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Eric please stop spawnpoint camping


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Even if a lot of pilots will hate me for complaining, GSF on the German server isn't playable anymore.

 

Opponent ships are camping above the spawnpoints (deathmatch) and we are destroyed in a second.

 

Please install air defence turrets at the spawnpoints to give us a chance to start our ships.

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I think this is an issue... I think it's problematic. I'm not sure what should be done about it.

 

The Catch-22 on this is as follows...

 

In DOM, Capital Ships have Turbo Lasers that keeps enemy ships from coming too close to spawn points, and this isn't a huge problem, because "the action" should be at the satellites.

 

In TDM, the action is wherever the enemy ships happen to be. Ideally, the engagement is somewhere out in the field, teams set up a line and trade off across their lines. If one team is so dominant, that line will get pushed back to a point that is literally the spawn points. Are they Spawn Camping, or are they just going to where the enemy ships are? So, yes... some sort of mechanism to keep people from Spawn Camping (or pushing the engagement all the way to the front door), feels like it might be a good idea. I was in a match last week that felt like an example of this. It was a Perfect Storm where one side was a bunch of solo-queue Randos and Noobs, the other side seems to have been two premades that somehow got matched together. The end result was a ball of death that shifted slightly to murder virtually every spawning ship within 30 seconds of it being spawned. There is no scenario where 8 uncoordinated players, none of whom seemed to be Ace flyers can match up against 2 premades.

 

But... if sitting on a capital ship makes a person virtually unkillable, then there are people who will do that. People who are CXP farmers, anyways.

 

If someone can come up with a way of keeping dominant teams from spawn camping... while also not promoting CXP farming, I'd be 100% for it.

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I think this is an issue... I think it's problematic. I'm not sure what should be done about it.

 

The Catch-22 on this is as follows...

 

In DOM, Capital Ships have Turbo Lasers that keeps enemy ships from coming too close to spawn points, and this isn't a huge problem, because "the action" should be at the satellites.

 

In TDM, the action is wherever the enemy ships happen to be. Ideally, the engagement is somewhere out in the field, teams set up a line and trade off across their lines. If one team is so dominant, that line will get pushed back to a point that is literally the spawn points. Are they Spawn Camping, or are they just going to where the enemy ships are? So, yes... some sort of mechanism to keep people from Spawn Camping (or pushing the engagement all the way to the front door), feels like it might be a good idea. I was in a match last week that felt like an example of this. It was a Perfect Storm where one side was a bunch of solo-queue Randos and Noobs, the other side seems to have been two premades that somehow got matched together. The end result was a ball of death that shifted slightly to murder virtually every spawning ship within 30 seconds of it being spawned. There is no scenario where 8 uncoordinated players, none of whom seemed to be Ace flyers can match up against 2 premades.

 

But... if sitting on a capital ship makes a person virtually unkillable, then there are people who will do that. People who are CXP farmers, anyways.

 

If someone can come up with a way of keeping dominant teams from spawn camping... while also not promoting CXP farming, I'd be 100% for it.

 

I think you misunderstand the problem.

 

Let's say we gave every player 10 seconds of immunity to all damage after spawn -- would the dominant team be less dominant? No. The only difference would be that they'd have to wait 10 seconds before slaughtering the weak team.

 

So bottom line, the issue isn't spawn camping, it's balance. If one side is stacked, there's no new mechanic the devs can introduce that will make the experience enjoyable to the other side.

 

Ask for matchmaking, a custom lobby, and premade vs. premade queues. I want all three. But asking for a way to spawn when you're on a team so weak you don't actually stand a chance doesn't make any sense.

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I am from Tulak Hord and I am mostly flying Imperial side, which is the weak one on that server, so I was in a lot of these matches that ended at our spawn points. And while some might hate me for saying it, in 99% it was always tbe team that got camped that was responsible for how the games turned out. First two to four people jumped in a bomber and hide in a hole in the hope that they not get caught there. Even from the others two to four are always marked as non contributors when you push the M key. The result only two or three players actively engage the enemy and get quickly overrun by the complete enemy team. Who after that start to search for other targets and that search usually ends at the spawn points.

 

So next time you get spawn camped ask what you or your team mates did that the enemy team ended at your spawn point.

 

And yes after I saw this happen a lot the spawn points have enough space between them that only one can be completly camped or two can be partly camped if the enemy waits inbetween them. So I always found one open spawn point to get back. But after my usual tensor experience in Denon is anounce which spawn point you tensor and watch half the team spawn at the other one reading a map just seems to hard to find the correct spawn point.

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The problem with having turrets on the capital ships is that they used to have that and it was game-breaking because people would always hide behind the turret range and never come out from behind it.

 

If you're getting spawn camped your team sucks. As someone above mentioned, ****** players trying to get through a match and not contribute by hiding/"ticking" as bombers, bad team composition, and weak players all contribute to it. Not to mention the occasional guy who suicides 27 times into an asteroid to throw a match.

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The problem with having turrets on the capital ships is that they used to have that and it was game-breaking because people would always hide behind the turret range and never come out from behind it.

 

If you're getting spawn camped your team sucks. As someone above mentioned, ****** players trying to get through a match and not contribute by hiding/"ticking" as bombers, bad team composition, and weak players all contribute to it. Not to mention the occasional guy who suicides 27 times into an asteroid to throw a match.

 

There is nothing wrong with the suicide match option. I am not group queued and I get RNG matched against a gsf team with comms and I get the random people I'm ending that. I pull top 2 numbers consistently in GSF do not play those matches. I refuse to be farmed and hate the GSF matching system. I've not had many lately, but this can be a huge problem on weekly reset day.

 

I take issue with the request because you have 3 spawns. How you cannot choose the one that is not camped is beyond me. The instant kill turret would only be acceptable to me if it didn't give you any points for kills and even then it makes for issues others pointed out.

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When the game is that badly mismatched, the things I've tried and had success with:

1)- If the team isn't a bunch of whiners, try to coordinate a spawn wave, with countdown. This is rare because whiners are very common.

2)- If you decide to go solo instead of trying to kill as many of the farmers as you like, a type 1 scout with shield to engine and barrel roll will usually be able to get you to cover. I don't keep one of these on my bar as a rule even on solo characters, but if I was running into these games enough on the losing side I would consider it.

3)- If you spawn on any gunship at whichever spawn is the least camped, make distance. You can even coordinate this and mention that you will be trying to draw enemies away from the camped spawn. If they chase you can fly defensively, if they don't chase you can harass with a railgun. If the enemy is fortified on one spawn this won't work (but in that case you can just spawn somewhere else). This can fix the spawn issue.

 

As to the original point- I don't think it would be bad if capship turrets turned on if your score was >= 20 different, and turned off if it was <= 15 different. I just don't know if we'll ever see that. In the general case, capship turrets must be disabled in TDM because it enables a degenerate type of play (get ahead by 1, everyone hides with no chance of failure). But you could have an exception in a game like that, as long as you had a UI shout that let everyone know what was happening, and the delta was enough that even if the capships gibbed the entire enemy team, the losing team would still be losing.

 

The real solution isn't something you can fix in the middle of a game though- really you need to be playing with a good team of friends that will contribute enough to minimize that case or sometimes prevent it entirely.

Edited by Verain
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First two to four people jumped in a bomber and hide in a hole in the hope that they not get caught there.

 

In the few games I payed lately, there were people like this in almost every TDM. I try to go for those whenever possible because I think it's a toxic playstyle and hope they change or leave if they just get killed enough.

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Let's say we gave every player 10 seconds of immunity to all damage after spawn -- would the dominant team be less dominant? No. The only difference would be that they'd have to wait 10 seconds before slaughtering the weak team.

 

I like your idea, except to add to that the ships should be invisible for those 10 seconds, else they'll just follow you and kill you in 10 seconds.

 

Alternative ideas:

- Anytime someone gets a kill near a spawn point they get a wimp flag put on them that goes away after 3 matches....;-) shows next to their name in GSF on all of their legacy characters. Example: Bluto (wimp)

- A big bubble shield around the spawn points that can be exited but not entered (so no fleeing to the ship). You can shoot out, but nothing can penetrate back in. Enemies get too close they get sniped. The shield is ONLY active if your team is behind in score greater than 5.

- A different large bubble shield around spawns that is invisible and if you get too close to enemy spawn you get randomly placed somewhere far away and your engine power is drained.

 

All of these possible solutions are interesting and may help solve the problem mentioned, but wouldn't it be nice if instead we would have some dynamic to either help a hopelessly outgunned team either have a chance to win, or at least give them something fun to do. I do not mean a close match, I mean the stinkers, like >15 difference. Like

a permanent damage overcharge on all teammates when this happens...;-) Instead I think matchmaking has to be improved and that is a different discussion for a different thread.

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- Anytime someone gets a kill near a spawn point they get a wimp flag put on them that goes away after 3 matches....;-) shows next to their name in GSF on all of their legacy characters. Example: Bluto (wimp)
I don't think this would be a deterrent. More importantly, only SOME of my characters fly GSF, and if you're not a member of my guild, I can guarantee that you don't know which of my characters are alts of mine... I don't have a reason to hide my identity on alternate toons... but I am something of a roleplayer, so this toon here has no relation to that toon there, so I don't want any rando associating the two; I don't want to be "outed" by a GSF flag.

 

- A big bubble shield around the spawn points that can be exited but not entered (so no fleeing to the ship). You can shoot out, but nothing can penetrate back in. Enemies get too close they get sniped. The shield is ONLY active if your team is behind in score greater than 5.
If you can shoot out, but they can't shoot in, this idea fails for me on an extreme level.

 

- A different large bubble shield around spawns that is invisible and if you get too close to enemy spawn you get randomly placed somewhere far away and your engine power is drained.
This one, I can maybe work with... but it still has the problematic aspect of creating a place for ships to hide. As much as we don't want a dominant team camping spawn points, we also don't want to give people a place where they can just hide for a match.

 

Some sort of timer that causes the Capital Ship to fire a Repulsor Beam to "eject" enemy ships that loiter to long. If someone chases an enemy into range of the capital ship, they should have time to finish the kill; maybe 60 or 90 seconds.

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I think X seconds of invisibility (including immunity to AOE's/mine proximity detonation) would be a good idea, and that if you attack, it pops you out of stealth immediately. Open world rezzes have something similar, where you're invisible for a few seconds unless you use an ability.
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I'll say this as someone who mostly queues solo, loses more games than he wins, and is frequently on the receiving end of spawn camping, and who personally tries to avoid spawn camping when on the dominant end. This seems to me to be a solution in search of a problem. The reality is that no amount of gimmicks with cap ship turrets will change the fact that you are going to lose. Are people asking for this because they want a way to beat a superior team, or are they asking for this because they don't like getting camped?

 

Are you saying this because "you," i.e. the team being camped, don't want the agony to be over and you want it prolonged even more? is it because you think you will get the opportunity to earn more medals that way? The only way to earn medals is to get out far enough from the camp and then do stuff like score hits on the enemy. And if you can't do that because the superior team has enough good pilots that they cover all three spawns, then you are clearly outmatched, and again, no amount of cap ship turret gimmicks will change that.

 

The temporary invisibility like the ground game is a non-starter. They abandoned the Infiltrator class for balance and technical reasons, so the amount of engineering time involved just to put a temporary invisibility in that disengages as soon as you shoot is likely prohibitive. If they did all that, the devs should just go ahead and develop the Infiltrator class, which by the way would actually help counter spawn camping. Making new player spawns damage immune including to AoE and mine detonation is also a non starter since it isn't even that way for the ground game.

 

Let's say the devs re-implement cap turrets. They go online if you are losing by more than 20 points and turn off if the gap closes to only 15. The enemy team will retreat beyond the range of the cap ship turrets once they lose a few ships. The inferior team will stay around the cap ships, until they get the non-contributor message, and then they have to venture out in search of something to shoot at to be contributing again. Then they enter enemy railgun range and get blown to bits. Essentially, the net effect of this system is merely to move the camp further out. So then what? Are the devs supposed to increase the range on the turrets?

 

Again, saying this as a pilot who loses more than he wins, there is no good solution here, other than, to borrow a tired old trope, "git gud."

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I'll say this as someone who mostly queues solo, loses more games than he wins, and is frequently on the receiving end of spawn camping, and who personally tries to avoid spawn camping when on the dominant end. This seems to me to be a solution in search of a problem. The reality is that no amount of gimmicks with cap ship turrets will change the fact that you are going to lose. Are people asking for this because they want a way to beat a superior team, or are they asking for this because they don't like getting camped?

 

Are you saying this because "you," i.e. the team being camped, don't want the agony to be over and you want it prolonged even more? is it because you think you will get the opportunity to earn more medals that way? The only way to earn medals is to get out far enough from the camp and then do stuff like score hits on the enemy. And if you can't do that because the superior team has enough good pilots that they cover all three spawns, then you are clearly outmatched, and again, no amount of cap ship turret gimmicks will change that.

 

The temporary invisibility like the ground game is a non-starter. They abandoned the Infiltrator class for balance and technical reasons, so the amount of engineering time involved just to put a temporary invisibility in that disengages as soon as you shoot is likely prohibitive. If they did all that, the devs should just go ahead and develop the Infiltrator class, which by the way would actually help counter spawn camping. Making new player spawns damage immune including to AoE and mine detonation is also a non starter since it isn't even that way for the ground game.

 

Let's say the devs re-implement cap turrets. They go online if you are losing by more than 20 points and turn off if the gap closes to only 15. The enemy team will retreat beyond the range of the cap ship turrets once they lose a few ships. The inferior team will stay around the cap ships, until they get the non-contributor message, and then they have to venture out in search of something to shoot at to be contributing again. Then they enter enemy railgun range and get blown to bits. Essentially, the net effect of this system is merely to move the camp further out. So then what? Are the devs supposed to increase the range on the turrets?

 

Again, saying this as a pilot who loses more than he wins, there is no good solution here, other than, to borrow a tired old trope, "git gud."

 

Well I will say this as someone who also mostly solo queues, has a pretty average win/loss ratio, and has both received, and committed, spawn camping. It's not about enacting mechanics to "beat a superior team". To frame it like that is completely missing the point. It's about surviving long enough to actually do something without running into a minefield/railgun fire immediately upon spawn.

 

Maybe you want the "agony to be over", but maybe other people need the flight time/experience, which they aren't getting if they're being pelted before even getting their bearings coming out of hyperspace. If you want to get it over with, just 'Exit Battle'. Sorry you think asking for a few seconds of breathing time for outmatched pilots to do something is too much trouble, but then that's exactly why the GSF community remains as small as it is.

 

As far as "moving the camp further out", I think that's just fine, because it gives a chance for the weaker team to get to the terrain for some cover, instead of being mined and railgun sniped out in the open.

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Here's an alternative to the cap ship turrets: make them only fire ion blasts, so that camping ships aren't killed outright, but get handicapped with drained shields. It'd act as both deterrent and challenge, to keep things interesting. Edited by HeatRacer
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If you can shoot out, but they can't shoot in, this idea fails for me on an extreme level.

 

Explain why you dislike it, only losing team gets the shield and the point is to force wimps to stay back a ways from spawns, and it cannot be entered so fleeing ships cannot use them to recover. Are you afraid losing team players will sit in there until the team votes them out? Like going idle in there instead of doing it in the ship-selection screen? Not much difference I think.

 

I'm not married to any idea, just providing viable possible solutions to work from. Many of the ideas would work, some better than others.

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Here's an alternative to the cap ship turrets: make them only fire shield-draining ion blasts, so that approaching ships aren't killed outright, but get handicapped with drained shields. It'd act as both deterrent and challenge, to keep things interesting.

 

This is a good idea also, but I'd say it drains shields and engines, maybe even a temporary interdiction type effect. So they cannot just fly in, camp/snipe, and run easily. It should be something that prevents even the most skilled players from going too far.

 

I'm of the same mindset some have here, when I'm on the OP team I will not spawn camp. My team will stay back and let the 1-2 wimps that are camping at least be victim to the possibility of the new spawns grouping on them. Occasionally I may catch myself near a spawn if I'm chasing someone down, but after I kill the guy I'll turn around without engaging others. Unfortunately there are too many wimps out there so self-policing is not working.

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Explain why you dislike it, only losing team gets the shield and the point is to force wimps to stay back a ways from spawns, and it cannot be entered so fleeing ships cannot use them to recover. Are you afraid losing team players will sit in there until the team votes them out? Like going idle in there instead of doing it in the ship-selection screen? Not much difference I think.

 

I'm not married to any idea, just providing viable possible solutions to work from. Many of the ideas would work, some better than others.

I'm surprised this isn't obvious...?

 

Player A can attack player B, but player B can't attack back... describing what you're proposing should make it obvious why I can't get on board with this..? Doesn't it?

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It's about surviving long enough to actually do something without running into a minefield/railgun fire immediately upon spawn.

 

It's a nice idea, until you look at the fundamental cause of spawn camping.

 

That being that the, "target drone," team consists mostly or entirely of players so bad at defensive flying that their average expected survival time when entering a combat zone is measured in not very many seconds.

 

As long as that condition, which is the necessary prerequisite for camping to occur, is true an initial start doesn't really do any good. A ship with a pilot that vulnerable is not going to survive long enough to actually do something without running into fiery death no matter what sort of head start you give them. They got one at the start of the match after all, and it didn't do them any good. They'll still get promptly massacred when in range of the enemy, wherever on the map that happens.

 

This is also why the possessors of good defensive flying skills aren't much fussed about this. You have to pick the right ship, and pick the right spawn point, but if you do those things you can either make it to the main portion of the map, or even use the spawn ship for cover and make a fight of it right there.

 

It's very curable with skill, but not very curable with game mechanic changes unless talking tutorial improvements. The mechanical tools to counter camping already exist, the problem is that the people being camped don't know how to use them. When they learn, they won't get camped anymore (unless they choose to).

 

 

Q: "Ok, but my team is getting camped, they don't take instruction well, and losing all the time sucks. What should I do?"

 

A: Hop on the GSF Discord and ask for help. Aces generally relish the idea of riding in to save the day, so it's often very effective.

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