CommunityFortress

So, now that you are most likely treading the forums like a champ, probably need to know what kind of games you should be playing competitively - because believe me, no professionals would ever set foot on a payload map (unless it were say, a pubs vs. pros match), but I digress; there are actually a few different types of games that are competitively acceptable such as King Of The Hill, Attack and Defend, and the ever-so-popular 5 Capture Point maps.

5 CP

The 5 CP maps are of a much larger variety, and is the more commonplace game mode in competitive TF2. Granary, Badlands, Gullywash, Freight, and Follower are some of the more preferred maps; do note that Gullywash, Freight, and Follower are not Valve-created maps, so the TF2 comp community is a great place to ask people to test out maps if you’re a gifted mapper. The game mode itself is relatively simple, whomsoever captures and owns all five points of the map wins the round. In most competitive leagues, a winner is determined by whoever gets to 5 rounds first (this sprouted quite a popular term also, as being “5-0’d” means the losing team got completely beaten to a pulp, more on that subject later though). In any case, I would love to include information on positioning and terminology, but I’ll save that for another article for another time.

KOTH

King of the Hill is actually fairly simple, (so simple in fact, that I like to call it Death Match with a capture point or DMCP) nevertheless, it’s pretty straight forward. There’s a capture point in the middle which will be unlocked after about 10 or 15 seconds into the game, once the point is captured, the team that captured the point will have a timer (which starts at 3 minutes) that starts to count down. If the other team manages to gain the advantage over the King of the Hill and capture the point, then their timer will start to count down the second they capture, and the other team’s timer will stop. Whomsoever’s timer reaches zero first, without any trace of the other team’s presence (otherwise forcing overtime, or as I refer to it: OVALTINE), will be the victor.

So pretty simple right? All you have to do is capture a point and keep ownership of it for three minutes. And on a side note, in my opinion this type of game mode also gives a huge validity to the pain train in the right circumstances (If both soldiers + demo had pain trains and everyone were on the point, that’s 11X capture rate!).

ATTACK/DEFEND

The only accepted attack/defend map as of yet just so happens to be Gravelpit, and to score this type of map fairly, a configuration known as, “Stopwatch” is implemented. Stopwatch isn’t really that hard to figure out once you have the basic layout, so let’s start out shall we?

ROUND CLOCK - There are two clocks in stopwatch mode, the first of which is the round clock which exists ONLY to give the first attacking team a time limit. This clock starts counting down from about 10 minutes after the setup time ends, and adds 3 minutes towards every point you capture. If the round clock ever hits 0:00 before the attacking team could capture point C and overtime (A.K.A. OVALTINE) isn’t active, then the first half of the round is over and it’s time for the defending team to attack. (THIS CLOCK IS ONLY RELEVANT DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE ROUND)

STOPWATCH – The stopwatch’s job is to record the first attacking team’s time that they took to capture one, two, or three points; then give the opposing team something to beat in the second half of the round. So if the first attacking team captures point C in 6:50 seconds, the stopwatch will keep that time on record and it will be displayed during the second half of the round, if the attacking team can capture point C in under 6:50 seconds, they win the round. However, if the defending team can hold onto point C for 6:50 seconds, they automatically win the round. In layman’s terms, once the stopwatch reaches 0:00 during the 2^nd half, the attacking team loses the round; THERE IS NO OVERTIME, NO SECOND CHANCES, DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200.

BOTH of these clocks work together during the entire game, but only the stopwatch is relevant to both halves of every round. This process is repeated up to three times (three rounds), and whatever team beats their opponent’s time twice is the victor.  So that’s two clocks that you have to keep track of, make sure that you know the difference!

So, for the sake of science, let’s say you’re on Gravelpit and you’re going to attack first. You capture, let’s say points A and B in about 3 or so minutes, but can’t quite seem to get the point C down and the round clock hits 0:00. Time to switch teams! Now you’re defending, and the stopwatch is set up for 3:35, which is the time it took your team to capture just TWO points. So here’s where stopwatch gets interesting, it’s time for the other team to attack, if they happen to get points A and B FASTER than your 3:35, they automatically win the round; however, if the other team fails to capture two points faster than your time, they still get the chance to try and capture all three points, given that the round clock is still alive.

In essence, if you think you have an unbeatable defense tactic, by all means start on defense. Keep in mind though, that it’s the best of three rounds (1 round means you have to have attacked and defended, so if the other team beats your time, they win the round) so make your time count!

P.S. – Shoutout to Fenix-Ice for grabbin’ Peelz.