Survival Spawn Camping

[Draykhar]

Spawn campings been a rarely brought up issue, but a legitimate concern on S. Not being able to leave spawn is frustrating and essentially leaves you unable to play.  You can't get home, you can't get items. What can you do about being spawn camped? Most players make a modreq, or log off. Usually both.

 

In entirety, the rule for no spawn camping states:

 

No spawn camping.

 

 

It leaves a lot up to the imagination to discern what constitutes as spawn camping.  It leaves the even more undescriptive 'Don't be a dick' rule in the dust  by a word(but alas, different rule for a different thread). How long is considered 'camping'? Can I kill you once, then let you pass? Three times? Never? Once at one drop, once at another? What if I wait at the edges of whatever area, and kill you there?

 

And for that matter, where is it considered 'spawn'?  We can assume it's not the areas where you physically cannot hit people, but somewhere beyond the first drop. is it right below them, or that whole island? Or is it the second drops? Maybe the whole center square? 

 

I'd like to open this rule up to the community for criticism. What do you think this rule means - feel free to tear it apart -, and how can we better phrase this rule?

[teddylover]

Ye, I had to modreq TornadoHorse yesterday because on redstone road, he built a small platform on the sky and killed anyone who went near him. I walked down it a few times but kept getting killed.

 

Isn't that being a dick? Because anyone who leaves spawn might walk down that road and get killed.

[TornadoHorse]

If a player is doing everything they can to kill the person leaving spawn, then that is spawn camping. If they have been killed a few times whilst trying to lure or tempt the killer in anyway, it is not spawn camping imo, as happened yesterday with you, teddy.

Edited June 10, 2013 by TornadoHorse

[Diznatch52]

As I say when responding to every survival thread, this is the opinion of someone who began playing survival more regularly only recently. If there's something I'm simply missing due to that, feel free to call me out on it. That being said, I feel that waiting around on any of the roads a sizable distance from spawn should not constitute spawn camping, as one could easily just take a different road to get around. It's not as if you are waiting in an artificially created bottleneck. If one were, to example, wait on one of the roads in front of someone's base, that could effectively stop them from getting back to it, given enough firepower, but that is basecamping rather than spawncampng and as such is a discussion for another time.

 

Personally I consider spawn camping to be when you hang around in the area between the water drops down from spawn. If you're just waiting for people to drop and killing them, you're literally spawn camping. If you are waiting outside the water drops but when people drop, still run at them, I would also consider that spawn camping. I guess for me the difference between spawn camping and not spawn camping is that when you're spawn camping you're actively going to them to kill them as they drop from spawn, whereas otherwise you could just be waiting for those that do happen to come your way. Those that do, though, will know not to run in that direction again and can simply go a different way.

 

Zerging whichever non-ally runs past you on roads isn't spawn camping. Actively searching out and killing certain or all people as they drop from spawn is. At least, that's how I feel.

[Tharine]

Just popping in with a politer reminder that we keep this conversation civil. We can discuss our stances on spawn camping and what we feel it entails without pointing our fingers at particular individuals.

[unce]

I would define spawn camping as repeatedly killing a player right outside spawn (right under the drop onto the road). No more than that. 

 

If a road is being camped, any destination can be reached easily with portals or an off-road route.

Edited June 10, 2013 by unce

[unce]

Ye, I had to modreq TornadoHorse yesterday because on redstone road, he built a small platform on the sky and killed anyone who went near him. I walked down it a few times but kept getting killed.

 

Isn't that being a dick? Because anyone who leaves spawn might walk down that road and get killed.

 

I believe that you were at fault in this situation. Your destination could have been reached easily with an alternate route. There is no need to get rustled when you are making the decision to approach players who are holding pointy things.    

[luke_gardner]

I never, in ~20 revisions of playing S, had to put more than ten minutes of effort into leaving spawn. Even on the worst occasions when I was fully under attack and had to figure out alternate routes besides the roads, I never had to spend more than 10 minutes getting away from foes. The map is huge and the game has no radar, if you can't escape spawn you are not playing the game very well. If you can't access the exact road you want in exactly the way you want then you are being unrealistic and are not recognizing that you're playing on a server called "survival." No one, in many revisions that I've seen, has actually stood at the spawn point with a sword swinging at newly spawned players for longer than a minute or two.

 

If what you want to discuss is "unimpeded ability to return to base," then let's talk about beds. Because that's what this topic is really about: beds

[GetaFever]

I never, in ~20 revisions of playing S, had to put more than ten minutes of effort into leaving spawn. Even on the worst occasions when I was fully under attack and had to figure out alternate routes besides the roads, I never had to spend more than 10 minutes getting away from foes. The map is huge and the game has no radar, if you can't escape spawn you are not playing the game very well. If you can't access the exact road you want in exactly the way you want then you are being unrealistic and are not recognizing that you're playing on a server called "survival." No one, in many revisions that I've seen, has actually stood at the spawn point with a sword swinging at newly spawned players for longer than a minute or two.

If what you want to discuss is "unimpeded ability to return to base," then let's talk about beds. Because that's what this topic is really about: beds

Okay, I understood everything up until the last part about beds. I agree with you luke, spawn camping is often exaggerated to the extreme. I too, have never had an issue leaving spawn. It has only happened once and good came out of it because I built this little summer home and it was really nice but I digress,

To me it's only camping if they are killing you repeatedly on all four roads. The term is used to loosely. Today I was accused of spawn camping by someone. The player attacked me several times after we had a Zerg fight. He kept coming back and punching me to break my chain armor. Then, the first time he ran past me, I killed him. After that he went on a huge tirade about me spawn camping. This is ridiculous, and I agree with draykhar this rule needs to be more clearly defined.

I also think players use this For malicious intent. They will do the aforementioned, and then /modreq you anyway because it looks like you're spawn camping in the logs, as there is no way to verify wether they got to a chest, punched you, etc.

The real camping issue is base camping.

[teddylover]

I believe that you were at fault in this situation. Your destination could have been reached easily with an alternate route. There is no need to get rustled when you are making the decision to approach players who are holding pointy things.    

 

But I was trying to look for a base. Someone else's base that was not in the sky. Oh and also I didn't know where along the road it was. COuld've been before or after Tornado.

Edited June 11, 2013 by teddylover

[djt832]

Personally, I've never had that much of a problem leaving spawn, but I don't think this thread would have been started if that was the case for everyone.

 

I would say spawn camping is defined by the act of one or more player(s) repeatedly killing a player that has just joined the server or respawned within the confines of the protected area under and around spawn.

 

I'm not sure what the minimum amout of kills would be for it to be considered spawn camping. Maybe just until the player asks to  stop being killed while leaving spawn? However, that might be hard to moderate and also not help in making the rule any less vague.

[unce]

The real camping issue is base camping.

 

Secondary bases and placing a few chests outside your primary base make this not an issue. If a player is inside your base, go grab gear from your secondary base and kill them. If you lack the resources to do so, now is the perfect time to gather them.

[Sapphric]

Instead of always respawning at Spawn, maybe there could be a random chance of respawning somewhere else? Like you only spawn at Spawn every third time, with the other two being at a random overworld location (on land, of course).

[unce]

Instead of always respawning at Spawn, maybe there could be a random chance of respawning somewhere else? Like you only spawn at Spawn every third time, with the other two being at a random overworld location (on land, of course).

 

I see this doing more harm than good. The only group that it would benefit would be those getting spawncamped, which is a very small number. Getting placed at a random location on the map would be more of an inconvenience than anything.

[Diznatch52]

I see this doing more harm than good. The only group that it would benefit would be those getting spawncamped, which is a very small number. Getting placed at a random location on the map would be more of an inconvenience than anything.

I agree. Might be harder to get back to base if you have no idea where you are when you spawn.

[GetaFever]

Secondary bases and placing a few chests outside your primary base make this not an issue. If a player is inside your base, go grab gear from your secondary base and kill them. If you lack the resources to do so, now is the perfect time to gather them.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[Draykhar]

If what you want to discuss is "unimpeded ability to return to base," then let's talk about beds.

Instead of always respawning at Spawn, maybe there could be a random chance of respawning somewhere else? Like you only spawn at Spawn every third time, with the other two being at a random overworld location (on land, of course).

 

 What if we combine these two, and invert the problem? What if beds came back in full effect? and if you're killed at/near your bed within a certain amount of time upon spawning / amount of times It throws you to spawn instead? Takes out spawncamping from both potential ends, and takes out the 'randomization' of spawning somewhere unknown in the over world.

 

I like the idea of bringing beds back on Survival. Feel free to add whatever opinions you have of that and what it would look like, but try and keep focus on 'spawn camping' , what it is, and how the rule should properly represent it -- If beds were to be implemented, this is the one rule that would likely need the most serious rework.

[Diznatch52]

 What if we combine these two, and invert the problem? What if beds came back in full effect? and if you're killed at/near your bed within a certain amount of time upon spawning / amount of times It throws you to spawn instead? Takes out spawncamping from both potential ends, and takes out the 'randomization' of spawning somewhere unknown in the over world.

 

I like the idea of bringing beds back on Survival. Feel free to add whatever opinions you have of that and what it would look like, but try and keep focus on 'spawn camping' , what it is, and how the rule should properly represent it -- If beds were to be implemented, this is the one rule that would likely need the most serious rework.

I personally am against beds on survival. If you are besieging a base and you kill someone in that base, as it is now they'd be all the way back spawn and pretty much out of the fight. Which is fair, and a good thing. If they had a bed in the base, they could just re-kit and join back in the fight immediately, essentially making to impossible to successfully attack anyone's base.

[uni0]

I personally am against beds on survival. If you are besieging a base and you kill someone in that base, as it is now they'd be all the way back spawn and pretty much out of the fight. Which is fair, and a good thing. If they had a bed in the base, they could just re-kit and join back in the fight immediately, essentially making to impossible to successfully attack anyone's base.

 

I think you may have just identified a way to potentially deter base camping. If people respawn at beds, they may re-armor up and threaten you, so you wouldn't wanna stick around their base for too long. This might indirectly promote better PVP. Ie, you would kill someone at or near their base, get loot and then move on. No mindless spree killing.

 

Some background on this: while base camping is currently allowed, at one point it wasn't. The reason it's currently allowed is because it was deemed too hard to enforce. But the issue has been brought up many times.

 

If allowing beds potentially deters base camping, this would solve a long standing issue without the need of intervention from staff.

 

Beds would alleviate spawn camping as well.

[uni0]

 What if we combine these two, and invert the problem? What if beds came back in full effect? and if you're killed at/near your bed within a certain amount of time upon spawning / amount of times It throws you to spawn instead? Takes out spawncamping from both potential ends, and takes out the 'randomization' of spawning somewhere unknown in the over world.

 

I like the idea of bringing beds back on Survival. Feel free to add whatever opinions you have of that and what it would look like, but try and keep focus on 'spawn camping' , what it is, and how the rule should properly represent it -- If beds were to be implemented, this is the one rule that would likely need the most serious rework.

 

I'm really liking this idea. If it were possible to alternate spawning locations as you suggest, that seems like it'd make beds viable. Allowing beds on s would open up a lot of possibilities and new gameplay imo. There would be more far out bases, outposts, communities/cities, people would need to explore the map more to find other players. And it might potentially reduce quite a bit of the dickish gameplay that s is plagued with, such as spawn/base camping.

[teddylover]

Discuss at meeting but only try to find the best possible solution. Then let admins/staff discuss on final result while also us voting whether we want it or not. Let's not turn this into a big discussion with probably no conclusion.

[Tharine]

Discuss at meeting but only try to find the best possible solution. Then let admins/staff discuss on final result while also us voting whether we want it or not. Let's not turn this into a big discussion with probably no conclusion.

 

I know i've not had time to comment my own response on this post, but i'd like to encourage discussion here on the forums, rather than specifically in the meeting alone. We can't dedicate a huge amount of time in the meeting to this, and it's not going to be a five minute discussion. In addition, as far as i'm aware only draykhar from the S admins will be available to attend the meeting (it's going to be about 3am my time). We should never discourage discussion, and the whole point of these threads is so that there is a conclusion. Let's not try to stifle such things, please.

[unce]

I'm really liking this idea. If it were possible to alternate spawning locations as you suggest, that seems like it'd make beds viable. Allowing beds on s would open up a lot of possibilities and new gameplay imo. There would be more far out bases, outposts, communities/cities, people would need to explore the map more to find other players. And it might potentially reduce quite a bit of the dickish gameplay that s is plagued with, such as spawn/base camping.

 

A more spread out map is the last thing S needs right now, IMO. It is hard enough to find players to fight the way the map is set up currently. 

[graymansnel]

I think that if i /modreq and say "Person A" is killing me over and over (lets say more than 5 times in a hour) then a modrator sould be able to chek the logs.

 

If it invloves harrasment from one end it should be delt with. I can under stand fights. But if one person is camping the other without any reason, or out lash then its camping.

 

Bottom line if its one person killing you tons. Modreq leave, dont retaliate.

[graymansnel]

A more spread out map is the last thing S needs right now, IMO. It is hard enough to find players to fight the way the map is set up currently. 

I personally vote for a 1000X1000 map, where dirt and abandoned homes are removed after 1 month without owner activity, something to clear space.