Why the Spawn XP change is terrible

Punishing players for doing the most effective thing to contain enemies/control a base is not the right way to handle this. XP gain is already extremely low for fresh spawns.

This will also just fix absolutely nothing. I couldn't even call it a bandaid fix. People aren't going to stop spawn camping because they're not getting 25xp or whatever it is for a spawn kill.

When you see an enemy, pretty much nobody is considering how much XP they might get for killing them before shooting, they just kill them. I'm not going to watch someone exit a spawn room, wait X seconds, and then try to kill them. It's hard to even understand where the reasoning for this change is coming from, it makes no so sense at all. The problem is clearly not XP related(hint: it's your base designs) and this seems to be just a futile gesture to say "look we're doing something about it!".

It also seems to be part of a trend of a lack of creativity, effort, or perhaps just lack of resources being put towards this game. It's been a long time since I've look forward to a patch for anything but bug fixing/performance improvement, and content patches I actually am starting to dread because they often end up breaking things for fairly insignificant additions to the game. I would trade back all the new pistols, the valkyrie, the directive weapons, etc. for more reliable infantry gameplay.

I don't see the XP change as terrible but I agree that it won't fix the issue. Spawn room location in relation to capture points and/or v-terms is best option to fix this issue... On new or work-in-progress continents they will fix it and on some of the newer continents they already did this very thing...

Right now people will camp sunderers and farm the freshly spawned players while leaving the sunderer up so they can farm.
This change will make it so doing that is a complete waste of time, as they wont count at all, not as kills for K/D or directives.

This really will not change spawn room camping, as that is the tactical choice to not allow the defenders a chance to defend.

so u spawncamp because it is good for your faction and u dont make it for exp because u would get more exp for killing player that got a bounty on there head
so whats the problem than?

by the way u would help your team more if u kill player with a big bounty instead of the new spawned player that arent even a thread

No, the best solution was the one already implemented in PS1; destroyable spawn tubes, pain fields, generators. It worked. Dumb of SOE to not improve on their previous game but to think a "new" system would be better.

This too, where was my head...

First off: The new XP Changes are anything but a punishment for Spawncampers. Do you get XP taken away from you when you spawnkill? Do you get a weapons lock? Do you get a negative XP modifier? No? Then this its not a punishment. It's just an unrewarded action.
As far as I can remember, Highby also mentioned on his stream that the "freshly spawned" tag is getting removed from a Player as soon as he deals any damage, which basically means you'll get normal XP for those players who are fighting right after leaving the spawn, but you won't get XP for the Players who weren't able to fire even a single shot at anybody. Sounds absolutely fair to me.

Second, I don't think SOE was trying to end Spawncamping. "Such an attempt is futile!", to quote the Borg here, and I think SOE knows that too. As you mentioned, when Players see an Enemy, they are trying to kill him, of course, why shouldn't they?
What SOE is trying to do is to move the main fighting a bit away fom the Spawnrooms and towards the Objectives, e.g. Points and Generators. Thats why you get more XP for flipping a Point (400 if I remember the "Highby,pls!" stream correctly) and that's why you get 100 Guard-XP every now and then while staying next to a flipped Capture Point.

Honestly, I want to believe that these changes will bring what they were intended to bring, but I'm sceptical. I say, lets see how this all pans out on the Test Servers (If it isn't already there) and then we'll be able to do a proper discussion of what needs to be changed!

We had SCU's everywhere before.

People complained that fights ended to quickly

Blame people.

We need SCU's in every base and redesigns to spawn areas; these XP changes are addressing a symptom of a problem and not the problem itself

Technically, if PS2 logic follows, even were spawn tubes destroyable, enterprising players will try to leave at least one up so that they can farm the few poor saps who keep spawning into futile battles. SCUs, of course, will still be destroyed because they are part of the sub-objectives in a base and award experience.

I agree, but I still think the XP change is good, and it fixes motivation to spawn camp Sundies which the only goal should be to destroy them.

In short, XP change, GOOD... SCU's still needed.

Then, since there's no XP for spawn killing, nobody will yell at you for destroying their farm when you blow it up

Less exp is just to discourage spawn camping is all, more bases have been using teleporters and others have been using SCU's. Camping a spawn is similar to Zerging in planetside as both are rather discouraging concepts but viable tactics.

It will mitigate the issue. Currently people will leave the AMS up to farm spawning players.

Now that xp or kills are not being rewarded there is no need to do anything other than kill the AMS as fast as possible.

Why would I stop killing enemies? Why on earth would I let them have a chance at pushing out? This is a problem of base design especially towers and the pushing of infantry side 2 and the demise of combined arms.

Until there is a major overhaul of bases where spawn points aren't completely exposed to the zerg SOE has to try and do something but it's the equivalent of plugging the hole in the dam with your finger.

You're not being punished, you're just not being rewarded, which is completely different.

Higby said that? When I read about Malorn's twitter posts regarding this, he said the player must gain 100 xp after spawning to have the freshly spawned tag removed.
https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/spawn-kill-xp-going-from-25xp-to-0xp.201166/

This would mean that if a freshly spawned guy attacks your teammate, you're better off waiting until the teammate is dead before attacking. Thus you can get XP from both the kill and if you're a medic, you can revive your teammate for even more XP! What a glorious change this is going to be...

I must say I'm very pleased SOE makes the effort to adjust the stat tracking and XP systems to encourage good gameplay. That said, there are improvements to be had.

I saw a comment on Reddit that if they create a separate tag for spawn kills they could change it to reward XP/kills but only a limited amount before you earn zero (like ammo XP). So you'd at least get points if you run near the spawn room now and then. Or a low amount for spawn camping - arguably, what the current system does anyway except with less kill stats.

I would keep the defenders accruing death stats though, to encourage them not to be 100% mindless and maybe flank or spawn elsewhere.

[But I do agree with the above posters that underground spawns with SCUs (and/or destroyable spawn tubes) make the most gameplay sense. If defenders cannot get out of the spawn room the root problem (apart from better exits but that will never 100% solve it) is that they insist on spawning in a terrible situation. What army would deliberately put themselves in the middle of a killing field?

The only reason this did not work earlier in the game was that players had the choice of whether they defended the SCU, or the point, or do whatever they want. Knowing your average gamer, this meant most players didn't bother. If you put the thing right outside the spawn room, so it's impossible to avoid as a defender, then the only fights that end will be dominating spawn camps that neither side enjoy anyway.]


While you're at it SOE, could we remove the encouragement for players to fight from inside the spawn room? I can't imagine that it's desirable to have players earning XP and kills while immune, and simultaneously annoying teammates for not playing the objectives and the enemy for not entering combat.

As a simple fix, please remove all rewards from within the spawn room. If you can at some point, give it the same treatment as spawn kills by allowing a small amount of kills or XP for a certain time frame. So you can shoot a couple enemies before you leave but that's it.

As long as SOE add back a limited XP/stat tracking (see top of comment) that would solve my complaint that players absolutely should be rewarded when they have no anti-vehicle weapon and protect teammates that do. Players that spawn in on a Sunderer are a combatant straight away, whether they fire or not.

If anything though, this situation points to why Sunderer spawns are worse than spawn rooms, as I said in another thread:

"The problem is a lack of protection that is acceptable to both sides in the fight. Spawn rooms allow you all the time you need to get your bearings and even kill a couple enemies before you leave. At Sunderers, however, you either spawn, load quickly and die in a hail of gunfire, or you load slowly and the enemy waste their magazine and are left reloading for the next guy."


The best changes I could see SOE making on that front are:

- Expand the "Sunderer under fire" warning to give feedback on all available Sunderers on the map (perhaps making them blink and change colour) rather than just the last one you spawned at
- Add an option to allow players to spawn inside the Sunderer so they have protection to get their bearings and can use the turrets. Maybe even force them if the Sunderer is under fire.
- Increase Sunderer kill XP if it is deployed / has spawned lots of players. Regular support Sunderers or those en route should not be worth the same XP as an absolutely vital objective - particularly not successful ones that have survived a long time. This would fit with the objective XP changes.

Does this also not count as a kill towards KDR, auraxium and/or directives?

Freshly spawned kills will count towards nothing. Doesn't count as a kill for your K/D, Auraxiums, nor Directives.

I disagree with the OP, this is a good change. Too often I see the "MLG"-types farming sunderers instead of destroying the sunderer and ending the farm. That should not be encouraged by the game mechanics, only discouraged. In the previous scenario, all experienced players will find somewhere else to spawn, but new players will get farmed mercilessly so that the MLG-wanna-bes can get their K/Ds up so that they don't get kicked from their precious "MLG" outfit. And the new players will most likely not play PS2 again. This is a clear win-win change, and only the exploiters wanting the easiest kills possible have reason to object.