Ever since 2.6 came out, I've hated TDM games. They always devolved into one side sitting at their spawn on gunships, protected by their capital ship turrets, out of reach of enemy scouts and strike fighters. The only people on the opposing team who could do anything were other gunships. You would see games where one team had 7 out of 8 people flying gunships, never leaving their capital ship, and the players on the opposing team were forced to switch to gunships also as a result.

 

I hate playing gunships, and these games were excruciatingly boring and frustrating while playing a strike fighter or scout. I had to keep track of when I hit another ship, and when the timer got close to one minute, make a suicide run on one of the ships sitting at the capital ship, to try and hit it and barrel-roll away before getting blown to bits by turrets and/or enemy gunships. Otherwise I would get marked as inactive, for lack of a reachable target, and lose the few reqs I earned for the game. Most of the time, I would get killed as a result, respawning at the opposite end of the map, taking forever to get back to the action, only to have nothing to do for the next minute as all the enemy ships were sitting out of reach.

 

Having a safe zone in a TDM game just flat out does not work. It would be like having artillery in ground pvp arenas, so that the team who is losing can go sit next to it, out of reach of the other team who would risk getting blown up if they go anywhere close. It just breaks that type of game mode.

 

Last night, everything changed. As a result of the loss of turrets, the enemy team was not able to hide at their capital ship on gunships anymore. The action spread out all over the map. There was finally dog-fighting! All types of ships had a role to play, not just gunships. A previously mind-numbingly boring game mode turned into a wonderfully dynamic mix of wild dog-fighting and high-speed chases through deep canyons (I really love that map now), stalking bombers through narrow passages while trying to disarm their traps, using terrain to ambush gunships or risk getting ambushed by them, etc... It was so much fun!

 

The good gunship pilots were still at the top of the scoreboard, but the bad ones were getting slaughtered with no safe zone to run to. I must admit I greatly enjoyed blowing those "deer-in-the-headlight" gunships out of the sky in my strike fighter. Playing a gunship now requires some skill, imagine that! By the end of the night, the balance in ship composition was much better, with a lot of dogfighters and maybe 2-3 gunships and 1-2 bombers per side, in a 12 v 12 game, instead of having more than half of each team in gunships like before the patch.

 

This was the most fun I'd had since 2.6 came out. This is what TDM should be. Camping was always dictated by the people huddling at their cap ship, not by their opponents, who were forced to go where their targets were, since the whole point of TDM is to kill enemy players.

 

The addition of a middle spawn point improved things in various ways, making the situation more unpredictable and also allowing players who got killed to return to the fight faster by using the middle spawn point, instead of being exiled to a far corner of the map at respawn.

 

So I wanted to say a big THANK YOU to the dev team for removing capital ship turrets from TDM and adding the middle spawn point. And I also want to express my appreciation for whoever designed the Kuat Mesa TDM map. It is absolutely awesome for dogfighting, now that the fight is actually occurring in those canyons instead of at a cap ship.

Edited February 27, 2014 by Gerfaut

You're kidding right? The fights are at the capital ships now.

I don't know what server you're playing on...

I play on the Harbinger, both on Pub and Imp sides. I played 11 games last night, most of them TDM, and only the first one had any kind of spawn camping going on, simply because the enemy team insisted on staying at their spawn or running back to it, so my team had to go there in order to get kills. It didn't make any sense for them to behave that way since there is a lot more cover away from the capital ships than around them, but maybe they hadn't read the patch notes and thought the turrets would still protect them...

 

As I said before, spawn camping is caused by the team staying at their spawn (or running back to their spawn to avoid being killed), not by the other team. Except for that one game where players were acting irrationally, the removal of turrets caused players from both teams to leave their capital ship after spawning, since there was no advantage in staying there. As a result, spawn camping did not happen. The fight naturally spread out all over the map and it was a lot of fun, with more dogfighting than I'd ever seen in TDM before.

 

The capital ship turrets providing a refuge were causing the spawn camping. Without turrets, there is almost no spawn camping going on because there is no reason for a team to stay at their spawn, and there is no reason for the other team to go to their enemy's spawn when the fighting is going on all over the map. Also, there are 3 different spawns and when an enemy dies, you can't predict which of the 3 spawns he is going to use, so fighting near the center of the map is more optimal than waiting near one of the spawn points.

No way have TDM been improved it has been ruined... spawncamping

Dropped a Rail sentry behind the spawn point in a match late last night. Fellow drone carrier did the same. Just sat back and watched, wondering when they would switch to the other spawn points. Didn't happen, they pretty much got melted before they could barrel roll away. Not really my idea of an improvement.

Dropped a Rail sentry behind the spawn point in a match late last night. Fellow drone carrier did the same. Just sat back and watched, wondering when they would switch to the other spawn points. Didn't happen, they pretty much got melted before they could barrel roll away. Not really my idea of an improvement.

 

 

I completely agree with you spawn camping doesn't require any skill or improves dog-fighting like so many spawn campers claim so they can get easy victory's instead of applying a real strategy to be victorious

Going to have to say not much of a improvement. Never seen people running back to the ship in TDM matchs to maintain a lead, but now the team that is dominate in pushing the opponent back to there capital ship is setting up killing fields that destroy opponents before they have a chance to even completely load after a re-spawn. Now your seeing bombers dropping there payloads on the three locations and gunships and strike fighters dropping there arsnels onto what ever managed to survive. All thats changed basically is insteead of those teams staying 15k out from capital ships allowing some ability for the team to push out to just into space to never leave.

Sorry think this is not the proper way to discuss something by insulting people. If you would discuss something do it with facts not insults because people have a different point of view than you do.

 

And 4 strikes that spawn are no match against two bombers and two gun ships working in tadem.

 

Full power to shield, repairdrones, mines, raildrone, gunships aoe ionrail than pick them of with their slugrailcannon

 

Every single person who whines about gunships and bombers is someone who plays nothing but scout because it's the easiest ship to get kills with but has little to no defense against these craft, so they do nothing but cry in every thread.

 

I'm a mediocre pilot with a non-mastered Pike and I take on 2 gunship teams on a regular basis, easily and you're telling me 4 can't do anything? Uhuh, yeah, how bout them facts? By the way, these same people would demolish you just as easily 15k away so being at your spawn is completely and utterly irrelevant. Your team obviously didn't pose any challenge at all or you wouldn't be at your spawn so tell me, how is it different from getting demolished in the middle? It isn't.

 

The only difference since patch is that you can no longer get kills the only way you previously could, by boosting to the cap ship and hope it kills something. Must be so tragic when you have to actually learn how to fight.

is it just me or does anyone else think it's hilarious that all the qq'ing about this and most people did not figure out to kill the ship turrets to get to the campers pre-.1? It took a bit of skill to do so in a scout but with a little teamwork it was fairly easy.

Every single person who whines about gunships and bombers is someone who plays nothing but scout because it's the easiest ship to get kills with but has little to no defense against these craft, so they do nothing but cry in every thread.

 

I'm a mediocre pilot with a non-mastered Pike and I take on 2 gunship teams on a regular basis, easily and you're telling me 4 can't do anything? Uhuh, yeah, how bout them facts? By the way, these same people would demolish you just as easily 15k away so being at your spawn is completely and utterly irrelevant. Your team obviously didn't pose any challenge at all or you wouldn't be at your spawn so tell me, how is it different from getting demolished in the middle? It isn't.

 

The only difference since patch is that you can no longer get kills the only way you previously could, by boosting to the cap ship and hope it kills something. Must be so tragic when you have to actually learn how to fight.

 

Again with the insults and no real facts.

 

You make assumptions that people raise a issue with bombers or gunships they flying scouts. So not true and this thread is about the turrets on the capital ships not about bombers and gunships. With the removal of the turrets spawn camping is now the major issue in TDM. I fly bomber and gunship and i like the TDM to be more than me and my teammates spawn camping the other team and get easy victory's.

 

I like the both side using real combat strategy and teamwork to win, spawncamping requires neither

is it just me or does anyone else think it's hilarious that all the qq'ing about this and most people did not figure out to kill the ship turrets to get to the campers pre-.1? It took a bit of skill to do so in a scout but with a little teamwork it was fairly easy.

 

You do realize this is about the spawn turrets right? Not the turrets at the nodes.

 

You could only kill the ship turrets with something like 8 full charge slug rounds each. If you could do that and manage to survive any attention from the people at spawn, you would've been able to win the game 5 times over in the same amount of time just doing hit-and-run attacks on the campers.

 

I still think the removal of the turrets is stupid and unnecessary. I've never seen an attempt to hide behind the spawn turrets not be breakable with the right play. Removing them just opened the gates for some epic spawn ******. I know, I've inflicted a few since the change went live.

You could only kill the ship turrets with something like 8 full charge slug rounds each. If you could do that and manage to survive any attention from the people at spawn, you would've been able to win the game 5 times over in the same amount of time just doing hit-and-run attacks on the campers.

The cap ship turrets have something like 100k HP it takes a few more than 8 slugs to kill them.

The cap ship turrets have something like 100k HP it takes a few more than 8 slugs to kill them.

 

I never actually tried to target the turrets, good to know. It's even more pointless to target than I had thought .

The removal of the capital ships guns was a disaster. I hope Bioware realizes it fast before it screws GSF for good. Camping (or getting camped) in the ships is stupidity. The guns are necessary.

I never actually tried to target the turrets, good to know. It's even more pointless to target than I had thought .

 

It's actually more like 160,000 HP because a fully charged Slug Shot of 1600 only does 1% damage to it

The removal of the capital ships guns was a disaster. I hope Bioware realizes it fast before it screws GSF for good. Camping (or getting camped) in the ships is stupidity. The guns are necessary.

 

Yes, camping at capital ships is stupid and makes TDM boring and un-fun. But camping was being caused by the presence of turrets. Now that the turrets are gone, there is almost no camping going on anymore on my server.

 

Before turret removal, about 80% of TDM games would turn into gunship-dominated standoffs at a capital ship. It was totally broken. Since the patch, I have played 27 games over the course of 2 nights and prolonged spawn-camping only happened in the very first game, on the first night, because the enemy players likely didn't know about the change and didn't know how to react to it. Last night, the action did move to one of the enemy capital ships in one of the games, and someone on my team suggested spawn-camping them, but within a minute or so, the enemy team just switched to a different spawn and that was the end of it. Spawn-camping happens in less than 10% of the games now, so it's a huge improvement.

 

Re-adding turrets would bring TDM back to a state where every game ends up as a standoff at a capital ship, which was extremely boring and prevented scouts and strike fighters from participating. I am all in favor of giving freshly-spawned players a short-term buff protecting them from damage (in another thread, I suggested a 10-second immunity buff that goes away if the player interacts with his weapons). But re-activating the turrets would be the worst possible thing to do.

 

In TDM, enemy players are the objective, and players should not be able to deny the objective to the opposing team by doing nothing (hiding within a safe zone where the opposing team can't get to them without being 1-shot by turrets). Safe zones can't exist in TDM or every game gets dragged out into a stalemate.

Edited February 28, 2014 by Gerfaut

Yes, camping at capital ships is stupid and makes TDM boring and un-fun. But camping was being caused by the presence of turrets. Now that the turrets are gone, there is almost no camping going on anymore on my server.

 

Before turret removal, about 80% of TDM games would turn into gunship-dominated standoffs at a capital ship. It was totally broken. Since the patch, I have played 27 games over the course of 2 nights and prolonged spawn-camping only happened in the very first game, on the first night, because the enemy players likely didn't know about the change and didn't know how to react to it. Last night, the action did move to one of the enemy capital ships in one of the games, and someone on my team suggested spawn-camping them, but within a minute or so, the enemy team just switched to a different spawn and that was the end of it. Spawn-camping happens in less than 10% of the games now, so it's a huge improvement.

 

Re-adding turrets would bring TDM back to a state where every game ends up as a standoff at a capital ship, which was extremely boring and prevented scouts and strike fighters from participating. I am all in favor of giving freshly-spawned players a short-term buff protecting them from damage (in another thread, I suggested a 10-second immunity buff that goes away if the player interacts with his weapons). But re-activating the turrets would be the worst possible thing to do.

 

In TDM, enemy players are the objective, and players should not be able to deny the objective to the opposing team by doing nothing (hiding within a safe zone where the opposing team can't get to them without being 1-shot by turrets). Safe zones can't exist in TDM or every game gets dragged out into a stalemate.

 

 

I think some of it depends on the server. Some people claim that they never had issues with teams hiding behind their capships prior to 2.6, but are now having issues with spawn camping. I'll agree with your assessment of Harbinger though - I've never had an issue with spawn camping, and have only seen a single match (pre-2.6 for that matter), where the losing team was forced back to their capship (as opposed to matches where a team retreated there on their own). Prior to 2.6, however, Harbinger was absolutely plagued with the "retreat to capship" strategy, where in a tight match, one team would always retreat to their capship in the hopes the turrets would give them an advantage.

 

 

So on Harbinger, it has definitely been an improvement, since we had a bigger issue with the problem that was solved than with the one that was created. On other servers, however, the "hide at capships" strategy might not have been as severe, and they now have a bigger issue with spawn camping.

I think some of it depends on the server. Some people claim that they never had issues with teams hiding behind their capships prior to 2.6, but are now having issues with spawn camping. I'll agree with your assessment of Harbinger though - I've never had an issue with spawn camping, and have only seen a single match (pre-2.6 for that matter), where the losing team was forced back to their capship (as opposed to matches where a team retreated there on their own). Prior to 2.6, however, Harbinger was absolutely plagued with the "retreat to capship" strategy, where in a tight match, one team would always retreat to their capship in the hopes the turrets would give them an advantage.

 

 

So on Harbinger, it has definitely been an improvement, since we had a bigger issue with the problem that was solved than with the one that was created. On other servers, however, the "hide at capships" strategy might not have been as severe, and they now have a bigger issue with spawn camping.

 

Were all pilots on Harbinger completely incapable of breaking a victory camper attempt?! Ebon Hawk pilots eith even a modicum of experience had little difficulty drawing out victory campers. Hell, I remember the last one we faced before the "turret strike" (what a ridiculous explanation!) - the campers even had voice. We ROUTED them.

 

So the way I see it, either Harbinger had the finest victory campers SWTOR had to offer... or y'all need to roll on Ebon Hawk and take a few flight lessons.

Were all pilots on Harbinger completely incapable of breaking a victory camper attempt?! Ebon Hawk pilots eith even a modicum of experience had little difficulty drawing out victory campers. Hell, I remember the last one we faced before the "turret strike" (what a ridiculous explanation!) - the campers even had voice. We ROUTED them.

 

So the way I see it, either Harbinger had the finest victory campers SWTOR had to offer... or y'all need to roll on Ebon Hawk and take a few flight lessons.

 

It's not just about winning (and my win percentage is still over 70%), it's about fun. And playing whack-a-mole with six enemy gunships who stick their noses out only to barrel roll back to the protection of their turrets at the first sign of trouble is not fun, even when you win. When it happens every single match, it get old really fast.

It's not just about winning (and my win percentage is still over 70%), it's about fun. And playing whack-a-mole with six enemy gunships who stick their noses out only to barrel roll back to the protection of their turrets at the first sign of trouble is not fun, even when you win. When it happens every single match, it get old really fast.

 

So you're beating the tactic and complaining because you're bored that you're beating the tactic?

 

Huh.

 

You know what else isn't "fun"? Stuff that doesn't make sense. Like, say, an enemy squadron hovering around one of your battlecruisers and the 'cruiser just doesn't care.

 

Patience IS a virtue. Just sayin'.

If they want to end this discussion and truly fix TDM then they need to go to complete random spawn points. Since your removing capital turrets, there is no point in having a singular spawn point to be camped. In this regard players are scattered all over the map, with not one place you can camp. Server simply detects enemy presence and spawns you away from the enemy, thus allowing you a fighting chance. As it is right now, I am done with starfighter. I didn't care if the other team wanted to camp at the capital ship usually the side that was winning, was up on points and wasn't needing to get cheap kills. And if your dumb enough to fly into the range of the cap ships guns thats your fault. But removing them entirely is just stupidity. Never had that problem with Star trek online. maybe they need to look there for ideas. BTW if you haven't notice ALOT of people have fled this game. With ESO coming out, it will lose more. But I beta tested ESO and it's sad, but its nothing but same storylines of the original game, so I think many will be back or move on to other games. Removing the capital ship guns simply took out 1 problem and created a bigger one, and was not a solution. OP is delusional to think this is an improvement.

The way I see it...

 

Having turrets turned on allows a strategy for teams that are not as powerful as the other team. I played a game the other night and the enemy just sat over the capital ships and killed us every time we spawned. It was the first time I hated GS

Holy necro, batman!

 

 

I guess it's only a month old, and still topical. It's still this patch after all.

 

 

 

I was very very afraid it would wreck stuff. It did wreck one-sided games- if you get into a game where the enemy team is aces, you will get farmed to your ship, and if one of them is a razorwire, you could even spawn in mines.

 

But it also got rid of the very frustrating game where the enemy team was all over their cap ship and your pugs wandered in to feed them. That is deleted entirely. It also got rid of the deviant game where a full premade could get some kills and then, if up against another premade, sit on cap until time expiration- a very rarely seen strat, but a disturbing one nonetheless.

 

 

However, camping is a real thing now, and the fact that not everyone still knows how to change their spawn point is sad. Not sad enough to not mine their spawn, but still sad.

 

 

 

I'd say it was overall a successful change. I would prefer they had done something else, but it did improve the game for sure.

I think if they just made it so spawn location was random (unless you explicitly select one), things would be much improved. Or better yet, have the game do some calculation and pre-select the spawn that is farthest from enemy. The pilot could always override it, but at least ignorant new players wouldn't just keep spawning into death.

What's that smell? It's 1 month old thread. That's what it is.

 

Mmmmmm Necro.