22 replies to this topic

[Johnw007]

Came across an new tactic whilst defending in Clan warfare today. Came across a team camping the dropship points. As drops regularly happened right in front of the opposition, I dropped and died three times on the trot.

Hopefully this wont be a common tactic as whilst valid, its not fun to play in. I think I lasted all of five minutes. Possibly adding some blast walls around the dropsites might offer an ingame defense against this?

[Tsuki Ookami vas Mugunghwa]

Johnw007, on 19 December 2014 - 11:23 AM, said:

Came across an new tactic whilst defending in Clan warfare today. Came across a team camping the dropship points. As drops regularly happened right in front of the opposition, I dropped and died three times on the trot.

Hopefully this wont be a common tactic as whilst valid, its not fun to play in. I think I lasted all of five minutes. Possibly adding some blast walls around the dropsites might offer an ingame defense against this?

i experienced this too.

the problem is: if you try to stop spawnkilling by adding barricades you will make the whole base harder and harder to defend especially against light rushs, because there will be no open space to engage at range. enemy will just snake through all the alleyways and may get to objectives completely unnoticed.

i think the only way is to give damage immunity to those who just dropped out of the ship, even if it hurts the immersion.

and whats more they have to not make us drop facing the edge of the map, potentially with our backs towards the enemies!

[Claviger]

Stop getting stomped so hard they can do this, its pretty simple.

If you are getting beaten so badly they can camp the defenders spawn, well, you had already lost the game when you hit launch...

[Average Pilot]

Agree with Claviger... This scenario from the defender's point of view = a tactical failure on the part of the defenders. However, when this situation occurs for the invaders, I think it's problematic. This is from an earlier post on a related thread, my opinion on the matter of spawncamping at the invader's site...

"In normal ground ops of this nature (speaking from my former life), armor would not be dropped into an unsecured LZ. Drops of the kind depicted in the CW matches would be done by airborne, airmobile and light mechanized infantry. Heavy assets would only come in afterward (aside from light armored vehicles and wheeled vehicles). I think this sort of thing only happens when the invading force is down to its last 12 mechs or fewer when the defenders have the confidence to depart their base and take the fight to the invaders (a realistic reaction), but there should be some kind of element(s) that replicate LZ security for the invading force, and since we don't have Elementals in this game, something should be looked at, perhaps field mobile turrets emplaced around the LZ."

[Zamiake]

Opening Statements and Thoughts
Had this issue too. Was on sulfiure and i dropped in my kit fox. Enemy Firestarter with a billion mediums was standing directly behind me and alpha'ed my ecm arm and stole my main weapon unfairly. He literally knew the spawn point within 2 steps. I dropped down he alphas my ecm arm right off and im meant to fight him with only a small laser. The current settings of CW is not up to my expectations.


Suggestions
New patch add a new feature, player controlled ship drop locations; same spots you have, but let us pick which ones. Should be an easy fix and with the least amount of effort while making us happy. That way teams can cordinate better and we wont get ambushed and killed at spawn. There is no reason why my "personal leapoard drop ship" cant drop me where i actually need to go. Specially with a dire whale that literally takes like 3-4 minutes to walk part of the map. Yes there will need to be zones we cant drop in for certain reasons, but having a bit more control will improve game play overall.

To counter the extra precision granted by my player controlled drop ships idea; i recommend AA guns that can be destroyed within the defender base. some where near the walls. Its mainly to stop people from spawning at the points right next to the gate before you even get the gates open or a foot hold inside

Increased Respawn Time (both sides are increased/Values different to support their roles)
Need to increase the defender respawn timer to be much longer. Each death should increase respawn time by 15-20 seconds.It would help in creating value for getting a kill and help curb the felt need to bum rush the entire mode in general; community warfare.

Defenders
First death should be more like 15 seconds down. So when they die they stay dead for a brief time. the second time they are down for 30-35 seconds; 3rd death/45-50 seconds down. Im recommending this drastic change on defenders because its so much harder for attackers right now. Mainly because they have to do all the advances. All the defenders have to do is find a good spot and wait. (since the change is so dramatic i do foresee needing more tweaks but i think this is a step in the right direction.)

Attackers
While it would be completely unreasonable to put this huge change on just the defenders the attackers time should be slightly less because they have to support the advances needed to play an attackign role. I would recommend respawns set like; 1st death / 5 seconds, 2nd death / 20 seconds, 3rd death / 40 seconds

It doesnt make sense to make these generator changes if i have to do this extra stuff and have them just come right back after killing them. Nothing is gained from killing them. It practically screams Bum Rush the hek out of those generators, then bum rush the gun. I wanted to loosely express how i felt the changes summed up to. Ya extra cover maybe nice, but we need a bit more fine tuning and thats what i found crawling at the back of my mind.

These respawn times coupled with greater drop ship control would noticablly create a more even playing field to make up for certain dynamics of the clan mechs while providing value to kills to help curb bum rushing in general.


Balancing Between Clan and IS Dynamics
Ive been seeing teams cordinate squirrel barricades to cull any assualts that try to drop after the first wave of people. They just swap to lights and then find any mech left behind at spawn. And thats always the dire wolves for the clans; Specially if they randomly get thrown out in the middle of no where. That coupled with the fact that clans light mechs/light hunters are extremely poorly equiped to handle lights across the map due to lack of speed or punching power. It would improve the modes quality if we were at least closer to gather by simply spawning closer to each other by picking the point that is closest to our team.

Controlled drop ships should relieve frustration with the game mode, and help the clans play to their intended strength; being in formation. Drops ships would allow dire wolves to drop within a reasonable distance of friendlies instead of everyone dribbling to the forward line from random faraway spawns with lights chasing them all the way there. Really hope this idea gets put in asap

As a side note; I cant tell you how many times Ive played where my team decided on pressing one gate and losing a contested entry of an open gate due to friendlies spawning closer to a differnet gate. If that didnt happen there could be chances of breaking the enemys lines with my suggested tweaks to spawn times/locations

Dealing with Negative Space (after my suggested tweaks)
To further explore the idea of these player controlled drop ships we should also mention the creation of negative space within the maps. Mainly the areas that wouldnt get used as often due to the changes. The largest concern is the large segments of maps that i imagen wouldnt get used nearly at all and thats just a waste. So instead ive thought up an idea to combat that while not wasting anything. While parts of my ideas for these areas would have a slightly lesser effect in a team of pugs. It would provide great strategic value for Organized clans(aka player clans/guilds not the game's clans)

On field Artillery
On the map sulfur there is the large area where you first spawn in as an attacker. In this spot I suggest adding an attacker objective point that they can have their arty guns at. Basically im imagining it to be an objective that could shift the tides in this mode. There should be some defence turrets, but that wont protect them forever.

Leave your arty guns and they get destroyed you lose the ability to call their strikes. Protect them all the time with a guard and your offencive will lack luster. It would help add dynamic to the light role for defender, and help add other tactics to the mode.

AA Guns Veruses Air strikes
Naturally until you knock out the AA guns calling in an air strike would be extremely dumb as they would get blown out of the sky. So getting in and knocking them out would allow for air strikes

Edited by Zamiake, 19 December 2014 - 11:28 PM.

[Joshua Rael]

Ok normally I dont get too upset, but whoever put a wall around the center landing pad on Sulfurous Rift made a huge mistake. It forces you to charge into the enemy line to get off the pad unless you are running a mech with jumpjets. Please remove the wall.

[Void Angel]

Claviger, on 19 December 2014 - 12:02 PM, said:

Stop getting stomped so hard they can do this, its pretty simple.

If you are getting beaten so badly they can camp the defenders spawn, well, you had already lost the game when you hit launch...

Average Pilot, on 19 December 2014 - 06:01 PM, said:

Agree with Claviger... This scenario from the defender's point of view = a tactical failure on the part of the defenders. However, when this situation occurs for the invaders, I think it's problematic. This is from an earlier post on a related thread, my opinion on the matter of spawncamping at the invader's site...

The flaw in you guys' reasoning is that it only takes one round of tactical failure to set up the spawn camp. Part of the point of having multiple 'Mechs available is that one round of loss doesn't automatically cause a loss. If losing a single fight at the gates sets you up to be farmed at spawn, that part of design balance has been compromised - even if it's the defender's drop zone. Remember, the defending dropships were just nerfed, because they were providing close air support to the battlefield, which wasn't intended. This sounds like an exploitation of yet another intended consequence - PGI will have to put more lasers on the dropships, is all.

[Claviger]

Bullcrap. We have won every attack and every defense mode we have played since patch, and in every game we have people running back to the front from our spawn while 4-6 people hold down the defenders. If you cannot push off 4-6 people with 12 and drop ship and turret support it was never even a fight to begin with.

It's because of massive skill deficit, no matter how many crutches you have, the better players are still going to stomp the less skilled ones.

Sorry if the reality check is hard to hear...

Edited by Claviger, 19 December 2014 - 11:20 PM.

[Void Angel]

"If you can't push half our team (who are crippling half of you before you can even move at spawn) off your spawn camp (where you have a dropship armed with seven whole Medium Lasers) you're just bad, and it's merely a coincidence that we've won every single match since the patch by spawn camping!"

If that makes sense to you, you need to adjust your operator headspace and timing.

You haven't addressed the flaw in your reasoning - you just threw out anecdotes. You've also missed the point entirely, while leading with an insult. Sorry to be the one explaining this to you, but that doesn't meet the minimum standards of a valid polemic.

[Claviger]

Ok here is the scenario-

Every single CW match has been won, whether we grind IS down at the gate for 10 minutes so they down 30 tickets, or push and hold the spawn.

Every scenario plays out that organized attackers win if they can play.

If you cannot stop them from locking you down on your spawn, its because your group is crap or you are playing with a bunch of disorganized pugs.

Deal with it.

[Stealth Fox]

I have to agree with Claviger here, If you can not defend your spawn points then you already have failed the match. While I think that it may not be 'fair' to those dropping in to get vaporized by Alpha strikes the moment your feet are seen from the drop ship, Tactics are often not about being Fair, but finding the unfair to use against the opponent or turn the tide in your favor.

The only time I have seen a spawn camp happen is when either some joker is DCed or when there are three or less pilots left still alive that can drop, And if that is the case, then what do you think you are going to be able to do against a rolling deathball of sorts..

If you are an attacker getting spawn camped.. your attack probably already failed terribly and the defenders no longer feel the need to stay in the base.. if you are the defender... then your defending line as terribly failed.

The best thing to do is look at the maps, come up with what you should be doing to stop that..and win the game.. and maybe.. just maybe.. join up with at least 2 other friends on skype or Team Speak or something.. cause.. really, It is probably the no chat, no organization, wannabe one man army pugs on your side that are letting this crap happen.

[The Prince of Insufficient Light]

Just give defensive dropships their ERLLs back.

[o0Marduk0o]

The Prince of Insufficient Light, on 20 December 2014 - 04:15 AM, said:

Just give defensive dropships their ERLLs back.

To make it even easier for defenders?
The defending team has to be really horrible to get farmed at spawn.

Edited by o0Marduk0o, 20 December 2014 - 04:25 AM.

[Void Angel]

The Prince of Insufficient Light, on 20 December 2014 - 04:15 AM, said:

Just give defensive dropships their ERLLs back.

Hi, Phil! The dropships' ERs were removed to prevent them from strafing the battlefield, which was bad. But it's seeming like they're underarmed now, so I'd expect to see some kind of heavy lasers put back on - maybe some nice Large Pulse Lasers.

[Void Angel]

Seph, I don't think you're accounting for the fact that people spawn in multiple locations, and aren't going to die all at once - plus the tactic works because you can't effectively defend against it. Imaging geting an alpha in the back from a Mad Cat every time you spawn - but before you can move, because you start stationary. They might not kill you outright, but by the same token you are not going to be respawning all together and at the same place.

Throwing out non sequiturs about the advantage of organized groups is yet another dishonest arguing tactic; of course organized groups have an advantage - but you still should not be able to spawn camp. Spawn camping allows you to attack helpless people before they have a chance to start playing the game. That specific aspect of the tactic makes it a problem, regardless of other factors, including the advantage coordinated teams have over PuGs in just about any game. That's another problem with saying, "well, coordinated groups win anyway, so it's your fault for being bad or just dropping in the solo queue." Not only should you not have to join an organized team to avoid being unable to play the game, but if it really doesn't matter because the team is so 1337 and all, why oppose the tactic getting fixed? I mean, look at the zerg rush tactic: many of us who are using the tactic do not find it to be very much fun, and we're eagerly awaiting a fix that will put it to bed so we can play more aspects of the game in CW.

At the end of the day, Claviger's way defending this tactic is just another way to feel superior - by blaming the victims. "Your group is crap," or "you're playing with PuGs," or you wouldn't fall victim to this exploit (and it is an exploit, look it up) - so it's your fault, and you should just learn to play. Players taking advantage of unfair game balance or exploitable mechanics have always said this - and it has always been dishonest, and a red herring meant to distract people from the issue by moving the debate into a question of skill.

[Claviger]

Not blaming anyone. Even if you fielded 96 mechs vs 48, the 96 being random pugs and the 48 being skilled organized attackers, the end result would be the same, at least from what I have seen.

Most of our wins are 48 to 15-20. Then we kill the objective. The point is, even with every possible crutch, when you are outmatched by meta builds and very good players your are going to lose no matter what.

Cry all you want man, but that is the reality.

You sound like an entitled casual gamer, the type that regularly gets demolished in ANY pvp game vs more hardcore players....

Example Below, do you think shielded drop points would have helped them?!



PS: I can keep taking screenies of wins that are totally one sided if you want, shields over drop points would make no difference.

Edited by Claviger, 21 December 2014 - 12:07 AM.

[LennStar]

And you are happy with that type of win? Poor soul.

[Ace Goodfighter]

Yup I've also suffered this strategy. We did so poorly against LORDs that they sat their mechs in the alleys waiting for us to drop, even with the lasers added to the dropship, it is only a deterrent to lights, because from what I've seen the drop ship is incapable of targeting more than one mech at a time, plus it cycle fires across all the mechs in it vision, thus the worst your going to get is two large lasers to a hit box before you can smash fresh drops.

Would it be possible for PGI to restrict base defenders from venturing too far from the basewalls? Or perhaps load out dropship locations for attackers with invincible turrets so that the defenders are forced to remain just outside of missile/gauss/ppc range

[Crockdaddy]

I am no defender of any of the EX CSj guys, ... but I have to say, if you are defending AND you are pushed back so far that you are getting spawn killed you have some serious issues going on. I understand how this may happen to PUG teams and if a group of new CW guys are in your drop, but a good way to get beyond this is to organize. Even a semi organized group that is destined to lose can put up a good fight and not allow the spawn camping. If you have this type of camping happen to you reach out to me. We would be happy to bring you into some of our CW drops. Our record against clan drops is somewhere around 20 to 5 ... and Inner Sphere much greater than that (we have lucked out at not having to face LORDs or SJR but have had some great matches against respectable clan units.)

Now all that being said, some unit of uber soldiers whom seem to want to toss their epeen into everyone's face should at times think of what is best for the community. Maybe type suggestions to the enemy unit or tactics to them. Hell invite some onto your TS. We do this all the time. Sure we at times talk a bit of trash but I work hard to minimize it. I think building others up is very important, this is already a complicated and fairly difficult game to master. I know as we are bringing along 2 to 4 fresh players during each of our CW drops. We could go easy mode and run our competitive team 24/7 ... but that seems quite lame in beta. We want to build up units and the player base not tear it down with epeen fappage.

I general, we won't spawn camp until the match is fully decided. ... IE 35 or so defenders / attackers dead and we have a very strong kill lead and this is usually to end the match a bit more quickly and cycle through enemy disconnects.

[MadLibrarian]

Long Toms on drop ships or Riot!

Seriously though, I do think there is now a discrepancy in defender drop ship power, range, and/or location. Doubling the amount of medium lasers, or adding around 14 small lasers, might help prevent the camping. Pushing back and scrunching together the drop locations could help too.