[Debate] Spawn Camping, Yay or Nay?

[EarlyDawn]

I found this thread in the OFs quite interesting, so I thought I'd see what you guys have to say on the issue.

How do you feel about spawn camping in Planetside? Are you for it or against it? What kind of changes would you make? Are you for or against the PPF (Perma-Pain Field)?

I personally think it's a valid tactic. If you don't want to take down the tubes, and you feel you can contain the spawnbabies, then go for it. However, this can often snowball out of control, jepordizing the hack.

I also think that spawners out of the tubes should not count towards kills for 60-90 seconds. This way, people won't make poor tactical decisions regarding the barracks to pad their killcounts.

I'm *okay* with the idea of the PPF, but I'd like a mini-generator somewhere in the cargo area of the base that you could hack into to disable it (Something new for cloakers!), or a field that only drained stamnia.

Your thoughts?

[Jaged]

I ddon't have any problem with it. Usualy its obvious wich tubes are camped and I just don't spawn there. When I spawn camp, I figure the people who spawned there probably knew it was camped. If not, then ah well its not like death is all that bad in this game.

[Red October]

I find it annoying when I'm battling it, die, spawn...only to die again. Instead of taking down the tubes, everyone just waits for some unsuspecting person to show up for a free kill. The only place thier should be camping is at the doors in case an engineer tries to come in and repair them.

[Warborn]

It's almost invariably a poor decision to try and contain spawners, as people can decon into the base too, so the only reason you'd really spawn camp is to get kills, or to just keep a spawn room clear till a tower hack goes through. Thus I'm not in favor of it, as except for the tower situation, I don't think killwhoring should be encouraged at the expense of tactics.

[EarlyDawn]

Well, there are certain times when spawncamping is preferable to dropping the tubes. Like if you're trying to stealth drain a base.

Sure, they send scout teams down eventually, but it's a helluva lot less obvious when there's no blatent indicators showing a drain.

[Lonehunter]

I don't have a problem with it at all. I don't like the idea of the kill not counting for a certain time after teh spanw though. I've been in fights were all we had to defend was teh halls from teh spawn room and evantually pushed out. I died in about 30 seconds most of the time.

I like the idea of having some way of disabling the pain field. Maybe if a base has a permenant pain field, the enemy could get some kind of new mod to reverse it.

[Atlas24]

Meh, spawn camping used to piss me off, but im used to it. If u are gettin spawn camped, spawn somewhere else, and live with it. Its just like using the mcg, free kills :)

[hazzer2007]

I hate spawn camping. I have a slow computer and every time i spawn, it loads the room but not the picture, so i often find my self dead, i have no chance to put up a fight. + it is easy kills, yer you dont get much xp, but you can get through alot of kills, not far for the people trying to help by spawning into the facil.

And before you say spawn somewhere else and run to the facil, if the spawn room it camped, the tower is proboly taken, so there is no point in spawning somewhere else and running back.

I think the Perma-Pain Field is a good idea, but because people are complaning that it carn't be shut down, i think it should activat when a surten number of people enter the room so spawn camping is not so effected, so they have to destroy the spawn tubes to survive.

[DeepStrikeck]

with the camping, you spawn somewhere close, grab your AI max and beat the crap out of the spawncampers. That's always an unexpected suprise. It's quite funny too. I would actually rather camp the tubes in the base instead of kill them because you get more xp for the base cap. I only take down tubes/gen if there is absolutely no hope of getting the base otherwise. With the pain field, i think that is retarded that it cannot be shut down. I agree with Electrofreak that it should have some sort of shutdown panel (in the gen perhaps? where all the controls are) that an adv. hacker must hack.

[Lartnev]

Whilst I agree it's a valid tactic I hate spawn camping, simple as that. It's just so annoying.

I'd rather the main fights occur around the CC rather than the spawn tubes.

[Thunder_Hawk]

I feel we need to draw the line between spawn camping and when a bace is hacked. when someone sneaks into a base where there isn't fight, )yet forces are getting tanks/planes at a safe spot) that is spawn camping. But if the base is being overrun, attacking the spawn area is an effective stratagy. stop the flow of defenders, the base is a pushover. Defenders should know the risk of spawning in a base under attack and are ready for there to be people in the spawn. but not at a backwater base with no fighting going on. I disapprove of Spawn Camping, but i accecpt the fact that cutting off the enemies ability to spawn greatly increases the chance of a succesful base catpure and i have enter the spawn under these circumstances to disable the spawn tubes (even though i had to kill people freashly spawned, me or them).

[Sentrosi]

with the camping, you spawn somewhere close, grab your AI max and beat the crap out of the spawncampers. That's always an unexpected suprise. It's quite funny too. I would actually rather camp the tubes in the base instead of kill them because you get more xp for the base cap. I only take down tubes/gen if there is absolutely no hope of getting the base otherwise. With the pain field, i think that is retarded that it cannot be shut down. I agree with EARLYDAWN
that it should have some sort of shutdown panel (in the gen perhaps? where all the controls are) that an adv. hacker must hack.


Fixed it for ya....

I agree with Earlydawn in that sometimes, it is a tactically viable option to have. I would suggest putting another panel or something to hack to reduce the pain field down. You'll have to have more than one person then if you're actively camping the tubes to keep that generator from coming back on-line. You'll have to make it a non-destructable item too, much like the Matrixing panels are now.

If this were to go into place, then the pain field should degrade your health at just a touch above the regeneration mark. You can use the implant. It'll just take a tad longer to kill you.

[Ghandi90]

With the pain field, i think that is retarded that it cannot be shut down. I agree with Electrofreak that it should have some sort of shutdown panel (in the gen perhaps? where all the controls are) that an adv. hacker must hack.

You hit the nail on the head with that one. I think all things in the facility should have something that can be hacked to shut it down.

Hack a terminal-turrets down for 5 minutes
Hack a terminal-Pain field dow for 5 minutes(unless pain mod)
Hack a terminal-Bases special ability down for 5 minutes
Hack a terminal-All doors unlock for 5 minutes
Hack a terminal-Spawn tubes down for 2 minutes

Think these over---dont know where you would put all those though...anyone help me out?

[Sputty]

It's against etiquette, but not much can, or should, be done about it
I may dislike it, but it's still doable and shouldn't change

[Biohazzard56]

Not in Planetside, where the offense has armor and weapons advantage.

[Subterfuge]

I'm against it, but it is fun to run out of the spawntube really fast, get to the equip term, turn on infil, Lay a boomer and run away before they even see you.

[DeepStrikeck]

sorry meant earlydawn, dunno why i typed electrofreak, sorry for the confusion

[LimpBIT]

im am totally against it. Its not a tactic its a cheap thing noobs use

[Hamorad]

I don't have a problem with it. It helps get extra cep for a base and adds kills. Mostly though i think the ppf won't go over well.

Just my thoughts

[Madcow]

Spawn camping is the last refuge of the skill-less twits who make up the majority of Planetside. There are times when spawn camping is a necessary evil, although I would be hard pressed to call those times actual 'camping'. There are other times when a group of 4-5 are camping spawn making no effort to take out the tubes, and often in the case of a tower without actually attempting to recapture it. This is a direct result of lame people who can't get legitimate kills, or who value their kill count above actual game play and challenge.

Personally, I'm embarrassed about 95% of my standard kills and I haven't purposely camped a spawn ever. My feeling is that if your standard kills even approach any of your other kills you should be humiliated. I have approximately 50 standard kills with my Bizzle character. Of those, probably 5-10 were people wearing standard out to battle (whether they spawned at an AMS that was just about to blow, were total newbies or opted to use standard I have no idea). Those were legit kills. The other 40-45 were done right as we charged a spawn room and people needed to be taken out quickly until we could blow the tubes. I have people all the time brag about 'only' 300-500 standard kills. Seriously, have some pride.

[Kasion]

Like it or not, it is a tactic to control the tide of a battle and the enemy. Yes, it may not take as much skill as say a Flail unloading on an entry way of a base or a couple of TR AI Maxes chewing through an invading army at the backdoor, but it is a tactic and is not 100% fool proof.

Does it upset me when it happens to me? Yes, but so does getting killed by an infiltrator while sniping, or see a guy with a JH come around the corner and unload a tripple shot and drop me. Not fair, but an acceptable part of the game.

I think that it is a far more egregious offense when greedy "friendly" players that are so focused on getting the kill that they spam kill other friendly players. Biggest offenders, the Thumper, Malestrom, and the Flail. Most people do not know when, or how, to properly use these weapons. I would take getting spawn camped anyday over this. So what if you got 20 kills in a 5 minute battle, if you had to kill 10 friendlies in the process. I mean, how much skill do you have if you are killing friendly folks in the process?

[Boomer]

ummmmm.. well. Lets think. If you are stupid enough to let someone to the spawns, you deserved to get owned.

The only exception is the enclave. We Surge to the spawns, then destroy them. One squad camps, other goes to CC. Now does that count?

Oh and what about knife camping? I remember knife camping a Spawn with all of our knives out at the last available spawn. It is funny to see a person instantly die from a knife. The kill spam is hilarious.

[FearTheAtlas]

They spawn, I kill...simple as that, open and shut ;)

[Death909]

I find it more rewarding bep wise to wait until the recently spawned have run around a little and are getting close to the 1 min implant timer for darklight. Getting 1-2 bep per person spawn camping isn't fun, nice or profitable. But i will still knife those people who try and leech of squads by sitting in a friendly base, and those people who go afk.

[SniperDude]

I'm sorry the Enclave doesn't "Camp" the spawn room, per se. They "secure" it, there's a BIG difference. Like Thunder_Hawk said, holding out in an "off the front" spawn room with decent spawn traffic, just to kill the poor saps not expecting it, is spawn camping. While gaining control over, destroying and securing a spawn room is a valid tactic.

Towers, on the other hand, more often than not need to be camped ONLY DURING THE HACK. Once again, if someone is just hanging out, killing spawners with no intent of taking the tower, that's just wrong IMO.

Needless to say, I don't feel "camping" a spawn room is right, although "securing" a spawn room is more often than not a given.

[Death909]

killing spawners with no intent of taking the tower, that's just wrong IMO.

Does that include those that spawned 50-58 seconds ago? and not intending to take the tower?

[tbdsamman]

or a couple of TR AI Maxes chewing through an invading army at the backdoor

I find that offensive... its does take skill along with MAXs and several support characters to repair/heal/res the MAXs when you guys run in fire a deci and run out. Or let the AT MAX storm in thinking he'll single handedly kill us all. :lol:

[Red October]

Charging into the Spawn Room, killing everything in sight. Then shooting anything that pops out of the tube AT THE SAME TIME blowing it to smithereans is not spawn camping, but a justifiable tactic. Doing this means you will be out of the room in no time.

Charging into the Spawn Room, killing everything in sight and then shooting anything that pops out of the tube, BUT NOT trying to destroy the tubes is Spawn Camping, period. Been way too many times where I spawn and not see anyone shooting AND they don't shoot at me until I leave the spawn tube. So...I just start shooting from the tube so they have to shoot at the tube in order to kill me.

Spawn room camping is justified in some circumstances:

1) Taking a tower....the hack isn't very long, so why blow the tubes. Many times in a heated battle I go in expecting it to be camped in the hopes it isn't.

2) Draining, sabatoging, etc a base. When thier is no contested battle, but you don't want to let anyone out of the spawn room to be a royal pain to your operations later. Blowing the tubes is a good telegraph that somethings happening at the base. With the pain fields, just going to have to wait outside the room and listen...audio amp becomes a real good tool for this.

Problem is, I'm not sure the pain fields will work. If a group goes into spawn camp....all they need to do is load up on meds and have a couple of medics ready to rez.