spawn killers are no fun

by Giszmo on 04/03/2011 15:37, 46 messages, last message: 06/07/2011 00:56, 19335 views, last view: 05/18/2024 21:37

Hi,

I love Sauerbraten and play a lot recently. Venice, instagib with 20 players at least but spawn killers somehow take all the fun of it. Neither is it fun to get killed 2ms after spawning nore is it fun to kill those bastards as they stand still staring at a spawn point nore is it fun to follow this strategy myself knowing how frustrating it is for the spawners.

I have some suggestions to make this more interesting:

#1: Spawn points get a team-dependent spawn penalty cool down depending on how fast players of a team die there so red players spawn where there are no blue spawn campers.
To be more precise: If a red player gets killed within the first second after spawning (dt<1), the spawn point will get a penalty cool down:
pcd=now()+(1-dt)*20s
so red players only spawn there if no spawn point's penalty is smaller than now().

#2: When spawning, the player can move for 500ms without shooting and without getting shot. This would work with all maps as they are now. This feature could be optional.

#3: Give more frags for chainsaw kills. At most spawn points it is easy to kill spawn killers with the chain saw. If a chain saw kill would steal an extra frag from the hit player, it would be more vital to watch one's back and spawn killers would score less, making it even more boring.

#4: Many more spawn points. This would involve changing maps, thus rendering a no-option but still venice with 100 spawn points would render spawn camping pretty senseless.

Regards,

Giszmo

P.S.: This forum is chaotic. If I would find my way around, I would probably have posted this in the "game mechanics" section but I didn't find any order here so sorry for "cluttering" if this is not the place to post this suggestion. :(

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#1: ..

by Giszmo on 04/03/2011 16:03

#5 allow to indicate movement before respawning. If i press "move left" and then shoot to respawn, the "move left" is ignored. I must release the button and press it again. So as I want to get out of the spawn point asap, I often accidentally press move before shoot resulting in getting shot for standing there more than 100ms.


What is the most complained about issue in Sauerbraten? In my last 5h of playing venice, instagib that was:
#1 spawn campers
#2 TKs (although that is being dealt with and accuses are often unjustified)
#3 cheaters (I assume that speed- and wall hacks are known and being dealt with by the devs.)

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#2: hurp derp troll time.

by |ice|sub-zero|L on 04/03/2011 16:09

i know this is a surprising thing, but you don't HAVE to play on venice. here's a tab bit of info i am sure missed out on because your new to sauer and new here. first off, venice is a camping map, and most skilled players and most people who have common sense hate the map (eihrul stated that if you can stand one round of it then you deserve a metal).

secondly, there has already been talks of ways to remove spawn camping, including giving a limited time invincibility to those who just re-spawned.

thirdly, this is one map, on VAQ4, that map never changes because it is set to only have one map in its rotation, and that map is venice.

fourthly, no one really cares that a noob camping map is getting camped since there are a lot worse things to worry about, bugs, and cheats.

however you can do whatever you feel seems best, and if you want to actually get involved, instead of going here, go to webchat.quakenet.org and go to channel #sauerbraten

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#3: ..

by Giszmo on 04/03/2011 20:16

uhm ... beg you pardon? Would you mind giving a constructive answer without insulting people as trolls?

I have some reasons to love VAQ4's venice server:
* It's really nice to get to know every corner on one big map. It is a pain to play on servers that you don't know most of the maps. And venice is a beautiful map.
* It has 20+ players at all time
* It is low ping for me

> first off, venice is a camping map, and
> most skilled players and most people
> who have common sense hate the map

So do people hate this map because of camping? Some claim spawn camping is valid tacticks what I strongly oppose so imho loosing camping maps altogether would be no problem.

> secondly, there has already been
> talks of ways to remove spawn
> camping, including giving a limited
> time invincibility to those who just
> re-spawned.

Do you have a link for me?

> fourthly, no one really cares that a
> noob camping map is getting camped
> since there are a lot worse things to
> worry about, bugs, and cheats.

Yep. I listed those, too. But what most players really complain about is spawn camping. If the devs derive relevance from what's frustrating to players, spawn camping should get some serious attention. For me it is a significant flaw to have spots on the map that players can not avoid to land at disoriented while others can camp these spots. This is a conceptual flaw and not a venice problem only.

> however you can do whatever you feel
> seems best, and if you want to
> actually get involved, instead of
> going here, go to
> webchat.quakenet.org and go to
> channel #sauerbraten

So? Remove the forum if it is not the place to go? I didn't say I want to code this. I just mentioned what I see the biggest flaws of Sauerbraten.

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#4: Re: ..

by |ice|sub-zero|L on 04/03/2011 21:44, refers to #3

*sigh* i guess i have my work cut out for you.... this really shouldn't be so hard to explain to you that you can look at any map OFFLINE. helps fix a lot of things right there, and btw, i am a snarky bastard, get used to it, most people here are except the main devs who have to be nice.

note this:
keep your post(s) short.
never re-post what other people have said, just read it and reply to it.
and i am helping you.
and btw, i wasn't insulting you as a troll, the title of the other post i made was to explain that I (underline the "I") am a troll.

now, in reply of the actual post:

I can't seem to find the link, there are a lot of posts, and i don't have time to sort them all out.

2. VAQ4 (i always feel like typing it like VAG but then i realize that would be insulting to vagina's) is a clan that is kinda trollish, abrasive, and full of un-caring people. so any hacker there won't get banned unless you pop up on their irc and bitch at them till they do their job and moderate their server. (i have bitched at them a few times)

(btw those other things you listed in the comment (comment #1) were posted during the time i was busy writing to you)

3. venice is a shit map and honestly should be removed from sauer, except that would let all the spawn killing noobs off into the other servers to make us all bitch at them.

4. i cannot remove this thread, i do not have that kind of power on here, i am just helping people out from time to time. and you don't have to worry about getting this thread taken down, at least you have posted something worth being read as opposed to some of the crap i have read this and last month, but IRC is where you want to take many conversations like this because many other people can reply in like a min instead of an hour or day. plus you get to see it from more than one persons views.

now enjoy the game, since its really hard to make and has been worked on for years as a free game where no one here has been asking money from you to play.

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#5: Re: ..

by Razgriz on 04/03/2011 22:30, refers to #3

Aaaaand you just met our beloved troll. I\'ll stay clear of his posts this time, good luck.

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#6: Re: ..

by |ice|sub-zero|L on 04/03/2011 22:36, refers to #5

lol, thank you raz, but i am trying to keep cool this time. my only trolling now is saved for teamspeak. :P however if you ever want to get into a flame war. XD

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#7: Not everyone has 3+ years experience in sauer!

by Zorg on 04/04/2011 11:04

@sub-zero:

There are some posts in this forum which would deserve a "*sigh*", but Giszmo's isn't one of them. And he didn't repost what you said, he quoted. And if it is done like he did, this is usually a good thing in 99% of all cases. Long story short, I think you "overbitched" a little :)

@Giszmo:

sub-zero is right, he may have sounded a bit harsh but that is what happens when you regularly answer a lot of questions by less experienced users.

- If you want to get to know a map, do it offline

- Venice is one map of so many and concerning spawn-camping it is the worst (Plus it was made for an older release of sauerbraten, so it is a bit outdated. Plus it was never intended to be played in mass-insta. I still like it though)

- to your #3: That would be even worse as spawn-camping works best with the chainsaw, it doesn't need the time for reload as the rifle does.

- to your #4:
(a) If you play sauer long enough, you will notice it is great if you know the spawnpoints in a map, it adds to your tactical horizon.
(b) It is not easy to find proper spawnpoints, which are not too exposed, too far away from weapon pickups (yes, nearly all of the maps are suposed to be played with other weapons than the rifle, no idea why everyone only snipers nowadays), not too close to the enemy, not to close to a capture-base, not too close from the edge of a map and so on. And if you play some other maps in some other modes you will realize that most of the time the layout of the spawnpoints is quite great.

- I suppose you are from Germany (Ein herzliches "Servus!" von Bayern nach Bayern an dieser Stelle), so you will not only get a good ping to vaq 4, but also to many other servers: vaq 1-3 obviously, ogros.org 1-x, psl 1-x, pcc 1-x, ... I don't want to go on, I suppose Germany has the highest sauer-server-density in the world anyways

And about spawn-camping in general on iCTF maps (which seems to be the only mode anyone plays):
Let's say I one manages to fight his way to the other side. Then someone spawns, should he not kill him? Then a second one spanws, should he not kill him? Then he jumps to the flag, the first one respawns again, should he not kill him? What if you go to the other side but your teammate with the enemy's flag can't for a minute? Should you not try to kill the enemies when they spawn? Sure, some players only go there to kill as many as possible and don't care about the flag which I find a kinda dumb thing to do, but sometimes killing people as they spawn is the right (and only) thing to do...

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#8: Edit: Not everyone has 3+ years experience in sauer!

by Zorg on 04/04/2011 11:12, refers to #7

There's a "score" missing in the 3rd sentence from the end: What if you go to the other side but your teammate with the enemy's flag can't SCORE for a minute?

Btw Goszmo: You are right, this forum is chaotic, it also misses an edit function. But it has been working for years now, so nobody will invest all the work and time needed to set up a new one. Never change a running system.

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#9: Re: Edit: Not everyone has 3+ years experience in sauer!

by |ice|sub-zero|L on 04/04/2011 16:56, refers to #8

the forum is fine, its not chaotic, there is an editing thread area (see map editing: http://cubeengine.com/forum.php4?action=display_thread&thread_id=3) there is a thread for just random sauer stuff (see gen thread: http://cubeengine.com/forum.php4?action=display_thread&thread_id=1) and of course a bug report area, so you can fix your error if posted on there at all, if not, you can come here on the forum and post a new thread (see bug reports: http://cubeengine.com/forum.php4?action=display_thread&thread_id=1890)

"don't fix what ain't broke"

and zorg, all i am doing is pointing out the simple things to spot once you play the game a bit, i do not think of myself really experienced, i just play the game and enjoy it, if there is something i don't enjoy, i don't play it. people nowdays are crying about campers (also known as "snipers" in the real world) and i make my point very simple and valid, no matter what game you play there will be a camper/sniper, and besides, what about the people in real life, aren't you glad that we have snipers/campers in real life who protect our country's?

in other simple news, a lot of this game have been provided to all you people who are complaining about a small bit of the gameplay for free, its a nice game, but its a free game, we cannot be expected to fit your way of gameplay since we want a game that fits all spectrum's of gameplay and yet at the same time has no theme. honestly, i am thankful that eihrul out of the goodness of his heart made a game with a few other people for free, he could have charged money for it, but he didn't. just saying.

the game isn't perfect, but its still a good game, and most likely one of the top best free game out there, there will be more updates, new releases, bug fixes, and much more, this i can say from 3+ years experience, since i have seen new game modes add, old ones removed, new maps, old maps vanish, ect ect. so expect to see changes in the future, perhaps there will be a new mode, or a new change of gameplay, ect ect.

so, good luck on the fragging fields, if you ever want to ask questions, ect ect, don't be afraid to post to the forum or on IRC. until then, happy fragging! :)

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#10: Re: Edit: Not everyone has 3+ years experience in sauer!

by Zorg on 04/04/2011 22:10, refers to #9

Well, sub-zero, all I am doing is pointing out that if you are new to this game and you see 10 full servers, 9 with iCTF on it and the vaq-Venice server and you start playing on the latter you might get the impression that sauerbraten is an unbalanced camper game. Which it is definitelly not, it is an awesome game with an awesome community and it is the first game since tetris on the old gameboy which I regulary play.

But in order to see how good the game is (I'm 100% with you on this) you have to get to know the whole game. Insta on venice is obviously not the best starting point. When I started playing, there was capture, insta and ffa, so I could get to know all facets of the game. If you start playing today, this is much more difficult. Giszmo seems to care about the game and make suggestions on how to improve it. One can certainly see his good intentions which is why imho he doesn't deserve a "sigh" but instead a push on the right way: the path to get to know how great sauerbraten is.

"keep your post(s) short." We're both guilty on that point :)

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#11: ..

by suicizer01 on 04/05/2011 00:00

In other words, just start up your own server with many cool features on it and advertise as much as you can (even on other servers) to get players on your server.
Maybe start a clan wich plays regular on your server?

That's the only way (wich is fair) to put down the bad instateam venice-servers...

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#12: Re: ..

by Zorg on 04/05/2011 09:50, refers to #11

Or even easier: Do not play on this mode/map/server combination.

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#13: ..

by tman elite on 04/05/2011 22:09

Insta sucks. My two cents.

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#14: Re: ..

by Quin on 04/06/2011 04:41, refers to #13

+1

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#15: Re: ..

by Hollywood on 04/06/2011 08:10, refers to #14

It seems that if the player is good enough they can trump spawnkillers. I see it all the time. It doesn't totally end the problem-but it definitely messes with spawncampers' game

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#16: Re: ..

by Razgriz on 04/06/2011 13:45, refers to #14

-1

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#17: THE CURE!!! SPAWNPROTECTION!!!

by suicizer01 on 04/06/2011 15:26

I found the cure against spawnkillers!

If you really hate spawnkillers and your a mapper, do this:

1. Put a playerstart in your map.
2. Surround it with geometry (take like 2 cubes of the 1/64 grid, wich is default)
3. Add alpha material on it ("/alpha").
4. Noclip the material.
5. Use the command transparency command of alpha and set it as low as possible ("valpha 0.0001 0.0001").

Be carefull with this! You won't be able to see that geometry anymore, in any gamemode neither in edit mode! That's why, I would suggest to add a small selection of cubes just above the spawnprotection, so you always see some pink cubes for how far the spawnprotection goes.

I've noticed this hasn't any effect on the lighting, wich is a great thing.

The spawnprotection only works for pistolbullets, rifles, shells or machinegunbullets! It won't stop explosions, neither moving objects (like grenades or rockets)!
I haven't tested melee, but it probably won't stop that either.

My advice for using this protection is:
Use it only when really neccasery; on spawns in maps wich are very open or the playerstarts are just very sensitive for spawncamping.

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#18: Re: THE CURE!!! SPAWNPROTECTION!!!

by suicizer01 on 04/06/2011 15:43, refers to #17

After some more research, I noticed bots get crazy because of this, wich ends up into pretty funny results (bots "float" in air because of an animation or spin around incredibly fast).

A good thing,
Melee won't work to players in or outside the spawnprotection!

You don't really have to add some "empty" alpha material above the spawnprotection, since the decals of bullets show where it is.

Here a list about the good things of this option against spawncamping:

- Protects spawning players from other players, wich are spawncamping.

- Protects the spawncampers from spawning players wich stay inside the protection-zone.

- Ligthing won't get affected by the geometry.

- The ammount of wtr is very low. It can be like 0,032K of wtr.

Here a list about the "bad" things of this option:
- Won't protect spawning players from explosive ammo (like grenades and rockets), neither for explosions.

- Won't protect spawncampers for explosive ammo, neither for explosions.

- Decals will still be showed on the protection-zone (looks quit bad, a bullethole in air).

- Bots bug incredible in, out, behind or next to the spawnprotection.

- Indicating it isn't that easy.

So far it seems like a 50/50, but at least its a very simple, cheap and efficient way to get rid of spawncampers (on new maps).

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#19: Re: THE CURE!!! SPAWNPROTECTION!!!

by Zorg on 04/06/2011 16:06, refers to #18

I can already imagine how people will be standing there like big zombie-monkeys scratching their a**es and doing nothing. Imagine such a "safe zone" in iCTF, people could just spawn and camp there all the time and will be invincible. Hooray! Then there is spawncamping at the enemy's spawnpoints and spawncamping at your own spawnpoint ;)
(suicizer: I know what you suggested would be optional and restricted to where it really is necessary, I'm just pointing out another disadvantage here)

@tman: +1

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#20: ..

by Honzik1 on 04/06/2011 18:02

When you spawn, you have same time to kill enemy as enemy have same time to kill you.

I hate the problems of noobs

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