[Stray Idea] Capture the Zapfish

[OrenjiBoy135]

Since I voted for a Capture the Flag mode, it would be nice to go in-depth with an idea that I posted at the latest news thread.

"Snag the enemy's Zapfish, and return it again and again within 5 minutes!"

Each team would have a Zapfish. If you were to grab theirs, your Special Meter would charge over time and the effectiveness of your gear bonuses would be doubled. But the Zapfish's panic would cause the map to create a "ping" of your general area, which would be visible to both teams every 5 seconds. It's weight would slow you down by 1 stage, and it would demand a constant flow of ink, draining your tank. Hiding in ink for more than 15 seconds, performing a super jump, or getting splattered would cause you to drop the Zapfish, making it flop around. When grabbed by an enemy, or successully captured, the Zapfish would return to it's spawnpoint.

When time runs out, whichever team has the most captures win.



Post your ideas, reviews and such if you want! ;)

 

[missingno]

3 captures in 3 minutes? I highly doubt that'll work, most CTF modes are notorious for taking a while.

 

[OrenjiBoy135]

3 captures in 3 minutes? I highly doubt that'll work, most CTF modes are notorious for taking a while.

...So 2 captures? 1?

Perhaps more time?

 

[Trieste Sp]

Perhaps more time?

More time might drag out the game.

 

[bluekentuckyboy]

Meh, just never been a personal fan of Capture the Flag. I myself cannot see it working on splatoon, but hey anything is possible lol.

 

[missingno]

I'd say make it whoever captures more in 5 minutes. If there's a tie, do some sort of Sudden Death thing for a quick tiebreaker.

 

[OrenjiBoy135]

I'd say make it whoever captures more in 5 minutes.

Capturing multiple times sounds very good. Edited that in.

 

[<π.]

Like a lot of these Ideas, just think a little more about how long some of these times are. You can travel across a map some of the smaller maps in 15-20 seconds.

I think the zapfish should have negetive effects like draining your ink or slowing you down to put more emphasis on team work.

 

[ThisFungi]

For a sudden death, each team starts in a cleaned up map going after one zapfish in the middle of the map. Whichever team has the zapfish the most within one minute can be declared the winner. :D

 

[missingno]

For a sudden death, each team starts in a cleaned up map going after one zapfish in the middle of the map. Whichever team has the zapfish the most within one minute can be declared the winner. :D

Sudden Death should ideally just be a seamless transition from the current game state, instead of cleaning the map up go ahead and let a team that has more ink take advantage of that lead. And if you just did most captures in a set amount of time again, what happens when that ties too?

What I'd do if there's a tie is continue the game while giving all players a movement speed boost, faster super weapon recharge, and increased respawn timers. Increase these effects over time until someone finally gets a capture, then the match ends.

 

[ThisFungi]

Sudden Death should ideally just be a seamless transition from the current game state, instead of cleaning the map up go ahead and let a team that has more ink take advantage of that lead. And if you just did most captures in a set amount of time again, what happens when that ties too?

I was thinking about a seamless transition at first but that would probably encourage camping for a win, hence why I mentioned a clean map in the first place. Both teams can have a fair shot at a victory.

I love your idea of buffing everything within a tie. That can very well be used within (or after) the first sudden death to tense things up!

 

[missingno]

The idea is that if one team has a lot more ink/a favorable position/whatever, then it's not really a perfect tie and that should be considered in their favor. Kinda like how in competitive Smash we break tied stocks by percent. But since ink is rather volatile and can go back and forth so quickly, not to mention that it isn't the main objective here (imagine if ties get so common that declaring a winner based on ink just turns it back into Turf Wars), instead of automatically granting them the win it should just give them a slight lead for Sudden Death. If they do have a whole lot more ink they might be able to quickly rush the winning cap, and if it's that much of a shutout then they earned it, but if it's close enough to even then it's still anybody's game.

Also, it keeps the transition so seamless that there doesn't even need to be a transition at all. The match can just continue where it currently is without skipping a beat. Just have the words "Sudden Death!" pop up on screen for a moment, apply the buffs, and keep going.

 

[OrenjiBoy135]

I think the zapfish should have negetive effects like draining your ink or slowing you down to put more emphasis on team work.

Ah, good idea.

 

[RespawningJesus]

How about this? When you carry the Zapfish, you cannot turn into a squid, otherwise you drop it at your feet. So you need to use your teammates to help make a path and clear the way, since you need to be in squid form to recover lost ink.

 

[missingno]

Thing is, as I mentioned before, CTF modes are already prone to stalemates in many games. Nerfing the Zapfish holder runs the risk of making that worse.

 

[DaBoss]

How about this? When you carry the Zapfish, you cannot turn into a squid, otherwise you drop it at your feet. So you need to use your teammates to help make a path and clear the way, since you need to be in squid form to recover lost ink.

Maps would be required to change accordingly if you can't turn into a squid. It would be impossibly to get through a map like Arowana Mall without the squid form.

A setback is always necessary for the flag holder in CTF, but it can't be not being able to turn into a squid. Not being able to use a weapon would require a lot of teamwork and would lead to interesting results. And maybe the squid form can only move as fast as the human form. The flag should still be visible while the flag holder is in squid form.

I didn't read the other posts in the thread, so not sure if these ideas were already suggested.

 

[TheRapture]

I think not being able to turn into a squid would be too big of an obstacle. Flags would rarely be captured then.

I think just not being able to use any weapons while holding the flag would be fine. You could just drop the flag to fight someone if you need to, and you'll still retain your movement with squid form so you can reliably capture the flag.

 

[ThisFungi]

The idea is that if one team has a lot more ink/a favorable position/whatever, then it's not really a perfect tie and that should be considered in their favor. Kinda like how in competitive Smash we break tied stocks by percent. But since ink is rather volatile and can go back and forth so quickly, not to mention that it isn't the main objective here (imagine if ties get so common that declaring a winner based on ink just turns it back into Turf Wars), instead of automatically granting them the win it should just give them a slight lead for Sudden Death. If they do have a whole lot more ink they might be able to quickly rush the winning cap, and if it's that much of a shutout then they earned it, but if it's close enough to even then it's still anybody's game.

Also, it keeps the transition so seamless that there doesn't even need to be a transition at all. The match can just continue where it currently is without skipping a beat. Just have the words "Sudden Death!" pop up on screen for a moment, apply the buffs, and keep going.

I can see why you think a team with more ink should be in favor of a seamless sudden death. They covered more ink on the ground so they should have the advantage they deserve for a victory, correct? The real question is, would the mode be a fun Capture the Flag experience for everyone involved?

Let me explain by giving a generic example of two teams going at it. We'll name them "Good team" and "Smart team".

The good team would make an attempt to capture the enemies zapfish and disregard inking the entire area, only focusing on the route to the fish. The smart team could instead not focus on the zapfish at all and fortify the ground to prevent the good team from passing entirely. The good team could try to go around the said fortified positioning that the smart team has, but that leaves the good team with less ground to work with. That would mean that the good team would have to try to gather more ground to penetrate the smart team. The smart team can just keep an area fortified until they hit sudden death since that's when the buffs kick in. Mix that with the map advantage they'll have and we'll have the clear winner.

If the good team figures this out beforehand, push will come to shove and we end up with two potential smart teams trying to gather the most ground in order to have the mobility advantage, dragging out the game longer than it should be and completely ignoring the original goal of the mode which is to get the zapfish.

Keeping it seamless would unfortunately favor camping during a game for a good chance at a victory in sudden death. What could be the fix to this? Simple, wipe the map clean and send both teams back at to their base (with the buffs you mentioned of course).

This gives both teams fair game and would discourage most of the camping that happens before sudden death and would make both teams make an actual attempt of capturing a zapfish.

 

[missingno]

Ink is super volatile and can be taken in an instant. As I said, it's not even close to a guaranteed win, all it does is give you a little bit more mobility. Even without it, you can still Splatdash and Splatterhop your way through. Trying to spend the entire game planning for what might help in Sudden Death is not going to be a reliable strategy. Hell, what is the "smart" team in your scenario even accomplishing exactly by focusing on inking elsewhere compared to the team that's actually trying to push and streamline a route to the Zapfish? And can they do that and prevent captures at the same time? They probably won't even get the tie if they waste their time like that.

Also, keep in mind the point of Sudden Death is to quickly break the tie. If we make them restart the match, that takes the quick out.

 

[Pusha]

There's one big reason why a capture the flag gametype wouldn't work in splatoon (at least a traditional CTF gametype). There is only one spawn point for each team. That means that the team would always spawn on their flag, and that takes away a large part of how CTF is played. CTF is largely about killing the opposing team, forcing there spawn away from the flag, then pulling the flag to the opposite side of the map. I just don't see a 1-spawn CTF gametype working at all.

But, let's say a CTF gametype is implemented down the line, the flag carrier shouldn't be able to go into squid form while holding the flag. If the flag carrier is able to go into squid form then captures would become too easy, seeing as how it would be very difficult to catch a flag carrier. Shooting with the flag on the other hand, would work, since the kill times in Splatoon are very quick and would leave the carrier a bit too vulnerable otherwise. That's how call of duty functions and the kill times in that game are very similar.