Overwatch CTF, let's talk about it

[IceForce]

I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts on the new Overwatch brawl game mode, CTF (or "Capture the Rooster", if you want to be pedantic).

I've played it for a bit, but as expected, it's wayyy too unbalanced for it to be a serious game mode.

First thing that surprised me was the fact that there are no debuffs on the flag carrier; they can still use all their abilities and movement techniques while carrying the flag. This makes Tracer and other high-mobility characters rather OP, (and no one was surprised, because people have been asking for a CTF mode in the game for a while, but the devs have always disregarded the idea specifically because Tracer would be OP).
To help offset this though, the devs have made it so that it takes 2 or 3 seconds to actually pick up the enemy flag, and you cannot take any damage while doing so, otherwise it resets the 2-3 second timer, (Tracer standing still for 2-3 seconds usually means a dead Tracer). But some enterprising individuals have discovered an even more OP hero; Sombra.

Clever Sombras have discovered that you can grab the enemy flag while invisible (meaning Torb and Symm turrets won't target you), and then teleport out once you've got the flag. It's pretty much unstoppable once the flag is taken.

(Finally! A use for Sombra! Who knew!)

The second thing that jumped out at me was the fact that the game doesn't adhere to the standard CTF ruleset. Specifically, in standard CTF, you cannot score a point if your own flag isn't at your base. ie: If BOTH teams have taken each other's flags, no one can cap until one of them is returned.
But 'Capture the Rooster' doesn't work this way. If both teams steal each other's flags at the same time, they both get a point, which is silly, and not how standard CTF works.
I played quite a bit of Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 back in the day and the CTF modes within, and they both adhered to the standard CTF ruleset, so I have no idea why the Overwatch devs didn't do that with this. Perhaps they just forgot how CTF works.

Anyway, interested in hearing your thoughts and experiences on this.

 

[IceForce]

I played quite a bit of Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 back in the day and the CTF modes within, and they both adhered to the standard CTF ruleset, so I have no idea why the Overwatch devs didn't do that with this. Perhaps they just forgot how CTF works.

Just as a further point to this; Many of the Overwatch devs have said that they too grew up playing games like Unreal Tournament and Quake 3, and they took a lot of ideas and inspiration from those games when making Overwatch (and it shows, like Roadhog's gun being exactly the same in both primary and alt fire as the flak cannon from Unreal Tournament, or Sombra's translocator being basically the same as the translocator from Unreal Tournament too, among other things).

So this makes it even more bizarre that their CTF mode doesn't follow the same ruleset as the CTF modes did in those old games.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

This CTF mode is awful. It's way too slow, and it doesn't reward being sneaky.

I would have much preferred or the flag pick-up to be instant but with a debuff on the flag carrier that would prevent them from using any abilites, and for the flags to be further apart with slightly longer respawn timers.

Because of how long it takes to grab the flag, as well as the fact that you can't take damage while grabbing it you end up with an even stronger tank meta than the base game with a focus on just stalling your opponents out. Roughly 70% of my games have ended in draws because of this.

So yeah, I hate this gamemode. It's really poorly thought out and implemented.

 

[McElroy]

Sombra has the potential to be op, but I've mostly just seen her fail. The main reason seems to be the audio cues from Sombra's abilities as well as the usual "they're taking the point" -scream, which prompts blasting her to little Mexican pieces. My problem with the mode is the Sym + Torb defense which I haven't seen break once on my side or the other. It's imbalanced but I guess it works as a mild distraction. I mean, there is no way to really stop a flag carrier from taking it to their base since they already took the empty route on their way there and are likely taking the same route back (and it's usually Tracer or Winston).

The absence of that CTF rule surprised me too.

 

[IceForce]

My problem with the mode is the Sym + Torb defense which I haven't seen break once on my side or the other

That reminds me of something I'd forgotten to mention; The match will end when one team caps the flag 3 times, but you don't even need to do that. All you need to do is score 1 point over the enemy team, and then turtle up your defenses until the timer runes out. Do this, and you automatically win.

Once one team has a score advantage over the other, there's no incentive for them to even leave their base at all after that. This leads to what you mentioned, - Torbs, Symms, Bastions, etc.

 

[McElroy]

My problem with the mode is the Sym + Torb defense which I haven't seen break once on my side or the other

That reminds me of something I'd forgotten to mention; The match will end when one team caps the flag 3 times, but you don't even need to do that. All you need to do is score 1 point over the enemy team, and then turtle up your defenses until the timer runes out. Do this, and you automatically win.

Once one team has a score advantage over the other, there's no incentive for them to even leave their base at all after that. This leads to what you mentioned, - Torbs, Symms, Bastions, etc.

True, but why sit on your ass for 4 minutes if you can snowball the needed points in 1?