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Prepare to be farmed: Cap ships in TDM no longer fire at enemies


ptwonline

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New patch notes:

"Capital Ships in Galactic Starfighter’s Team Deathmatch mode will no longer fire at opposing players"

 

Cap ships were indeed a problem, but removing their turrets will lead to spawn point camping.

 

What needed to happen instead is moving the spawn points much further back so that respawning players would actually have some time to go evasive and avoid some of the blockade. Without guns you will need to give respawned players a short invulnerability (and no firing back) window, otherwise it will be 2 rows of gunships killing everything or minelayers saturating the spawn point.

 

Yes, you can always use the other spawn point if one is being camped, but this will inevitably lead to one side separated into two groups and easy to kill, or getting strung out and killed one by one.

 

Something had to be done, but this is just taking one problem and replacing it with a potentially worse problem.

Edited by ptwonline
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A potentially better change would have been removing the capital ships and having 4-6 spawn points spread on the map. Without capital ships present it can be hard to guage your bearings and push towards spawn points, and with more spawn points, it reduces the potential to spawn camp.

 

Maybe even switching spawn locations periodically between Republic and Empire so that suddenly your enemy can spawn behind you could help alleviate spawn camping and add a new angle to TDM

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The team that was getting pushed back to their cap ship was ALREADY getting farmed. The only thing they did by sitting in the protection of the cap ship was prolong a lopsided match.

 

While I don't think this is a good long term fix, at least we can end those matches quicker. Also if I feel so inclined I can chase those gunships all the way back to their ship and finish them off without fear of the insta-death.

 

EDIT: They could extend the exhaustion area to the immediate area around the cap ship so the enemy can't sit behind where you spawn and shoot you from behind. That would be really annoying.

Edited by okiobe
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At least somoene at BW has some sense. If the object of the match is to kill the opposing team, putting 4 indestructable oneshotting turrests in the map is just retarded.

 

Poor guys will actually have to go out and... *gasp* fight! OH THE HORROR.

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If this is a short term solution while they work on a better long term solution, I think it's fine. Two spawn points won't stop all spawn camping, as good teams will still be able to cover both, but it'll be a rare team that can do so effectively. The turret tactics used in TDM are a more immediate problem than Domination, so it make sense to patch it for now. (Like I said, so long as they are working on a better long term solution.)

 

I think the better long term solution would be protected spawn areas you can't re-enter like ground PvP instances have. Although I don't have a problem with people using them for cover so long as the mechanics work that way (it's PvP, so use what you have) I really don't like any "safe retreat" zone existing in a PvP instance.

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The team that was getting pushed back to their cap ship was ALREADY getting farmed. The only thing they did by sitting in the protection of the cap ship was prolong a lopsided match.

The more problematic tactic I've seen is one team setting up a protected zone immediately in front of their spawn area with bombers, and filling it with gunships. With one approach covered by one shot AI turrets, and little to no cover to approach them from the sides, turtle tactics like that make TDM matches gunship grinds.

 

All that said, I think I'm going to reverse my thoughts on this one, as it just occurred to me that this change will allow bombers to plant massive mine fields immediately over the spawn point, killing you as you emerge. With that tactic, it's totally possible to cover both spawn points and literally farm teams as they emerge. Combining drones and mines will make it impossible to boost away from the kill zone before being targeted.

 

Unless I am missing something, I expect to see this happening in every lopsided TDM match out there... :(

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The more problematic tactic I've seen is one team setting up a protected zone immediately in front of their spawn area with bombers, and filling it with gunships. With one approach covered by one shot AI turrets, and little to no cover to approach them from the sides, turtle tactics like that make TDM matches gunship grinds.

 

All that said, I think I'm going to reverse my thoughts on this one, as it just occurred to me that this change will allow bombers to plant massive mine fields immediately over the spawn point, killing you as you emerge. With that tactic, it's totally possible to cover both spawn points and literally farm teams as they emerge. Combining drones and mines will make it impossible to boost away from the kill zone before being targeted.

 

Unless I am missing something, I expect to see this happening in every lopsided TDM match out there... :(

 

Yeah cause mines do 10k damage a pop, right? A fleet of bombers would be slaughtered by any half-competent assortment of pilots as there is literally no cover whatsoever anywhere near the cap ships.

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Yeah cause mines do 10k damage a pop, right? A fleet of bombers would be slaughtered by any half-competent assortment of pilots as there is literally no cover whatsoever anywhere near the cap ships.

 

They don't need to, really, and competence isn't the question. (Since if you've been pushed back to both spawn points already we can assume matchmaking has failed, and the pushing team is much more skilled than the pushed.) Drop enough mines and drones in the spawn zone and you will be dead before you can actually boost away.

 

About the only limit will be that you can't get more than 50 kills in a TDM, so you probably don't have time to farm more than a few minutes.

 

Granted this won't happen in balanced (or even semi-balanced) games, but on my server about 50% of matches end up completely lopsided one way or the other. The others pretty much end up 1000 - 100ish or 50 - 10ish depending on the mode.

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You have 2 spawns and it isnt like most groups are going to split and camp both

 

Really?? There are 3 satellites in Domination. A decent (not even good) team can hold two with bombers and guns all day long. Like this won't happen now to an already FARMED team that has been pushed back to their caps.

 

It will only take 4 Gun ships ... two at 14k from each spawn point to totally shut down the other team. Two fixed spawns will be easily camped. One gun Ions and the other rails. Spawn dead, spawn dead. I've not even put two Bombers in the mix yet.

 

This is a BAD idea.

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I think the best solution I've seen was to leave the turrets, but make the area they protect an exhaustion zone. Then give each ship a 10-15 second (or however long is deemed appropriate) buff upon spawning that protects them from said exhaustion zone. That would prevent people from retreating to their own capitol ships, as well as prevent spawn camping. Edited by Delta_V
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I can pretty much guarantee that spawn ****** is going to happen on a regular basis now. I've seen a bunch of deathmatches on shipyards lately where the pub side has been pushed into balling around the shipyard complex around their default spawn, and the only thing keeping the match vaguely interesting is not being able to steamroll them over their cap ship.

 

If a team is getting pushed back to spawn, it won't take all of the other team to lock down one spawn, leaving plenty to do the same to the other one. 2x gunships and a minelayer is going to completely annihilate anything spawning. Why would newbies play if that started happening regularly?

 

Make this cross server and turn on matchmaking quick!

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Lazy fix that works against the purpose of including powerups. Game designers need to make mechanics work in harmony, not against each other.

 

Honest question. How does this work against the purpose of powerups?

 

On another note, spawning into a minefield would really suck.

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BW actually does something along the lines that a lot of us have been asking for and howls of derision ensue.

 

i don't think it'll be as bad as some claim.

 

There was no good reason for the asking to begin with. If someone got killed by a capital ship turret, they had bad situational awareness. What was needed was a way to stop people from AFKing for rewards, not removal of spawn protection.

 

This change will disproportionately hurt new players, which is horrible for the game. Why new players? Because, before this, there was no incentive to actively lure newbies to the capital ship, when you could easily kill them in the open. But there is now no disincentive to push as hard as possible to catch people as they spawn.

Edited by Fractalsponge
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New patch notes:

"Capital Ships in Galactic Starfighter’s Team Deathmatch mode will no longer fire at opposing players"

 

Cap ships were indeed a problem, but removing their turrets will lead to spawn point camping.

 

What needed to happen instead is moving the spawn points much further back so that respawning players would actually have some time to go evasive and avoid some of the blockade. Without guns you will need to give respawned players a short invulnerability (and no firing back) window, otherwise it will be 2 rows of gunships killing everything or minelayers saturating the spawn point.

 

Yes, you can always use the other spawn point if one is being camped, but this will inevitably lead to one side separated into two groups and easy to kill, or getting strung out and killed one by one.

 

Something had to be done, but this is just taking one problem and replacing it with a potentially worse problem.

 

Finally, the Jedi Covenant Imperial modus operandi of parking 3-4 gunships in a picket line 15km from the capital ships every TDM will be rendered moot.

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Honest question. How does this work against the purpose of powerups?

 

Fair question. I'll try to explain myself.

 

One of the primary purposes of powerups is to encourage fights to spread out. Without powerups, TDM would basically turn into a killball at the center that rolls towards the losing team's capital ship. But because they exist, pilots break off from the primary dogfight to look for powerups while letting their shields regen (or, in some cases, simply break off for the sole purpose of finding a powerup).

 

The existence of capital ship turrets creates a "bubble" where one side or the other cannot fly. Most of the time, this bubble expands as gunships park under the turrets and force enemy pilots back. Again, this encourages spreading out -- if you're on one side of the gunship's firing arc and your buddy's on the other, he can't shoot at both of you. With multiple gunships under cover of the capital ship, you're best off just backing up and making a screen to intercept their scouts and strikes. It's cheesy, but it accomplishes the goal of spreading out forces and preventing the (winning) team from forming a killball.

 

Without capital ship turrets, there's nothing preventing that killball from rolling onto the enemy capital ship and shooting people as they spawn, unless your scouts and strikes can clear things out enough for your gunships to set up shop -- but if you're pushed back to your capital ship, I don't see that as likely.

 

The addition of a third capital ship to each side of the map theoretically improves things by making it less obvious where people have gone if they're not spawning in the killball... but I have a hard time believing most people will think to spawn anywhere other than the default location. I could be wrong, though, and I'll certainly be telling my team to spawn elsewhere if we're getting farmed.

 

On another note, spawning into a minefield would really suck.

 

I don't know that that will actually happen. The cooldown on mines might be enough that one person spawns into a minefield while everyone else comes out in the clear and wails on the bomber, or there might be some code in place to prevent you spawning within a certain distance of a mine. On the other hand, neither of those could be true. We'll have to see.

 

BW actually does something along the lines that a lot of us have been asking for and howls of derision ensue.

 

i don't think it'll be as bad as some claim.

 

I never asked for this. I've specifically asked for them to follow Nemarus' suggestion (multiple hyperspace beacons scattered about the map with randomized spawn locations). The current suggestion is still very predictable, especially given the likelyhood of most players to simply spawn at the default location. That's a huge problem, and my main complaint about the new system.

Edited by Armonddd
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The fact that they have mines on your spawn zone means the match started sucking long before that. :)

 

I agree with that. Personally I've never been spawn camped even in blowout games. I can see that troll bomber who's going to fly on the edge of the map to the enemy spawn just so he can drop a couple mines at the spawn point. That probably would be really rare but spawning into an explosion of your death would suck, especially if your previous death was frustrating (BR into a rock. sadly my most common method of death) :)

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