5 Changes Overwatch’s Capture the Flag Mode Needs If It Wants to Stick Around

Bigger Maps

With the Overwatch Year of the Rooster event in full swing, one of the newest and most exciting features added in was a Capture the Flag game mode. This new game type, featured in the Arcade section, challenges two teams of six to capture the enemy flag three times across three different alterations of the Lijiang Tower map.

In Blizzard’s development diary released yesterday, Overwatch’s Game Director Jeff Kaplan acknowledges the mode’s long creation process. It’s also important to note that Capture the Flag is a brawl, meaning it may never enter the true competitive space and may only be relegated to a side activity. This trial period is more of a test to see how the community reacts to this game mode, and while the long-awaited addition is incredibly fun at times, there are some rather noticeable problems beginning to creep up.

One of the biggest issues that the Overwatch Capture the Flag mode faces is the actual map designs, because as it stands two of the three levels are way too small. Given how far away each team spawns from their flag, it’s fairly easy for a team to “snowball” from one capture to the next. This means that when a team secures the enemy point, they can effectively hold this area off and capture one flag after another. Given the close proximity of each base, it doesn’t take long to capture the actual flag. This can lead to frustrating matches where your team is spawn camped by the opposition, giving you no chance at winning or even coming back.

Increasing the map size would alleviate an enemy team’s ability to just sit on your point indefinitely, keeping enemy players away from objectives for a longer length of time. This would also create more chokepoints and allow for some breathing room if your team loses a fight somewhere in the middle of the map. A larger level would also allow for players to recapture the flag if it’s stolen from their base, as users usually have a very, very limited window before it’s lost forever.

Hero Balancing

This idea goes hand in hand with map design as some heroes are currently way too strong on a capture the flag game mode. Torbjorn, Bastion, or Symmetra have effectively become must-picks for any team that wants to hold their flag longer than a minute. The incredibly synergy of these heroes is only amplified by the narrow chokepoints most teams have to funnel through, which effectively creates a kill box and makes it exceedingly difficult to push onto an objective. In order to alleviate this, the levels should encourage multiple styles of play and defense so certain characters do not feel required.

Don’t get us wrong, seeing Torbjorn and Symmetra picked at a rather high rate is nice to see. If Blizzard implements a more balanced map design, however, the pool of viable heroes can grow and allow for more interesting experimentation across the board. There will always be some heroes that thrive more, but it would be interesting to see more team compositions beyond, Torbjorn, Symmetra, Lucio, Winston, D.Va, and Soldier 76.

Damaged Flag Captures

One of the most puzzling mechanics introduced into Overwatch’s Capture the Flag mode is that you actually have to stand on the point for a set amount of time before receiving the flag. This was explained by Jeff Kaplan as a way to stop characters like Tracer from just blinking onto the point, grabbing the flag, and recalling away with it before anyone knew what happened. From a design and gameplay stance this makes total sense, but the counter to this has produced a few issues — you now not only have to stand on the objective for around 4 to 5 seconds, but not receive any damage during this period.

Effectively this makes it incredibly easy for a character like D.Va or Soldier 76 to deny anyone grabbing the flag, as they can just pepper them with rounds at a fairly safe distance. Since the timer resets after each hit, you can make the flag nearly impossible to capture even if you cleared the enemy team out and they are left firing from their spawn. This damage mechanic should really be removed, though the core idea of having to wait on the point can be adjusted. Doing this would prevent unfairly fast captures, but not make it an impossible venture if an enemy is still alive.

The Away Flag Problem

In Overwatch’s Capture the Flag mode players are able to secure a point regardless of whether your flag is away or not. This is actually a bit of problem as it doesn’t encourage the type of balance between offense and defense needed for a mode like this. By removing the need to recapture your flag in order to score, this turns each CTF game into a mad dash to see who can grab the flag and make it back first.

There’s a nuance lost in this, and it doesn’t make this mode particularly interesting to play after a few rounds. Given Overwatch is all about working together as a team, being able to coordinate and decide when to go recapture a flag and when to play it safe is critical to the challenge’s design. Just rushing at the enemy team again and again likes waves against the rocks isn’t inspiring and can wear out its welcome quite quickly.

Extend Match Times

Currently, the match times for Capture the Flag are 7 minutes with no additional rounds or levels once the timer hits zero. While this may sound like a lot of time in comparison to the other Overwatch modes, it actually isn’t that long for a proper CTF game. Since matches can take forever given the high defensive character picks like Torbjorn, lots of actual games end in simply a draw with zero flag captures on either side. This highly encourages users to just play it safe and stay on defense to ensure no one grabs their flag.

Extending the time up to 15 or minutes would give teams enough time to construct a defense, gain ultimates, and make attempts at the flag with their team. Given most Overwatch games can last anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes (even more if you’re playing Competitive) this would fall into line with the rest of the other types of matches.

However, it’s still unclear if anything will be altered during or possibly even after this Brawls time is out. This is certainly a fun game mode, and there is a ton of potential for it to be another objective for players for fight over. Given Overwatch currently only has a small handful of modes spread across 14 maps, it’s going to be important that Blizzard introduces something new for players to enjoy. As for now, we are going to go back to constructing turret after turret to defend our precious piece of cloth.