The rise of the spawn campers

(Nesodos) #1

I might sound like a noob, whining about awful team balance right now but lately i’ve seen a lot more of those situations in objective or stopwatch where one team with at least 4 lvl 20+ is totally owning the other team while they dont even have one player over lvl 15 (or any other huge imbalance)
I’m playing since meltdown and got 125 steam hours till now (ingame near 12) and saw this increase in imbalance since WTD event started

like always the better team refuses to shuffle and starts to spawncamp, locking the other team into place while annihilating them without any real resistance
i’ve been in both situations, on the suppressed side and on the a**hole side that just keeps on slaughtering the defenseless

i know this is more a problem with the “special” team balance rather than anything else but i think there should be something done about this awful practice of “professional gaming”

my first idea was something like a big (blue) energy shield, set up by the fraction you are fighting for (map integrated)
your team can shoot through but the enemy team can’t

my second thought was a small, well marked restricted area (cross hatched ground and wall paintings) around the spawn of each team, representing the danger zone where (undestroyable, map integrated) automated turrets shoot high caliber rounds at the enemy,

any thoughts on this, new ideas or something similar?

and please dont reply by saying “git gud” or “start playing better”
it’s not always possible to carry the entire team of noobs when the entire enemy team got superior loadouts and plays like a bunch of pros, or just have 2 good sparks’s (?) killing everything

(PeneTraitor) #2

At what point does/should the spawn end? I’ve been accused of spawn camping for going behind the building to knife snipers on chapel. How is it fair that a sniper can shoot from there but if I kill him I am spawncamping?
Also, define “superior loadout”

(SnakekillerX) #3

This has been brought up what seems like hundreds of times already.
The thing is… if your team is getting wrecked to the point where the enemy can spawn camp you, adding a safe zone to spawns won’t really solve the issue as the enemy team will then just kill you at the next possible location that they can.

The issue is in regards of team balance first and for most, anti-spawn camping prevention won’t really serve to do too much to correct the problem… as again, its likely already too late for your team by that point.

(Nesodos) #4

i had the exact same situation on a stopwatch on chapel today, but on the side of the slaughtered

the enemy team had 4 lvl 20, 2 artys, one golden with a dreiss that nearly instakilled on any range, presumely with a mouse macro, one silver with a stark with nearly the same firerate, one sparks with a golden 383 companion agent, and the last lvl 20 was a quite bad aura with a bronze blish loadout

i joined after the enemy team completed the first 2 stages within 2 minutes and we couldnt hold them off anymore
after we switched sides, my team couldnt even reach the ev anymore

after some long range firefights against the dreiss arty, he decided to go around the building and kill 3 of us before we could finish him off

after that he camped behind the passage and killed everything that came through until the sparks and the other arty followed

whatever we did we didnt even have a chance to get into the small passage because they bombed the entrance with their artillary and sparks killed with continuous revivr headshots

on the other exit of the spawn hut camped the aura and the rest of the enemy team

im not against blocking off the entire passage but the enemy team shouldnt be allowed to kill the entire “attacking” team the second their protection vanishes
thats why i would love to have some shields that help the disadvantaged team to survive more than 2 seconds before waiting 20 seconds to respawn

Edit; fixed some typos

(LifeupOmega) #5

If you block spawn from one team, the camp will just sit outside that line. You can’t fix spawn camping. It happens when one team is bad, uncoordinated or just out-classed by the other.

Public is never balanced.

(N8o) #6

[quote=“Nesodos;139798”]i had the exact same situation on a stopwatch on chapel today, but on the side of the slaughtered

the enemy team had 4 lvl 20, 2 artys, one golden with a dreiss that nearly instakilled on any range, presumely with a mouse macro, one silver with a stark with nearly the same firerate, one sparks with a golden 383 companion agent, and the last lvl 20 was a quite bad aura with a bronze blish loadout

i joined after the enemy team completed the first 2 stages within 2 minutes and we couldnt hold them off anymore
after we switched sides, my team couldnt even reach the ev anymore

after some long range firefights against the dreiss arty, he decided to go around the building and kill 3 of us before we could finish him off

after that he camped behind the passage and killed everything that came through until the sparks and the other arty followed

whatever we did we didnt even have a chance to get into the small passage because they bombed the entrance with their artillary and sparks killed with continuous revivr headshots

on the other exit of the spawn hut camped the aura and the rest of the enemy team

im not against blocking off the entire passage but the enemy team shouldnt be allowed to kill the entire “attacking” team the second their protection vanishes
thats why i would love to have some shields that help the disadvantaged team to survive more than 2 seconds before waiting 20 seconds to respawn

Edit; fixed some typos
[/quote]

First, why does the rarity of the card matter?

Second, adding spawn shields has already been seen to not work in games like Planetside 2. It becomes so boring to the point that neither team shoots any bullets and just waits for the time limit to drop to 0:00. It’s not game mechanics at fault here, it’s people.

(Backuplight) #7

Spawn camping is never the real issue. If they’re outclassing you that much they’ll kill you on the objective or in your spawn. The fact people seem to throw up their arms in a salty rage the moment they get killed in/near their spawn is its own factor - Sniping, shooting or otherwise exploding the people leaving the last defender spawn on Chapel seems to encourage this the most.

If my team is getting camped it just becomes a game in itself to break that and wipe the attackers. Most spawns have plenty of ways out or means to flank, it’s really not that bad.

(Sorotia) #8

[quote=“Backuplight;139839”]Spawn camping is never the real issue. If they’re outclassing you that much they’ll kill you on the objective or in your spawn. The fact people seem to throw up their arms in a salty rage the moment they get killed in/near their spawn is its own factor - Sniping, shooting or otherwise exploding the people leaving the last defender spawn on Chapel seems to encourage this the most.

If my team is getting camped it just becomes a game in itself to break that and wipe the attackers. Most spawns have plenty of ways out or means to flank, it’s really not that bad.[/quote]

Still doesn’t make it any less weak or cheap…a very cowardly tactic to move in and take advantage of a respawn after a person or two decides to rage quite and you outnumber the team, so you move in so they have little or no chance at all to recover once/if new players join in.

(MarsRover) #9

[quote=“Sorotia;139847”][quote=“Backuplight;139839”]Spawn camping is never the real issue. If they’re outclassing you that much they’ll kill you on the objective or in your spawn. The fact people seem to throw up their arms in a salty rage the moment they get killed in/near their spawn is its own factor - Sniping, shooting or otherwise exploding the people leaving the last defender spawn on Chapel seems to encourage this the most.

If my team is getting camped it just becomes a game in itself to break that and wipe the attackers. Most spawns have plenty of ways out or means to flank, it’s really not that bad.[/quote]

Still doesn’t make it any less weak or cheap…a very cowardly tactic to move in and take advantage of a respawn after a person or two decides to rage quite and you outnumber the team, so you move in so they have little or no chance at all to recover once/if new players join in.[/quote]

Sorry, I want to play the game, not press Tab every few seconds to check if someone on the other team left. That’s why we badly need autobalance.

(triteCherry) #10

I find that certain maps have more of a problem of being spawn camped then others. Terminal is the best example of this since the defenders can cut off your alternate route which forces you to funnel in a specific area. Underground is another one as the best escape from spawn camping is the elevator which can be easily defended, both routes out of the first base funnels attackers easily enough.

Dome on the other hand I have yet seen to be successfully spawn camped because the map is large, open and each alternate path is long and wide enough that defenders don’t have the resources or time to continually withstand wave after wave of attackers, even bad ones.

IMO it’s a map design issue.

(Dawnlazy) #11

Sometimes it’s pretty much impossible to win without spawncamping. Attackers are pretty much obligated to challenge the defenders’ spawnwaves in the last objective of Trainyard for instance unless you’re feeling like acing the entire enemy team 2-3 times while at the same time each death on your side delays your push by about 2 spawnwaves.

(gg2ez) #12

Spawn camping? You mean defending? If your team is uncoordinated enough to be pushed into their spawn, it’s not anything to do with the game, it’s just your team being outplayed.

(Black) #13

I’m still not understanding why your protection is lowered by 50% if you shoot or take action.
Spawn killing is not ok and really frustrating to the team that’s getting killed.

Why aren’t we given 100% invincibility for 3-5 seconds when we spawn like almost every shooter has.

(Sorotia) #14

[quote=“MarsRover;139848”][quote=“Sorotia;139847”][quote=“Backuplight;139839”]Spawn camping is never the real issue. If they’re outclassing you that much they’ll kill you on the objective or in your spawn. The fact people seem to throw up their arms in a salty rage the moment they get killed in/near their spawn is its own factor - Sniping, shooting or otherwise exploding the people leaving the last defender spawn on Chapel seems to encourage this the most.

If my team is getting camped it just becomes a game in itself to break that and wipe the attackers. Most spawns have plenty of ways out or means to flank, it’s really not that bad.[/quote]

Still doesn’t make it any less weak or cheap…a very cowardly tactic to move in and take advantage of a respawn after a person or two decides to rage quite and you outnumber the team, so you move in so they have little or no chance at all to recover once/if new players join in.[/quote]

Sorry, I want to play the game, not press Tab every few seconds to check if someone on the other team left. That’s why we badly need autobalance.[/quote]

Maybe don’t spawn camp? But where is the fun in that…you’re already dominating, why not add insult to injury so they have no chance of making it a real game.

Lets be honest…spawn campers don’t want a game…they just want a easy breeze win.

(Amerika) #15

If my team is spawn camping I either try to switch sides or I go run laps around maps making race car noises to myself. If my team is in a perpetual spawn camp cycle of people joining and immediately leaving only to have 2-3 more people join, wait 60+ seconds while in the lobby and then immediately leave I will then leave. It doesn’t happen too often to me but when it does I just leave and go to another server and I don’t really even think much of it. Stuff happens in pubs.

Hell, I watched a couple of really good teams get spawn camped during DB nation matches yesterday.

(XavienX) #16

How about a safe zone that keeps you invincible even if you run back. You become vulnerable to damage once you step out of that zone. That way people won’t mess with spawn camping because they can’t kill anyone in that area.

(MarsRover) #17

Please define where spawncamping begins. Is it knowledge of spawn timers, flanking with Fragger and tossing a nade that wipes half the team coming out of spawn? This allows everyone to push up and oh noes you bad bad spawncampers stop oppressing me. Is it going around the hangar on Chapel to take out snipers? Is it throwing an airstrike on Terminal right in front of spawn just as defenders are rushing out?

Spawncamping is only a symptom. Either the camped team team has bad composition, or is outskilled, or people left. None of these is a fault of the other team, with obvious exceptions like stacking etc. If you can’t break out of spawn you will not win, period. Creating any invulnerability areas only pushes the camping border a few meters back.

By the time it’s obvious that one team isn’t getting out of spawn it is too late for anything other than a forced shuffle. That team is clearly less skilled, multiple people down and a revolving door of people immediately leaving. I’m all for a shuffle and press F1 but we all know how that goes.

Yeah let’s blame lack of casual matchmaking on players wanting to play the game to the best of their ability.

I’ve had games where attackers spammed shuffle votes instead of looking at their team composition and realizing that for example 2 shotgun Auras, 3 Phantoms and a Skyhammer aren’t the best choices on phase 1 of Chapel…

It has to be really small, like spawn area +1m radius. Otherwise there’s a risk of creating an invicible Vassili or Kira spot.

(Xan) #18

you doesn’t know the real meaning of “balance” until you played 1v8 mate

(LifeupOmega) #19

[quote=“Sorotia;139882”][quote=“MarsRover;139848”][quote=“Sorotia;139847”][quote=“Backuplight;139839”]Spawn camping is never the real issue. If they’re outclassing you that much they’ll kill you on the objective or in your spawn. The fact people seem to throw up their arms in a salty rage the moment they get killed in/near their spawn is its own factor - Sniping, shooting or otherwise exploding the people leaving the last defender spawn on Chapel seems to encourage this the most.

If my team is getting camped it just becomes a game in itself to break that and wipe the attackers. Most spawns have plenty of ways out or means to flank, it’s really not that bad.[/quote]

Still doesn’t make it any less weak or cheap…a very cowardly tactic to move in and take advantage of a respawn after a person or two decides to rage quite and you outnumber the team, so you move in so they have little or no chance at all to recover once/if new players join in.[/quote]

Sorry, I want to play the game, not press Tab every few seconds to check if someone on the other team left. That’s why we badly need autobalance.[/quote]

Maybe don’t spawn camp? But where is the fun in that…you’re already dominating, why not add insult to injury so they have no chance of making it a real game.

Lets be honest…spawn campers don’t want a game…they just want a easy breeze win.[/quote]

Spawn camping is a legitimate tactic that has been utilised throughout all of this game and its predecessors lifetimes. If you can’t break a camp where the people doing it have to run further than you do, you’re just outmatched.

In fact, its almost required to hold down spawn on various maps due to their layout. I have no qualms about airstriking a fresh spawn coming out of Chapel last for instance, on either side, if it means buying that little bit more time.

It’s not their fault that people can’t coordinate enough to push out of spawn anyway, maybe if we had some sort of ranked mode that could pit people of similar skill against each other this would be less of a thing. The dream, right?

#20

Spawnkilling is totally fine and so is voting no on shuffle calls, what’s not fine is that there is no way out other than disconnecting.