Lord0fHats, on 01 April 2015 - 03:37 PM, said:
The first rule of definition is that if it contains a tautology, it's a bad definition.
To be blunt there is nothing explotive about spawn camping. If you push recklessly and everyone dies and cedes the field you will be camped. If you just hide around corners like timid sheep, never form a line, and get picked off one by one, you will be camped. This is not an exploit or an abuse of the system. It is not unintended on the part of the developers. It is the the worst outcome of very poor team play.
There is no fix for spawn camping. Any fix imposed would be a do nothing fix because if a team is strong enough to force its opposition into being spawn camped, no amount of protection from the devs is going to help the camped team win.
EDIT: The problem in CW for this, is not spawn camping. Spawn camping is just the end result of seal clubbing and the structure of how CW matches are formed.
There is 0 reason to ever really hold ground in public que. That's why the NASCAR meta exists. The fastest way to win, even Assault and Conquest, is simply to get around the other team and shoot into their backs or sides. Many players simply rush in get their kill, die and leave, or try and play the dicey trading game, but NASCAR happens for a reason and it's because it's frequently the best way to win. Public que, literally encourages bad player habits and that has come full circle now where those habits have become a detriment to players in CW because the map play is fundamentally different.
CW is a different animal because killing 1 mech doesn't remove the player from the game. They're just gonna drop again.The fundamental difference between CW play and public que play are huge and the people usually complaining about spawn camping (and who are getting camped) are the usually the ones who fail to realize it. I play pug games in CW and I've only ever been spawn camped 3 times.
I honestly hate the entire public que though and want it to just disappear. Replace it with Solaris or something and do the maps right. PLS PGI. While the CW maps are still flawed, they are at least improved over the public que. Public que has all the depth of a sidewalk puddle on a hot summer day a week after a light drizzle and a major part of the problem is poorly designed maps. It should be obvious something is off when leagues and tournaments start imposing out of game rules just to make things more interesting than a 12v12 heavy/assault shoot out.
You and I have very different experiences, apparently, and not just with MW:O.
- Spawn camping is an exploit in the most basic sense of the word - taking advantage of something. I say it's with nefarious intentions,
because it works by not allowing your opponent to play. That's like tying a boxer's arms behind his back and throwing him in the ring. Who the heck wants to spend time playing, or even watching, something like that? Just pick up a hefty pillow and whack it around for a few hours, you'll get the exact same satisfaction of pummelling a helpless target.
The developers, at no point, intended to make spawn camping part of the game -
in fact, they added in the feature of dropships able to shoot things specifically to discourage spawn camping. Back then, I was actually apprehensive about that, and at first I even complained that it made getting to objectives too difficult. (Clearly I've had a change of heart since then.)
And there are many possible ways to fix spawn camping. Static dropships that do not move for longer periods before/after a drop sequence & continually are able to shoot attackers; dynamically changing spawn points based on proximity to attackers; more drop spawn points, both further out and spread out; map changes, like Sulfurous rift - taking away the pieces of cover that allow attackers to camp while completely invulnerable to defenders or dropships; opening up the maps themselves, giving matches some distance & removing the lane-forced-meatgrind theme; the only limit here is imagination with healthy doses of practicality.
Spawn camping is not a "natural consequence" of competitive gaming, it's both a result of a flawed design & the cause of flaws itself.
I'm also very skeptical of the claim that you've only been spawn camped '3 times'. Again, either you don't play as much as others, or you're playing a different MW:O than I am.
- In public qeue, I witness plenty times where the team has seemingly forgotten about the importance of holding ground, and ends up either one-sidedly stomped by the enemy team or loses by loss of objectives. It happens quite a fair bit, and oftentimes I'm able to pay enough attention to what's going on to remedy the bad situation just enough to eke out a win. Either you aren't playing public qeue much, or we somehow aren't playing the same MW:O.
(Plus, the 'nascar' feel is partially due to map design and partially because of the restricted size of the maps.)
- I see the complete reverse when it comes to map design. Old maps,
while mostly suited for 8v8 and not 12v12, are far more open, fluid, and flexible than most CW maps (the most recent one being the sole exclusion). Ideally all maps should be on the scale of Alpine Ridge.
That said, all the maps have their own flaws, too - like Alpine Ridge having the unrealistically steep cliffs & central mountain that offers such an advantageous position that all other parts of the map are generally excluded. River City is far too small & limited, and is the worst map for a night mode. There's more work that ought to be done there, I can't deny that.
But it's a hell of alot better than the first two maps we got for CW. (And the third isn't much better, it just has slightly better terrain design.)
- Saying removing public qeue would be a good thing is...just ridiculous. That's where the vast, VAST majority of players are in MW:O, even during events like this last one.
- Player-made tournaments have always imposed special rules and regulations on games, that's just how it is - and it's usually out of an effort to artificially account for unbalanced parts of the game itself,
so that truely fair & fun competition can be had.
That's just the state of things right now - there's alot of imbalances, in various forms, that have yet to be corrected for. PGI has a lot of work that needs to be done, they sure as hell need to find more folks to hire, they've done well since the IGP split but this is a steep challenge to overcome.
In my own personal opinion, the game was still in alpha stage up until the IGP split. That's when true beta started, and that's where we're still at.
My perception of this beta stage is that it ends when the game has:
- reliable & predictiable hit registration, physics, collisions, and rendering
- full-sized scaling of maps & map details [buildings, cars, etc. are far smaller than they ought to be - oddly it's the mechs that are scaled correctly while everything else is too small], with wider areas that allow for more flexibility and uncertainty of the flow of a match [as in no lanes, no 'strategic cover placement' or terrain that encourages mass nascar brawling, etc.], and smoother terrain itself [no rocks that render mechs immobile, unlikely dips and curves, or implausible cliffs or sudden mountain peaks]; basically take everything that went into map design from older MechWarrior titles & plug that into MW:O
- well-defined & maintained parameters for game balance, for all the various factors that play into game balance, including game economy, weapon balance, ELO balance, consumable balance, armor balance, speed balance, and so on. [PGI has already come a great ways with this - but there's so much further that can be gotten to]
- 8v8, possibly 4v4, and 1v1 modes
- an intuitive tutorial [or series of tutorials] that fully immerse new players into the game [this has been an issue with many other MMO shooters over the last few years, so I can cut PGI a little slack, but it's desperately needed for true 'full release' of a game]
- Smurfy-like mechlab [
it's in testing, it's coming soon, I know, I know, it's just not here right now this minute as I'm writing this post....THIS one, I will give PGI credit where it's due and say this particular point won't matter for long]
- a fleshed out "Community Warfare" that gives incentives to own planets, presents fair & balanced arenas for competitive combat (which by definition excludes spawn camping)
- a PvE, 'campaign/single player experience' mode, either single player, cooperative, or both - there's plenty of material available for this, and I'd be perfectly fine with them just recycling old MechWarrior games' campaigns, just imitiated with Cryengine 3.
Disclaimer:
@ PGI staff who may happen to read this: I am writing this critique with the best of intentions and
love of the game in mind, it's not to pick on PGI or belittle what's been done so far. MW:O is a pretty good game - and it can be so, so much better. I want it to be better, because I love Mechwarrior; I like PGI & the work you've put in and the attitudes you've had about it and the determination to continue on. If I knew how to make any of these things happen on my own, well...I'd be hitting the "We're Hiring" button regularly.
Honestly I just don't have the required background, and unfortunately motivation doesn't seem to be enough.
Edited by Telmasa, 01 April 2015 - 11:44 PM.
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