Why Do I as a defender against a 75% zerg, have a 10 second respawn??? If anyone should have that long of a respawn time it’s the attackers WTF
Yea it made me think alright…. Made me think about why the hell is my ******* bothering to defend against a 75% Zerg. There aren’t even biolabs to slow them down anymore.
As if anyone would listen, all forces sufficient to assist are in theor own zerg going down another lane with 75% overpop. In the meta it's just more convenient to conquer quickly than to actually fight, as long as it can at all be avoided.
If it's a base that doesn't matter much on primetime then just redeploy. Sometimes people show up before it gets capped sometimes they don't even on important bases. See my Discord as there are guides there. It's on my signature.
It is telling how far this community has fallen that they will defend a strategy which avoids combat and even ask players to go away from zergs and make it even easier for them. The core gameplay should be about creating balanced and fun fights, not about zerging your way to outfit resources and alert wins. Players should be encouraged to NOT zerg, but fight with only a small overpop. And encouraged means that it is fun to do, XP rewards only encourage players to use gameplay they don’t enjoy and burn out of the game much faster.
If that map shows 2:1 pop but the lesser team spawns twice as fast then the net pop engaging in fights will be much closer to 50/50. You artificially disadvantage the team that committed forces to the fight on purpose. That's kinda ********. (don't get me wrong, zerging massive overpop is itself ******** too) But the real reason... Because no matter what, it's a bad idea to mess with the respawn timers. There is a psychological reason behind it. You may not notice most of the time but you're in a big operant conditioning machine (skinner box). Spawning is one of the forms of "pressing the pellet feeder button". When the player is conditioned to start the "spawn clicking" at a given time and it doesn't work it triggers a frustrating sense. This messes with one of the mechanics that keeps you playing the game for hours.
Can’t say I agree. You would assume that everyone spawns in sight of an enemy and fight instantly in a fair fight if the respawn timer did that. But there is the time it takes to get to a fight inside a base, the fight itself, the chance of success which is in favor of a Zerg which has a higher chance of outnumbering their opponent. It is not a 50/50 fight in the slightest. Even if spawning became instant for the defenders they would still be on the backfoot as the respawn timer isn’t the problem. I’d change spawning to be mostly instant, but put a timer on how fast you can use specific spawn options. A spawn bunker is always instant, letting the player get into the fight ASAP. There is little point in creating a time where the player isn’t able to play the game. A Sunderer shouldn’t be defended by instant-respawning defenders so a small timer is used before you can use it again, but if you survive for that time before being killed you can absolutely instantly spawn there. Another option is to keep current respawn timers but let players do something while dead. Dead people would make excellent leaders as they don’t have to worry about their body, so allowing players to set down information points near your body or inside the base would be a great function. A simple arrow to indicate where enemy forces are, placing an icon that identifies what kind of weapons are there (AA, AV, AI) or what type of units (vehicle, aircraft, infantry). You could also let players place a local bounty, for example a circle in which all engineers and repair sundies killed get both the killer and the one who placed it a small XP gain, which can be used to encourage players to kill repair teams. The amount of options is massive, and would let players coordinate more about what is happening on the battlefield. Sure it needs some work to make sure it doesn’t become a giant mess of information, for example by using a mechanic that clumps similar information together to reduce clutter, but it would work. Even better would be if players could start placing support weapons down which can be used on the map screen, both by alive and dead people. Say someone deploys a mortar, then players within range can pay a couple of nanites and fire it with a mapclick. Naturally the mortar would not fire HE or similar but support weapons. Smoke, a temporary AOE heal shell, a shieldwall etc. It lets players modify the battlefield and support their allies while they wait for the respawn timer to finish.
I purposefully didn't say 50/50. I said much closer to a 50/50. The important point though is having two different timers for two different teams gives one team an advantage that they didn't earn. It's crap. If you want more people pouring out of your spawn than the other guy then bring more people. Any chosen time is fine. And it's ok if it varies based on where you are trying to go. But to do a literal Respawn right back where you last spawned MUST remain at a constant cadence. That timer cannot change since the previous spawn. If it does you get an irritated rat in the skinner box. It will aggravate the player in a way they may or may not be able to identify and express.
