Please remove capital ships from Deathmatch - replace with 6-8 hyperspace beacons

[Nemarus]

Right now Deathmatch is working pretty well, except for two scenarios:

 

1) Team gets a slight lead and then hides on their capital ship

2) Team surrounds enemy capital ships with Gunships and kills enemies as they spawn

 

Both could be solved with a simple solution:

 

Get rid of the current two capital ships per side. Replace with three (or four) hyperspace beacons per side. Each time a player spawns, they can choose a different one of the 3-4 spawn points ... but the default choice should be randomized (for those players who neglect to realize they can choose).

 

Teams would have no safe harbor where they could wait out a lead.

Having 3-4 spawn points makes it very difficult to camp. Additionally, since there's no huge capital ship to mark the spawn location, it'd be tricky to determine precisely where they are anyway.

 

Alternatively/additionally, give players damage immunity for a few seconds after they emerge from hyperspace.

 

These are simple, elegant solutions that will solve the current problems posed by capital ships.

 

I'd even go ahead and apply them in Domination too, though it is less of an issue there.

[Ramalina]

I like the 3 spawn point and auto random spawn (overridden if player chooses as spawn point) ideas.

 

Do the smaller scouts even have hyperdrives though?

 

Could also try letting EMPs clean out a spawn ships turrets.

If an EMP could take out a cap ship turrets that would be a double edged sword. Without enough random spawning, or with a really good coordinated team vs a pug, it could allow especially harsh spawn camping. It would end defensive turtling strategies for teams with the lead though.

[Kain_Turinbar]

Last night I experienced 3 straight blowouts against the Imps (including a 50-2 with both their points coming from suicides) it seems that switching to gunships and hiding on the capital ship is usually the strategy the losing team adopts, not a team that gets a slight lead. I hate that tactic but when the whole match is a joke from the beginning I guess it is sort of a fitting end. Edited February 10, 2014 by Kain_Turinbar

[Kuciwalker]

I've never actually observed this "winning team preserves lead by camping the capship" strategy. In my experience the stronger team ends up pushing the fight all the way to the weaker team's capship.

[Nemarus]

I've never actually observed this "winning team preserves lead by camping the capship" strategy. In my experience the stronger team ends up pushing the fight all the way to the weaker team's capship.

 

It doesn't happen in blowouts. In a blowout, the stronger team smells blood and wants to get as many kills as possible to pad their stats and get more requisition.

 

It's in the rare close and competitive match that a team, if one team gets a brief lead (perhaps due to a damage power-up) and feels that lead is precarious, they'll go on the defensive and try to leverage the capital ships to their advantage. They know the opposing team has no choice but to engage them there.

[Ramalina]

Of course, as an actual battle strategy that makes good sense.

 

If you had a carrier group where their F/A-18 were getting shot down by enemy fighters, retreating enough to get covered by the AEGIS equipped cruisers and destroyers would be a smart option.

 

The question is, do we want this to be a war-game style element of gameplay, or more a board game style of gameplay.

 

In one fairness is almost mandatory, in the other fairness is to be avoided at all costs as long as you're the one with the advantage.

[Verain]

I've never actually observed this "winning team preserves lead by camping the capship" strategy. In my experience the stronger team ends up pushing the fight all the way to the weaker team's capship.

 

It has happened a couple times on Bastion, but only when certain Reps have a full premade and can all squat on their gunships and bombers upon their cap ship. Overall it is (and will remain) exceptionally rare, because trying to convince your whole team to wait uselessly on your capital ship, barely staying in combat, until the time runs out, is not going to go over well.

 

What happens all the time is what you say- you kill them faster than they kill you past a certain amount, and you are basically living on their cap ship, farming them at range or swarming the few who come in to try for a kill.

 

 

 

 

FOR THIS REASON OP'S IDEA IS TERRIBLE

 

 

Literally EVERYONE who has this idea just wants to be chase a gunship to exhaustion with their dumb little sting, and then farm the spawn. They can't STAND that the game has a safeguard against this kind of abusive crap, they hate it to death, and so they always come up with the idea in another context when they can.

 

"We should flag people who flee back to their cap ship afk."

(note that it isn't based on inactivity, which is actually what an afk flag is for, or lack of effectiveness, as fleeing back to the cap ship often drags 2-3 angerface kids back with you)

 

"The cap ships should shoot down cowards!"

(note that there's a lot of cowardly behavior that they don't want punished, and they themselves will normally avail themselves of cover, cooldowns, and superior maneuverability and speed to escape bad situations and create good ones- but when their opponents do the same, it is "cowardice")

 

"We should get rid of cap ships entirely!"

(this results in nowhere to run when your team gets farmed, and also results in spawn camping)

 

"People should appear randomly around the map!"

(this rewards an organized team even more, as the ball that slowly rolls towards the losing team's cap ship will instead slowly roll around the map, eating lone players- if your team can't push a bunch of people held at bay by cap ship insta kill turrets when you are all in one place, there's no WAY you'd have a prayer without those two ideas).

 

 

 

 

These ideas are always had by angerfaces who want to farm nubs even more than the game already gives you.

 

 

 

 

I do want to see a solution to the first situation though- "we're in the lead, gonna park on the cap ship until out of time". Not because it is common, but because it is optimal and degenerate. My idea is that you would give a team that essentially had free reign of the rest of a map the ability to make points independent of getting kills. Yes, this would more rapidly end "team A > team B, presses team B back to cap ship", but that isn't so bad either. I don't know exactly how you would want to do this, but it could involve powerups? It wouldn't have to be a dominating way to win, just something that would punish a 10-8 team from sitting back for ten minutes behind a wall of drones, mines, and ion railships.

[arkanone]

Literally EVERYONE who has this idea just wants to be chase a gunship to exhaustion with their dumb little sting, and then farm the spawn. They can't STAND that the game has a safeguard against this kind of abusive crap, they hate it to death, and so they always come up with the idea in another context when they can.

 

Whenever Bioware creates a GSF map that disallows gunships and bombers, I and many others will be all over it.

[Armonddd]

What happens all the time is what you say- you kill them faster than they kill you past a certain amount, and you are basically living on their cap ship, farming them at range or swarming the few who come in to try for a kill.

 

FOR THIS REASON OP'S IDEA IS TERRIBLE

 

I stopped reading when your excessive hyperbole outdid your actual arguments. Can you try to concisely explain (i.e. 1-2 sentences) why pseudorandomizing spawn points will make it easier to spawn camp? Cause I was pretty sure spawn camping required knowing where people will spawn.

 

If you actually answered this in your post, please feel free to quote it and give a scathing response regarding my reading comprehension (or whatever else floats your boat).

 

Literally EVERYONE who has this idea just wants to be chase a gunship to exhaustion with their dumb little sting, and then farm the spawn. They can't STAND that the game has a safeguard against this kind of abusive crap, they hate it to death, and so they always come up with the idea in another context when they can.

 

Yes, I absolutely want that, so I can get matches like this one. Oh, wait.

 

Stop pretending that bads wanting something means every pilot wants it.

Edited February 10, 2014 by Armonddd

[Zoom_VI]

I've never actually observed this "winning team preserves lead by camping the capship" strategy. In my experience the stronger team ends up pushing the fight all the way to the weaker team's capship.

 

That's because convincing pugs to do that would be impossible, and I am yet to ever see a 12 man premade on my server. Not to say that it doesn't occur on the superservers where 12 man premades do occasionally exist.

 

Also the stronger doesn't necessarily push to the other teams capship. If you recall the match me and you played yesterday against jaxin's squad. They pushed almost to our spawn but we still won by a decent margin.

 

That said the fact that however rare exploiting the capship is, doesn't mean measures shouldn't be taken against it.

 

Idea:

Make it so that any ship that returns to capship is marked as non-contributing. Thus penalizing player's rewards for sitting there. Additionally for both TDM and Dominion make it so that any ship that is killed by a enemy player that is protected by the capship, won't give a point to the other team since he was killed by a protected player.

I.E a gunship can still snipe people from capital ship in TDM but his team does not get any points for the gunship's kills as long as the gunship is within the cap ship's protection.

 

In fact it could be taken a step further so that any ship killed by players within the capship (theirs or enemies) radius don't give any points. Thus sitting on the edge and sniping respawners won't award points nor will sniping from within at people on the edge. Note that dying to the capship's turrets should still award points to the enemy.

 

Sound fair?

[Zharik]

Ok, how about you "spawn in the exhaustion zone, but you are immune (to exhaustion zone damage) for 30 seconds or until you fire your guns"?

[Armonddd]

Sound fair?

 

Yes, but it's clunky/unintuitive (i.e. "yo dawg we heard you like rules, so we put rules in your rules so you can exception while you exception"). I kinda prefer Zharik's idea of spawning in the exhaustion zone with a temporary immunity to said zone. It's more... elegant.

 

Ok, how about you "spawn in the exhaustion zone, but you are immune (to exhaustion zone damage) for 30 seconds or until you fire your guns"?

 

I really want to see a bot programmed to fire guns immediately at the start of the match blow up because it doesn't realize it's in the exhaustion zone. Unfortunately, what I'm probably going to see is new people clicking to fire at the start of the match "because why not, it's pretty" and taking a bunch of damage for it. People with multiple monitors (such as myself) are similarly penalized for clicking to change focus back to SWTOR. Honestly, I think a fifteen second immunity to exhaustion would be fine.

Edited February 10, 2014 by Armonddd

[Brewski]

I really like the idea of many spawn points spread throughout the TDM. I think it would add more fun to it if you could suddenly spawn behind where your enemies are set up. I think you could get away with starting everyone at a single point with opposing team on opposites side of the map, and then allow all future spawns to occur to any of the many available points on the map.

 

That said, I don't think it solves spawn camping or the turret issues, which are another problem altogether. To me, I think it should be like this:

 

When you launch a 30 second timer starts. After it reaches 0, the spawn area becomes an exhaustion zone just like every other boundary. You completely remove the need for turrets, and it solves camper problems as well as AFKers.

 

Edit: Heh, ninja'd. In case you couldn't tell, I agree with the two posts above mine, which appeared between the point where I started to type and when I hit save...

Edited February 10, 2014 by Brewski

[Zharik]

I really want to see a bot programmed to fire guns immediately at the start of the match blow up because it doesn't realize it's in the exhaustion zone. Unfortunately, what I'm probably going to see is new people clicking to fire at the start of the match "because why not, it's pretty" and taking a bunch of damage for it. People with multiple monitors (such as myself) are similarly penalized for clicking to change focus back to SWTOR. Honestly, I think a fifteen second immunity to exhaustion would be fine.

 

Unfortunately "bots" would adapt, but they would at least be targets for the other team!

 

If you could not fire out of the exhaustion zone, then gunships would not "snipe from immunity". But there are other options so how about disabling all abilities but engine/boost then (until you are out of said exhaustion zone?

 

Heck they could even throw in the respective Admiral's voice saying something like "Ok, get in there and show them what you're made of!" And if you get close to the grace period ending and you are still in the exhaustion zone they could say, "Get moving pilot! We've got a battle to win and you are not winning it from here!"

 

They could leave cap ship turrets at a range that would cover their fighters to the edge of the exhaustion zone but not farther.

[Armonddd]

If you could not fire out of the exhaustion zone, then gunships would not "snipe from immunity". But there are other options so how about disabling all abilities but engine/boost then (until you are out of said exhaustion zone?

 

stupid *********** railguns breaking everything, entering sniper mode within 10 km of the capital ship should be punishable by death

 

Ahem.

 

Could just disable secondary weapons within the exhaustion zone. I don't like it because it's clunky and inelegant, but it solves the issue.

 

the issue that only exists because some moron thought railguns were a good idea

 

Scuse me. My keyboard appears to be possessed by someone with an irrational hatred of sniper classes.

[SwiftDuck]

I support this idea....Remove capital ships in TDM and replace them with a few hyperspace beacons. It would make more sense. There wont be spawn camping and there wont be any reason to make a fortress to keep your lead.

 

This won't even be game breaking. It will fix a ton of issues.

 

Good idea

[Verain]

I stopped reading when

 

I stop reading whenever anyone says this. Your time is not more valuable than mine.

Edited February 10, 2014 by Verain

[Armonddd]

I stop reading whenever anyone says this. Your time is not more valuable than mine.

 

Oh, I apologize for criticizing your post, then. Obviously that's not the route I should take when I want answers from you.

[Verain]

When you launch a 30 second timer starts. After it reaches 0, the spawn area becomes an exhaustion zone just like every other boundary.

 

Nah. That's just more "I hate gunships waah".

 

 

 

If you want to fix the issue where a team can get ahead and sit on their ship, lets do that. If you want to make a game end faster for a team farmed back to their boat, great. But there's no problem with gunships and cap ships. If you can be sniped by a gunship at the VERY DAMNED EDGE of the map, then let me remind you that you were the one that piloted to that range.

 

 

Oh, I apologize for criticizing your post, then. Obviously that's not the route I should take when I want answers from you.

 

There's a big difference between "I disagree with X" and "I didn't read your post, can you post it again so I can not read it a second time?

Edited February 10, 2014 by Verain

[Armonddd]

Nah. That's just more "I hate gunships waah".

 

lol

 

There's a big difference between "I disagree with X" and "I didn't read your post, can you post it again so I can not read it a second time?

 

When it comes to you, the former from me is implied. I didn't see a point in explicitly typing it out. I would absolutely read a concise version of your argument, though. And like I said, if it already exists and I'm being dumb, feel free to call me on it.

[Zharik]

Nah. That's just more "I hate gunships waah".

Spoken like a true gunship pilot...

If you want to fix the issue where a team can get ahead and sit on their ship, lets do that. If you want to make a game end faster for a team farmed back to their boat, great. But there's no problem with gunships and cap ships. If you can be sniped by a gunship at the VERY DAMNED EDGE of the map, then let me remind you that you were the one that piloted to that range.

So have you used this strategy? Yes or no? Meaning you, as a gunship would haul back to the NPC gunner safe zone if you get targeted by someone competent or have shot from said safe zone.

[Brewski]

Nah. That's just more "I hate gunships waah".

 

Please, I've been one of the more ardent defenders of gunship despite the fact that I rarely fly one myself. I have no problem with them existing in the game, and I have no issue with their core mechanics. In fact, I happen to think they make the game more fun overall.

 

What I do have an issue with is anyone being able to attack anyone from a location where they cannot be counterattacked. This isn't a gunship exclusive, as it also applies to bombers laying drones down at the edge of the spawn zone and retreating back, or heck, even strikes with protons.

 

If you want to retreat to safety in your gunship, retreat to a held satellite. As a scout pilot, I find this a lot more problematic than someone running back to the spawn point, especially since the addition of bombers.

 

When it comes down to it, there should be no place safe on the PvP board for anyone. That's kind of the point of PvP...

[Sangrar]

What I do have an issue with is anyone being able to attack anyone from a location where they cannot be counterattacked. This isn't a gunship exclusive, as it also applies to bombers laying drones down at the edge of the spawn zone and retreating back, or heck, even strikes with protons.

 

here is the thing, from capital ship, the gunship is not doing anything to help the team and any enemy would simply just not chase them. As for your bomber point , I get it, but a simple afk system should prevent that, hopefully it prevents that, it constantly marks me afk while in combat sadly, makes me irritated and I got proof.

[Brewski]

here is the thing, from capital ship, the gunship is not doing anything to help the team and any enemy would simply just not chase them. As for your bomber point , I get it, but a simple afk system should prevent that, hopefully it prevents that, it constantly marks me afk while in combat sadly, makes me irritated and I got proof.

 

But the point is, other than offering a clear path to spawn, there should be no place safe on a PvP map from other players. There's no "retreat zone" in other PvP, there should not be one in GSF. I don't mind gunships (or anyone) bolting when they are at a disadvantage. I have a problem with an automatic safe haven for them (or anyone else) to retreat to or hang out in.

 

Retreat to a held satellite. Get a bomber buddy to set a mine field and retreat there. Have another gunship nearby you can pull them to to be picked off. All of these are valid options in my mind. Retreating anywhere that you can't be chased isn't. (Once again, for anyone no matter what they fly.

[TheRampage]

When I'm playing imp side on ToFN which is completly unbalanced (we on republic dominate) I often call for people to fall back and fight close to capital ships where they are protected and where I'm protected to snipe them from distance.

 

This is only viable way to make matches more interesting (and they still end in something like 50:30) when you are on side with 90% 2/3 ships and on semi upgraded GS, while opponents are with full set of ships and you know each of them and you know they know how to play. and what to do.

 

Not that it helps anyways, people never listen

 

Another tip for new players - if you see somebody is calling for directions in GSF; listen. He knows what he is doing. This isnt normal pvp where loudest mouth is usualy worst player.