So....let's make things simpler, shall we? (Spawn Timers and Spawn Times)

(watsyurdeal) #1

  1. The Spawn Timers for both teams are shown, so you know very clearly how much time you have before the next wave. Heck you can even add voice lines like “Enemy Reinforcements are here!” and “Our backup is here!”, or just single audio cues that are distinct for each team.

  2. Spawn Times should be different for each team, Attackers Spawns are every 20-25 seconds, and Defenders are every 30-35 seconds. This is because Defenders are by nature, closer to the point. No amount of moving spawns is going to change that, but changing the times so Defenders have longer spawns, is the best way to go. Since Attackers have their spawn, then about 5-8 seconds of getting there to the point.

(Yoma) #2

That spawntimers are different due to the fact that people join/leave during the game is indeed a pain.

Regarding increasing spawntimers of defender, i dont think that it should be done because just that they’re closer to the point doesnt have to mean much in the end because once you get killed as defender, then its pretty much game over. Increasing the time even further wont let you even have the slightest chance at fighting a second time for the obj.

Another thing are rooms with less people (e.g. 4 on both teams) where attacker have the clear advantage.

(SteelMailbox) #3

I don’t very much like the idea of both those things for the following reasons:

  1. We can already know when our team spawns and in SW and Competitive we know when their team spawns, Objective is meant as the casual gamemode thus making it not so serious by nature which is why the spawn timers are different. Yes it is frustrating to go through their spawn to flank and all hell released on you at once but just knowing when the enemy spawns in OBJ could lead to even more frustrating games IMO
  2. 20-25 seconds is a pain enough. If you got killed at the moment the team spawned you are stuck there for 20 seconds waiting which doesn’t lead to any fun gameplay, let alone 30-35 seconds. Another thing is that defenders will be in a huge disadvantage cause if for some reason the entire team is wiped after like 5 seconds the entire team passes the spawn timer leading to pure 20-30 seconds of total boredom in a fast paced shooter.

I can see what you are going at but I personally just don’t find those ideas all that good.

(Amerika) #4

The spawn timers in OBJ are way less cheesy than in SW. The spawn timers are part of why I sometimes really dislike SW. There is absolutely no reason for spawn timers to not be offset and be somewhat random so that you can’t grenade their spawn routes or use area denial tactics extremely easily. Lining up a Fragger grenade based on a certain time and a common route is easily one of the dumbest things in this game yet it’s a feature of the most competitive mode. I will never ever understand this design decision as there is nothing good about it…unless you love getting unearned kills and don’t mind cheap deaths.

It’s one thing to react to an incoming spawn by using your abilities. It’s another thing entirely to have a set play based on exact times of common routes that are mostly fire and forget and are designed to be done with little risk and little chance for avoidance.

(Yoma) #5

Chapel at its best. :bawling:

(blonk) #6

It’s only as cheap as knowing, say, pickup respawn timers in a game like Quake. I do agree that it’s a bit dumb but proponents would point it as “skill” due to the timing and awareness required

(Amerika) #7

Throwing a grenade at an exact time to kill 1-3 people is not a skill outside of figuring out the exact timing in the first place. It’s a set play and is designed to not require a ton of skill or risk and it’s common in DB and it shouldn’t be. And it’s nothing even remotely like how Quake pick-ups work in regards to game mechanics or impacts on the game flow.

Reacting to a new spawn you had to visually see (meaning there is risk to you and tip-offs to them) is actually skillful. Throwing a grenade at a place as the timer hits 17 seconds is not.

(watsyurdeal) #8

[quote=“Amerika;189744”]The spawn timers in OBJ are way less cheesy than in SW. The spawn timers are part of why I sometimes really dislike SW. There is absolutely no reason for spawn timers to not be offset and be somewhat random so that you can’t grenade their spawn routes or use area denial tactics extremely easily. Lining up a Fragger grenade based on a certain time and a common route is easily one of the dumbest things in this game yet it’s a feature of the most competitive mode. I will never ever understand this design decision as there is nothing good about it…unless you love getting unearned kills and don’t mind cheap deaths.

It’s one thing to react to an incoming spawn by using your abilities. It’s another thing entirely to have a set play based on exact times of common routes that are mostly fire and forget and are designed to be done with little risk and little chance for avoidance.[/quote]

Well part of that is because Spawns aren’t protected in the same manner as say TF2 or Overwatch.

You just spawn and have protection…why not just have a room where we spawn into? Where we can retreat and get ammo? Where the enemy can go into and kill us if we lose the first objective and try to stay in there like hermits.

To me, that particular issue is more of a map design choice if anything. And I don’t think it’s going to be fixed even with offset spawns, cause I can still see the avatars change for players when they spawn, and I can throw a nade there and get a kill.

Whether my idea goes in or not that won’t change.

(blonk) #9

Throwing a grenade at an exact time to kill 1-3 people is not a skill outside of figuring out the exact timing in the first place. It’s a set play and is designed to not require a ton of skill or risk and it’s common in DB and it shouldn’t be. And it’s nothing even remotely like how Quake pick-ups work in regards to game mechanics or impacts on the game flow.

Reacting to a new spawn you had to visually see (meaning there is risk to you and tip-offs to them) is actually skillful. Throwing a grenade at a place as the timer hits 17 seconds is not.[/quote]

I didn’t intend to suggest they were similar in mechanics - only that they are about as cheap as each other. Individual skill fades into the background and instead the player with the map knowledge and cycle awareness has the advantage. You may disagree but they did take steps to sort that “issue” in QL as it was frustrating for newbies. You don’t think there’s similarity between the two?

(B_Montiel) #10

Well they went for that route…
I quite dislike that synchronous spawn timer. There are way too many ways of using it without taking any risk at all, and those mechanics would require some serious skills/awareness if you did not have enemy spawn times thrown on your screen.

I’d be interested in seeing a discreet spawn time moving (in a +/-2s bracket) with the progression of the objective (especially during EV escorts tasks), just to desynch your and the enemy spawn time slightly.

But don’t forget that changing spawn times implies a lot, including spawn location and such. That’s not a simple potentiometer you can fiddle with without making mechanic changes accordingly. Very important parts of map design mechanics are (or at least are supposed to be) built around it.

(Amerika) #11

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;189751”][quote=“Amerika;189744”]The spawn timers in OBJ are way less cheesy than in SW. The spawn timers are part of why I sometimes really dislike SW. There is absolutely no reason for spawn timers to not be offset and be somewhat random so that you can’t grenade their spawn routes or use area denial tactics extremely easily. Lining up a Fragger grenade based on a certain time and a common route is easily one of the dumbest things in this game yet it’s a feature of the most competitive mode. I will never ever understand this design decision as there is nothing good about it…unless you love getting unearned kills and don’t mind cheap deaths.

It’s one thing to react to an incoming spawn by using your abilities. It’s another thing entirely to have a set play based on exact times of common routes that are mostly fire and forget and are designed to be done with little risk and little chance for avoidance.[/quote]

Well part of that is because Spawns aren’t protected in the same manner as say TF2 or Overwatch.

You just spawn and have protection…why not just have a room where we spawn into? Where we can retreat and get ammo? Where the enemy can go into and kill us if we lose the first objective and try to stay in there like hermits.

To me, that particular issue is more of a map design choice if anything. And I don’t think it’s going to be fixed even with offset spawns, cause I can still see the avatars change for players when they spawn, and I can throw a nade there and get a kill.

Whether my idea goes in or not that won’t change.[/quote]

Spawns are not protected as you move forward in Overwatch. Only the initial spawn area. In maps where the spawn point changes over the course of the map you can’t have spawn protection. Also, I am not talking about spawn camping. I am talking about route denial to give yourself a very huge advantage either in alive players or in time due to denying routes with very little risk to yourself and little loss of firepower compared to the giant advantage you can get. Nobody in competitive DB grenades spawns because there is personal spawn shields and you’d be over-extended and exposed. They grenade routes from spots where they can’t be harmed with either Fragger grenades, Nader nades, Arty strikes, Kira lasers etc. And due to the syncronized timers they have no need to expose themselves to check the timing so they can simply fire off an ability at a pre-set time and at minimum deny an area and make people lose time or get a bunch of kills. All with little risk or personal skill involved outside of learning the initial timings.

Throwing a grenade at an exact time to kill 1-3 people is not a skill outside of figuring out the exact timing in the first place. It’s a set play and is designed to not require a ton of skill or risk and it’s common in DB and it shouldn’t be. And it’s nothing even remotely like how Quake pick-ups work in regards to game mechanics or impacts on the game flow.

Reacting to a new spawn you had to visually see (meaning there is risk to you and tip-offs to them) is actually skillful. Throwing a grenade at a place as the timer hits 17 seconds is not.[/quote]

I didn’t intend to suggest they were similar in mechanics - only that they are about as cheap as each other. Individual skill fades into the background and instead the player with the map knowledge and cycle awareness has the advantage. You may disagree but they did take steps to sort that “issue” in QL as it was frustrating for newbies. You don’t think there’s similarity between the two?[/quote]

They are not the same thing. This is not apples to apples here. You can bait armor/hp and even weapons sometimes (depending on the situation) in Quake. But you can also get countered if the person doesn’t take the bait and goes somewhere else. And typically denying that item is you picking it up as opposed to trying to get a kill using it as a bait. There is a huge meta game for item pick-up and baiting in Q3. That’s the mental aspect of dueling in a deathmatch game. There are also multiple items and timers to keep track. And in Q3 you still have to wait and shoot people who went for the bait and react to them.

In DB you don’t have to visually see your opponents at all. You use an ability at a certain time and profit in one form or another when done right. So no…starting to fire Nader nades off of a particular wall at 15 seconds on a clock where you’re fully under cover half a map away is not skillful beyond learning the position/shot/timing in the first place (which most people won’t even come up with themselves). You’re not reacting to what other players are doing. You just play the odds where there is little risk to yourself and no need to react or outplay a person. That’s my issue.

(blonk) #12

[quote=“Amerika;189755”]

Throwing a grenade at an exact time to kill 1-3 people is not a skill outside of figuring out the exact timing in the first place. It’s a set play and is designed to not require a ton of skill or risk and it’s common in DB and it shouldn’t be. And it’s nothing even remotely like how Quake pick-ups work in regards to game mechanics or impacts on the game flow.

Reacting to a new spawn you had to visually see (meaning there is risk to you and tip-offs to them) is actually skillful. Throwing a grenade at a place as the timer hits 17 seconds is not.[/quote]

I didn’t intend to suggest they were similar in mechanics - only that they are about as cheap as each other. Individual skill fades into the background and instead the player with the map knowledge and cycle awareness has the advantage. You may disagree but they did take steps to sort that “issue” in QL as it was frustrating for newbies. You don’t think there’s similarity between the two?[/quote]

They are not the same thing. This is not apples to apples here. You can bait armor/hp and even weapons sometimes (depending on the situation) in Quake. But you can also get countered if the person doesn’t take the bait and goes somewhere else. And typically denying that item is you picking it up as opposed to trying to get a kill using it as a bait. There is a huge meta game for item pick-up and baiting in Q3. That’s the mental aspect of dueling in a deathmatch game. There are also multiple items and timers to keep track. And in Q3 you still have to wait and shoot people who went for the bait and react to them.

In DB you don’t have to visually see your opponents at all. You use an ability at a certain time and profit in one form or another when done right. So no…starting to fire Nader nades off of a particular wall at 15 seconds on a clock where you’re fully under cover half a map away is not skillful beyond learning the position/shot/timing in the first place (which most people won’t even come up with themselves). You’re not reacting to what other players are doing. You just play the odds where there is little risk to yourself and no need to react or outplay a person. That’s my issue.[/quote]

Totally agree that the concept of players on equal footing that all of that baiting and meta can emerge, but for the average to low player it’s not like that at all when against opponents in the know, in Quake or in DB. They don’t know the map as well, don’t know the times as well and get trod on every time because they don’t have that knowledge. It’s not particularly on topic so I don’t really want to dwell on it but the root frustration is the same. That’s why the QL team tried to solve it.

(Amerika) #13

Well, this conversation, or at least my part in it, is not debating how well new player plays Quake. And, again, you still have to react to somebody taking the bait and expose yourself. That’s not the case with what I’m talking about in DB. I get what you’re trying to say but it’s not really comparable or applicable for this particular talking point.

(Jostabeere) #14

I don’t like either of the ideas. Keeping is short and simple.

  1. They should not be visible. Much harder for a team to spawntrap a whole team with an airstrike or grenades. Visible timers are basically the end for defenders on maps like Chapel.
  2. The defenders are supposed to be faster at the objective they defend than attackers so they can actually have a defence set-up.
(Dawnlazy) #15

[quote=“Amerika;189744”]The spawn timers in OBJ are way less cheesy than in SW. The spawn timers are part of why I sometimes really dislike SW. There is absolutely no reason for spawn timers to not be offset and be somewhat random so that you can’t grenade their spawn routes or use area denial tactics extremely easily. Lining up a Fragger grenade based on a certain time and a common route is easily one of the dumbest things in this game yet it’s a feature of the most competitive mode. I will never ever understand this design decision as there is nothing good about it…unless you love getting unearned kills and don’t mind cheap deaths.

It’s one thing to react to an incoming spawn by using your abilities. It’s another thing entirely to have a set play based on exact times of common routes that are mostly fire and forget and are designed to be done with little risk and little chance for avoidance.[/quote]

You can do the same in OBJ though, just press Tab to see when the opponents respawn and then time it mentally as soon as one of their portraits refreshes. And aside from spawnkills, I think that it’s one of the more interesting features of SW, being able to look at the timer and instictively predict where most of your opponents should be depending on which route they took, something which in OBJ mode annoys me since unless I’m specifically looking out for their respawn with the aforementioned method it can mean people randomly appearing in the least expected places and ruining carefully thought out plays.

(Mrarauzz) #16

@Dawnrazor you don’t even need to tab just look at the HUD and it shows you when they spawn…it’s silly imo

(Dawnlazy) #17

Oh but that’s the “new” HUD which I don’t like because of no HP bars for team mates.

(doxjq) #18

Why does it matter if the spawn waves are different or offset though? The game tells you when they spawn, you just have to look up the top of your screen and wait for the little X to disappear off their icon, and then you know their spawn time any way.

(Amerika) #19

[quote=“Dawnrazor;189796”][quote=“Amerika;189744”]The spawn timers in OBJ are way less cheesy than in SW. The spawn timers are part of why I sometimes really dislike SW. There is absolutely no reason for spawn timers to not be offset and be somewhat random so that you can’t grenade their spawn routes or use area denial tactics extremely easily. Lining up a Fragger grenade based on a certain time and a common route is easily one of the dumbest things in this game yet it’s a feature of the most competitive mode. I will never ever understand this design decision as there is nothing good about it…unless you love getting unearned kills and don’t mind cheap deaths.

It’s one thing to react to an incoming spawn by using your abilities. It’s another thing entirely to have a set play based on exact times of common routes that are mostly fire and forget and are designed to be done with little risk and little chance for avoidance.[/quote]

You can do the same in OBJ though, just press Tab to see when the opponents respawn and then time it mentally as soon as one of their portraits refreshes. And aside from spawnkills, I think that it’s one of the more interesting features of SW, being able to look at the timer and instictively predict where most of your opponents should be depending on which route they took, something which in OBJ mode annoys me since unless I’m specifically looking out for their respawn with the aforementioned method it can mean people randomly appearing in the least expected places and ruining carefully thought out plays.[/quote]

If they changed the spawn timers the portrait tip-offs would be removed. And looking at a timer and hedging your bet on routes taken and using abilities in hopes that you get people with little risk to yourself isn’t playing instinctual or a well laid out plan. It’s easily one of the least skillful things in this game. It’s as bad as the “set nades” in Call of Duty 1.

I don’t see how anybody could enjoy this at all when playing.

(doxjq) #20

Well the other problem is half of the spawn traps involve being able to see them spawn. Even if you weren’t sure you could simply keep an eye on them. Defenders on Underground is a good example for this. People often peek over the top of the escalators to see which side the enemies are going to come up and time the nade for when they reach the top. I don’t see how they can physically stop that.

But yeah there’s no harm in removing the teams icons and altering the spawn wave timers.