Sandair Mulholy
Codex Troopers
42
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Posted - 2012.10.04 19:42:00 -
[1] - Quote
The (main) Problem:
Random spawning creates very frustrating situations, or in other words, free kills for random people. This
is the most obvious problem with the Ambush maps:
A. Spawning somewhere random and being shot in the back almost immediately. Or having an enemy spawn
behind you and killing you.
B. Spawning in the middle of a group of opponents.
C. Spawning in the middle of a road and being snipped or run over
I know part of the solution is with Droplinks, but it does not solve the problem at the beginning of the game or when your Droplinks get destroyed. Also with Droplinks you need to establish a defensive perimeter, but it is very hard when enemies spawn behind you. At the very least, to compensate, enemies should not spawn near opponent droplinks (and certainly not in line of sight of them), and very far from opponent Droplinks that have opponents close to them (defended Droplinks).
Dust is getting better to prevent B, lately I have rarely spawned where there was many enemies already in place. But simultaneous or near simultaneous spawning is not saved from this problem. And one enemy does not seem to prevent you from spawning in its gun sight. I don't see much of a solution if the uncontrolled semi-randomness is maintained, except better algorithm to decide where to spawn, taking into account line of sight (open areas), distance from opponents and incoming opponents, friendlies, etc. Maybe a dynamic polarization of the map where you spawn in the half that is controlled by your team. Or maybe spawning only near a teamate that is not close to enemies.
A better solution would be to give some control to the spawning player. The best I heard is to actually fall from a certain height with some control of direction while you fall. This could go something like this:
- Spawn at 2km altitude (or whatever) in a random position directly above the combat area
- While falling, you can nudge your direction slowly until you press X to activate the inertial dampener
- To make it a bit more random, while falling, Tacnet data could be made unavailable
This would provide clues when players land (sound and sight) and reduce bad surprises behind you. It would offer some control (that could be tweaked, maybe even with special modules) as to where we land. The type of dropsuit could make a difference in the amount of control while falling. It would provide the player some tactical overview of the area he lands in (if he doesn't hit the inertial dampener too early). It would add realism to a random spawn; it would be like spawning in the MCC and dropping in. |