Spawn Camping

[Guest]

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever

Login with username, password and session length

[Blades]

Alright, I apologize as it's currently 3:25am, so I'm quite tired, and if this post is more angry than it should be, I'm sorry.

Anyway,  Spawn Camping.  I see those two words being tossed around here, and I just read Skunker's latest map announcement(which, by the way, sounds amazing.)  Except, he is planning on purposefully making it difficult to spawn camp, which illustrates what I think is an endemic way of thinking in this community that completely misses the point, and illustrates a key misunderstanding of its underlying cause and effect. 

Specifically, Skunker currently plans on making it difficult to spawn camp by making the spawns easy to defend, this will not work, I can guarantee it.  As instead of directly camping the spawn, the camping will just move out of range of his planned map-built defenses.

But on to the real issue; I've thrown around words like endemic, and completely misses the point, I best back them up, eh?

Tell me what the objective of a battle, not the war, is in EiR.  Well?  Can you give me any answer beyond take and hold territory, which would seem to be the correct answer?

I'll tell you, the objective of EiR battles, as of right now, is to push the opposing team back to its spawn, and then pin it there.  This, by definition, is Spawn Camping.  And, as of right now, it is the Objective of EiR.  Note the capital letter, it is the One and Only Objective.

Now.  If this is the objective, then why are you all whining about it?  The game you are playing is a fight to Spawn Camp.  If you don't like this, you have some options.

First, and I won't talk about this long, you could stop playing.  Go have fun somewhere else.  I personally feel like this is a poor option.

Second, you could realize that this is not such a bad thing.  Once persistency settles in, the wise will realize that it is better to simply cede the territory lost and keep as much of their companies intact as possible once they become pinned.  Unlike now, where people relentlessly send their men into the grinder in an attempt to break the hold.  Once this understanding is realized, the objective becomes quite realistic.  We are trying to push back the opposing side, and that is achieved by capturing territory, but more importantly, by prevent it from even being contested.  In effect, pushing the opponent back to their spawn, and off the map, into the next territory.

Third, and this is the option I will detail somewhat more, you could change the way the game plays.  This is probably better, and more acceptable, to most people.  The problem is that the necessary changes are quite tricky, deceivingly so. 

How so, you might ask, why not just create a new objective, such as taking and holding a certain part of the map?  To which I respond, while that seems to effectively change the objective, in reality, all it does is simply place a higher value on a certain territory or three, and make it necessary not only to push your opponent back, but to make sure that you take the objective on your way.  Indeed, for many objectives, whether it is take and hold, or destroy a particular building, or any of a million objectives that could be imagined, it may be necessary to complete the objective, but pushing your opponent back will ALWAYS[/i] remain a vital necessity as long as there are spawn points, and units spawning there.

At this point, it might seem reasonable for some amount of despair to set in.  How can we solve this quandary, that seems so impossible?

Yet, I would urge you not to despair, we're a bright group and I'm sure we can create an idea better than the crude ones I am about to fashion.

One possible solution runs thusly, and it has a couple variations.  Instead of starting at a low pop-cap, and gradually increasing as the game progresses, while allowing the continuous requisition of off-map units, why not instead start at a high, if not max, pop cap?  Such a simple change would make it quite harder to spawn camp, as it would be really easy to overwhelm whatever division of forces was sent to your spawn.  Yet, I find this particular variation somewhat crude, as spawn camping remains somewhat viable if enough force is diverted to the camp.

An interesting midway idea goes:  Instead of pop-cap gradually increasing as the game goes on, instead escalation style combat is emulated.  At various time markers, maybe, every 5/10/15 minutes or so, the spawn cap jumps a certain, substantial amount, and every is allowed to spawn for 30 seconds or, better yet, people can queue what units they wish to show up in the next wave, and when the time comes the units all spawn simultaneously.  Spawn camping remains somewhat viable, but is difficult unless your opponent manages to rout you completely(although, should that happen, you probably deserve to lose.)

A final solution runs thus, and it completely eliminates spawn camping:  You can only call units for the first 5 minutes of the game(or however long) and pop cap starts at max.  There should be some time allowed for probing the enemy, and once that is complete, you are stuck with whatever you have.  There are many battles happening all at once, remember, you have to fight with what you have with you when you come across the enemy.  This also opens up some rather interesting design space for doctrine abilities.  A slight variation on this allows a very small amount of spawn cap, maybe 10-15, for the first 5 minutes, and jumps to max after the initial scouting takes place, and the rest of your called units arrive. (maybe allow the defenders more spawn camp in this period?)  Or, alternatively, everything arrives at once, and you have a period of time where you can call things, but they won't arrive until the proper mark. 

Any of these options(and others, I'm sure) would be much more effective at reducing spawn camping than such forced measures as changing the very maps we play on, and how we build them.

We must address the reasons why spawn camping occurs, if it is to be gotten rid of.  Treating the symptom does not cure the cause.  To press my luck and my analogies, preventing spawn camping directly is like trying to prevent a river from flooding its banks.  Sure, you could build a dike, or plant on less fertile land, or you could build a damn channel, so the flood won't occur.

I realize that all the change I've suggested would require some substantial revision to the mechanics of the code(or not, I don't know exactly how you all have it set up.) but the way things are meant to run now, spawn camping is the win condition, and thus, the Objective of the match.  That must change if it is to stop.

Thank you for reading all of this.

Sincerely.
-Blades
aka. BladesoDoom, BladesoDoomAlt

Post Script:  it was 3:25 when I started writing this, its now 4.  G'night y'all.

[Smithy17]

An interesting midway idea goes:  Instead of pop-cap gradually increasing as the game goes on, instead escalation style combat is emulated.  At various time markers, maybe, every 5/10/15 minutes or so, the spawn cap jumps a certain, substantial amount, and every is allowed to spawn for 30 seconds or, better yet, people can queue what units they wish to show up in the next wave, and when the time comes the units all spawn simultaneously.  Spawn camping remains somewhat viable, but is difficult unless your opponent manages to rout you completely(although, should that happen, you probably deserve to lose.)

I find this idea really exciting. You would have to cope with what you had on the map in between reinforcement times, opening up for alot of oppurtunities for bluff.

[Skunker]

Alright, I apologize as it's currently 3:25am, so I'm quite tired, and if this post is more angry than it should be, I'm sorry.

Anyway,  Spawn Camping.  I see those two words being tossed around here, and I just read Skunker's latest map announcement(which, by the way, sounds amazing.)  Except, he is planning on purposefully making it difficult to spawn camp, which illustrates what I think is an endemic way of thinking in this community that completely misses the point, and illustrates a key misunderstanding of its underlying cause and effect. 

Specifically, Skunker currently plans on making it difficult to spawn camp by making the spawns easy to defend, this will not work, I can guarantee it.  As instead of directly camping the spawn, the camping will just move out of range of his planned map-built defenses.

But on to the real issue; I've thrown around words like endemic, and completely misses the point, I best back them up, eh?

Tell me what the objective of a battle, not the war, is in EiR.  Well?  Can you give me any answer beyond take and hold territory, which would seem to be the correct answer?

I'll tell you, the objective of EiR battles, as of right now, is to push the opposing team back to its spawn, and then pin it there.  This, by definition, is Spawn Camping.  And, as of right now, it is the Objective of EiR.  Note the capital letter, it is the One and Only Objective.

Now.  If this is the objective, then why are you all whining about it?  The game you are playing is a fight to Spawn Camp.  If you don't like this, you have some options.

First, and I won't talk about this long, you could stop playing.  Go have fun somewhere else.  I personally feel like this is a poor option.

Second, you could realize that this is not such a bad thing.  Once persistency settles in, the wise will realize that it is better to simply cede the territory lost and keep as much of their companies intact as possible once they become pinned.  Unlike now, where people relentlessly send their men into the grinder in an attempt to break the hold.  Once this understanding is realized, the objective becomes quite realistic.  We are trying to push back the opposing side, and that is achieved by capturing territory, but more importantly, by prevent it from even being contested.  In effect, pushing the opponent back to their spawn, and off the map, into the next territory.

Third, and this is the option I will detail somewhat more, you could change the way the game plays.  This is probably better, and more acceptable, to most people.  The problem is that the necessary changes are quite tricky, deceivingly so. 

How so, you might ask, why not just create a new objective, such as taking and holding a certain part of the map?  To which I respond, while that seems to effectively change the objective, in reality, all it does is simply place a higher value on a certain territory or three, and make it necessary not only to push your opponent back, but to make sure that you take the objective on your way.  Indeed, for many objectives, whether it is take and hold, or destroy a particular building, or any of a million objectives that could be imagined, it may be necessary to complete the objective, but pushing your opponent back will ALWAYS[/i] remain a vital necessity as long as there are spawn points, and units spawning there.

At this point, it might seem reasonable for some amount of despair to set in.  How can we solve this quandary, that seems so impossible?

Yet, I would urge you not to despair, we're a bright group and I'm sure we can create an idea better than the crude ones I am about to fashion.

One possible solution runs thusly, and it has a couple variations.  Instead of starting at a low pop-cap, and gradually increasing as the game progresses, while allowing the continuous requisition of off-map units, why not instead start at a high, if not max, pop cap?  Such a simple change would make it quite harder to spawn camp, as it would be really easy to overwhelm whatever division of forces was sent to your spawn.  Yet, I find this particular variation somewhat crude, as spawn camping remains somewhat viable if enough force is diverted to the camp.

An interesting midway idea goes:  Instead of pop-cap gradually increasing as the game goes on, instead escalation style combat is emulated.  At various time markers, maybe, every 5/10/15 minutes or so, the spawn cap jumps a certain, substantial amount, and every is allowed to spawn for 30 seconds or, better yet, people can queue what units they wish to show up in the next wave, and when the time comes the units all spawn simultaneously.  Spawn camping remains somewhat viable, but is difficult unless your opponent manages to rout you completely(although, should that happen, you probably deserve to lose.)

A final solution runs thus, and it completely eliminates spawn camping:  You can only call units for the first 5 minutes of the game(or however long) and pop cap starts at max.  There should be some time allowed for probing the enemy, and once that is complete, you are stuck with whatever you have.  There are many battles happening all at once, remember, you have to fight with what you have with you when you come across the enemy.  This also opens up some rather interesting design space for doctrine abilities.  A slight variation on this allows a very small amount of spawn cap, maybe 10-15, for the first 5 minutes, and jumps to max after the initial scouting takes place, and the rest of your called units arrive. (maybe allow the defenders more spawn camp in this period?)  Or, alternatively, everything arrives at once, and you have a period of time where you can call things, but they won't arrive until the proper mark. 

Any of these options(and others, I'm sure) would be much more effective at reducing spawn camping than such forced measures as changing the very maps we play on, and how we build them.

We must address the reasons why spawn camping occurs, if it is to be gotten rid of.  Treating the symptom does not cure the cause.  To press my luck and my analogies, preventing spawn camping directly is like trying to prevent a river from flooding its banks.  Sure, you could build a dike, or plant on less fertile land, or you could build a damn channel, so the flood won't occur.

I realize that all the change I've suggested would require some substantial revision to the mechanics of the code(or not, I don't know exactly how you all have it set up.) but the way things are meant to run now, spawn camping is the win condition, and thus, the Objective of the match.  That must change if it is to stop.

Thank you for reading all of this.

Sincerely.
-Blades
aka. BladesoDoom, BladesoDoomAlt

Post Script:  it was 3:25 when I started writing this, its now 4.  G'night y'all.

The way my map is set up, it will be harder to camp spawns, not impossible. That's the idea.  the spawn will be comprised of merely two sectors, if the enemy is pushed into their spawn, they will lose. There is no need to rush the spawn on my map, but if someone decides to try that, there are defensive works to give the players who are spawning in an advantage. Neither side loses, because both spawns are exactly identical.

[Days of War]

Alright, I apologize as it's currently 3:25am, so I'm quite tired, and if this post is more angry than it should be, I'm sorry.

Anyway,  Spawn Camping.  I see those two words being tossed around here, and I just read Skunker's latest map announcement(which, by the way, sounds amazing.)  Except, he is planning on purposefully making it difficult to spawn camp, which illustrates what I think is an endemic way of thinking in this community that completely misses the point, and illustrates a key misunderstanding of its underlying cause and effect. 

Specifically, Skunker currently plans on making it difficult to spawn camp by making the spawns easy to defend, this will not work, I can guarantee it.  As instead of directly camping the spawn, the camping will just move out of range of his planned map-built defenses.

But on to the real issue; I've thrown around words like endemic, and completely misses the point, I best back them up, eh?

Tell me what the objective of a battle, not the war, is in EiR.  Well?  Can you give me any answer beyond take and hold territory, which would seem to be the correct answer?

I'll tell you, the objective of EiR battles, as of right now, is to push the opposing team back to its spawn, and then pin it there.  This, by definition, is Spawn Camping.  And, as of right now, it is the Objective of EiR.  Note the capital letter, it is the One and Only Objective.

Now.  If this is the objective, then why are you all whining about it?  The game you are playing is a fight to Spawn Camp.  If you don't like this, you have some options.

First, and I won't talk about this long, you could stop playing.  Go have fun somewhere else.  I personally feel like this is a poor option.

Second, you could realize that this is not such a bad thing.  Once persistency settles in, the wise will realize that it is better to simply cede the territory lost and keep as much of their companies intact as possible once they become pinned.  Unlike now, where people relentlessly send their men into the grinder in an attempt to break the hold.  Once this understanding is realized, the objective becomes quite realistic.  We are trying to push back the opposing side, and that is achieved by capturing territory, but more importantly, by prevent it from even being contested.  In effect, pushing the opponent back to their spawn, and off the map, into the next territory.

Third, and this is the option I will detail somewhat more, you could change the way the game plays.  This is probably better, and more acceptable, to most people.  The problem is that the necessary changes are quite tricky, deceivingly so. 

How so, you might ask, why not just create a new objective, such as taking and holding a certain part of the map?  To which I respond, while that seems to effectively change the objective, in reality, all it does is simply place a higher value on a certain territory or three, and make it necessary not only to push your opponent back, but to make sure that you take the objective on your way.  Indeed, for many objectives, whether it is take and hold, or destroy a particular building, or any of a million objectives that could be imagined, it may be necessary to complete the objective, but pushing your opponent back will ALWAYS[/i] remain a vital necessity as long as there are spawn points, and units spawning there.

At this point, it might seem reasonable for some amount of despair to set in.  How can we solve this quandary, that seems so impossible?

Yet, I would urge you not to despair, we're a bright group and I'm sure we can create an idea better than the crude ones I am about to fashion.

One possible solution runs thusly, and it has a couple variations.  Instead of starting at a low pop-cap, and gradually increasing as the game progresses, while allowing the continuous requisition of off-map units, why not instead start at a high, if not max, pop cap?  Such a simple change would make it quite harder to spawn camp, as it would be really easy to overwhelm whatever division of forces was sent to your spawn.  Yet, I find this particular variation somewhat crude, as spawn camping remains somewhat viable if enough force is diverted to the camp.

An interesting midway idea goes:  Instead of pop-cap gradually increasing as the game goes on, instead escalation style combat is emulated.  At various time markers, maybe, every 5/10/15 minutes or so, the spawn cap jumps a certain, substantial amount, and every is allowed to spawn for 30 seconds or, better yet, people can queue what units they wish to show up in the next wave, and when the time comes the units all spawn simultaneously.  Spawn camping remains somewhat viable, but is difficult unless your opponent manages to rout you completely(although, should that happen, you probably deserve to lose.)

A final solution runs thus, and it completely eliminates spawn camping:  You can only call units for the first 5 minutes of the game(or however long) and pop cap starts at max.  There should be some time allowed for probing the enemy, and once that is complete, you are stuck with whatever you have.  There are many battles happening all at once, remember, you have to fight with what you have with you when you come across the enemy.  This also opens up some rather interesting design space for doctrine abilities.  A slight variation on this allows a very small amount of spawn cap, maybe 10-15, for the first 5 minutes, and jumps to max after the initial scouting takes place, and the rest of your called units arrive. (maybe allow the defenders more spawn camp in this period?)  Or, alternatively, everything arrives at once, and you have a period of time where you can call things, but they won't arrive until the proper mark. 

Any of these options(and others, I'm sure) would be much more effective at reducing spawn camping than such forced measures as changing the very maps we play on, and how we build them.

We must address the reasons why spawn camping occurs, if it is to be gotten rid of.  Treating the symptom does not cure the cause.  To press my luck and my analogies, preventing spawn camping directly is like trying to prevent a river from flooding its banks.  Sure, you could build a dike, or plant on less fertile land, or you could build a damn channel, so the flood won't occur.

I realize that all the change I've suggested would require some substantial revision to the mechanics of the code(or not, I don't know exactly how you all have it set up.) but the way things are meant to run now, spawn camping is the win condition, and thus, the Objective of the match.  That must change if it is to stop.

Thank you for reading all of this.

Sincerely.
-Blades
aka. BladesoDoom, BladesoDoomAlt

Post Script:  it was 3:25 when I started writing this, its now 4.  G'night y'all.

I would totally read that because I bet it's full of awesome information. But holy shit is it long.

[Jazlizard]

LOL don't quote the whole thing please eep!

I'm actually fine with the whole getting pushed back to your spawn and losing thing. I think there is a big misconception of what people are actually complaining about.

I would guess that most people are ok with when actually pushed back and off the map. They fought, and lost, and I for one am ok with that.

The problem comes when your deep in enemy territory, or midway on a large map, making large pushes with your force, when a small force runs past you way out on a flank, not to out flank you, no no no, but to attack your spawn camp, which really has no purpose until you 'call in' units.

With the new coding this makes it a bit more difficult as they now have to do it to all the spawn camps. But before this was a mostly low risk / high reward tactic to make your opponent either pull back to recapture his spawn in point, or continue the attack/defense  w/o reinforcements.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

I've never seena yone do that :|