Spawn Campers

[Vandril]

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Wow. I have to admit that I wasn't expecting a solid answer, but this is as solid as it gets. I respect that, so I'll take this topic more seriously.

I'm rather torn on this topic. On one hand, spawn camping is no fun for those being camped, and it certainly does feel to them that they're unable to actually participate in the match. On the other hand, going behind enemy lines and cutting off reinforcements is a classic war strategy that is very valid.

Ultimately, though, this should be decided by the Rule of Fun of game design - if it's not fun, don't have it. Or, in this case, if it ruins the fun for many people, don't have it. It is, in fact, no fun for those being camped, as they feel like they're missing out on the match entirely. That's nothing short of frustrating. As such, I agree that something should be done about the spawn camping.

I vote for cannons (modified to fire instantly and for excessive damage). They'd be totally useless for normal play, but would destroy spawn campers in a hurry (if any were so foolish). With that only hidden ninjas would be able to ambush you as you left the spawn area, though they could do something about that as well if they liked (ie. hide doesn't work within 'x' yalms of a spawn point).

I prefer this solution, as it puts taking out the spawn campers in the hands of the players. Two cannons would be good. The cannons should also have a special flare shot which can un-hide any hidden NIN in a very wide range (basically, a ranged, ground-targeted version of Detect with a ~10s CD from each cannon). This solution would not stop spawn camping entirely, but would give the camped players the proper tools to fully deal with the spawn campers, regardless of their numbers.

[Selli]

Wow. I have to admit that I wasn't expecting a solid answer, but this is as solid as it gets. I respect that, so I'll take this topic more seriously.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

I play healer in FL a lot, so I'd be lying if I said I didn't die at least once a match (as much as I'd love to believe I'm super slick and can heal myself out of anything, in reality I am very squishy and the enemy team does not like my kind). As a healer, once you get numbered they kind of never unmark you and you get zerged or chain stunned/slept a lot. So I do a lot of running from spawn to nodes in a match that isn't playing out in the favor of my team. So it didn't take me long to pick up on what was going on with this new trend.

I'm rather torn on this topic. On one hand, spawn camping is no fun for those being camped, and it certainly does feel to them that they're unable to actually participate in the match. On the other hand, going behind enemy lines and cutting off reinforcements is a classic war strategy that is very valid.

I remember spawn camping in level 50 FL a couple times (I didn't play FL as actively then as I do now, though), but I have only seen my GC do it once in Seal. I didn't find it particularly fun myself, as I didn't feel like we were really doing anything other than being a scary wall. They didn't leave their base because they couldn't fight us, and we couldn't hit them because they were on base. It was a lot of standing around for very little gain.

I do understand that Ninjas get their kick out of it, because Hide is pretty limited in PvE content and really shines in PvP (similar to how AST's Aspected Benefic Shields were considered really bad for PvE when they were first released, but they were, and still are, amazing in PvP). However, the tactic Ninjas use for spawn camping can be just as easily applied to capturing nodes guarded by 1-8 people. A solo Ninja who knows what they're doing can easily take out 1-2 people guarding a node and a group of them could probably destroy an 8-man party taken by surprise. Which would probably benefit their GC more than getting, like, 15 points from spawn camping.

Ultimately, though, this should be decided by the Rule of Fun of game design - if it's not fun, don't have it. Or, in this case, if it ruins the fun for many people, don't have it. It is, in fact, no fun for those being camped, as they feel like they're missing out on the match entirely. That's nothing short of frustrating. As such, I agree that something should be done about the spawn camping.

Thank you.

I prefer this solution, as it puts taking out the spawn campers in the hands of the players. Two cannons would be good. The cannons should also have a special flare shot which can un-hide any hidden NIN in a very wide range (basically, a ranged, ground-targeted version of Detect with a ~10s CD from each cannon). This solution would not stop spawn camping entirely, but would give the camped players the proper tools to fully deal with the spawn campers, regardless of their numbers.

I think the easiest way SE could elevate this issue without having to put too much time into it, would be to extend the invuln buff to last (I'm going to say, roughly) 3-5 seconds after leaving one's base. It should be long enough that one on a mount can nearly make it to the nearest node to their base (this probably wouldn't completely get rid of spawn camping, it would just make it increasingly more difficult to accomplish as the radius needed to be covered would be larger, but having too long of an invuln buff would make it OP, so balance would be very fine here). Since its impossible to get back into your base without dying (or using Return, which requires you to not be in combat), it would be hard to abuse something like this for a "rush" method (I mean, unless everyone is right in front of your spawn). However, that is the easy method.

I think the cannon is an amazing idea. The cannon itself shouldn't do damage (if it did, one person would sit on cannon the whole game and teams would constantly try to push people toward their spawn, which would just create another issue), but it should a 360 degree detect (the shape would probably have to be adjusted to a more oval shape for caves as their spawn is in the middle of a long wall) and mark all enemy players within its radius on the map of their opposing GCs. They would be visible for 180 seconds (including enemies in Hide). The radius on the detect animation should be kept invisible to all players, just to avoid people learning its exact distance and spawn camping there. And the detect duration should be shortened to 30 seconds if more than 10 people (in the same GC) are within the radius to avoid GCs pushing an enemy into their spawn to make them all visible on their maps for 3 minutes, and same GC to avoid a 5+6 spawn camp sandwich. This would incredibly punish the spawn campers without actually doing damage to the players' HP.