Should Brink have forward spawns for Offense??

(INF3RN0) #1

Thinking about an alternative method to increasing the defensive spawn timer as a way to balance the game out, what about re-adding in the capture-able offensive forward spawn instead? Just in case tweaking the spawn times ends up making the game feel slower… poll & thoughts??

(SphereCow) #2

I’m of the mind that Field Ops need to return as a re-tooled class with the ability to deploy spawn points and designate territories, as well as allowing player to change weapons by interacting with him.

Field ops deploys spawn point. Engineer builds it, medic/soldier supplies it, and covert ops defends it from being hacked/disabled, and provides it with enhanced radar.

Win/win?

Edit: Retool meaning they no longer deploy ammo/airstrikes, or call artillery.

(ScumBag) #3

Patch 1 - change the timer.

If that doesn’t work goto Patch 2.

If FOps came back then you wouldn’t need a forward spawn. Just throw a violator or airstrike and clear out the Defense and move on…

(SphereCow) #4

Because that’s exactly how it always worked, especially in doors.

In any case, airstrikes/artillery is a separate issue, and I don’t think that should exist. That’s what I meant by “retool.”

(KAS--Will) #5

Quite honestly, I don’t know what a forward spawn is… I’m guessing it’s a spawn closer to the objective or where the rest of the team, right? (If not enlighten me). I don’t really think it’s the spawn positioning that’s the issue, because even on Container City the spawn point moves up slightly.

I do think, that offense should have less of a spawn timer than defense. I think that would greatly change the balance issue. Like Defense should get a 20 second timer, and offense get a 10 second timer, or anything slightly less would be nice.

Because even in real warfare, it’s always easier to defend than attack. One advantage an offensive army/team would have over a defensive, is an overwhelming number, and that overwhelming number is kind of impossible in BRINK, if your trying to overwhelm the defense with 2 guys, and the reinforcements aren’t getting there for another 20 seconds, and yes the Medic should be doing his job, but it’s kinda hard to tank 5 guys shots to revive one guy.

(Tinygod) #6

I think engineer should get a 2nd building that replaces turret (he brings one or the other)

and the 2nd building would be a mobile command center. Allowing people to spawn at that point if they choose to, (chosen from spawn screen).

It would need to be defended of course, but could help to fix the problem of. Push push push… oh were there and now the enemy is spawning 2 seconds away and this is impossible.

(jaxer) #7

This game definitely needs forward spawns. Having to run all the way across the map sucks when trying to get things done.

(legend123) #8

some maps yes. some maps no.

(Ghostdog) #9

[QUOTE=KAS–Will;318158]Quite honestly, I don’t know what a forward spawn is… I’m guessing it’s a spawn closer to the objective or where the rest of the team, right? (If not enlighten me).
[/QUOTE]

Basically yes. In Quake Wars there were forward spawn points that could be captured, allowing spawning closer to the objective - also Strogg technicians could turn enemy corpses into spawn points.

(jotun) #10

faster spawns for offense, maybe also slower for defense

TF2 does this, with the times changing based on how far the objective is from each spawn

(Glyph) #11

I think it’s a bit late to add forward spawns since spawn-camping is such a huge concern. I think increasing the defensive team’s spawn timer and/or decreasing the offensive team’s should help though.

(light_sh4v0r) #12

Depends on the maps and objectives I think. Certain objectives could really use forward spawns, others are fine or need just a slight timer tweak.

(xzen) #13

Just my two cents, I don’t think forward spawns would be feasible without significantly altering the maps to prevent heavy spawn camping so I’m considering the benefits of decreasing the attackers’ spawn timer vs. increasing the defenders’ spawn timer.

Decrease attack spawn timer:

  • Easier for attack to have constant pressure on defence.
  • Dying is less important for attack (as it is for defence currently since they spawn so close to the objective, their combined spawn + travel time is much shorter than that of the attackers).
  • Encourages more constant charging into the defensive meat grinder.
  • Harder for attack to coordinate large pushes more often, since there will be situations with people spawning as their team mates are just reaching the objective - meaning if you want to coordinate well, you’re going to have to wait around for your team.

Overall, I’d say faster attack spawn times would be bad for competitive play but popular in pub matches (since most players probably don’t like waiting on a long respawn and then having to run all the way back across the map).

Increase defence spawn timer:

  • Dying is more important for defence, bringing the focus on playing cautiously to a similar level to what it is for attack currently.
  • Attack have more time to regroup and secure the objective area without fresh defence spawns breathing down their neck.
  • Makes spawn camping the attackers a lot more difficult.
  • When the defence spawn timer is up they will be able to coordinate a big push together back to the objective rather than the slow trickle we often see in matches currently. This essentially reverses the roles of attack and defence, as attack will now (hopefully) have the objective area locked down. Obviously defence will be approaching the objective from their side but I still feel that this provides an interesting dynamic to the game as opposed to the constant rushing that decreased attack spawn timers would.
  • More people have to watch respawn timers countdown when they could be playing.

I feel like this is the better option. Rather than encouraging attack to constantly rush in and die a lot with the hope of managing to hold off several defense spawn waves while doing the objective, this would encourage a more level playing field. It would be (hopefully) equally important for both sides to work as a team and stay alive in order to complete the objective. This is (again, in my opinion) the best solution for competitive play and annoying spawn times considered the fairest for pub play.

The best solution might actually be a combination of the two, i.e. +5s defence timer and -5s attack timer.

(rumblylizard) #14

I personally like the idea of using command posts as spawn points for the offence - perhaps give the operative the ability to upgrade the terminals to this effect. Would give them more use - and they are the most likely to be able to achieve this with their disguise ability.

(xzen) #15

If command posts were spawn points, how would spawn camping be prevented? It’s prevented to an extent by the turrets in the spawns currently, as well as the spawn locations on most maps (impossible or hard to reach places). If you work too hard to prevent command post spawn camping then the other team won’t have a chance of retaking it. If you make it too easy to recapture the command post then you also make it easy to spawn camp whoever’s spawning there. It’s a good idea but not really workable without massive modifications to the maps.

(InfiniteStates) #16

Changing spawn timers is probably the only realistic change that can be made as the others require a lot more work and QA. The point about attack coordinating with a reduced timer is valid, so increasing defence’s is probably less destructive.

I’d say 15 seconds for attack and 30 seconds for defence.

(rumblylizard) #17

Well, a similar system works fairly well on the battlefield games without massive spawn camping. By allowing players to chose where to spawn it would mean that the opposition can’t lock down an area completely because they need to spread their resources.

Some options -
You could prevent placing of mines/turrets in the immediate vicinity of command posts
Alternatively a second or two of invincibility on spawn would prevent these from being issues

I do agree though, that the main issue comes from the other side not being able to recapture the command posts that easily.

Some options to prevent that from being an issue:
Make disguised operatives be able to capture command posts without breaking disguise
Have a higher respawn timer if you chose to spawn from the command post [perhaps an additional 5 seconds]

While I admit, i’m not thinking these ideas completely through as I have better things to do - this would achieve making the operative a much more useful character for both offence and defence and hopefully reduce spawn camping. Also, as it stands, I think command posts are under utilised. Given how frequently the AI go off to capture them they should have a higher purpose. In general, I can’t really see the point in wasting valuable time in capturing them as it stands unless you have the engineer upgrade

Issues such as not being able to get out of the first spawn area though [i.e. container city] would still be a problem.

(tokamak) #18

I’m not content with the current forward spawns. They’re in line with the whole ‘carrot over stick’ aproach by simply giving a buff and nothing more. While there certainly is a place for such spawns, the entire idea of the forward spawns in ET and ETQW is that they had a HUGE impact on the dynamic of the match.

Forward spawns in these games were highly sensitive points of importance that could make or break an entire attack. They were my favourite part of the game. With a bit of cleverness and brute force I could single-handedly stop an ongoing attack dead in it’s tracks by adding a twenty second delay (of travel time) between two waves.

At the same time going for forward spawns was also an incredibly costly affair and only worth it if it succeeds, teams could fail because a few too many players got caught up in their little sub-conflicts over these spawns.

These things created a lot of potential power to players. It allows players to be more than just the grunt and supply caddy of the team. If the opportunity presented itself, it allowed you to be a Machiavellian master strategists that decided the battle.

The added a layer of tactical depth but also psychology to the game. You could simply bluff and go for one attempt causing the other team to be constantly aware and paranoid over their forward spawn while you were long gone and doing something else.

So yeah, I deeply miss these things. Forward spawns that give buffs are nice but in the end nobody really cares about them. I’ve seen people frequently run past them while they were uncaptured. Not even important to even check if they’re yours.

With Brink’s limited freedom in the maps (face it, in the other two games you could go wherever you liked), I’d say that turning command posts into forward spawns would be too drastic a change. But if they could affect spawn timers that would be wonderful. Of course the 10 second thing in the poll is nonsense, these timer delays need to be considered on a case by case basis.

(prophett) #19

A 15/20s offensive spawn and a 25/30s defensive spawn would solve a lot of the problems.

(suho) #20

Forward Spawn points were very important in QW but I dont think it would work in Brink because you can get to the obj pretty fast on all maps. Adjustments to the spawn time is the logical choice here. Right now the only way to break the defence is to rush them (from behind if possible), take risks and to not be afraid of dying.