Spawn Camping: Good or Bad?

[tanDaMan]

I take everything as a challenge. Its frustrating, but its only way I become better as a player.

 

[CoCo]

I read your post! :) The first paragraph is pretty much my philosophy as well, the second parts I agree and disagree with aspects of it. But some of the more contradictory and extreme spin points of @MrL1193 I couldn't let go without comment. Sorry for not replying!

Nah it's cool no need to apologize. I just thought my first reply was a mouthful right up until it got smashed by you two :p

 

[MrL1193]

Never did I say winning isn't a worthwhile goal. I said it's unnecessary in an unranked mode in a video game, not that it's not desirable. Nor did I ever say you should let your opponent win or "go easy on them." I fact I specifically said to play competitively and fiercely.

Now you're just openly contradicting yourself. Throughout this entire argument, you've been complaining that spawn camping "doesn't give opponents any chance to fight back" (which is an exaggeration, but that's what you yourself said), and that players shouldn't do it. You're even acknowledging that refraining from spawn camping gives the opposing team more of a chance to win (hence your need to justify your code of conduct by claiming that losing is no big deal). And yet, despite all that, you still claim that you're not telling players to go easy on their opponents? Even when you're directly advocating behavior that makes it easier for them to win?

I've said several times that I'm specifically not talking about a spawncamp that results from normal play but rather the deliberate tactic of setting out to hold a spawncamp, which is what the OP started the topic discussing. If you are talking about spawncamps that result from natural play where mid presses all the way to spawn, then we're talking about two different situations.

Rushing the enemy base from the start is not a cheap tactic either; on the contrary, it is very risky. If a team attempts to seize the enemy base early but fails to do so, they will very likely be the ones being pushed back into their base, as the enemy will have established control of the center of the map by the time they respawn, but if their gambit succeeds, they will have a very favorable position.

Well first we'll back up a bit. If such an exceptional player was mixed with teammates that are unskilled and opponents that are so unskilled that one strong enemy should spawncamp them, the flaw indeed lies in the game that created that match to begin with. It shouldn't be existing form the start (I'm not saying it doesn't but it's a flaw in the game no matter how you slice it.) Your example is so extreme (not to say it's not a real example in this game, sadly it is), that if there was SUCH a mismatch that one single player could box in the entire enemy team to a spawn point at any point it was a game so absurd from the start, that no matter what happens its a joke. In that situation, is ANY player except maybe Mr. Hero (if his spawncamp succeeds) having any fun at all? So the team joins in the spawncamp and succeeds in crushing opponents so bad (so long as they're right in front of them) that one player boxed them in all alone?

Have you already forgotten that that was not, in fact, originally my example? You're the one who first imagined that situation, not me. Right here, if you don't remember:

I'm also saying this tactic tends to ONLY work for them if their team consists of another player that IS a more skilled player than the rest of the lobby, including themselves whom they can rely on as a crutch to box in the better players or set up the situation to begin with. It's "cheap" because it is not achieved through their skill, it relies on someone ELSE'S skill.

All I did was point out that the so-called "cheap" behavior of the less skilled players was actually just their duty as good teammates. And suddenly, now that you have to acknowledge that their behavior is justified, you're asking to "back up a bit"? You have no one but yourself to blame if you don't like where your own example led you.

But that's what the spawncamp is. Not so much the squidbagging though that does happen. The hopping and shield pelting however, and sometimes the squidbagging is all that accompanies the spawncamp in most cases. You've stated precisely my point. IT IS TAUNTING. It is showboating and a disgusting display of arrogance. It allows no attempt at pay nor an attempt at a comeback. It is literally shooting fish in a barrel.

Setting aside the fact that you're going right back to the very first point I ever addressed in this thread (because "yes it is," "no it isn't," etc. is a pointless "discussion" to have), a lot of what you've been saying seems to contradict that claim. Weren't you the one accusing spawn campers of taking things too seriously--of going too far in a desperate attempt to eliminate any possibility of losing? If that's the case, then how could they also be "taunting" at the same time? You cannot be desperate and at the same time be "taunting" the enemy. Taunting is a sign that you don't view the enemy as a threat. Doing everything in your power to ensure victory is a sign that you do view the enemy as a threat. You can't have it both ways.

And on the subject of taking things too seriously, I have to wonder about you. Your response to my explanation of the reasons for spawn camping was that such behavior is "all too serious." But as someone who has both spawn camped and been spawn camped, I can say with confidence that terms like "ferocious villains," "bloodthirst," "life and death," "total warfare," and "prison guards" have never once come to my mind as terms relevant to the situation. It's a children's video game, for crying out loud! Even the actions of those who really are taunting and trying to irritate people as much as possible can't possibly be compared to the atrocities of real-life warfare. And it was you who used all that imagery. You are the one who is apparently deeply offended whenever you happen to lose in this manner. And I have to wonder... why? Why can't you just let it go? I understand that losing by spawn camp can be a humiliating experience in the sense that it means you got beaten rather badly, but that's no reason to make people out to be monsters. They're not out to make you feel bad. They're just doing their best to win the game, as they should be.



I implore you: Stop scrutinizing every move the opponent makes so you can cry foul when you think they've "gone too far." Just try to win, try to improve, and don't let a few bad losses get to you. You will have more fun that way.

 

[Award]

@Award Whether the mode is ranked or not, I would be really disappointed to join a team with a player that didn't consider winning the goal. If I want to play purely to screw around, I will find a group of people to do that. Solo queue is not the place for that.

If you aren't spawncamping when you have the opportunity, you're being a detriment to my team's chances of winning. The only time I let up, or would be okay with my team doing so, would be in a situation where the enemy is a team of complete noobs. And I mean people that can barely control their character. And in that case, I'm moving from "no spawncamping" to "no directly shooting at the player" levels of lenience. It's not even a match anymore. It's, like I said, screwing around.

The Like isn't for the first part which I disagree with. Winning generally doesn't mean spawncamping, however the like is to commend the second part of "no directly shooting at the player" when facing noobs. I've done that, and nothing is as disgusting ad the jerks that endlessly shoot the noobs and beat their chests about it. So good work there! ;)

Rushing the enemy base from the start is not a cheap tactic either; on the contrary, it is very risky. If a team attempts to seize the enemy base early but fails to do so, they will very likely be the ones being pushed back into their base, as the enemy will have established control of the center of the map by the time they respawn, but if their gambit succeeds, they will have a very favorable position.

True when dealing with roughly well matched teams. The situation I'm talking about is one of probing for weak teams specifically. Granted you'll argue that you don't know if it's a weak team until you try it, and you'd be right. But the problem is if they ARE a weak team they'll simply never have a chance against that kind of play. And unfortunately that's going to get worse with 2.6 and the buffs to opening gambit which I think is a huge mistake for the overall game. In high rank matches I absolutely expect gambits like that, and am ready for it. The TW crowd is NOT generally going to be ready for hyper aggressive play like that, nor will they enjoy it. I'm not really opposed to the early base raid in high ranked games. It's not my playstyle but I'm not against it. But I'm against the spawncamping that will ensue particularly in TW in such a matchup. Or abusive high level players in low ranks who will use tactics like that (alts, etc.)

Aside from that, most of the rest of this conversation has degenerated away from from an actual debate on the pros and cons and agreements/disagreements with your original solid points in your first post and turned into word parsing, finger wagging, and perfunctory nonsense. I have no problem having ACTUAL debate on these points but the tone of the conversation is way out of hand and apart from that point.

I do however stand by "prison guards" as the defacto example of precisely the role spawncampers occupy. That's specifically what they are doing.

 

[Vitezen]

I initially picked up this concept of leniency on newer players from when I was learning the game Go. In Go, to compensate for differences in skill, there are built-in handicaps that can be given to the lesser player that act as extra moves before the game even starts. This game also has a style of play called a teaching game, a match between an advanced and a less skilled player where the goal isn't to win, but to show the newer player how to play better; examples would be the more skilled player purposely making flawed formations and expecting the newer player to find the flaw without being told, or attacking a newer player's weak formation while explaining how they could have avoided it. I haven't seen other games that used concepts such as these to help new players.

When I first started learning, I was really bad at the game, and would even lose more often against other new players. I ended up playing a lot of teaching games with the best player of the club, and the explanations and patience they showed me were what allowed me to grow to learn and love the game, something I feel may not have happened if I continued to do nothing but lose without understanding how to improve.

The reason I act that way around newer players in Splatoon is for the same reason. I'm always looking for a fair match, but if I'm matched with dramatically lower players, I have two choices, either to treat them as equals and dominate them the entire game, or take the victory and allow them to learn something so maybe one day they will be able to have a fair match with me. Teaching them concepts such as the range of their weapon, how to use subs and specials to get out of a bad situation, flicking vs. rolling, all can be shown best through example. Like I said, the end goal is to get a fair match; that is why I will spawncamp when I get the opportunity, because I treat the players as equals and the match with respect. There is no leniency there for someone who is an equal, but for a player who still has much to learn, it becomes a teaching game, not a competition.

 

[Award]

I initially picked up this concept of leniency on newer players from when I was learning the game Go. In Go, to compensate for differences in skill, there are built-in handicaps that can be given to the lesser player that act as extra moves before the game even starts. This game also has a style of play called a teaching game, a match between an advanced and a less skilled player where the goal isn't to win, but to show the newer player how to play better; examples would be the more skilled player purposely making flawed formations and expecting the newer player to find the flaw without being told, or attacking a newer player's weak formation while explaining how they could have avoided it. I haven't seen other games that used concepts such as these to help new players.

When I first started learning, I was really bad at the game, and would even lose more often against other new players. I ended up playing a lot of teaching games with the best player of the club, and the explanations and patience they showed me were what allowed me to grow to learn and love the game, something I feel may not have happened if I continued to do nothing but lose without understanding how to improve.

The reason I act that way around newer players in Splatoon is for the same reason. I'm always looking for a fair match, but if I'm matched with dramatically lower players, I have two choices, either to treat them as equals and dominate them the entire game, or take the victory and allow them to learn something so maybe one day they will be able to have a fair match with me. Teaching them concepts such as the range of their weapon, how to use subs and specials to get out of a bad situation, flicking vs. rolling, all can be shown best through example. Like I said, the end goal is to get a fair match; that is why I will spawncamp when I get the opportunity, because I treat the players as equals and the match with respect. There is no leniency there for someone who is an equal, but for a player who still has much to learn, it becomes a teaching game, not a competition.

I think that's one of the lengthiest replies I've ever seen you write :)

That's definitely a great way to look at it, and a great structured approach to it. Especially after the Christmas Noobs arrived, I was playing "defend the noob" a lot with a less structured, but similar objective in mind. Generally just inking turf and playing evasive without firing at them, it gave them a chance to try to hit me while I generally tried to evade and continue inking. Occasionally they'd surprise me and actually get me. Other times I learned a lot about making daring jumps in Mahi ;) It can be surprisingly difficult to dodge fire from even the newest of players when they're concentrated. When there was an experienced player on the other team preying on them I'd keep trying to take that player out to let the noobs play among each other without higher level players getting in the way. Technically the game should have been doing that anyway. I used "c'mon" a lot at the time...trying to be coach for them.
Which was actually pretty fun!

 

[MrL1193]

I won't disagree that the tone of this discussion has been less than pleasant as of late. I guess this result was to be expected from a heavy-handed topic question like "Is spawn camping good or bad?"

That said, there is one more point I'd like to raise here. You've been voicing concerns about mismatches occurring specifically in Turf War, which doesn't have the strict skill divisions of Ranked modes. The thing is, though, if you do happen to be "smurfing," the quickest way to remedy the mistaken matchmaking is actually to show no mercy and beat the enemy team as resoundingly as you can. The matchmaking in Turf War depends more on your individual performance than on your level, so if you clobber a few teams of newbies, the matchmaking will start placing you in lobbies with more skilled players. I know this because I've experienced this myself on both my main (back when I first got the game) and on my alt. So if you're getting mismatched with players of lesser skill and you're trying to hold their hands as much as possible, the mismatches are just going to keep happening.

(Note that this is different from Splatfest matchmaking, which has a tougher time keeping the matches fair. However, during a Splatfest, the top priority for most players is understandably just getting to the top rank as fast as possible, and since winning the whole thing actually matters to the tune of 6 Super Sea Snails, demoralizing the opponents is something you'd want to do as much as possible.)

 

[Award]

True enough, a thread like this will always attract very strong opinions on either side!

There have been so many threads where we attempt to figure out how matchmaking works. It's focused mostly on rank, but I think even TW is pretty nebulous. The 2.4 patch made some changes that were vague enough to say it matches you more on your playstyle. And for Splatfest they're moving from playstyle toward "Fes Power" and rank. For TW, originally I know they said it was 100% random, but they've moved to some sort of matchmaking I can only presume has some sort of individual metrics involved. But they always use words that imply that those factors only affect the matching but don't guarantee it won't pull randomly too. Most of my TW matches are generally with A,A+,S+ lobbies. And often it pairs me on the unfavorable side (like the other day I had Me, B+, A-, lv9 versus S, S, S, S followed by Me, S, B, C+ vs A-, A, S+, S+. But then every now and then I get a lobby like yesterday where it was me and a bunch of A-somethings vs a bunch of C's and B's. So for me, more times than not, the matches are decent and competitive (if a little overwhelming in some of them) but it throws out those terrible mismatches at random sometimes.

Some of that might be because I switch weapons a lot, and I think it tries to give you a "grace period" or something when you switch to something you haven't used in a while. I've been experimenting with sploosh. First Neo sploosh which I used to use sometimes but haven't in a while. That's where I got that match against all S's with a low level team. We lost, of course, but I was doing very well the first half. Then I decided to do some experimenting with some vanilla sploosh ideas yesterday. I regret to say I found myself being that player that opens the door for spawncamp without even realizing I was doing it. Poor squids never even shot my beacons down. Then I checked the ranks and saw that they were a bunch of C's and B's against an all high rank team and just felt like such a jerk! :(

I can't figure out how this new "Fes Power" system really works, but it seems like the main purposes of it is to encourage the higher ranked, more competitive "get your snails and leave" crowd to get out faster so they don't influence the results as much, and to discourage lobby switching, and to have a more balanced matchmaking. Hopefully Splatfests won't be the slaughter fest they often turn into. Splatfests tend to have both the best and the worst of TW. If the battle's not a spawncamp in 20 seconds, it's often a sampler of what ranked TW would be, and is fantastic.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I'm of two minds regarding spawncamping. On the one hand, it's a legitimate strategy, and from a purely logical point of view there's no point in not doing it if you have the opportunity since otherwise you risk a surprise comeback, as unlikely as it may be if you're in a position to spawncamp at all.

On the other hand, it's generally boring for the campers and frustrating for the campees, especially if the root cause is a numbers imbalance. Overall the fun factor is not what it could be.

All this is assuming a full team effort. A single player camping the area near enemy spawn is different IMO. Partially because it's easy to get a numbers advantage on them and partly because it's really easy for a player to get close to spawn on some maps, like Blackbelly or Mackerel.

The only time I personally participate in spawncamping is during Splatfests because snails. But even then it only actually happens in cases where the two teams are wildly imbalanced. I generally just hang back and provide Echolocator support to make sure no one slips through.

 

[Maave]

It kills the fun. I can lose a game and still have fun because there's a challenge and a chance of winning. When I'm getting spawncamped and can't even approaching the objective, what's the point? "It's part of the game", well it's a crappy part of the game. I'm playing to have fun, if I wanted to not have fun I'd go to the dentist.

 

[Heart of Ice]

While I don't usually enjoy spawn camping, I admit it's a legitimate tactic. The one thing I hate more than spawn camping is smug assholes that assume they've already won and just start d***ing around in main rather than trying to keep me boxed in. It's insulting, arrogant, and basically to me it's saying "You're of no threat to me! Why bother?". I mean if there's only one person in main they're probably just playing the role of the "anchor". (I do that all of the time since I use long range weapons a lot.) I mean generally I break out of spawn camps roughly 50% of the time usually with the help of a special (particularly the inkzooka) and it's usually because the spawn camping isn't all out or half or less of the opposing team is participating in it. I can and WILL kill you if you're foolish enough to ease off the gas near me. And usually I'll chuckle to myself and say "You really should've finished me when you had the chance, but I'll gladly take that win from your grasp. Next time don't underestimate me, because an enemy with nothing to lose, but everything to gain is by far the most dangerous!"

 

[Creator438]

I mean, it's annoying as all living hell because when it's happening you know you've lost, but in essence, spawn camping is completely balanced when you stop and think about it. You're only going to be doing it effectively if you're in the enemy base with your team, because you'll get slaughtered there alone. At that point, you've kind of just pointlessly overextended for no apparent reason, and especially in solo queue, you're team's not going to be coordinated enough to know you're going to the opposite base and to come with you when they're done doing their thing. There seriously has to be an incredible skill gap between any two teams for spawn camping to work, and most of the newer stages have even made it so you can't get right up to the spawn point and camp your opponents anyway (except Mahi Maji Resort, but imo that stage is ****ed anyway).

tl;dr? Well basically spawn camping requires either immense skill, coordination, or a large skill gap to successfully pull off, and it rarely happens early on in a match (someone has to be either really good, or reaaaally bad for that to actually happen).

 

[Creator438]

I've only done it in Turf War... Once I get my 400p I could careless about how many points I get afterwards.

God damn, you do NOT give a flying ****!

Every time I'm training gear in Turf War, I wanna break like, 1,000 points with a shooter I'm using at the moment (but when I'm not training gear I couldn't really give two damns).

 

[Pteropine]

honestly, I don't spawn camp, when my team does I go and fill in missed spots, that being said, I squid bag people who spawn camp me if I kill them... they get it for not letting my team have a good time.

 

[Slushious]

I refuse to camp, and will be as merciless as possible to anyone I catch trying to camp my spawn - there's always that one guy who thinks he can pull it off alone... if I find my team camping the other guys I'll just circle back to mid and mop up or wait for the inevitable breakout. Give the escapee a fighting chance since I'm not a speedy squid and just pursue them =p