for.

So To make CTF work in TF2 you have to do a few things:

Most importantly, you should design the maps to be played offense vs Defense, then alternating rounds. This eliminates the compromise of having to play defense at the same time as offense as a unit. When on offense all 6 (or whatever # players) on the team are now focused on the same goal- get the flag and bring it to the capture point, and try to get as many captures as possible during the round. Without the threat of the other team steamrolling back into your base you can take a lot more risks on offense. Likewise for defense. Lock them down, get flag returns by preventing any further touches. The nice thing is it wouldn't be a ton of work to modify existing ctf maps to work this way.. you basically cut off most of one base amidst the other changes described below.

The second is to reduce the punishment for dying, and to provide reasonable spawn distances for offense and defense. Since there are no concs the offensive spawns could be a little bit closer, but most importantly with zero spawn delay. The defensive spawn's could maintain a small delay, enough to make it worthwhile for them to be out of commision for a short period of time. (I'm thinking 5 seconds, but it could be instant if the spawns are located appropriately).

Third is to port over more CTF maps with more open flag rooms (i.e. something like openfire), to allow for more room for the offense to make attempts on the flag.

By reducing the penalty of dying you open up the door for more risks taken by the individual players, especially on offense. More risks = more aggressive attempts on the flag = more aggressive play in general. More aggressive play equates to more opportunity for spectacular plays, in my view. It's also a lot of fun because every run you can pull off some crazy stuff. Flag carrying doesn't require a controlled push and hold- It's an instantaneous thing. (flags should be timed returned, not touch return....touch return sucks!)

I'm trying to clean up the ideas here to make a proposal to Erik @ valve to see if it's something they'll look at as introducing as an official game mode, but it would be nice to get some aspiring mapmaker on board to make some modifications to an existing ctf map to try it.

I think that going with near-instant respawns is a horrible idea. There has to be some punishment for dying. Dying in tf2 isn't exactly easy, and it's almost always your fault. Having rapid respawn would only encourage shitty play and make it unnecessarily hard to take advantage of wipes. While I like the idea of A/D CTF, I always thought it would be something like payload, where you take your own flag to the enemy cap, and you would play to a certain # of caps then swap teams. It's insanely easy to grief, though, which is why payload is even designed the way it is. Competitively, you would just time the # of caps each team makes like existing stopwatch.

Honestly, though, I think that the proper fix for CTF is to make a map where every "mode" of play is well balanced. In CTF, you have things like chasing the flag carrier, going for an flag grab, setting up a pincer on the flag carrier's route, DMing in no-man's land, and field defenses. A short intel reset timer is a good idea. Having flanks that pop on and off of the main route but never totally escape the major flanks is a good idea. Having an open flag area that you can swoop through but can't take a shortcut out of is a good idea. These things would make normal CTF work better.

try playing/pugging ctf_vitalism (i think it's ctf_haunt now) also ctf_retreat is cool. no need to water down the dynamics in ctf by making it attack/defend.

I'm not a fan of vitalism because the architecture violates a lot of the potential for the concept of a middle cap being balanced in terms of game-state, but I'll make sure to check out retreat since I've never seen or heard of it before. I'll edit this post with what I think about it once i've looked.

EDIT: It's "capture some flags"; not traditional CTF. The architecture and structure are really good, but it's probably too open and has too many flanks; that's not good for 6s. It seems very well made and very well balanced and probably the best CSF map I've looked at but it doesn't do anything that lends itself to low playercounts and normal comp play. Might be interesting for highlander.

i feel like soldier can be tuned into a pretty movement oriented class if you give him gunboats and a map that wont limit his jumping abilities, if anything a map that will encourage you to rj/skip throughout the map. quickfix seems like it can be viable in ctf (pocket scout) especially if the med learns to control his jumps if hes healing a skipping - gunboat solly.

make process a CTF map, get rid of everything past 2/4 and put the flags on those points

We could always try using a bhop mod for ctf modes and change the class restrictions around a bit.

Engie limit: 0

I remember playing in TWL for one season and for the Turbine matches, it was whoever had the most caps at the end of the game, if I remember correctly. As long as there wasn't only 1 team that's way better than the other, then it was mostly interesting. But I definitely think CTF would be a lot more interesting with either touch return or 3-5s returns and movement gimmicks like TLR mentioned.

I know for a fact ESEA wouldn't agree to go with the idea, but I mean there is a working bunnyhop mod that could be implemented into the necessary servers during the CTF week. I don't know what happened to that one public server a guy set up for us that was ctf+bhop+instagib, but man that was some real fun.

Yeah, that server was a blast. I was amazed that the maps actually worked well, the outside one with lava and little forts around the intel was my favorite.

I would love bhopping if it were vanilla, but as a serverside mod it has a jagging desync every time you jump that's worse and worse with higher pings. A map that's very well-tuned for tf2's existing mobility skills should be good enough to cover the movement aspect, imo.

You should check out Quakeworld Team Fortress. The original team fortress. We had bunnyhopping, grenades, multiple weapons for each class (not just 2 and a melee). Every class was viable and one person could rape the other team by themselves instead of relying on a team effort. It was incredibly fast paced and very enjoyable.

There was a map called shoop that would have on average 50 caps. The "shoop" was a thing you'd run through that would shoot you either high and far, or low and fast into their base. And then learn bunnyhopping patterns could pull flags out insanely fast. It was really fun to watch and play.

Personally, CTF is just for shits and giggles in TF2, unless it's like Vitalism or Converge, the stock CTF maps are bleh, and get really annoying

why do people always suggest nonstandard CTF gamemodes, that's not the point

in current tf2 ctf: get intel to mid, you have a point

welcome to most good games' CTF, where getting it out of the base is the "hard" part.