bkelly

Evening all,

Tonight's games attracted some pretty good talent, a few with the desire to win no matter what. At one point a player started camping our spawn area and I told him it wasn't permitted on our server. He said there was nothing about it in the rules and I discovered he was right once I learned how to pull up the splash page.

The TG Primer says, "Most all of our games have specific rules about attacking the primary spawn points where players enter the game" but as far as I can tell, FT2 does not.

Should it?

bkelly

kormendi

If you are able to spawn and get your bearings and plan your attack on the "spawn camper" then you are not being spawn camped. At least per the definition we employ on the TF2 server.

What makes spawn camping bad in other games is the attacker is able to kill you the instant you spawn before you have a chance to defend yourself. In TF2 you can spawn safely, assess the situation, and change your class as necessary to defeat the player(s) at the door.

__________________




Team Fortress 2 Admin | NS Admin
PM me if you have any questions/concerns regarding the server.

bkelly

I agree and some FT2 maps like Turbine give the spawners these opportunities. Other maps like Well don't for several reasons:

1) You can't know you're being camped until the trap has been sprung. This is a serious setback since our server has long spawn times.

2) There is one way out of the spawn area and campers watch the only doorway. When you are killed as soon as you cross the threshold, you have no way to defend yourself and no opportunity to attack.

3) You can't "get your bearings" on the threat until you exit the spawn area, by which time you're already dead.

4) There is little to plan. You can't flank your opponent. Different characters might help only so they can survive the initial barrage. The only tactic is for a staggered group to rush the door and hope a few survive.

5) Campees are deprived of several options. Spys can't leave unseen since the door must be opened, engineers can't build defenses and medics will have no ubercharge built.

bkelly

ROCKS

I think that one should be able to spwn camp. Firstly the defending team spawn camps at the start of most rounds, without this you might as well give up the first cap point. In a cap point format if your spawn camping as offense its cause you've already won. If im spawn camping in dustbowl for instance its cause my boys are caping behind me at the last cap and im hold up the fort for them. This takes all but 10 seconds max.

Next, one does get the chance to get his bearings and mount a counter attack. Sure, you get surprised the first time but you get a chance to get your bearing the next time. Try exiting with a heavy medic or two. The truth is I can count with less than one hand times where I was unable to "get out" of a spawn for very long.

As far as Well is concerned, ive never been stuck in a spawn there. I cant think of where? The first exit has a door, the second as well and if your spawning in the third its cause the enemy is on his heels. If I remember, you can exit through the water and go around (though again, ive never been stuck here myself) or the train station.

Thats my take. If we get rid of spawn camping the only people who will suffer are the defenders as its basically the only strategy they have on the firsts CP
.

TheFeniX

Camping the exterior of the spawn just for the sake of doing it goes against the "complete your objective" rule. You need to be keeping enemy re-enforcements from coming out to stop your push, not just scoring kills to boost your stats.

Actual spawncamping is legit at pretty much every game at TG (if applicable) as long as there's a purpose to it. You have to camp a spawn in BF2 in order to capture it. And that gives you a serious advantage because they are actually spawning where you're camping.

You can't camp an uncapturable base because there's no objective there.

If our exterior spawn is being camped, I'll usually just take one for the team and then let the other spawners mop up.

Judging whether or not a player is camping the exterior of spawn just for the sake of it is difficult. But, I rarely see it done. Castle is an example: if they've got 2 demoman camping our spawn with 75% of the team inside, then there had better be a capture in the next 15 seconds.

__________________

Fish #641

Castle is the only one where I ever feel spawncamped, but it's not a big deal.

"Vote Fenix in '08. He supports Spawn Camping."

bkelly

I don't have a problem with camping on these maps because there are multiple exits and there are no doors preventing you to see/shoot beyond. There is also a difference between pushing an enemy back to their doors and crossing the battlefield to find the single door from which you know your enemy must emerge.

I think your second point counters your first. One can always claim that camping the enemy's spawn kills your opponent quickly and helps your team complete the objective.

And I have no problem with Castle as all their spawn points have multiple exits.


Sounds like I'm the only one thinking this is a problem. I consider myself educated and will drop the issue.

bkelly

TheFeniX

That's why I said, "I'd better see a cap happening in the next 15 seconds."

They can claim all they want, but if there's two guys camping the door and there's no flag or control point capture being done, they aren outside the scope of the server rules.

Hell, I've dropped a sentry gun outside the enemy spawn on scorpion in order to buy me some time after I've grabbed the flag. Worked pretty well too. Now, me sitting there trying to upgrade it it would be a lot harder to justify it. But, I just dropped it and left. Got lucky that it actually built itself in time.

If you think someone is spawn camping for the sole purpose of garnering kills, inform an admin and they'll look into it.

__________________

Mahonri Moriancumer

At school this morning I remember reading some one posted that the spawn time is too long .

I am home now so here is my 2 cents.

People are killing/dieng at all moments of the game...they are dieng on your team too.
If you run out of that spawn , and are insta shot down by a sentry..or killed by a class ,
Someone is bound to see that you've been killed..if having any their common sense will kick in and THEY will try to defeat the enemy aswell.

__________________
May God have mercy on my enemies because I won't.

Ingame name is [Zion] DanielLion |TG|!!

TheFeniX

TG runs the stock spawn times for all the maps, with the exception of a short spawn time delay on cp_warpath (thanks Strag).

Most public players are just used to instant respawn servers.

__________________

bkelly

I'm not comfortable with this as I don't agree with the interpretation. After my protests last night I asked the guy why he would want to spawn camp since it makes the game no fun for the other team. His answer was, "It's effective." He's right. It moves a team quickly to their objective.

Indeed. Many people these days don't have the stomach for their just desserts.

Don't like waiting twenty seconds? How about not doing a suicide rush next time?

bkelly

Doktor Goku

The garage-style door, plus extra time, plus full life/ammo refills makes the concept of spawn camping in TF2 almost a joke.

I often throw stickies as Demoman by the Blu spawn in Dustbowl- it works to kill a few people, and delay them coming out a bit- but they always get me in the end. It's also been vice-versa; I think that if the entire team is spawn-camping, yes, obviously that's wrong- but simply because it's not helping them cap a point or the intel. If you're running 8 on 8 and one person from Red manages to hold off Blu reinforcements for a minute or two- that's being efficient.

Further, how are you going to define spawn camping? Where do you draw the line? Is it in sight of the spawn- or some distance away? Vertical (2fort) or horizontal distance? 8 ft? 9 ft?

It's almost impossible to control properly. Of course, you could go with the old "pornography" idea- "I know it when I see it", but... well, you know :P

__________________
---------------
Doc-in-training

Mahonri Moriancumer

I wasn't making any complaints about the spawn time , I just remember reading it earlier ..tbh I'm fine with the spawns.

I wouldn't want to be playing mach , killing someone to grab the intel and have them instantly on my tail.

__________________
May God have mercy on my enemies because I won't.

Ingame name is [Zion] DanielLion |TG|!!

Chewy

Hardly... one guy spawn camping while the rest of his team is defending an already captured capture point or even trying to capture an enemy point is NOT moving his team quickly to any objective except rapidly inflating HIS score. And the only effectiveness it has is again, inflation of ONE person's score. Last time I checked, one team member spawn camping outside the spawn point does not equate to TEAM points.

Now, for example, you pushed the opposing team all the way back to the last capture point. You might have 3 or 4 guys specifically watching the doors on the spawn point while others make a deliberate attempt to capture the point while the others are providing cover fire and resistance at the spawn doors. THAT is not spawn camping, it's playing great defense and more than one person is benefiting from this strategy.

Boom, headshot!

__________________

Donagel

just my two cents.

TO me it comes down to winning versus enjoing.

On the maps where there is only one exit from a spawn, if you are on the camp'd side, and everythime the door opens there is 2 pyros, 2 demos and a medic (ready to uber) on you, then it is no fun. Yes, there is a tactical response, go med and uber someone, but that is no guarantee you'll clear your spawn.

This example overweighs the effectiveness or "winning" in my book. Short of chaning the map though, I do not see how to codify a solution. The maps just beg you to make the spawn entrance a defensive point.

__________________
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." - H. L. Mencken