Ideas to fix 5cp

Melo

L1: Registered
Oct 5, 2016
20
8
I just had a thought that maybe after a set amount of time the center point of 5 cp would lock, and it would become more of a 2 cp map. The time limit could be 3 minutes so that 5 cp would become more of a hybrid of KOTH and 2 cp. Whichever team had the most amount of time controlling the point after the 3 minutes would get the point and it would lock, changing the spawns and the dynamic of the game. This could be a really shitty idea (it was posted at 11:40 at night), but I think it would be an interesting way to play.

If you have any additions to this idea, changes or so forth, please put them in this thread.
Thanks!
 

Yrr

An Actual Deer
aa
Sep 20, 2015
1,308
2,743
what if captures only added time if you didn't own mid?

so the team pushing into last is encouraged to do so on a time limit, but the team trying to defend knows they'll get the time to push back across the map but only if they succesfully push out
 

Tuaam

L6: Sharp Member
Jun 26, 2015
376
248
I don't see much wrong with 5cp. The only real problem with it is that it feels empty at times, and most of the gameplay can get stale at times.

But other than that, it's one of the oldest gamemodes on tf2.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
The only real issue with 5cp i've felt is that it favours certain classes in really obvious ways. You'll almost never see an engineer because the map is too dynamic for his stationary buildings and the heavy is so slow they always miss the most important initial engagement between the active control points (which invariably involves only soldiers, demomen and scouts). Snipers don't fair too much better either for the same reasons, unless it's a really good player who can land crucial shots consistently, it's a wasted player who could be putting down more reliable pressure as another class.

When i was making cp_axle i tried to mitigate these class balance issues by shortening the distance between objectives, tightening some of the chokes and such, but the more it got honed, the less fun and the more sterile and calculated it felt. People were complaining about balance issues with the CP's, IE certain CP's felt to players like they were too difficult to capture or too hard to defend, but the actual stats i were getting for the win ratio's and the timing of the captures were almost perfect. It's a weird one, players often enjoy most, the most broken maps on the market. 32 player 2fort where the flag never gets captured, or high respawn frequency A/D where defenders nearly always win are some of the most popular options out there. There's just no pleasing some people.
 
Dec 28, 2014
330
307
I don't see much wrong with 5cp. The only real problem with it is that it feels empty at times, and most of the gameplay can get stale at times.

But other than that, it's one of the oldest gamemodes on tf2.

It's way to easy for 5CP to turn into a huge stalemate on a single point, or back and forth between 2 points.
While this isn't a huge issue in pubs (but it's somewhat of an issue) it becomes a big problem with comp TF2. I can honestly say I really prefer to watch Viaduct because of the pressure of the timer forces constant action and attempts to take the point.
 

FloofCollie

I really suck!
aa
Nov 5, 2016
600
669
what if captures only added time if you didn't own mid?

so the team pushing into last is encouraged to do so on a time limit, but the team trying to defend knows they'll get the time to push back across the map but only if they succesfully push out
This seems like the simplest and most efficient (read: least likely to drastically alter and/or break the feel of the gamemode) method. I really like it!
 

Yrr

An Actual Deer
aa
Sep 20, 2015
1,308
2,743
ive suggested a few simple ideas but been told seperately from here exactly why they wouldn't work.

(in this case, its not that teams dont want to push out of last, they just cant, they need some kind of advantage first)
 

Melo

L1: Registered
Oct 5, 2016
20
8
The only real issue with 5cp i've felt is that it favours certain classes in really obvious ways. You'll almost never see an engineer because the map is too dynamic for his stationary buildings and the heavy is so slow they always miss the most important initial engagement between the active control points (which invariably involves only soldiers, demomen and scouts). Snipers don't fair too much better either for the same reasons, unless it's a really good player who can land crucial shots consistently, it's a wasted player who could be putting down more reliable pressure as another class.

When i was making cp_axle i tried to mitigate these class balance issues by shortening the distance between objectives, tightening some of the chokes and such, but the more it got honed, the less fun and the more sterile and calculated it felt. People were complaining about balance issues with the CP's, IE certain CP's felt to players like they were too difficult to capture or too hard to defend, but the actual stats i were getting for the win ratio's and the timing of the captures were almost perfect. It's a weird one, players often enjoy most, the most broken maps on the market. 32 player 2fort where the flag never gets captured, or high respawn frequency A/D where defenders nearly always win are some of the most popular options out there. There's just no pleasing some people.

I agree with this wholly, mainly because I spend much of my time just market-gardening on hightower, which is not a very competitive map. Also, I remember the fun of 2fort even though it is more of a team deathmatch, or which sniper can live the longest on the battlements, map. I guess if people are having fun on 5cp and comp players are okay with it, there is no reason to change it. I just thought before it would be nice to give other classes a chance, but I think eventually we will see people changing the meta and having a heavy or engie on their 6s team.
 

Yrr

An Actual Deer
aa
Sep 20, 2015
1,308
2,743
defense classes like heavy and engie do have a place in 5cp, its just defending last
because theyre defense classes so thats what theyre good at

there's much better classes to attack with so heavy/engie will never replace the attack classes
(Heavy could with the GRU but this cancels out one of his major downsides and makes him overpowered and no fun to play against in a competitive environment)
 

Idolon

they/them
aa
Feb 7, 2008
2,105
6,106
Stealing a bit from @Blade x64 's signature:

ntBPWhX.png

(imagine that this is about gamemodes instead of levels)

Trying to "fix" 5CP is an exercise in futility. There are probably some refinements to be made yet, but it will always favor the generalists over the specialists. Trying to change the mode (or the classes) to change that will only make 5CP less like the thing it wants to be. If other classes are to be more useful, we should be trying to fix the gamemodes that they work with.
 
Last edited:

Dayal

L3: Member
Feb 8, 2017
123
293
Have to agree with Idolon. The only thing that needs to be fixed in 5CP is the occurance of stalemates.
If you're looking for more class diversity in 5CP, it's pointless. Generalists will always be more favoured in 5CP compared to specialists, due to how they have a lot of mobility and that they can switch between offensive pushes and defensive holds quite easily. If you truly want to see more class diversity in competitive, you should be looking at other gamemodes and make them more viable for a 6v6 format rather than trying to make them shine more in a gamemode they don't really belong in. Koth maps can promote Heavy/Sniper gameplay, PL and A/D maps can promote the usage of Heavy/Engineer/Pyro/Spy. I can even see CTF work if fixed, although this is a stretch.

But to be fair, I don't think community competitive will accept a bigger variety in gamemodes, aside from Koth, that easily.
 

Yrr

An Actual Deer
aa
Sep 20, 2015
1,308
2,743
competitive community are definitely looking into other gamemodes, there's been a push to try to make them work, but so far there's just been no luck
 

nitewalker

L2: Junior Member
Aug 5, 2014
64
141
As an opening statement, I have about 3 years of competitive 6's experience and played ESEA-IM last season, as well as several seasons of highlander experience, and I am very seriously interested in mapping and spend a few hours a week looking over new maps with a competitive mindset.

The issue of finding the right gamemode for competitive is incredibly complicated and i think, unfortunately, none of the standard game modes in the game are functional for competitive player's needs.

5CP comes the closest, but still has the very fundamental problem that a winning team is incentivized to stalemate whenever they are ahead. Holding a point will always have a higher success rate than attempting to push a point in even-resource situations, and will generally still have a higher success rate even when in positive-resource situations (player advantage, positional advantage, uber advantage, etc). This means that if a team has a round advantage on their opponents and holds mid, they have absolutely no incentive to push, and will generally send in 1 suicide or pick class at a time until they gain a significant enough advantage to push, leading to minutes long stalemate situations. Changing round timers or resetting to mid doesn't solve this problem, because these solutions always further incentivize a team to stalemate. The only viable solution would be to give teams on the back of the map more options to break stalemates after a period of time, which would cause the attacking team to want to make push attempts quickly before the defensive team gains enough of an advantage to break the stalemate and gain a point. this could theoretically be accomplished through map design (timed one way flank routes, slowly changing geometry to make last harder to attack or 2nd easier to attack, etc) but would still have the fundamental problems of tf2 offense vs defense (that is to say offense is always more difficult than defense).

KOTH is the only real gamemode that is perfectly functional in competitive tf2, because it meets a number of important requirements. Each round functions independently of the others, i.e. your strategy doesn't significantly change based on whether you are behind in rounds or ahead in rounds. This functionality is important for a gamemode like koth, where each team begins each round in a perfectly even state. The team on the back foot (aka the team that doesn't currently hold the point) is given a significant advantage to attacking in the form of improved respawn timer. Finally, teams are in no way incentivized to give up advantages while they are ahead. The team that holds the point can establish progressively more forward holds until the hold is nearly unbreakable, and the the team that doesn't hold the point is always on the clock and is forced to make a move.

The major problem with KOTH is the fact that there is very, very little room for strategy, and it would be very difficult to create a map that solves this problem. The maps are inherently small and because of this have relatively little strategic depth to holding or breaking holds. They also naturally funnel you to a specific area and create DM fights within that area, the one point on the map. 5CP has the competitive advantage here. Because of the larger number of transitional areas and holding points, along with the bi-directionality of each area, every map comes with a significantly larger number of strategies that can be employed. Another issue with KOTH is that it lacks "momentum" which is to say that a team in 5CP can maintain a push and roll from one side of the map to the other, and it's one of the most spectacular things that can happen in competitive tf2.

The solution, of course, is a custom gamemode which combines the elements of both of these gamemodes. There are a number of potential solutions, some of which I'm sure I haven't considered yet. Here are some of the solutions that I've considered (and in some cases, failed in an attempt to implement) over my time spent both mapping and playing competitively.

  • The Overwatch Solution: A multi stage KOTH map which rotates after every round. This is a natural improvement to the lack of strategy in KOTH maps in a number of ways. First, simply having a larger number of employable strategies on a given map makes the map more difficult to master for a competitive player, and improves the skill ceiling of the map. Second, the constant variation in the level's layout prevents rounds from feeling the same as they progress. Teams will generally settle into a rhythm or become predictable over a number of rounds on existing KOTH maps, and higher level teams tend to be completely aware of their opponents specific strategies before the map even starts. Multi stage KOTH would make it much more difficult to predict and react to your opponents play, which further deepens the strategic element of the map. The most obvious downside to this solution is fairly simple, it's several times as much work for the person creating the map to create and balance. Another downside of this gamemode is that it still doesn't have the "momentum" aspect.
  • The Mashup Solution: Create a 5CP map with a constant KOTH timer that ticks progressively faster the further forward into the map a team is. For example, the timer starts at 7 minutes (or 7 minutes worth of abstracted points which indicate how close a team is to winning). Upon capturing a middle point, the owning team's timer ticks down once per second. If that team captures the 2nd point, their timer now ticks down twice per second. If that team captures the last point, that timer now ticks down 5 times per second. This gamemode would have to be designed to significantly favor the defenders, but maintains a lot of the most interesting aspects of 5CP while solving its major issue.
  • A Formula Twist: A 3/5CP map which has extra control points which need to be held to maintain a benefit. This solution is the most outlandish, but also among the most interesting possibilities. Create a 3CP map with 2 extra control points that are somehow accessible from both the last and the middle point. When a stalemate occurs for any significant amount of time, this point opens up as a KOTH map, forcing both teams to leave their stalemate positions to fight over a neutral bonus.The bonus could be something map related, like additional routes to the point or a lengthening of your opponents spawn timer, but it could also be a physical buff that players receive, like marking opponents for death or a backpack-style effect for the winning team. A map like this would be incredibly difficult to balance for competitive, and is probably not worth pursuing unless a massive shift occurs in competitive players demands for alternative gamemodes.
All of these ideas suffer from being non-standard, both in general adoption by the comp community and in difficulty of creation and balance, but they would likely all be improvements on our two existing potential competitive gamemodes.


If anyone has questions about why the other gamemodes aren't functional for competitive gameplay, feel free to ask and I'll explain as best I can
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
One thing you might tend to find is that a "things" strength is often its weakness and vice versa. The whole balancing act of 5CP is that it's supposed to snowball. When a team takes a CP to advance they get a respawn bonus whilst the defending team gets a respawn penalty. But the map will usually favour the defenders in various physical respects, such as more easily defended positions and fewer flanks; this represents progression just like in A/D. Fiddling with these variables does what Idolon was saying and detracts from what 5CP really is.

I really think the fundamental problem lies in the fact that comp TF2 focuses so much on 6vs6. It removes so many nuances that make TF... TF. You can't expect to modify the team size like that and not expect any ramifications from the rest of the games mechanics.

I know 9vs9 comp was around for a bit where teams played as each class and this was an interesting concept, but again, not how the game was designed to be played.

I mean, part of the Spy's major advantage in the game is the confusion of a full server going at it. It's far easier to spot an out of place player when you can literally count the rest of your team on one hand; and the Spy serves an incredibly important role as a glass cannon class that can single handedly diffuse a stalemate with a key play. So when you're stuck playing (largely durable) DPS classes, stalemates are a given. That is not the maps fault.