When Spawn Killing Gets Out of Control

[SeleneVenizelos]

I've had two Frontlines tonight which have reminded me of a very annoying issue with the design.

I am talking about spawn killing. This is when a large group of players camp an enemy spawn area and kill anyone that emerges. You'll always get the occasional skirmish outside spawns of course. But when a whole alliance are going out of their way to do it, something needs to be done to prevent them.

On one run just now, we had the entire alliance of Immortal Flames camping right outside the Maelstrom's spawn. As soon as anyone emerged, they got blasted to hell. This happened for nearly eight minutes until people finally managed to make progress and break out, allowing the alliance to pick the enemy off one by one. I took the liberty of stopping to count how many Flames were there after my sixth death and I counted 23. It goes without saying that the Maelstrom controlled zero flags for the whole duration, as well as the Flames, although they occasionally recaptured the Maelstrom outpost off the Adders.

I expect the Adders were rubbing their hands with delight because they won by nearly 900 points.

The Flames weren't interested at all in flags or winning. They just brought their entire alliance to the Maelstrom spawn to annihilate anyone who appeared. Asides from this being terribly unsporting, it made this one of the least enjoyable Frontlines I've participated in. We came last, because we couldn't even amass points by killing enemies. It was just a massacre until the alliance clued up and realised what was happening and to wait inside the spawn until everyone was buffed and ready.

I'm not sure what to suggest to fix this with the way the Frontlines arena is currently designed. Perhaps adding some kind of 'hot zone' that begins to slowly kill people (with increasing severity) if they spend too much time near an enemy spawn? Either way, I hope something can be done to fix this. It happened a few times but on a lower scale and I shrugged it off as poor sportsmanship. Perhaps we could have an official response on whether you deem spawn killing a reportable offense? If so, we could report any instances of this occurring on such a large scale.

This instance today took it to a whole new level of frustrating.

[Seoulstar]

Yeah..i've had that happen a few times myself. Except it was the adders camping the maelstorm. It's quite frustrating.

[Skeet]

I've had this happen to me once, although it was Maelstrom camping Flames spawn point.

There was a mechanic in a couple other online games I've played where they placed NPC's around that would chase/kill off anyone that tried to get too close to their base. I think that'd fix this problem. Even if they do camp just before said NPC's, at least now people can run backwards towards the NPC's for protection while still being able to attack with ranged skills.

[Gor]

Happens in many mmos. However the problem is with Frontlines' home base design. The problem with the home bases is its a one way out design which causes a bottleneck or "turtle". Players have one way to exit. I don't see why SE didn't think about this from jump. It's so obvious and was my immediate concern with Frontlines on my first day of playing it. I'm just surprised it took this long for spawn killing to start. To resolve it, there just needs to be one of two things, an additional exit from the home base and/or the more practical and logical thing (and probably cheaper ofr SE which doesn't involve redesigning the home bases) of putting NPC's that guard the entrance so any enemy player who try to camp it are immediately plowed down by say lvl 100 Maelstrom, Adder or Flames guards. Problem solved.

[Nutz]

Seems like a fairly large problem, but at least it didn't give them the win (which would further encourage this sort of behavior). At least if wasting your time doing this means another team is taking all the bases and winning it should cut down on the motivation to camp spawns. Still, fixing it would be pretty simple.

[jlewiss]

its a non-issue imo. sure you won't win but neither will they. it basically requires 16+ people to decide they would rather kill then actually win

[Poringing]

Spawn camping in a nutshell

Spawn Camping:

Do you agree to forfeit 1st place?

Yes/No

[Kinseykinz]

Well as soon as teams realize it equals 2nd place at best, they won't do it often and it'll become a non-issue. Mostly it just sounds like a 'we're pissed off' issue, that will occasionally happen but I don't forsee any changes being needed.

[SeleneVenizelos]

its a non-issue imo. sure you won't win but neither will they. it basically requires 16+ people to decide they would rather kill then actually win

Of course it's an issue... It stopped 24 people from the Maelstrom having any kind of a good game and probably left a lot of them feeling peeved. Griefing on a mass scale.

[Zanctus]

I've been in a situation where our alliance, having captured the outer outpost and having no contention or struggle from the competition, continued to push forward toward their spawn. We also realised we were behind with no chance to win, and people seem more interested in killing (we were bored waiting at the flag). This did indeed mean the other GC, was able to capture 4-5 of the flag points.

There is a downside to this activity (and not an imbalanced winning strategy), so I don't think it warrants a change. Players will just do what they want depending on how they feel in the situation. It is equally unsatisfying when the other GC just decides to not participate or put up a fight.