[Suggestion] How to End Spawn Camping, Spawn Heroes, and Alamo Stand-Offs

This idea is actually pretty awesome. Might need a more consistent and cheap way to actually move spawns forward as spawning would be dependent on sunderers, which I think is a good idea.

This guy gets it, need to reduce the ability to spawn camp or we wont be able to fix the effect.

You, sir, are a genius. Hit the nail on the head, right there

The problem with that mentality is that there's actually no way to do it. No matter where you put the spawn room, no matter how many door or teleports it has, there will always be someone waiting just outside the safety of the shield to kill you when you step out. The only way to combat that is to have random spawning, and that can be even more unfair and dangerous to the players spawning in.

No, The Neutral Zone system does NOT prevent the enemy from camping the next spawn room, but it does rob them of capture XP for doing so. You have to make a decision to lose points to suppress the enemy at their spawn location.

Back to address the rest of Alyz's post:

Yes, that IS rational behavior. That doesn't make for good game play though. I can't blame players for behaving in this way, but a large portion of game design is finding ways to make players behave in the way you want them to.

Short of putting a shield dome over an entire base that is uncontested, there is no way to 100% eliminate spawn camping. Even with a shield dome, you'd get swarms of ESF waiting for someone to poke out of the dome so they could blast them. That is a form of spawn camping too. What the Neutral Zone System DOES achieve is separating the defenders spawn from the capture goal, making it so that an attacking force CANNOT hold the point AND suppress the defender spawn at the same time.

When you say it's "just a matter of having a few libs hovering" you are automatically making the assumption that the defenders are out numbered and out gunned. It's just as easy to have 3 or 4 skyguards held back at the spawn base too prevent that very thing. And libs over the enemy spawn now means those libs are not over the capture zone, making it more vulnerable.

1) I'm ok with this. Do the opposite also - XP starts at 0 for killing a freshly spawned player and doesn't reach the full 100 XP for 30 seconds. No more XP incentive for killing people fresh out of spawn.
2)This become problematic in the implementation. How do you decide when "hero conditions" are justified? The game has no real way of knowing if a spawn is locked down other than population balances and that would unfairly reward snipers who solo snipe places where they have no real fight.
3) I see this being exploited. I think the devs are doing a good job of building spawn rooms that are harder to hit with tank shells.
4) This becomes a nightmare for drivers. The constant rain of drop pods would ensure that AMSs rarely get deployed in any place other than the obvious covered locations and that makes them easy to track down.

Your last paragraph becomes a thing of the past under the Neutral Zone System. The problem you describe come directly out of the fact the holding the point and suppressing the spawn are the same thing - especially in those towers. Under the NZS, the attackers - once they have got the capture point(s) are instantly The Defenders. They are not spawning in the tower, but instead spawning from their own AMSs / Gals. To turn the tide, the other empire needs to rally at the adjacent base, get some vehicles moving, attack the spawn vehicles of the current defenders, set up their own spawn vehicles, clear out the remaining enemy, capture the point(s), intercept the enemy push coming from the enemy home base, and then set up a defense. Critical in the NZS is that neither empire has a "fixed spawn" at the target location. They must bring up a spawn point to get a toe hold, and those spawn points are vulnerable to destruction.

i've come to the conclusion that removal of spawn shield and introduction of real 'doors' would change the way people played this game more than anything.
they should remake a ps1 base with cap mechanics and put it on the map somewhere to see how fights would work. they could be defended by a well organized but outnumbered force. and there was no 'absolute' safety inside.

Come on people, why the hell do you think this is a problem of the spawn WARRIORS? It's the spawn CAMPERS who make spawn warriors possible!

The 'solution' is almost a carbon copy of many others posted recently, where the spawnpoint is neutralized or removed in it's entirety. This gives more problems than it's worth, and these problems are SO EASY to recognize if you think about it!

1: removing the spawn does not mean 'equal footing'. This game works with a force buildup. Attackers gather to attack, and as an attack goes on more attackers and defenders show up.
If the defenders lose a facility some will redeploy to other area's, others will start to redeploy to the next facility that's being attacked... but the attackers are still the same size, ready to steamroll the next base wjhere they pick up more attackers.
So the defenders who just lost a battle will likely lose the next battle, and the Zerg is created.
And hey, this is when they have an indestructible spawnpoint in the middle of the base! They are completely free to pull sunderers and place them around the base beforehand, which actually happens already. Still they usually lose since the attackers have a larger force buildup than they.

2: equipment
One of the reasons why losing a base means you'll likely loose the next one is that the attackers still have their equipment intact. While the defenders need to pull new tanks and aircraft. So you'll go up outmatched against a (probably) superior force. Now most small battles do have the ability to pull enough defenders, but the lobsidedness of having fewer tanks and aircraft gets you.
The attackers all have their tanks and aircraft and move to the next base in unision. The defenders, however, will pull tanks and need to wait. Waiting in an FPS is a tricky thing, people want to blow stuff up! Even in organized squads it can take several minutes before everyone has their tank at the ready. So in all likelihood you are taking too little firepower to the attackers who have banded together.

3: larger bases
How'd you do it with larger bases? Do they become neutral too? Entire concepts will have to be redrawn. Turrets to defend bases are going to be up for grabs to anyone who passes. How about generators? do they belong to someone or does everyone need to take them down? What about Biolabs, where the easiest way in is through a teleport... in a spawnbunker-like setup to prevent too easy kills by murdering people looking at a loading screen or using it as the ultimate chokepoint where you are able to see and maul them from any direction. If you keep the shields, your whole 'no spawnwarrior' idea (which is FORCED upon them) goes to pieces.

This could happen during special alerts, so that this isn't a constant. Nice idea.

Some one has been playing TF2

I can see it now: Door slides open - a hail of tank shells, grenades, a bullet pour in the door killing everyone in the spawn room.

Doors were in PS1 - they were death trap choke points at best, and glitched out anger inducers at worst.

Like many others, you want this mechanic to solve "The Zerg Problem", but like I've told others, that's not what this idea was made to do. There are other ways to combat global and local population imbalances. Namely - tangible benefits to the outnumbered that help them in fighting the enemy: HP and DPS bonuses based on pop imbalances.

But let's look at what you are saying. You say that defenders won't leave if they are confined to a spawn room. Players that stick around in that condition are merely looking to farm kills from behind the shield. I personally redeploy as soon as my team becomes spawn-locked. I usually pull a vehicle from the next base and bring it up to destroy the enemy spawn. The Neutral Zone System institutionalizes that behavior.

There have been several iterations of the NZS, the last set the rules as such: "Capture the point = Gain access to all base equipment, including the spawn room". Attackers gain control of the spawn room and can begin spawning in right away, but the capture is not complete - the territory is still neutral until the capture time runs out. That puts the attacks on defense, defending and holding the capture point. Now the defender who were pushed out are now on offense, attacking out of the next base on the lattice to re-secure the capture point and and begin pushing the capture timer towards their empire. It see-saws back and forth. The "Base defenders" are whoever is on the CP at that moment.

In the NZS, when the defenders lose control of the base, they must counter attack from the next base, not push out from a surrounded bunker with infantry. That means pulling armor before the attackers (now on defense) have the ability to mobilize. This puts combat out in the areas between the bases where it needed to be all along. Those that hold the neutral zone are at a disadvantage because they must hold the CP and roll armor at the same time. This changes the entire dynamic of what you were talking about with the big push in unison because the other team is already on the move before the capture even occurs.

Large Bases break the zerg. If you look at the diagram I provided you see that if a zerg takes control of a major base, now they have at least two, usually three, sub-bases they must now attack in unison. Failing to secure even one of those bases causes the Large Base to go right back to being neutral. This under-cuts the zergs push.

I addressed the changes to the large bases in the original post, but with the introduction of "Control Point Ownership = Base Equipment Ownership", you no longer have to redesign the bases. They work just as before, they just do it for whoever happens to be on the control point.

In a Biolab, even if it is neutral, the teleport bunkers shields are still controlled by the satellite bases.

I'd love to see it in a limited trial.

I don't know what you mean.

? Large bases actually create zergs.

"Hey look a 1,000 XP base about to be capped, everyone bum rush it for the points."

And that, children, is how zergs are made.

It would be rolled faster than..... TR Connery owning Zurvan during an Indar alert.

...in which the underpopped side gets completely f******.

the simplest solution would just be to do more of what they've done at some towers: move control points farther from the spawn room, and replace the nearest control point with an SCU. That would both make fights more interesting (fewer 'crush of infantry on tower stairs' situations) and remove the scenario in which the base is lost but the 'defenders' still get camped for five minutes at a stretch.

I don't really think this needs to be done at single cap point bases since they mostly flip quickly anyway, but it could be done selectively at the highly defensible ones.

I'm not a fan of direct HP and DPS bonuses. but I'll see your point that this isn't to solve the Zerg problem. I do have concerns that this increases the Zerg problem on some levels, at least the way the game is played right now.

Most people do stick around for the kills even when winning the area back is hopeless.
I think neither of us will get anywhere else with this, because it would result in a "do to" "does not" discussion. Both options happen, where people are nothing but spawnwarriors and even don't act on the chances to take back a base in favor of spawnwarring. Or the other option where bases were defended by spawning there.
So let's discuss your idea instead.

It sounds like a good idea, but I think that when the population imbalance occors you are screwed. Imagine a group of 48 (or 96+) crushing a group of 20. Will those 20 return to defend the next base? I doubt it...
So now you need an incredible coordination to get enough people ready to push them. You cannot out-spawn them, they are the one's spawning in the indestructible spawn bunker as long as they got the point...
You can't bring sunderers out there to properly push them back, there's too many infantry, tanks and aircraft around.
The only option would be to get as much equipment ready at the next, still yours base and wait for them to flip the neutral base... Then you are on top of the next neutral base and capping it already. You can be dug-in in advance and shift some of the underpop disadvantage... but the enemy "only" has to take enough points to get control of the spawnbunker. I do think that's an interesting concept, but I have serious doubt enough people will stick around waiting for X minutes for the enemy to capture the next base for anyone to get a good push together... why wait for a rewardless several minutes with the risk of being steamrolled, if you can respawn somewhere else where they are putting up a great attack?

I really do think we should try it. If the battle really ends up between the bases, with the last push inside rather then almost the entire push, I'm all for it. But I think that we already have an established mentality that will be hard to break, with people rather sitting somewhere and camp rather than attacking tough and dug in Zergs.

You are absolutely right. failure to defend one of the outskirt bases would turn the big base neutral (if someone captures it) and cut the connection to all the sattelite bases. The Zerg might have captured one, but they would still have to retake the main base. This would completely and effectively break up Zergs enough for people to mount an effective attack.
I think that the lattice would need to be rethought to make sure Zergs cannot simply steamroll certain area's, but need to break up almost every other base. It would solve almost all my concerns.

Yes

I would also ask that every time a sattelite base is captured, all deployables within the painfield would be detonated. This to prevent people placing mines there while the base is theirs, and then getting a ton of free kills when people enter/exit the teleporter.

Very interesting idea. Maybe as a suggestion that large bases are not able to flip to neutral (except maybe biolabs).
and the lattice will have to be rethought.

Also this idea is no guarantee that fights will happen between bases, I think this will heavily depend on distance between bases and the terrain, since bases suck in the action. If however there was a terrain feature that needed to be conquered in order to capture the base...

At least this should be tried out on the test server.

I'm with JudgeDeath. The idea sounds neat, but it would terrible. This would just create a scenario where Zergs would steamroll empty bases.

The issue are that currently:

1) there are only two ways to proactively organize a massive force: (1) start a Zerg, and people join the zerg, (2) start defending a base and people join in at the base.
2) there are not other proactive ways to organize a force. There is no dedicated, Continent-wide or Region-wide talk channels that all members of a faction can hop onto (or multi-Outfit channel that more than one Outfit can team up to join and talk on) to figure out "what the plan is" and where to meet-up to assemble an army.
3) Existing command and "Orders" are a joke and usually ignored. They are cryptic, often incompetent, and sparse text spam. There is no way that Command (or HQ support) can put actual icons on the map to dsignate enemy positions and composition and movement, or friendly positions and operations and plans.
4) it's too costly and too bothersome to re-deploy away from a Zerg a player is in. Plus it's more fun to stay in your battle or Zerg. The player spent resources and there is no option to despawn to get those resources back. Getting over to a different front is a big pain, unless it's to a front under attack so the game makes easy spawn options there.

The only reason Zergs meet with any resistance now is either (1) it runs into another zerg, or (2) enough defenders spawn at the bases they are zerging. NOBODY has the tools to coordinate spontaneously spawning a massive counter Zerg force at a specific adjacent base, and then conducting an organized transit and then counter attack by that group.

THIS GAME IS A LOT OF PEOPLE. BUT IT DOES NOTHING TO HELP THEM ORGANIZE BEYOND VERY SMALL GROUPS.

Granted, but what happens AFTER that? Here's the diagram:


After the large base is captured, the zerg has no choice but to split in three to cover each satellite base. A lose at any one satellite base will flip the large base back neutral.

This idea isn't a fix for zerg tactics. That's why I didn't put it in the title. To break zergs, a different rule set involving better population bonuses / penalties would need to be enacted. The current XP bonusing does nothing to shift populations or assist under-popped empires to cope with zergs. A hex based penalty to respawns would do do much better than any base design.

But that's off-topic in this thread.

Double Post.

That's actually NOT the simplest solution. Try watching the Work In Progress streams some time. You'll see that a LOT of work goes into rebuilding maps. Far more work than I'm talking about. 90% of my idea is coding - coding that's already got hooks in the codebase for it. The rest would be 2D assets like map symbols and such. The exist base layouts would work perfectly for the see-saw back and forth of to offenses taking turns assaulting the bases.

Not to mention, as long as defenders have a indestructible spawn point in the target area, there will always be an element of "surround and contain" for the attackers. Even if it's for the two minutes to bring down an SCU.