Arramakaian Eka
Tronhadar Free Guard
Minmatar Republic
363
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Posted - 2013.01.10 18:12:00 -
[1] - Quote
PROBLEM:
Spawn camping is not a major problem for us in closed beta since most of us know how to avoid it. But it is a problem when we go open beta, and especially at release.
N00bs will only get spawn camped a few times before they quit the game in disgust. Vast majority of them will not consider changing a spawn point, and I bet majority of them won't even realize you can spawn elsewhere. They have zero investment in the game since it is F2P, so it has to capture them from the first minute. We need n00bs to enjoy the game, and not get gibbed the minute they spawn. That means also those who are in corps and never meet n00bs; if CCP doesn't get ROI on Dust from a steady stream of paying customers, the game will die.
Spawn camping is considered a failure in game mechanics in a modern FPS, and rightly so. We're not trying to re-create Battle of the Shangani, after all. (look it up, will give you an idea how release will be with n00bs going head-to-head with spawn camping n00bstomping corps combined with beta players having millions of SP, but that's another topic).
SOLUTION:
Equip CRUs with a radar, and warn anyone trying to spawn at a hot CRU with a prompt before they can proceed.
General idea is that if there are two or more reds near the chosen spawn point the system should pop up a prompt saying "Intel reports this spawn point might not be safe - press X to spawn here, O to spawn elsewhere". Additionally (optionally) all CRUs would report their surroundings based on radar readings just like players do, although this might not be good for balancing purposes as it would also make ninjaing CRUs exponentially harder.
If we don't want to entirely eliminate spawn camping and to allow ambushes, the radar might have similar features as a scout suit, perhaps slightly better. In this scenario spawn camping would still be possible, but you'd have to be a scout and/or to stand still at a farther distance. Higher skills might improve the scan resolution and distance.
Credit also to Nightbird Aeon who came up with the idea independently in another thread. I'm sure there are ot. |