Dealing with spawn campers

[robustWonder]

There’s nothing wrong with spawn camping. The campers are at such a disadvantage that the only way the campee’s will struggle to kill them off is if they are either massively outskilled - in which case they’ll be raped just out of spawn even if they weren’t being spawncamped - or they have no clue what to do and keep mindlessly spawning and instantly firing their guns.

Except when the campers have rezers, ammo, heals, etc. Campers can react faster because they aren’t loading and the immunity from damage isn’t long enough to make a difference when someone already has you in their sights.

Camping needs to be fixed.

[Yes]

Since spawn camping is a result of unbalanced teams, either by skill or amount of teammates, it’s not like a spawn protection would make much of a difference. The camping team could just sit outside where that protection ends or at the objective, all it would do is give the worse team some extra time of running to their death.

[DocEnglish]

Map design should never allow this to happen. There should never be any sight lines directly into the spawn and an intruders vision should blur if they go in as in Battlefield. If they are killed in the opposing spawn, they should have a penalty of a double respawn timer.

It would also be good to have an exit from the spawn that would flank spawn campers and this exit would be inaccessible to the other team (something high up).

Given the quality so far, I’m surprised this has been overlooked…

[Badger_Commander]

Since spawn camping is a result of unbalanced teams, either by skill or amount of teammates, it’s not like a spawn protection would make much of a difference. The camping team could just sit outside where that protection ends or at the objective, all it would do is give the worse team some extra time of running to their death.

Ok we all agree that the primary issue is imbalanced teams. That doesn’t mean that spawn camping shouldn’t be addressed directly, especially since it’s probably a lot easier to tackle in the short term. Maybe you’re right and the other team would sit outside of a spawn zone, so what? Where is the problem with that? The spawning team would get a chance to fight back and while they’d still likely fail at least they’d have fair shot at it.

[Yes]

Where is the problem with that?

The problem is that it doesn’t solve anything, it’s just a waste of SD’s time.

[B_Montiel]

[quote=“Badger_Commander;59125”]
Ok we all agree that the primary issue is imbalanced teams. That doesn’t mean that spawn camping shouldn’t be addressed directly, especially since it’s probably a lot easier to tackle in the short term. Maybe you’re right and the other team would sit outside of a spawn zone, so what? Where is the problem with that? The spawning team would get a chance to fight back and while they’d still likely fail at least they’d have fair shot at it.[/quote]

From my point of view, countering spawncamp solutions are giving challenge to those doing it. In most games, automated defences or those dreadful metal doors in tf2 are like big arcade stations with “quality fun” written on it for people who don’t give a damn about balancing games. Put these and they won’t get bored.

[Cowhawk]

SD need to so with DB what they did with Brink, and add a parameter with Invulnerable turrets…would stop people camping their spawn.

[Badger_Commander]

[quote=“Badger_Commander;59125”]Where is the problem with that?

The problem is that it doesn’t solve anything, it’s just a waste of SD’s time.
[/quote]

It solves the problem because you’re not being killed in your spawn. If you’re being killed just outside you spawn then fair enough, it sucks be you get a chance at least.

Also I don’t like to backseat develop (because there’s always other issues that you can’t be aware of externally) but it should be a relatively easy thing to do. Create trigger volume, set it to attacker or defender and on player enter their tag is checked, if on other team then their kills get 0xp while in the volume. Reset on exit.

[MTLMortis]

…If people can’t go spawnkill any more, they will stomp you 10 meters further which is not better.

Of course it’s better. You can then work as a team to break out instead of all being insta-gibbed.

[N8o]

[quote=“B. Montiel;59098”]…If people can’t go spawnkill any more, they will stomp you 10 meters further which is not better.

Of course it’s better. You can then work as a team to break out instead of all being insta-gibbed.

[/quote]
I think the point he is trying to prove is that if you were already being spawn camped, you weren’t working as a team, and thus you would only be stomped a little further if there were some sort of protection against it.

[watsyurdeal]

What I find funny about all this, is the justification of it.

“If the enemy is bad, then they will be spawn camped, that’s their fault.”

I’m sorry but that’s a pretty shit excuse, and here’s why. Sportsmanship, just because you can be cheeky and spawn camp, doesn’t mean you should, have some respect for the enemy team and give them a fair chance to get out of there and come up with a strategy. If you’re already winning, why do you need to go to that level and be a dick to them? I’m sorry but I don’t see any reason to do it in the first place.

[B_Montiel]

[quote=“B. Montiel;59098”]…If people can’t go spawnkill any more, they will stomp you 10 meters further which is not better.

Of course it’s better. You can then work as a team to break out instead of all being insta-gibbed.

[/quote]
A choke point is a choke point, no matter the positioning of it.

I’m talking proper spawncamp situations, which only happen in this game with totally unbalanced teams. With fairly balanced teams, after 1 or 2 waves of successful wipes, the spawncampers will get either cleaned or bypassed by some players. I’ve yet to see a game with 2 teams with around the same level where there are spawn camp issues. It can happen that, by some sort of luck, the defenders achieve to push far enough to get the attackers at their spawn. But it won’t last for long in this context.

I consider situational spawn camp as a viable strategy, and most of the experienced players do it as well. If teams are balanced, the only reliable way to get the last chapel objective done is by wiping the field then stack the defenders in the spawn/first meters out of it. So, in a certain way, that’s a necessary mean and a proper game mechanic.
The 1,5/2s spawn protect is already plenty enough to react, IF teams are balanced.

On top of that, I really can’t imagine the work charge related with a new spawn protection mechanic. There’s a lot to be fixed/improved on maps already. Spawn protection "remap"would require :

• more dynamic assets, as the spawns are moving along. Interesting bug generator by the way
• total route and timing rework

With those two things, they can erase all their slug speed work on maps.

[inventiveSparrow]

Problem with spawn campers is problem with game design.

There should be at least two separate spawn points OR the spawn points should be such that they couldn’t be accessed by the opposition at all and those who spawn can have multiple routers towards the objective area.

It’s sad event whether it happens to either side since it ruins the overall experience of that level.

[Osl112]

[quote=“Badger_Commander;59090”]Nobody is talking about that though, just making it so you can spawn and not be instantly killed before you get a chance to do anything.

See this is what I was talking about when I said they have no clue what to do. As long as you don’t fire your gun you get like 4-5 seconds of complete invincibility when you spawn. That’s enough time to move around, line up your shots, have your enemies blow their clips. People can’t drop their invincibility the moment they spawn then die and complain they couldn’t do anything, it doesn’t work that way.

Not the game’s fault people don’t know how it works.[/quote]

Is it? I don’t recall it being said in the tutorial - making that a little more obvious probably wouldn’t hurt.

If the issue is balance (which quite frankly it is), how should Splash Damage deal with this? In my personal experience, I’ve found spawn camping to be most prevalent on Stopwatch mode. In the case I eluded to in the first post, it was a case of most a team leaving at half time, leaving the attacking team largely outnumbered. Seeing that they were being spawn camped, any new people that came in almost instantly left and it resulted in a constant cycle of them having 3 or so players who quite frankly didn’t want to be there. Making people switch sides may also be a little unfair; I don’t like the idea of making someone switch sides when they could have worked hard completing their attacking half.

It is certainly a little bit of a quandary for SD to consider - and I guess their answer to it will be based on whether they wish Dirty Bomb to be a casual or competitive game.

[Amerika]

If my team is spawn camping then I go run laps if I’m trying to finish a mission SW mission (used to be more common for SW/obj wins). If I’m not I switch teams and try to reverse the spawn camp which can be a lot of fun.

I do think the game needs a bit more protection though as spawn camping mostly just makes people angry when it happens to them or bored if they are doing it.

[Yes]

[quote=“Clown;59131”][quote=“Badger_Commander;59125”]Where is the problem with that?

The problem is that it doesn’t solve anything, it’s just a waste of SD’s time.
[/quote]

It solves the problem because you’re not being killed in your spawn. If you’re being killed just outside you spawn then fair enough, it sucks be you get a chance at least.

Also I don’t like to backseat develop (because there’s always other issues that you can’t be aware of externally) but it should be a relatively easy thing to do. Create trigger volume, set it to attacker or defender and on player enter their tag is checked, if on other team then their kills get 0xp while in the volume. Reset on exit.[/quote]
Like I said, all they would be getting is a few extra seconds of running. That’s not a solution at all, unless holding shift+W is exciting game play to you.

It doesn’t matter how easy it is to implement it, it would still be a waste of time, doing something just because it is easy to do is not a good reason at all. They’d be far better off putting that time into figuring out how to solve unbalanced teams as much as possible.

[Gi.Am]

My answers to OP

1. If the teams are uneven by numbers and it is casual I would switch (ranked doesn’t allow switching). Reason simply its casual and teams should always be even. Also might just be me but I rather face a strong challenging enemy than oliberating a couple of weak players.
2. I hardly get spawncamped in a game I’m in from the beginning (gonna explain why below) but if I spawn into an ongoing spawncamping, I stay and try to reach the objective, a spawncamping team is an overextended team. Get through their line (spawncamping makes you sloppy, less vigilant) and reaching the objective is a no brainer. Planting C4/repairing an EV forces atleast a couple of players away lowering the pressure on the spawn. Additional repairing procress can’t be reverted (unlike C4 thats why trainyard /terminal are worse than chapel) if you finish an objective spawns get moved giving you an even better chance to break free.
3. What should SD do. Well you gotta look at the reasons for spawncamping.

As other stated one is uneven (by numbers) teams, two ways to fix that. Everyone is a gentlemen and switches teams as soon as one side is 2 men short.
SD adds a routine that helps the switching (either positiv enforcement or simple autoswitching).

The next reason is vastly different skill lvl. Well in casual I think there can’t be done that much maybe better initial skill based sorting, but to be honest it isn’t that important.
There is a complete mode if you wanna fight people of your skill level. I understand that ranked mode wasn’t a thing in the heydays of ET and the serverbrowser was king but maybe atleast in this regards we can go with the time.
If matchmaking gets some love (bugfixing, better servers, better promotion maybe a weekend event) it would solve the problem of too uneven skill matches.

Last reason for spawncamping. To defensive, attackers. The primary mode of this game is all about the question, how quick can you do all objectives. The defenders are there mearly to slow you down to be an obstacle the attackers overcome.

But if you don’t do that, if you move slow and don’t push you will not gain ground (and worse give ground to the defenders). Every kill you make, every death you suffer, every step you take, I’ll be missin… no wait thats wrong… has to bring your team closer to the objective.
And thats the reason why I hardly encounter spawncamping nowadays. Yes I suck big time when it comes to fights, but when I die, I try to die on the defenders side of the objective. or I die repairing the EV, or I die reviving an engineer. In this game the very first wave sets the pace. Objective/Stopwatch is a race and the start is the most important.

This is also the reason, why I think that, atleast in this game, spawn protection is a bad thing (the 4-5 seconds are fine). It gives the attackers a safe zone, that rewards being defensive. Sure you can’t win sitting in there. But looking at other games you will always have people that sit there the whole game banking on autoturrets/invincibility sniping out of the protected spawn area. Especially after they died a couple of times out there.
In DB this behaviour kills any chance of winning you have.

[spookify]

People are correct it is mostly a balance issue however some of this also falls on you to be smart when exiting a spawn.

Go a different way…
Wait an extra second.
Teamwork your way out. (Revive)
Kill your way out.

Spawn Camping is an amazing part of Stop Watch game mode. Some of the best teams in RTCW, ET and now DB are the best spawn killers and spawn kill avoiders.

Spawn Killing in a balanced game is actually quite skillful and can turn the tides of a round or a push. It makes for epic games, epic Esports and epic frags.

A good spawn camp can get the blood flowing and make watchers go crazy with excitement!

Spawn Camping is amazing!!! And guess what its only going to get worse with more mercs that are released.

[inventiveSparrow]

[quote=“spookify;59292”]Spawn Camping is an amazing part of Stop Watch game mode. Some of the best teams in RTCW, ET and now DB are the best spawn killers and spawn kill avoiders.

Spawn Killing in a balanced game is actually quite skillful and can turn the tides of a round or a push. It makes for epic games, epic Esports and epic frags.

A good spawn camp can get the blood flowing and make watchers go crazy with excitement!

Spawn Camping is amazing!!! And guess what its only going to get worse with more mercs that are released.
[/quote]Nice sarcasm.

[Ghosthree3]

I’m sorry but that’s a pretty shit excuse, and here’s why. Sportsmanship, just because you can be cheeky and spawn camp, doesn’t mean you should, have some respect for the enemy team and give them a fair chance to get out of there and come up with a strategy. If you’re already winning, why do you need to go to that level and be a dick to them? I’m sorry but I don’t see any reason to do it in the first place.

I just don’t see the difference between raping them right out of spawn or right in spawn. Either way it’s a complete stomp and they lose.

What the game REALLY needs is a forfeit vote.

EDIT: How is this abuse?