16 replies to this topic

[Grayson Sortek]

Hey PGI, I just wanted to have an honest conversation for a moment.

I really like the FP mini-events. I think they are a great way to get the community involved in what was essentially a dead aspect of the game. I had a lot of fun for the most part, and it was great to see actual tactics and strategy involved... but there are some things that need to be resolved.

1) Spawn Camping: How is this a thing in a competitive online multiplayer game that has no other modes than competitive online multiplayer?
My Unit and I dropped in three matches. The first two were a hell of a lot of fun. One of the matches we lost by ONE point and it was still amazing. The third match? We ended up on TD and the enemy rushed our spawn and just spawn camped us. Their assaults hung out behind the walls so that our drop ships wouldn't hit them, and as soon as we were released from the pods their light SRM strikers were blowing limbs and making us CT crit before we could hit the ground.
This was ridiculous PGI, and not fun at all... it was a very frustrating experience.
Suggestion:
Have anyone who is within the walls of the Spawn instantly die. Put a bunch of invincible turrets in there or something. Have the dropships hit harder, like a lot harder. Have enemies that are just outside the wall take a DOT like some kind of heat spike or something. Make it impossible for people to spawn camp in a FP map, because that is just ridiculous.

2) Dropship shoots all over the map: I can't believe I have to say this, but I shouldn't be getting strafed by the invincible enemy dropship while I'm running around in the middle of the map.
I was in Forest Colony on my Pirates Bane going 140 kph and out of no where an enemy dropship zooms overhead and is able to pinpoint accurately shoot me in the CT thus making me CT Crit. The best part? I had Stealth Armor on. Neat, so I was shot by the dropship AND the enemy team knew where to look for me. Thank God their only light was a Raven with 2 ERLL and was completely ineffective against my 4 ERSL and 2 LMGs. Still, it kind of ruined the entire point of me trying to be stealthy and sneak around to the rear armor of the enemy team, in addition to burning my already limited armor.
Suggestion:
Have the dropships hold fire until they are over their designated drop-off points. It shouldn't be that difficult to program; run a check to see if entity Dropship A is in grid B9 or whatever the grid is. If no then don't fire, if yes then weapons hot.
It makes absolutely no sense for game-play, or even for lore, for a dropship that has only been in the AO for a second to instantly be able to lock onto a stealth armor light as small as a locust and blast it with ERLLs. I think the only reason why I didn't die is because of the mountain range that eventually hid me from its view.

Guys, FP could be so much better if your player-base didn't run into this stuff.
I'm not even asking for new maps or features, I'm just asking you to please make some slight tweaks to the current assets.

[Eisenhorne]

Grayson Sortek, on 22 August 2018 - 07:47 AM, said:

1) Spawn Camping: How is this a thing in a competitive online multiplayer game that has no other modes than competitive online multiplayer?

Can't really implement your suggestions, because it will incentivize people just just sit in their spawn, even more than they do now. Played a game last night, where the enemy team moved maybe 100 meters away from their spawn points before we engaged them. We then crushed them 12-0. As we were fighting their first wave, dropships kept coming in and dropping off new pilots. Realistically, what should we have done? We killed the rest of the first wave, and as we did that, we killed the fresh guys dropping. That's not really our fault, the enemy should have moved up. The *SECOND* you drop, hit that W key, so you can engage the enemy as far away from your bases as possible. Otherwise you can get spawn camped because you chose to engage by your spawn points.

Maybe make it so spawn points are more spread out and you can select which one to go to, so if one has enemies near it you can choose a different one. This is a suggestion that has been put forward to PGI and I think is a good idea.

Grayson Sortek, on 22 August 2018 - 07:47 AM, said:

2) Dropship shoots all over the map:

Yea, that's BS, and should be changed.

[Grayson Sortek]

Eisenhorne, on 22 August 2018 - 07:58 AM, said:

Can't really implement your suggestions, because it will incentivize people just just sit in their spawn, even more than they do now. Played a game last night, where the enemy team moved maybe 100 meters away from their spawn points before we engaged them. We then crushed them 12-0. As we were fighting their first wave, dropships kept coming in and dropping off new pilots. Realistically, what should we have done? We killed the rest of the first wave, and as we did that, we killed the fresh guys dropping. That's not really our fault, the enemy should have moved up. The *SECOND* you drop, hit that W key, so you can engage the enemy as far away from your bases as possible. Otherwise you can get spawn camped because you chose to engage by your spawn points.

Maybe make it so spawn points are more spread out and you can select which one to go to, so if one has enemies near it you can choose a different one. This is a suggestion that has been put forward to PGI and I think is a good idea.

I get that we don't want people to camp in their own base, but there has to be some kind of system in place to prevent spawn camping the enemy team. Let's say you can select which point to go to, but they have all the points covered with 'mechs designed to core you before you hit the ground... What then?

I'm not sure how to prevent a team from camping in their own spawn, but being able to spawn kill them isn't the answer. My team wasn't attempting to camp our own spawn, it was conquest and we were attempting to go out and get the points. There was no reason for the enemy to be at our spawn other than to essentially cheat and kill us before we could move.

Eisenhorne, on 22 August 2018 - 07:58 AM, said:

Yea, that's BS, and should be changed.

It would be a relatively simple fix I think.

[Holy Jackson]

We should be able to click our spawn site when we choose our next mech. We should also have the option to drop immediately or delay one 30 second interval to try to fill up a drop ship. (No more than 30 sec to prevent drop ship camping).

I think dropships should mount clan streaks. (360 m range, evenly spread armor blasting).

Edited by Holy Jackson, 22 August 2018 - 09:00 AM.

[McGoat]

Company Commander can select lance drop points from the map overlay; behind walls or not, allowing this would help anyone really.

These points could easily be restricted so that A,B,C all get 4 alternate drop points per spawn area not to exceed beyond 1 grid square forward or 2 behind/left/right of original spawn.

Example:




This is far and above the simple stuff they're willing to invest time in at this point, though.

Edited by McGoat, 22 August 2018 - 09:14 AM.

[Horseman]

Grayson Sortek, on 22 August 2018 - 08:47 AM, said:

I get that we don't want people to camp in their own base, but there has to be some kind of system in place to prevent spawn camping the enemy team.

It's called "not allowing them to push into your spawn to begin with". If you get pushed back into your spawns, you've already lost control of the battle - and therefore, lost the match. Whether or not you get spawncamped would not change it.

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I'm not sure how to prevent a team from camping in their own spawn, but being able to spawn kill them isn't the answer.

It is the only answer. Any prevention that forced your team to leave the spawn or killed people camping their spawns for too long would be exploitable.

Quote

My team wasn't attempting to camp our own spawn, it was conquest and we were attempting to go out and get the points. There was no reason for the enemy to be at our spawn other than to essentially cheat and kill us before we could move.

If you weren't able to cap fast enough to counter their advantage while the bulk of their force was pushing your spawn, you were already losing the match then and there. On conquest, the approach usually is to have several dedicated cappers while the rest of your team ties up the enemy in combat.

Edited by Horseman, 23 August 2018 - 07:44 AM.

[Leone]

I offer Some Suggestions.

~Leone.

[Grayson Sortek]

Horseman, on 23 August 2018 - 01:20 AM, said:

It's called "not allowing them to push into your spawn to begin with". If you get pushed back into your spawns, you've already lost control of the battle - and therefore, lost the match. Whether or not you get spawncamped would not change it.

It is the only answer. Any prevention that forced your team to leave the spawn or killed people camping their spawns for too long would be exploitable.

If you weren't able to cap fast enough to counter their advantage while the bulk of their force was pushing your spawn, you were already losing the match then and there. On conquest, the approach usually is to have several dedicated cappers while the rest of your team ties up the enemy in combat.

LMAO, your post amounts to "L2P, git gud noob".

So when the game mixes up the 4 people from my unit and a bunch of other small groups against a 12 man pre-made that decides to spawn camp us; then in your opinion, we should just accept our fate? We should just be okay with the enemy team blowing limbs off and CT critting us before we hit the ground because the enemy team is obviously superior and deserves to be able to do that to us? Maybe I should just eject from all of the 'mechs and throw myself on my sword in honor of their obvious superiority?

I'm guessing from your avid defense of this incredibly poor tactic that you are a practitioner. This has always been regarded as an incredibly dirty, and sometimes cheating, tactic since the likes of Tribes. Thank God you are not in my unit sir, I wouldn't be able to stand playing with the likes of you.

May we never meet on the field of battle.

[Bud Crue]

Grayson Sortek, on 24 August 2018 - 05:29 AM, said:

LMAO, your post amounts to "L2P, git gud noob".

Yes.

“Git gud” is, in essence, the PGI stated requirment of playing the mode.

Read the warning sign with its “strong emphasis on team play”, “specialized mech load outs”, “no skill based matchmaker”, etc.

If you truly believe that the 12 man pre-made that you mention above is in fact what is preventing you from playing the mode “gud” then you have a choice: run a 12-man of your own or don’t. If you don’t then the nasty 12-man will continue to base camp you because they can, and believe me they just want to end it fast for both them and you, and base camping is the fastest way to do that.

Its just the nature of the mode. Accept that better players functioning as a team, be they a 12 man or not, will role your 4 man and mixed group if you don’t have your crap together or are just not very good at playing the game. When that happens, base camping happens. Cest’ la vie.

[Jon Gotham]

Grayson, unless we can have choosable spawn points it will happen. I've seen all sorts of morality and logic gymnastics to justify-it's not acceptable end of story.
If a person can honestly believe murdering someone before they can even power up is perfectly fine in a GAME which is about fun, then their personality/morals are defective-seek help:P

I'd suggest having movable spawn points also as previously suggested and also make any kills gained in spawn areas grant NOTHING. You should not be rewarded for being a ****.

Edited by Jon Gotham, 24 August 2018 - 06:10 AM.

[Horseman]

Grayson Sortek, on 24 August 2018 - 05:29 AM, said:

LMAO, your post amounts to "L2P, git gud noob".

Hardly. My point is is that getting spawncamped is a symptom and not the actual problem.
On Conquest, part of the team needs to cap, yes... the remaining mechs have to tie up the main enemy force to prevent that exact situation from developing. His team made a mistake by focusing on one of those to the exclusion of the other and the enemy exploited that opening.

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So when the game mixes up the 4 people from my unit and a bunch of other small groups against a 12 man pre-made

Quote

We should just be okay with the enemy team blowing limbs off and CT critting us before we hit the ground because the enemy team is obviously superior and deserves to be able to do that to us? Maybe I should just eject from all of the 'mechs and throw myself on my sword in honor of their obvious superiority?

I recommend to start with a chamomile tea and refraining from trying to turn me into your personal strawman again.

Being up against a 12-man doesn't magically turn your mixed group into comms-deaf tier 5s in trial mechs - you still have your drop decks, comms and personal skill. Use them.

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that decides to spawn camp us; then in your opinion, we should just accept our fate?

By the time they're in range to fire at your drop zone's walls - not even inside - the match is already lost. You shouldn't let them into the position to do that in the first place.

The only mechanical solution that could address it to any extent are variable drop locations (which Paul already mentioned are unlikely to happen) and even that wouldn't prevent a coordinated enemy from controlling multiple drop zones.

Protecting spawns too much will just give certain types the idea of staying in their spawns instead of trying to actually win. Don't penalize staying in spawn zone and you're looking at people just running down the timer.
A bunch of mechanics that were proposed (OOB, bombarding the spawn zone etc) to force players to leave their spawn zone, but they'd all be exploitable.
Instead of spawncamped, those players would just be held suppressed in their spawns until the anti-spawn-hiding mechanic killed them off instead - which is an even worse way to go - or just get shot from a kilometer away when they tried to move outside the drop zone.

Quote

I'm guessing from your avid defense of this incredibly poor tactic that you are a practitioner. This has always been regarded as an incredibly dirty, and sometimes cheating, tactic since the likes of Tribes.

Nope, and I'm not defending it, just stating facts: your - and mine - only defense against being spawncamped is not let the enemy team near our spawns in the first place, or at least not intact enough to pose a genuine threat. There's no miracle solution PGI can summon to change that.

Jon Gotham, on 24 August 2018 - 06:09 AM, said:

Grayson, unless we can have choosable spawn points it will happen.

It will happen even then.

Quote

I've seen all sorts of morality and logic gymnastics to justify-it's not acceptable end of story.
If a person can honestly believe murdering someone before they can even power up is perfectly fine in a GAME which is about fun, then their personality/morals are defective-seek help:P

In most of the modes, killing the entire enemy force is an early victory condition.
Take that out and you allow matches where both teams wait until the clock runs down because the last guy on one side retreats into his spawn and thumb his nose at both sides.
Isn't that fun? Of course it isn't, both sides would prefer to kindly please have their drop decks back to queue for another match, hopefully against a different opfor.

[UnKnownPlayer]

Bringing a 4 man is great, i salute your group play. Now you need to find a larger group to play with, once you are in a 10-12 man overall group this wont happen, go farm the TS hubs.

[Tarl Cabot]

Drop ship could always do air strikes before dropping off a load of mechs. This would mean the defenders can not stay at their spawn point.. move it!!! And standard payload for a Leopard class dropship.

2 x PPCs
3 x LRM-20s
7 x Medium Lasers
5 x Large Lasers

Or change the Leopard to a Union class dropship. Either payload would be very painful, especially if the leopard does a slow flyby or the Union hover floats to get to its mark... Or keep the Union grounded ...


3 x PPCs
6 x AC/5s
6 x LRM-20s
12 x Medium Lasers
5 x Large Lasers

[Horseman]

Have you considered what are the reasons the enemy is spawncamping in the first place?
There are four.
First, the enemy may be doing it because it's the only victory condition they have (see: Skirmish, Siege when you're on the attack side).
Second, the enemy may be using it to deprive your force of mechs. It can be countered, forces them to split up and every mech trying to spawncamp you is NOT playing the objective. It is a legitimate strategy, as unpleasant as it may be on the receiving end. The real issue is when you're getting stomped already and the enemy team forgoes a quick victory by objective to farm you instead (see next point).
Third, the reward structure is broken. The enemy force gets more C-Bills, XP and LP for killing your mechs than playing the objective and have no reason to cut the match short if they're already winning and there's time left on the clock.
Fourth, the enemy may be doing this simply because they like griefing. No amount of penalties will change that.

For a competitively minded player, this situation is just as disgusting on the other end as for you being on the receiving end
Which doesn't mean they won't do it if they're in position to do so - see points one through three

Protecting dropzones does nothing but promote passive gameplay
It doesn't remove any of the above mentioned reasons, it just makes the process a little harder for the other side. The only thing that would change is that instead of getting camped right at the spawn, you'd be sniped from distance as soon as you left the spawn.

So how do you fix this?
Variable drop zones - or simply the ability to switch to another dropship - are only a partial solution. They would help some maps/modes while being utterly unhelpful in others (see: defending side on Siege).
Having an option to delay your drop would allow your force to regroup within the dropships and drop multiple mechs at once, giving you a fighting chance instead of being fed one by one into enemy guns.
Incentivizing objective victory would go the furthest distance: if the enemy was rewarded just as much for winning by objective (bonus for each surviving mech on your side if the enemy player still has at least one mech alive) and saving time on the clock (bonus for time remaining), they would have better reasons to play the objective than waste time on killing off the remainder of your force.

Of course, certain types would then complain that those dirty meta cheater 12-mans refuse to engage them in gentlemanly fisticuffs when they take an ANH or DWF to Polar Conquest...

Edited by Horseman, 25 August 2018 - 05:00 AM.

[theUgly]

Grayson Sortek, on 22 August 2018 - 07:47 AM, said:

Hey PGI, I just wanted to have an honest conversation for a moment.

I really like the FP mini-events. I think they are a great way to get the community involved in what was essentially a dead aspect of the game. I had a lot of fun for the most part, and it was great to see actual tactics and strategy involved... but there are some things that need to be resolved.

1) Spawn Camping: How is this a thing in a competitive online multiplayer game that has no other modes than competitive online multiplayer?
My Unit and I dropped in three matches. The first two were a hell of a lot of fun. One of the matches we lost by ONE point and it was still amazing. The third match? We ended up on TD and the enemy rushed our spawn and just spawn camped us. Their assaults hung out behind the walls so that our drop ships wouldn't hit them, and as soon as we were released from the pods their light SRM strikers were blowing limbs and making us CT crit before we could hit the ground.
This was ridiculous PGI, and not fun at all... it was a very frustrating experience.
Suggestion:
Have anyone who is within the walls of the Spawn instantly die. Put a bunch of invincible turrets in there or something. Have the dropships hit harder, like a lot harder. Have enemies that are just outside the wall take a DOT like some kind of heat spike or something. Make it impossible for people to spawn camp in a FP map, because that is just ridiculous.

2) Dropship shoots all over the map: I can't believe I have to say this, but I shouldn't be getting strafed by the invincible enemy dropship while I'm running around in the middle of the map.
I was in Forest Colony on my Pirates Bane going 140 kph and out of no where an enemy dropship zooms overhead and is able to pinpoint accurately shoot me in the CT thus making me CT Crit. The best part? I had Stealth Armor on. Neat, so I was shot by the dropship AND the enemy team knew where to look for me. Thank God their only light was a Raven with 2 ERLL and was completely ineffective against my 4 ERSL and 2 LMGs. Still, it kind of ruined the entire point of me trying to be stealthy and sneak around to the rear armor of the enemy team, in addition to burning my already limited armor.
Suggestion:
Have the dropships hold fire until they are over their designated drop-off points. It shouldn't be that difficult to program; run a check to see if entity Dropship A is in grid B9 or whatever the grid is. If no then don't fire, if yes then weapons hot.
It makes absolutely no sense for game-play, or even for lore, for a dropship that has only been in the AO for a second to instantly be able to lock onto a stealth armor light as small as a locust and blast it with ERLLs. I think the only reason why I didn't die is because of the mountain range that eventually hid me from its view.

Guys, FP could be so much better if your player-base didn't run into this stuff.
I'm not even asking for new maps or features, I'm just asking you to please make some slight tweaks to the current assets.

Everybody has been spawn camped 100s of times. It is the nature of the game.
If the other team outclasses yours and munches you 12 to 2 what they are supposed to do ... hang around ?
They will take advantage of the situation and move forward. Dont matter if it is conquest.

You said it your self it is a competitive mode.
Dont need get great at the game, only thing you need is a full 12 man team and to coordinate
.. and yeah if still getting smacked around while running you team .. maybe you should get better.

On the second point of your locus been shoot while been in the middle of the map
.. dont know what the hell was that .. maybe was jesus.

[Sneaky Ohgoorchik]

Grayson Sortek, on 22 August 2018 - 07:47 AM, said:

1) Spawn Camping: How is this a thing in a competitive online multiplayer game that has no other modes than competitive online multiplayer?
... it was a very frustrating experience.
Suggestion:
Have anyone who is within the walls of the Spawn instantly die. Put a bunch of invincible turrets in there or something. Have the dropships hit harder, like a lot harder. Have enemies that are just outside the wall take a DOT like some kind of heat spike or something. Make it impossible for people to spawn camp in a FP map, because that is just ridiculous.

If they get to your base that close and if they can kill your new mechs that easy - you lost anyway. Why bother them waiting? Also, i can't agree with invincible turrets. I just don't see them improving balance gameplay-vise. And i wonder why anyone will bother using mechs, when able to just build invincible turrets.

Grayson Sortek, on 22 August 2018 - 07:47 AM, said:

2) Dropship shoots all over the map: I can't believe I have to say this, but I shouldn't be getting strafed by the invincible enemy dropship while I'm running around in the middle of the map.
I was in Forest Colony on my Pirates Bane going 140 kph and out of no where an enemy dropship zooms overhead and is able to pinpoint accurately shoot me in the CT thus making me CT Crit. The best part? I had Stealth Armor on. Neat, so I was shot by the dropship AND the enemy team knew where to look for me. Thank God their only light was a Raven with 2 ERLL and was completely ineffective against my 4 ERSL and 2 LMGs. Still, it kind of ruined the entire point of me trying to be stealthy and sneak around to the rear armor of the enemy team, in addition to burning my already limited armor.
Suggestion:
Have the dropships hold fire until they are over their designated drop-off points. It shouldn't be that difficult to program; run a check to see if entity Dropship A is in grid B9 or whatever the grid is. If no then don't fire, if yes then weapons hot.
It makes absolutely no sense for game-play, or even for lore, for a dropship that has only been in the AO for a second to instantly be able to lock onto a stealth armor light as small as a locust and blast it with ERLLs. I think the only reason why I didn't die is because of the mountain range that eventually hid me from its view.

It looks like it wasn't a dropship. But maybe its only me so lucky,that dropship never shoot me at the ceneter of the map.
By the way, a Locust is like 4 meters tall moving object. Its way bigger than pretty much any tank build in reality. For a dropship gunner: why not shoot a squishy *******?

P.S.: War is hell:)

[SpeedyRR]

It doesn't really matter which side of the spawn camping fence you are on, it will continue to happen.
I believe building up drop zone defenses or making OP drop ships will only promote more passive camping play around drop zones rather than being an effective deterrent.
On the other hand, the very nature of some maps and lack of size result in possible drop spawning. This in itself is a problem. Please take note next time you play on Caustic, a map that is based around a central pivot point that often leads to a rotation or nascar that results in one team on top of a drop zone.
Learn the maps, get an idea of where the enemy is and where they are heading. Call out in comms that the enemy is moving to a dropzone, cover that area if the battle shifts that way. Do something about it!
But one of my biggest bits of advice, use teamwork. That means comms and if at all possible drop in a large group if not a full 12

A lot of the above comments don't seem to take into account the basic rule of wave by wave combat. If you survive keep moving up and smash the next wave, get a fresh mech, regroup as a fresh wave to hit their next damaged wave. Rinse and repeat then by the 3rd or 4th wave you have a winning advantage. If the team is successful in this simple FP objective they may well end up at the drop zone. I don't see why a successful push/wave should be punished if they make it to your drop zone.

To be honest I'd be more interested if posts about this kind of issue were more along the lines of Spawn camping, how do I/my team get better to avoid this happening? rather than the typical gripe of Spawn camping, they were better than us in a wave, so now there should be game changes to punish them.
I may be wrong but that seems to be the general sentiment I get from some players on this subject.