Earlier this month, Respawn Entertainment had Capture the Flag (CTF) and Pilot Hunter removed from the public match listings in the PC version of Titanfall. Both modes were still available, but could only be found in Private Matches and Variety servers. The decision to move the two match-types was made due to the lack of player activity and support, as most players are taking part in Attrition and Last Titan Standing. According to Respawn, not only did the modes have problems with matchmaking, but “less than one percent of the player base” was participating in Titanfall’s CTF mode.
A new update for Titanfall PC will bring CTF back into public access, along with make some behind-the-scenes changes to the matchmaking service. According to a new announcement from the official Titanfall website, the CTF playlist will once again be accessible. As it’s one of the least-played modes, players would end up waiting for upwards of 5 minutes for lobbies to fill prior to each match. With the new update, if no available players are found, the matchmaking engine Stryder will broaden its search to feature players from other regions. While cross-regional play results in “a game with a much higher ping than you’re used to”, the bottom line is that the match is at the very least, playable. Cosmetic changes are being made, including an active “Connecting…” status whenever players are joining lobbies, instead of having the uncertainty of empty player slots.
Lobby-based rebalancing will now occur, to ensure that teams have an even distribution of players based on their individual ranking. In the past, matches have had a tendency to include a team of Level 50 players, fighting against a team of say, Level 20 and below players who are new to the game.
Along with the changes being made to the PC version, the matchmaking tweaks are also coming to the Xbox One release of Titanfall. On the Xbox 360 side of things, a new patch is available for the Bluepoint Games-developed Titanfall for 360. The new update lowers the Private Matches player requirement to 2 active players. Cosmetic changes have been made to the UI, menus and party colors. Gameplay changes have been made to ensure that players are no longer kicked out of matches for deploying satchel charges during the Evacuation sequences, and that player-XP will no longer reset after reaching the max-level.