when does spawn-camping go too far or become toxic?

[Masked_Katz]

Genuinely asking, maybe there is an etiquette I'm missing... There's other stuff toxic players do, like squid-bagging or disconnecting/throwing the match when upset, and I feel like those are obvious and can get on my nerves. However, one other thing I see occasionally added to that list is spawn-camping, and if I'm understanding the concept correctly, I never really understood how that could be harmful in a game like Splatoon.

Every game mode heavily relies on the objective and revolves around both teams defending something - the zone, the tower, the rainmaker, the clam basket - right? Isn't pushing the team back as much as possible what you're supposed to do? Wouldn't it be awkward to just allow the team to return to the objective before resuming play? When I'm locked in spawn, I feel like it's because I've been careless, and I then get back in by building my special, regrouping if possible, reclaiming our side of the stage - I don't ever think the other team is doing anything wrong.

The reason I ask this is because I just had this S+ match - it was the first time I made someone throw a match (he only had died to me) and while I still think it was uncalled for, it made me wonder if it was because I went too far somehow.

 

[RubberCF]

Its toxic if it clearly is not contributing to objective and just trying to get a lot of kills. Like if in clams ur spawncamping but not trying to make an actual push happen
Usually people who complain about it are just salty, do whatever works to win. I always spawncamp if i can in turf bc it works. Sometimes they just give up trying which is good for my team

 

[sevenleaf]

tbh the only spawncamping i see as actually toxic is that whole "making it almost to KO and then refusing to just get the KO, instead opting to spawncamp and squidbag until the 5 minute timer runs out" thing people were doing a while ago. besides that, it's literally just a way to keep opponents from taking the objective back when your team's ahead. what you're doing in this clip is like, fine

i feel like a lot of people have this kind of self-centered view of spawncamping where instead of it being how you keep the opposing players away from the objective, it gets seen as, like... aggression? a way of rubbing in how much Better the one camping is than their opponents/the player who's complaining about it specifically? and like i get that it feels bad to be on the other end of it, trust me i've been spawn-locked plenty of times, but i am on my knees begging players to realize that not everything their opponents do to win the game is meant as a personal attack against them

 

[neonscreenlight]

it's toxic if you're just spawncamping for the sake of it instead of using it as a way to gain an advantage

 

[MandatoryCatalyst]

tbh the only spawncamping i see as actually toxic is that whole "making it almost to KO and then refusing to just get the KO, instead opting to spawncamp and squidbag until the 5 minute timer runs out" thing people were doing a while ago. besides that, it's literally just a way to keep opponents from taking the objective back when your team's ahead. what you're doing in this clip is like, fine

i feel like a lot of people have this kind of self-centered view of spawncamping where instead of it being how you keep the opposing players away from the objective, it gets seen as, like... aggression? a way of rubbing in how much Better the one camping is than their opponents/the player who's complaining about it specifically? and like i get that it feels bad to be on the other end of it, trust me i've been spawn-locked plenty of times, but i am on my knees begging players to realize that not everything their opponents do to win the game is meant as a personal attack against them

Honestly I think this says it best. It really sucks to be completely spawn-locked, but ultimately... as long as they're still pushing objective, it's not spawncamping, it's just... playing the game how it's meant to be played. I have only seen actual, honest to God spawncamping once in my entire 1k+ hours of playtime, to which a solo teammate of mine got all the way up to the pedestal for Rainmaker but refused to dunk it, and barring that, every other incident I've seen on either end of being spawn-locked is just... how it goes. As long as you're not actively taunting them, if someone gets mad at you for managing to push up far, that's on them, not you.

(Though, I personally tend to avoid getting up that high in enemy base regardless. I've lost too many games to myself and my teammates not realizing a single enemy player snuck out of base and is now pushing objective while we were too focused on attempting a spawn-lock. Instead, I like to play cleanup crew and hang back to catch stragglers lol)

 

[missingno]

"Spawncamping" is loaded language that I suggest keeping out of your vocabulary. It's charged with a prescriptivist implication that players shouldn't win too hard or else they're meanies. If you unpack that, you should realize it's bogus, that type of thinking has no place in a competitive environment.

"Lockout" is a more neutral term to describe this scenario, and it's better to evaluate this scenario without a term that evokes bias.

 

[Aiko.Octo]

Yeah I remember the "spawn camping" thing confusing me when I first started interacting with the community too. Back when I ran in circles that played exclusively turf, it was a common complaint that when you got matched improperly against a team far above your level, you could get so badly locked in spawn that you essentially couldn't play the game for most of the three minutes. It's frustrating in any mode but it is particularly frustrating in turf because there's no knockout condition; you just have to wait for the game to time out and meanwhile die repeatedly. People would often blame the other team for it and consider it toxic because they were "making it impossible to play". I think that's the reason it sometimes gets appended to lists of toxic behaviors. But like everyone's said, while it's an understandable frustration, it's simply not toxic behavior. Ultimately the other team is just playing the objective, not personally attacking you.

The good news is people who do take it personally/consider it toxic usually outgrow that mindset eventually (that or quit the game), so I wouldn't worry too much about appearing rude/impolite to them. (I remember this being a concern of mine for a long time until I noticed some younger folks play who would consider nearly any in-game attack to be a cheap/unfair/toxic/personal attack and realized there's probably always people out there reading your actions in the worst possible faith, but they're only hurting themselves and their opinions don't need to matter to you.)

And yeah, like others said, in ranked when teams get lead and then ignore the objective for the rest of the game just to rack up the highest kill count they can, that could be considered actually toxic spawn camping. Luckily you don't see it a whole lot (personally I've never witnessed it in-game), though there was a trend of outrage over it some time ago (almost certainly disproportionate to the actual frequency of it happening).

 

[sevenleaf]

The good news is people who do take it personally/consider it toxic usually outgrow that mindset eventually (that or quit the game), so I wouldn't worry too much about appearing rude/impolite to them. (I remember this being a concern of mine for a long time until I noticed some younger folks play who would consider nearly any in-game attack to be a cheap/unfair/toxic/personal attack and realized there's probably always people out there reading your actions in the worst possible faith, but they're only hurting themselves and their opinions don't need to matter to you.)

WAIT LOL ME TOO. as a new player before i'd started looking at competitive content i was mostly seeing casual players on social media complain about 'spawncampers'/people 'ignoring the objective to get kills'/hypothetical splat2 veterans determined to make sure s3 newbies couldn't play the game(??)/etc etc so i was sooooo concerned about coming across as toxic or ruining the game for my opponents if i pushed up too far in turf or got too many splats. it took me learning more about the game and the comp scene to shake that by realizing that a lot of what those players were complaining about were... very silly things to complain about in a competitive video game, in which your goal is to win at the expense of the other team

 

[Dessgeega]

Lots of good points here. Spawn camping is only ever a problem if it needlessly drags a game out as has been stated. The entire concept of a team being driven back to their base and being unable to get out only occurs because of a large divide in player skill between the teams. There are many people who would rather shout "unfair" "toxic" etc. than admit this fact and what it says about their performance in the match where it happened.

 

[Lisku]

it’s hard to stop when you start, I mean you’re literally fighting against them. Why would you give them a chance to come back?

in turf war its a different story, that’s when it becomes toxic

 

[rosylina]

Spawncamping is toxic if it happens to me, but if I'm doing it to the other team then it's fun and they should just stop having skill issues tbh.

 

[sevenleaf]

it’s hard to stop when you start, I mean you’re literally fighting against them. Why would you give them a chance to come back?

in turf war its a different story, that’s when it becomes toxic

lockouts in turf war are a whole Thing because turf is simultaneously the mode where locking out opponents is most necessary to ensure your win (last 30 seconds and all) and the mode where being locked out feels the worst, due to its lack of mercy rule. if one team is doing much better than the other, their options are to purposefully give up ground in the name of 'fairness'/'not being toxic' or to camp.

are there players who camp in turf war with the intention of making the other team feel worse? definitely - you see a lot of people gleefully admitting this around christmas time, which i think is a weird vibe but like whatever. but the thing is unless they're also taunting you, there's no way to know whether a team locking you out is reveling in making your team feel unable to play the game or if they're... just making sure they win. and it's easier said than done obviously, but it's healthier to lean towards assuming the latter. opponents aren't out to get you, personally, y'know? they're just out to win the match. and if they do have a toxic mindset about it... they're randos in a game without voice chat, you don't ever have to know.

ideally the solution to this would be functional skill-based matchmaking, to avoid new or less skilled players being matched against opponents who will end up locking them out, but... we all know that's not gonna happen anytime soon lol. besides just not liking the mode as much as i like ranked, this is honestly part of why i hardly play turf outside of splatfests - the lockouts are uncomfortable both as the one being locked out and the one doing the locking out. except during splatfests, where all bets are off and i AM in it to win it.

 

[Yosi Spring]

Spawn camping can be annoying, especially with stuff like Trizooka hitting through spawn armor. But if you think about it, what's the alternative? The alternative is the other team lets you take 10 steps out of your spawn and THEN splats you. If they're good enough to spawn camp you, you'll be dying to them whether it's in your spawn or not

 

[DChachouke]

It's usually viewed badly by most people (me included) to spawn camp purely to farm kills and without contributing to objective (Ex : Not pushing RM, not breaking clam basket, not getting on tower or just not taking zones at all), as it not only stalls the match for both teams (And it's especially felt for the camped team that has a harder time fighting out of it) but it's also extremely bad sportsmanship, and if the conditions align up right and the camped team hasn't given up yet, you could very well just mess up something and lose last minute when completing objective would've settled the match without need for stalling and kill farming. If that happens, then the stalling team has absolutely ZERO excuses, cause they quite literally brought their own downfall.
However, spawn camping is a valid strategy to keep opponents away from an objective being done, and it's also by no mean an impenetrable wall (at least on most maps it isn't), so if spawn camping is genuinely impenetrable then there's probably a skill gap that would've made the game unfair regardless. A fair enough matchup will usually either have no spawncamping or spawncamping that can be pierced with enough strategy and skill.

TL:DR : Spawncamping shouldn't be used to farm kills or purposefully stall objective, but is otherwise a valid strategy if it means keeping opponents out of your way when completing objective.

Quick added note : It's also necessary on turf since the whole objective is trying to keep as much turf as possible. It sucks, but that's what turf war is.

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

Quick added note : It's also necessary on turf since the whole objective is trying to keep as much turf as possible. It sucks, but that's what turf war is.

Also, splat zones.
This is one of the reasons that I do not like splat zones.

Although I suppose you could say that about every mode. But at least the other ones require you to actively do something with the objective

 

[NumberOneAries]

Genuinely asking, maybe there is an etiquette I'm missing... There's other stuff toxic players do, like squid-bagging or disconnecting/throwing the match when upset, and I feel like those are obvious and can get on my nerves. However, one other thing I see occasionally added to that list is spawn-camping, and if I'm understanding the concept correctly, I never really understood how that could be harmful in a game like Splatoon.

Every game mode heavily relies on the objective and revolves around both teams defending something - the zone, the tower, the rainmaker, the clam basket - right? Isn't pushing the team back as much as possible what you're supposed to do? Wouldn't it be awkward to just allow the team to return to the objective before resuming play? When I'm locked in spawn, I feel like it's because I've been careless, and I then get back in by building my special, regrouping if possible, reclaiming our side of the stage - I don't ever think the other team is doing anything wrong.

The reason I ask this is because I just had this S+ match - it was the first time I made someone throw a match (he only had died to me) and while I still think it was uncalled for, it made me wonder if it was because I went too far somehow.

I think it's much less about the action and more about the map that locks you in. There's no flank or alternate route for you to go to on to get a different angle on the enemy team on maps like Hammerhead Bridge or Eeltail. And even when there is, most people get so tunnel-visioned they never see it because the flank route is so out of the way it's either never used or people never know it's there. I think it's a map issue mainly, but there are toxic examples like inkbrushes (not to hate on brush players, but let's be fr here) zoom to spawn and do nothing except sit by the enemy spawn to try and take out respawning players. They're actively not contributing to the objective bc they think it's "funny" even when their team is losing is is now basically engaging in a 3v4 the whole match. Other than that, you're right, it's just the enemy team playing the game. Some maps just give the attacking team more power vs the defending team in your own base.

 

[Dustrix]

Honestly, i feel like if 2 (maybe even 1 if they cracked enough) people can keep every enemy in their spawn, I think that's always good because even if they aren't doing objective, they ARE still keeping the enemies away, in which case the people who aren't spawn camping can do the objective. if you at least have one or two people pushing while the enemies are locked at spawn, then that's good