What would happen if we introduced backtracking rules to CTF?

TF2's predecessor was Team Fortress Classic, TFC. In CTF maps for TFC, each team would divide its members between "attackers" and "defenders". The split was usually around 50/50.

The defenders would stay in the base and defend the flag. The attackers would go to the enemy's base to steal the enemy flag.

"No backtracking" was a more-or-less official rule that one team's attackers would leave the other team's attackers alone - they'd walk right past each other without firing a shot, leaving each team of attackers undamaged to assault the other team's defenders.

This was done to speed up the game and to stop it devolving into a huge deathmatch. Funnily enough, that's a criticism I frequently hear levelled at TF2.

Has anyone tried playing a few games of CTF with "no backtracking" rules? If not, would anyone like to? I'd be up for giving this a go. Mach4 or 2fort would be a good map to try this on.

I never played TFC and for me I would just think that...it would be too hard for the attackers not to attack the other attackers. In this game you're kind of conditioned to shoot the other team no matter what. I mean, I'd be more than happy to try it out but I don't know if I see this working. 

How do you tell the different between the defenders and the attackers?

TFC was faster, you could actually save time for your trip to the flag by skipping an engagement. Similar things would happen in Soldat as well, attackers would fly past eachother and not even bother to stop, because you would lose all of your momentum. Although there were quick ways to do them in, like a knife toss or using a chainsaw (if you're ballsy) while you pass them.

TF2 is way too slow for any of that to make a difference. Even if you do GET to the defenders, they are all swarthed with Sentries. Plus when you have classes whose specific purpose is to being a TOTAL DOUCHEBAG ALL OF THE TIME, how can you expect anonymous players to actually give you some sort of grace.

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Forgot to mention, this was comp. only.

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The defenders are in their own base. The attackers are in midfield/the other team's base.

What about freshly-spawned attackers? Good question, actually. In TFC, it was obvious - the defenders were the soldiers, the engineer and occasionally the heavy, and the attackers were the scouts, spies and medics.

In TF2, I think that might be a sticking-point...

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But that doesn't make sense either, comp teams don't play CTF!

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I hate your life.

The biggest difference between TF2 and TFC: instant respawn. In TFC if one attacker killed the other then all you've done is increase the defender count by 1, if you took a potshot at the attacker in passing, it was in his best interests to hunt you down and kill you instead of going against the defenders hurt.

In TF2 the respawn timer means that killing an opponent takes them out of the fight for a time, that means killing attackers actually prevents them from participating for a short time, instead of instantly turning them into an extra defender.

As Nekped said: TFC was an incredibly fast game, what with bunnyhopping and concing. So defenders usually had to hang out in the base as zone defense just to stop those rediculously fast and combat-ready medics from bunnyhopping through your base unmolested. TF2 is much slower, so you actually have to fight through the other team instead of bypassing them.

almost unrelated note: i think its interesting that alot of the older games are actually alot faster paced because of movement.  i realize that some things began as primitive engine glitches (mostly like momentum being conserved with consecutive bunny hops)  but i havent really see any new games with crazy movement like quake or tfc