Gamemode Changes

Capture The Flag and Payload Race will now be split into two separate gamemodes. One will remain unchanged gameplay-wise as the "Deathmatch" ruleset, the other will receive objective-focused gameplay changes as the "Tug Of War" ruleset.

Control Points will also recieve a similar treatment, except the split will be between 5CP and 3CP; 5CP will get changes to be objective-focused, and 3CP will have more relaxed rules and lack a timer.

Domination, Medieval Mode, Special Delivery, Territorial Control, and Robot Destruction are now official/separate gamemodes.

Reasons For Changes

CTF and Payload Race are not good gamemodes for standard TF2 play (3CP as well for that matter). Their lack of timers and difficulty capturing the objective make these gamemodes take absolute ages to complete, and certainly aren't fitting for a "main" gamemode for the game. Yet, there is a large playerbase that enjoys these factors and the symmetrical map design making a unique style of play - some players even choosing to do nothing else in TF2 but deathmatch for hours in these gamemodes. After discussing with some members in the SquimJim and GamePro Weapon Concepts discords (thanks for all your opinions, it helped immensely), I decided that the best possible compromise would be simply to include both the current gamemode as-is under a new name, while still implanting another version better designed for normal play.

Oh, and in regards to the added gamemodes, it'll make more sense with the new catergorization (see below).

Removed Territoral Control from the Casual search queue.

Reasons For Changes

I'm not removing this gamemode solely because there's only one map for it. Special Delivery, Domination, and Robot Destruction have only one map each, yet are worth keeping around. Nor is it because Hydro is the single worst designed year-round map in the game (although it's certainly a contributing factor). Rather, like Arena before it, Territorial Control is a heavily outdated gamemode that no longer fits the kind of game TF2 has become. 5CP (an already flawed gamemode) is an improvement on TC in every way except for potential dynamic map layouts. Although said layouts are neat on paper, they are nowhere close to enough of a positive to the cons. Said cons include, but aren't limited to: 1.) Restarting the round every single stalemate or point capture, 2.) Taking a ridiculous amount of time to finish if the teams aren't wildly unbalanced, 3.) Stalemates occur rather frequently on the nature of defending being significantly easier than attacking, 4.) Dynamic layouts mean the map can be rather confusing to navigate, to the point Hydro employs many arrow signs to let each team have a clue where to go. It's not worth keeping a few servers busy being dead running a gamemode nobody plays on when other gamemodes do essentially all of what TC does already, but better.

Payload Carts will no longer provide ammo or metal for Engineers. It will still provide health and cloak.

Reasons For Changes

This is primarily to limit the power that steamrolls using Heavy and Engineer's Short Circuit have. I've seen far, far too many games in my thousands of hours of experience in this gamemode where one or two Heavies alongside a Short Circuit Engineer ride the Payload cart to the end uninterrupted, being able to counter every possible threat coming their way besides Sniper - who despite his agreeably overpowered state - can't keep up do to the job. I'm still keeping Spy's ability to get cloak, though. He doesn't need to be involved in the crossfire of this change!

This is the new categorization that Casual will sort the maps into, instead of Main/Alternative Gamemodes. Any additional gamemodes that may be added in the future can be sorted accordingly.

Capturing a control point will now set the clock to a fixed value for each point, rather than adding a set amount of time to the clock.

Reasons For Changes

This change aims to help address potential imbalances that can stem from capturing the control point early or late, especially in multi-stage maps where the timer can go arbitrarily high if the attacking team is steamrolling or not give anywhere enough time for the next point if the attacking team won in Overtime. Now, the clock will always have the same time to capture any given point rather than being based on how long it took to capture the previous one(s).

Reaching a checkpoint will now set the clock to a fixed value for each checkpoint, rather than adding a set amount of time to the clock.

Reasons For Changes

Same as before. See reasoning above.

The timer for team that owns the point will now slow down by 50% while it is being contested by the other team.

Reasons For Changes

KOTH is a fairly solid gamemode. Heck, many consider it to be their favorite. However, it is not exempt to issues, and the most prominent ones are the rather overwhelming advantage that the team that captures the point first tends to have (let's call them Team A), and the unviability that flanking has which forces Team B to structure a giant push to take over the point. This change is an attempt to address both of these problems at the same time. By giving flanking players the ability to be a more immediate threat via slowing down the enemy team's timer, this lets more strategies and classes (Scout and Spy especially) have a place within the gamemode. Consequently, Team A isn't guaranteed to get as much progress on their timer as before this change, and if they push their advantage into Team B's territory past the middle area, Team B can use flankers to distract and disrupt Team A's frontline to go back and stop them sooner rather than being able hold their position for most of the game. I do NOT envision this completely fixing either issue, but I'd rather not accidently uproot what people enjoy from this gamemode in the pursuit of refining it.

Removed ten-minute timer that results in a stalemate...

...And replaced it with seven-minute timers for each team, KOTH-style. For each point that a team owns, one second is ticked off their timer every second. When a team's timer reaches zero, that team wins the round. Owning all control points at once is still an automatic victory.

Reasons For Changes

Domination is DESPERATELY needing the KOTH treatment to let the game end early should no team be able to have ownership of all the control points at once. In a balanced team setting, the timer running out first is almost certain to happen first, which is just an automatic stalemate currently. Although one could alternatively make it so the team that owns the most amount of points wins when the timer runs out instead, this would determine the winner based solely on what happened in the last minute of the game rather than being an accurate reflection of the game as a whole. It'd also tie more into Domination's sorting as its own gamemode under the KOTH category rather than being a single odd map under the Control Points gamemode.

Added to the HUD the highest and current progress made on the Australium/Ticket Case delivery. It is either the % progress made on the elevator (round to the nearest tenth of a percent and caps at 99.9% progress for having the rocket fully open without delivering the package), or if that team has not reached the elevator yet, the closest distance to the elevator that team has made. If the teams' highest scores are tied midway through a game, the 2nd team to get the score will have theirs lowered by one unit until a team surpasses that score.

Added a 10-minute timer that will award the victory to the team with the best score when it runs out. Completing the Australium/Ticket Case delivery is still an automatic victory.

Increased the amount of time until the dropped Australium/Tickets Case returns to its spawning location to 30 seconds (from 15), but made picking it up no longer reset that timer.

When the Australium/Ticket Case is returned, there will now be a 5 second period where neither team can grab it rather than being grabbable instantly upon returning.

Reasons For Changes

These changes aren't so much for the sake of Doomsday nor Carnival Of Carnage, but moreso for the sake of Special Delivery as a whole since it does carry a fair amount of potential for... frankly, better map design. The first two changes help determine a winner when the game goes on for a long time without either team completing the delivery and encourage more urgency to stop the enemy team from getting a high score rather than only preventing the delivery as a whole. The 3rd change makes it impossible for one team to deny the other from the Australium/Tickets Case by repeatedly picking it back up before the timer expires while also giving more total time for it to return so that more time is given to push for a high score each attempt. Lastly, the final change discourages the strategy where a player stands right on the spawning location for the Australium/Tickets to pick them instantly when it returns there, denying the other team from getting any chance at it.

Sentry guns will no longer target the player carrying the JACK.

Added +100% holster time to the JACK, making it take half a second longer to deploy a weapon after throwing the JACK.

Reasons For Changes

Engineer's sentry gun is the primary reason PASS Time is such a poor gamemode to play in Casual. The gamemode is intended to be played with emphasis as a team to pass the JACK around, provide support to the carrier (since they can't use weapons), and give the everyone nearby the carrier and the carrier themselves a speed buff to match the fastest class the group has. However, everyone knows that TF2's Casual playerbase often consists of players who want to go do their own thing to indirectly help the team, rather than coordinate their play with others. PASS Time doesn't mesh with this in the slightest as soon as a single sentry gun is built. Without weapons, there is absolutely nothing the JACK carrier is able to do to bypass it, which causes PASS Time games in Casual to often immediately favor the team with the Engineer, or if both teams have one - sudden death (and potentially even stalemate). Though I could tackle this problem in the same manner as I did with Special Delivery and give a time-out win to the team that made the closest to scoring, two problems arise: 1.) There are multiple goals present, 2.) One of those goals pops up for a short time and could give an unfair advantage to a given team's high score, and 3.) PASS Time is meant to be played with teams scoring far more than just once - so I'm instead putting the change on sentry guns in general to no longer fire at the JACK carrier. It will still fire at their teammates who can fight against it and the carrier can be attacked if they drop/throw the JACK, but now they cannot be plopped down and stop any and all solo JACK carriers without help. I did nerf the JACK carrier's throw to compensate, making them take longer to pull out their weapons. This will ideally render the JACK carrier more vulnerable to players taking them down rather than the automatic turret that sentries are.

Changed spawn positions for all stages of the game to be the middle spawn for both teams, save for when a team caps all but one point. (Previously, both teams would spawn at last until they have captured mid, then would move up one spawn for each point. The spawn positions have not changed for a team having 4/5 points.)

When a team captures a control point past the ones they own at the start of the game, that team will have their members respawn faster for 15 seconds.

Should neither team capture a control point for 2 minutes, the team with the most progress will have their respawn times slowed down.

Reduced the timer to 5 minutes (from 10).

If the clock runs out without Overtime (or Overtime ends), instead of ending in a stalemate, the team with the most control points will win. If neither team has captured mid, then sudden death will activate and greatly reduce the time it takes to capture the control point.

Overtime now only activates if the losing team has capture progress on their available point, and will either end in a loss for that team if they lose all their capture progress or the winning captures their point, or lets the game continue if the losing team successfully captures theirs.

Non-neutral points now capture at the same rate as the second point. The middle point before being capped by either team will still take the same time as now. (Currently, points take less time to capture the closer they are to a team's base.)

Reasons For Changes

I know this is a "Reasons For Changes" section, but I'm going to start this off with:

Thoughts On Current Gamemode
...to better explain the changes. So - 5CP is flawed in several ways:

• The gamemode relies on stalemates too frequently. Every time the timer runs out, regardless of what took place during the game or the ending result, it's always a stalemate.

• The gamemode is mostly centered around the team that managed to capture mid first. They can steamroll a win (which is a fine way for this gamemode to play out), but if they don't... then the game stalls out instead of ending in a victory for either team.

• The team that failed to cap mid has far too much of a struggle to capture the control points back (partially as a consequence of deeper control points capturing faster than the one they have to capture), making going for a stalemate via full defense the best choice.

• Due to the way the spawns are laid out, many classes have struggles finding a use case outside of defending last.

And Now Back To Your Scheduled Reasons For Changes

• Problem #1 is tackled with... well, simply making times where the game calls a stalemate call for a more fair answer, and making sure that any victories called from time-outs are a result of the game rather than what happened at the very end.

• Problem #2 with these changes keeps the whole big, consecutive push to win the game by capping last that the gamemode did well and helps enforce it with the faster respawns for the first 15 seconds, but addresses the game stalling out by putting that same team at a disadvantage if neither team caps for 2 minutes. I also made sure to do it with respawn times specifically rather than through spawn locations to prevent further issues with #4 and to make it so that Engineer's teleporters cannot entirely remove either advantage or disadvantage states.

• Problem #3 isn't so bad with #2 fixed, but additionally making the capture points take the same amount of time is a major help to the losing team to get back at the other team if they fend off their intial advantage.

• Lastly, the class disparity should be less keenly felt when the spawns are closer to the points in more stages of the game, and are yet kept consistent to let Engineer in particular be able to keep up.

Lastly, I also reduced the time for the match to 5 minutes to reduce the time the game takes, as the current 10 minute time limit being paired with getting a bunch of it back every time a point is capped often makes 5CP go on for ages - and it'd only be worse with these changes letting teams go more back and forth.

The team leader is no longer highlighted through walls (though they will still be outlined if you can see them directly).

Objects dropped from a player killed by a Sniper's primary will now only be grabbable by the Sniper's team for the first 3 seconds since the kill happened.

Objects dropped by killing an enemy Sniper are instantly picked up by the killer, regardless of distance. If the killer is in their spawn room, dropped objects will be located to the killer's last position outside of spawn instead.

Reasons For Changes

The first change gets rid of the rather unfair and unnecessary "wallhacks" that the enemy team gets to have against the team leader while still maintaining the ability to know who they are if they can see them. The other changes address the problems Sniper currently has in the gamemode, where kills he gets often serve as free point(s) for the enemy team simply due to the way he plays, while also fixing the reverse where killing the Sniper often gave their team the point(s) that they were carrying right back. This gamemode is quite well done, all things considered, so this is all that I think is necessary.

Each team's highest progress with their payload cart will now be kept track of on the HUD. If both teams reach the same highest progress, the team that made it there 2nd will have their highest score reduced by 0.1% until either team progresses past that score.

The payload carts will now move backwards after not being pushed for 30 seconds, like in regular Payload. This will not affect the team's highest progress.

Added a 10 minute timer to the match that, when it times out without a team pushing their cart all the way to the end, will award the victory to the team that made the furthest progress if the losing team's cart is retreating from not being pushed recently. If not...

...Overtime will activate, causing the currently losing team to have their retreat timer reduced to 5 seconds at most (like normal Payload). If the losing team manages to make further progress than the other team's highest score, then the other team will be marked as the losing team and incur the 5 second max penalty upon them. Once the losing team's cart retreats from not being pushed for 5 seconds, or one of the carts is blown up successfully, then the winner is declared accordingly.

Reasons For Changes

These changes aim to make Payload Race games actually end sometime this century and encourage players to actually play the objective rather than pretend it's team deathmatch (which they'll still get to do in the Deathmatch version). I did this by adding a timer that declares a winner based on each of the teams' highest scores, and doing Overtime if the currently losing team doesn't have their cart retreating from not being pushed. Alongside the payload carts actually retreating for not being pushed for 30 seconds, this will make the gamemode focused around actually pushing the carts to achieve the furthest progress and not make the carts lose progress over time. It should also help address the fact that EVERY Payload Race map ends with a sustained push up an incline (besides Banana Bay, which still has something comparable for its ending). It's a good map design for the gamemode to make sure one team has to make a real effort to win by pushing to the end, but it seriously demands an alternative win condition.

Intelligence briefcases will no longer return to base after they're dropped.

The intelligence carrier and teammates nearby them will now gain a speed boost.

Carrying the same intelligence for a cumulative minute and a half without it being captured ("cumulative" meaning that it will carry over between times where the player drops it, though every 2 seconds without it will give them back 1 more second to carry it) will now force the intelligence to be dropped and disallow that teammate from carrying the intelligence for another minute.

Capturing the intelligence will no longer grant the capturing team team-wide critical hits.

When the intelligence briefcase is stolen, the current and closest distances to the base to capture it that the carrier has reached are now tracked on the HUD.

Added a 15 minute timer for the match. When it runs out without either team capturing the intelligence 3 times AND the losing team isn't carrying the intelligence, it will award the victory to the team with the most amount of captures, or if the score is tied, give the victory to the team who have had the enemy's intelligence closest to their own base. If all of that is tied between both teams, the match will enter Sudden Death where the first team to touch the enemy's intelligence will immediately win.

If the timer runs out and the otherwise losing team is currently carrying the enemy intelligence, it will enter Overtime. During Overtime, both team's intelligences will automatically return to their base after being dropped for 10 seconds without being recaptured, and if the losing team manages to get the intelligence closer to their base than the winning team, the other team will become the "losing" team. Overtime will end if the losing team has the enemy intelligence return to base or either team captures the intelligence.

Reasons For Changes

The biggest problem (besides the timer) this gamemode faces is the fact that it's far too difficult to actually capture the intelligence. The first two changes make it easier to do that. The 3rd change mostly tackles grieving where teammate(s) hog the intelligence and refuse to cap (often spamming the drop key to spam the announcer's voice lines). This makes it impossible to keep the intelligence for too long, including dealing with workarounds like spamming the drop key with a teammate, while not affecting normal gameplay much. Cap crits are also removed for hopefully obvious reasons. The last changes all are for making the round end sometime this century, and... well, if you've read my changes on the gamemodes thus far, they should be pretty familiar and the reasoning for it remains pretty much the same.

Increased the match timer to 2 hours (from 10 minutes)

When the timer runs out, if a team has captured the middle point, they will be awarded the victory. If the point is neutral (somehow?), it will stalemate like before.

Spawn locations will no longer move from their starting positions.

Reasons For Changes

Powerhouse (the only current 3CP map in the game) used to not have a timer. It wasn't necessarily healthy for Control Points as a whole, which is likely why Valve added back in the timer, but that timer made it WAY worse to play. Nearly every round of Powerhouse is the same - one of the teams caps mid, and then 10 minutes later the game ends in a stalemate. Being as the original timer-free Powerhouse was fun in that you could deathmatch for a long time, and that 3CP is way harder to "fix" than 5CP, BUT Casual demands that servers refresh every so often (otherwise they will crash, see VSH when it launched with infinite rounds), I'm increasing the timer to 2 hours. This is what several community servers that run a Deathmatch-like environment set the timer to, and it feels like a sizable amount of time to mess around without resetting too often. Lastly, for the spawn locations, this will help keep the middle point up for grabs and make it even more difficult for the winning team to capture the final point - resulting in longer deathmatches.

Added a timer that lasts for 2 hours.

Reasons For Changes

See reasoning above.

Added a timer that lasts for 2 hours.

Reasons For Changes

See reasoning above x2.

Allowed the intelligence to be captured when the enemy team has stolen yours.

Reduced the number of captures required to win the game to 3 (from 10).

Removed Marked-For-Death for having the intelligence briefcase for too long.

Reasons For Changes

These alterations from CTF make zero sense, so I've removed them. I'm not experienced enough in Mannpower to tackle any other changes, but I do at least know these changes absolutely contribute to Mannpower games lasting somehow even longer than current CTF.