Sieze cave spawn

Is it me or does all the good nodes (and nodes in general) spawn here?

Cave team = win team. Yes! No seriously, I don't know if it is most of the time, but it certainly feels like the cave team is blessed with rng.

The cave spawn point feels like it's in a better physical position than the other spawns at a glance. And that may or may not be the actual case. I've not really looked into it in detail, even if it does have some obvious advantages, two of which pop to the forefront of my mind as I type:

• Many of the node points in the cave are elevated and have only 1-2 entrances, where as other bases tend to only have one elevated chokepoint node. Once taken, it can be difficult for enemies to even manage to climb the ramps, let alone successfully take the node.
  
• Easier access to middle, due to a spawn point right next to it where you can leap down a cliff for minimal damage and literally stand atop the point. Said spawn point also allows ranged classes to harass enemies standing at the mid point with virtually no chance of retaliation.

I have seen a strong trend of victories going to the cave team.

In fact, well over half my victories in Seal have come when Immortal Flames (my GC) got the Cave base.

http://i.imgur.com/UXDxVIs.jpg

Cave nodes are a little bit more compact and makes it easier to defend as a choke point for cave team. The one that's closer to the true-center node is incredibly frustrating, too since it's close enough to allow casters (cough SMN) to attack from uphill.

North team has the short end of the stick with having the least amount of nodes closest to them, and their spawn point is practically bottle necked toward the beach, as well as their nodes having multiple entry ways to get them sandwiched.

RiceisNice is correct. Strategically the caves spawn puts the team that starts there in the best possible placement at the start, and with good team spread, with the ability to control the entire caves.


In terms of terrain, it is the best possible location. The caves only have 4 possible entries into the main network, allowing quick teams to bottleneck or respond to people entering and preventing them from hitting nodes. With the node spawn located in upper mid, it allows access and scouting potential to lower mid as well as quick access to north, south and east areas all while providing defensively favorable conditions. There are two notable downsides to cave spawn location. One is that if enemy forces push in too far, it is easy to get routed and forced back into spawn or pushed out of caves entirely which means you lose easy access to half the map. The second is that three of the five nodes that are easily accessible inside the caves are located on higher ground, so if an enemy team takes those nodes, you end up fighting an uphill battle trying to take it out which puts the attacking team at a disadvantage.

I love getting the caves as my spawn point. There's a couple of spots I like to snipe from, and I was basically freecasting for a couple of minutes yesterday while people were fighting for the node below me and came into range, and when the node was finished the one right behind my snipe point activated so I was able to grab that way before anyone else could get to it (since it's a race with your own GC the way those stupid achievements work).

With how symmetrical and balanced Carteneau Flats was, I like to think there's a little rhyme and reason behind Seal Rock... then again I can't say I've ever measured how many paces it took to get to the Long Defile from every spawn point. >_> Right now it feels like West caves are extremely advantageous to have.

D3 is the devil if you aren't on the cave team. (that's the center cave point with one way in)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gooner_iBluAirJGR

(that's the center cave point with one way in)

---

I like to refer to that one as upper mid. But you are correct. D3 is, defensively, the best node in the map.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

http://i.imgur.com/UXDxVIs.jpg
snip

---

Yup this, this whole map seems like a joke based on some stupid request some players made a while back:


http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...808-11-2014%29

Q: Do you have any plans of making it random where each Grand Company starts in Frontline?

To which they obviously responded:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pocchory

A: While it's possible to shuffle around starting points, the maps were made to be extremely balanced, so there no significant differences in the layout regardless of where you start. However, there are a fewfeatures which could change things up a bit for players, so we'll try and look into this.

---

It's like they went: Oh you think the spawns are imbalanced, do you? I'll give you your imbalanced map, with the rng node spawn cherry on top of the cake, how do you like it now? Mwahahaha

Ugh :confused:

6-0-0 this week. All beach #maelstromftw

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pibz

It's like they went: Oh you think the spawns are imbalanced, do you? I'll give you your imbalanced map, with the rng node spawn cherry on top of the cake, how do you like it now? Mwahahaha

---

I understand their intent in the design with the random spawn locations. The problem is their intent and the result conflict with each other. This is notably relevant with the north spawn. The layout of north spawn would be fine if it had it's own node spawn that made it worth the open spaces and lack of defenses, as well as the natural funneling the north spawn has towards the beach. The best solution I would say would be to take one of the cave spawns (the north cave spawn just at the mouth of the cave) and move it all the way northwest, instead. This would mean that caves would still be the most secure location to spawn, while giving north spawn the extra node to offset it's terrain disadvantage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pibz

Yup this, this whole map seems like a joke based on some stupid request some players made a while back:


http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...808-11-2014%29

Q: Do you have any plans of making it random where each Grand Company starts in Frontline?

To which they obviously responded:


It's like they went: Oh you think the spawns are imbalanced, do you? I'll give you your imbalanced map, with the rng node spawn cherry on top of the cake, how do you like it now? Mwahahaha

Ugh :confused:

---

If spawn points weren't randomized for a map like this, it'd be an utter nightmare for whichever GC was stuck north.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pexx

I understand their intent in the design with the random spawn locations. The problem is their intent and the result conflict with each other. This is notably relevant with the north spawn. The layout of north spawn would be fine if it had it's own node spawn that made it worth the open spaces and lack of defenses, as well as the natural funneling the north spawn has towards the beach. The best solution I would say would be to take one of the cave spawns (the north cave spawn just at the mouth of the cave) and move it all the way northwest, instead. This would mean that caves would still be the most secure location to spawn, while giving north spawn the extra node to offset it's terrain disadvantage.

---

With how routing works with the cave nodes going into beach, it's also very very easy for north team to get sandwiched by the beach team rotating counter-clockwise, and the cave team going clockwise.

http://puu.sh/jm2uX/f3e231bb70.jpg

The circled nodes are in close proximity of each otehr and are guaranteed to be contested immediately if they spawn one after another.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

With how routing works with the cave nodes going into beach, it's also very very easy for north team to get sandwiched by the beach team rotating counter-clockwise, and the cave team going clockwise.

---

Most definitely. That's one of the major disadvantages to north spawn with how the current nodes are set. If you look at the other spawns, each one has a a varied number of "outs" in the case of a sandwich. North only has three immediate 'outs' with two of them effectively taken away in the case of a sandwich. My idea is, by taking away the north cave spawn (the one right at the cave entrance) and moving it north of the west north node spawn, you reduce the effectiveness of that push from caves if they move clockwise. This gives north spawn a better way out of a sandwich because that new north spawn will direct movement away from the middle path for north spawn.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alysanne

I think the cave has its own disadvantages, while they are mostly outweighed by its advantages, the south spawn is still a little better.

---

I have to disagree. While the south spawn does allow room for a lot of movement, several of their closer tomeliths are positioned in a way to be easily contested by opposing teams. The tomelith on the cliff will frequently be rushed by the north team (whom I notice tend to prefer going east rather than west, probably due to the bottleneck to caves), and to a lesser extend the tomelith on the one-way arch. The tomelith in the outpost-looking area right outside the southern cave entrance is often contested for by the cave team as well.

That and the fact that the nearest tomeliths to the southern respawn point are noticeably further away than the cave's; several of which have an elevation advantage and literally a hop and a skip away from another tomelith, should it spawn.

A lot of what you mentioned as a "disadvantages" (with the exception of LOS... which I never heard as an excuse for anything) can happen to any one of the other spawn points if the team there is ignorant enough to behave in a way to let themselves get caught in such situations or unlucky enough (I laugh when people cheer about RNG when 3-4 tomeliths spawn next to our base camp because they have no idea what such a situation will soon entail) to have several tomeliths spawn in their area early on in the game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Iagainsti

6-0-0 this week. All beach #maelstromftw

---

Either premade which is good for you at making one. Or your server is imbalanced in favor of Male.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by justinjarjar

Either premade which is good for you at making one. Or your server is imbalanced in favor of Male.

---

Exactly. I won my last 5 matches last night and 4/5 were not the cave spawn. But I queued with 5+ other people every time.

After 200+ matches on this map, I truly believe that cave no only has the best node positions but also the best chance of a node spawning in the area. North spawn seems to have it the worst out of the bunch.

Last match, the cave had two S rank nodes spawn right next to each other. At least it was my one FL roulette for the day which means it was pretty much a guaranteed loss anyway from the moment I hit 'register' as a solo queuer, since going without a premade for Adders on Primal will shoot your win rate to hell. So the cave team got two S-ranks captured almost instantly with little chance of giving either up (and even if they did, so what, they had the other one too), and if nothing else at least the other team got screwed over even more than we did and were probably really unhappy about it. At the point you have a team with > 700 holding 2 S ranks might as well end the match early. And that same match, being North, I felt like the closest spawn to us the whole match was the middle one. Is this like the open beta period?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by justinjarjar

Either premade which is good for you at making one. Or your server is imbalanced in favor of Male.

---

Nope, queued solo. And aether has always been an adder from what I've noticed( my overall is pretty favorable to 2nd=250+matches) just shouting out when to defend and regroup tend to keep seize clusterf**** to a minimum.

7-0-0 now

I used to hate the cave spawn at first. But after playing a while I find it's not so bad. I still don't like how there's too many walls and ramps and it's easy to get lost in there (everything looks the same, gotta pay attention to compass + minimap). But for defending nodes, those stairs are nigh impassable so that's a plus.

I knew from the beginning the Southeast spawn is the best. Control of the beach is too good. Easy center access as well.

It's also generally agreed upon that the North spawn sucks the most. It's too far away from everything. Still, RNG can work in your favor sometimes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Iagainsti

Nope, queued solo. And aether has always been an adder from what I've noticed( my overall is pretty favorable to 2nd=250+matches) just shouting out when to defend and regroup tend to keep seize clusterf**** to a minimum.

7-0-0 now

---

dang you lucky then, even with leadership flames on my server tend to get second when not in the caves. That said I have played games where 3-5 players just run into the enemies and do not play the map at all. I have had two people arguing over what to do and overall it seems to just make people hostile as flames on my server. I would like to see smaller map with less people, since even a bad pvper can be fine if he does objectives over kills. Also easier to get a premade together and less personality's to deal with as well. I think my record is 2 1sts in a row (going solo), and it is not like I can do much to make it better without a premade.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by aerialrave

I used to hate the cave spawn at first. But after playing a while I find it's not so bad. I still don't like how there's too many walls and ramps and it's easy to get lost in there (everything looks the same, gotta pay attention to compass + minimap). But for defending nodes, those stairs are nigh impassable so that's a plus.

---

Should be watching your map anyway for enemy movement.

The cave is the best when only 2 spawn in the cave. Had a few games where all 4 spawn inside. It is like having slaughter flashbacks. They cap and then camp spawn while waving at each other and laughing at your dead bodies. But the very middle one up the ramp is great. If you could train people to stay in rnage of healers up top you can heal all day long.

There are only two types of games. The games you win and the games when you don't spawn in cave. :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by StrejdaTom

There are only two types of games. The games you win and the games when you don't spawn in cave. :D

---

Heh, I know you're probably joking (right?), but I have been in many games where the cave spawn loses due to bad RNG (either most spawns practically avoid the caves) or getting too much spawns (3+ tomeliths spawn in caves and you predictably get double-teamed).

basically like this-

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stormrider

The cave is the best when only 2 spawn in the cave. Had a few games where all 4 spawn inside. It is like having slaughter flashbacks. They cap and then camp spawn...

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stormrider

The cave is the best when only 2 spawn in the cave. Had a few games where all 4 spawn inside. It is like having slaughter flashbacks. They cap and then camp spawn while waving at each other and laughing at your dead bodies. But the very middle one up the ramp is great. If you could train people to stay in rnage of healers up top you can heal all day long.

---

Man fuck the middle hill >_>. I cant friggin pick off their healers because of LoS, and I can't LB them because of elevation.

Lately most of my matches have been determined by a third GC who doesn't get any spawns, or half the time doesn't give a shite and just sets out to headhunt my team. This can happen very frequently with north due to node placements boxing in their spawn point, but lately I've noticed a trend of adders getting focused down in favor of mael, even when mael is in the lead and is on the other side of the map getting ridden with node spawns (and having a 200+ point lead before hand anyway). Hell, I've won a couple at cave because for the exact reason below, we were never in an ideal target to focus.

This is why I particularly hate 3-way objective matches. We have two node spawns at the beach, two GCs at the beach, and 1 in the cave with two nodes. Naturally they'd go over to the one closest to them. They're certainly not going to win unless they somehow communicate with the other beach GC the cave GC who has two nodes. One GC won't do jack shite if they ran to the caves by themselves and only accomplish to relinquish the beach node to the other team. At that point you're only deciding between third and second (and only one placing matters for ADS mount, and it's neither of them)