Spawning in NS2
Crispy
Jaded GD Join Date: 2004-08-22 Member: 30793Members, Constellation
Jaded GD Join Date: 2004-08-22 Member: 30793Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Presentation and discussion of ideas for Aliens and Marines</div>This isn't a thread about discussing spawncamping, but it's understandable if certain points relating to it need to be made if they in turn relate back to a proposed method of spawning. I'm just starting it off here because that's where Sirot's L4D-style 'ghost' spawn idea came from, which forms the basis of my suggestion.
This quote came out of the <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=105227" target="_blank">Will NS be newbie-friendly?</a> thread.
<!--quoteo(post=1694858:date=Dec 2 2008, 06:13 AM:name=Sirot)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sirot @ Dec 2 2008, 06:13 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1694858"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The issue of spawn camping is two-fold. Being killed and having to wait to respawn is a punishment for failure by itself and in all fairness, it's not always the fault of the individual that the spawn camping is happening. Knowing that you are going to respawn in how many seconds to be immediately killed sucks. It will be especially aggravating for new players who barely can handle the basics of the game. There should be a punishment for a bad defense I agree, but not spawn killing. This is an example of the game being too harsh when it could be gentler.
We should be telling the new players of how we had to walk 10 miles up a hill to get to school during a blizzard instead of forcing them to do it when we have public transportation.
For example: you spawn as ghost first that allows you to get in position to spawn. If the hive is attacked, you can't spawn or there is greatly increased spawn time. Not saying it should be done exactly like that, but it is an example of gentler NS that could keep the fundamentals of the original.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I included this quote because doing a L4D 'ghost' mode before spawning could work. Before explaining why, I'll expound with a couple of the problems currently surrounding spawncamping in NS:
<b>Non-linear map design</b> means it's much more likely that an enemy can reach the spawn without being spotted. Most (all?) Marine Starts and Hives fork just outside the main room/area allowing attacks to be mounted from multiple sides of the map. Yes, it is a form of punishment that is justifiable, but if we're honest the punishment hurts new players more than the skilled players.
<b>Fixed spawns</b>
In NS the places you can spawn from are mapper-placed. In some of the maps the mappers have got this very, very wrong (e.g. placing spawns in doorways at the end of a long corridor). But raise the skill level of the spawncamper and it doesn't even matter if the positions are optimum, they are still fixed, and competitive players will memorise these positions and take up positions to cover the maximum amount of spawns and minimise risk of taking damage. There are diagrams out there of every Hive in competitive play that show those exact locations.
Now, you can't really counter the first problem without completely changing the layout of your average NS map. You wouldn't really want to do this because the map layouts are part of what keep NS fresh from round to round. But the second problem could be countered by this 'ghost' method. I haven't thought much about the Marine side, but here's how I think it could work for Aliens:
<b>For the Alien side:</b>
- The mapper still places default spawn locations. If you choose to stay in spectator mode during the respawn cycle you will spawn at one of these locations. AFKs will therefore not enter ghost mode and will not clog up the respawn queue indefinitely.
- During spectator mode you will be allowed to enter 'ghost' mode roughly 10 seconds before spawning.
- During ghost mode, you can choose a location to spawn at (including your orientation), provided it is within the 'Hive area' (designated by the mapper)
- Once you confirm your selection of spawn location, you will be bound to that choice for 5 seconds and then spawn automatically. The 5 second countdown makes it harder to predict the enemies' movements and spawn right behind someone for an easier kill. Campers (who don't move) will of course be very vulnerable to this, but they aren't really doing anything skilful by camping in one spot. The other plus to this is that spawncamping is decentivised in favour of killing the Hive. Also spawncamping a Hive early as a strategy to reduce the number of Aliens on the field (and therefore reduce Alien map control), is made more difficult. To do this more than one person would be needed (making it a team strat and not just a rambo strat).
- The game still decides which Hive you respawn at, and you cannot change this. You can only decide where in each Hive you spawn.
This quote came out of the <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=105227" target="_blank">Will NS be newbie-friendly?</a> thread.
<!--quoteo(post=1694858:date=Dec 2 2008, 06:13 AM:name=Sirot)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sirot @ Dec 2 2008, 06:13 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1694858"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The issue of spawn camping is two-fold. Being killed and having to wait to respawn is a punishment for failure by itself and in all fairness, it's not always the fault of the individual that the spawn camping is happening. Knowing that you are going to respawn in how many seconds to be immediately killed sucks. It will be especially aggravating for new players who barely can handle the basics of the game. There should be a punishment for a bad defense I agree, but not spawn killing. This is an example of the game being too harsh when it could be gentler.
We should be telling the new players of how we had to walk 10 miles up a hill to get to school during a blizzard instead of forcing them to do it when we have public transportation.
For example: you spawn as ghost first that allows you to get in position to spawn. If the hive is attacked, you can't spawn or there is greatly increased spawn time. Not saying it should be done exactly like that, but it is an example of gentler NS that could keep the fundamentals of the original.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I included this quote because doing a L4D 'ghost' mode before spawning could work. Before explaining why, I'll expound with a couple of the problems currently surrounding spawncamping in NS:
<b>Non-linear map design</b> means it's much more likely that an enemy can reach the spawn without being spotted. Most (all?) Marine Starts and Hives fork just outside the main room/area allowing attacks to be mounted from multiple sides of the map. Yes, it is a form of punishment that is justifiable, but if we're honest the punishment hurts new players more than the skilled players.
<b>Fixed spawns</b>
In NS the places you can spawn from are mapper-placed. In some of the maps the mappers have got this very, very wrong (e.g. placing spawns in doorways at the end of a long corridor). But raise the skill level of the spawncamper and it doesn't even matter if the positions are optimum, they are still fixed, and competitive players will memorise these positions and take up positions to cover the maximum amount of spawns and minimise risk of taking damage. There are diagrams out there of every Hive in competitive play that show those exact locations.
Now, you can't really counter the first problem without completely changing the layout of your average NS map. You wouldn't really want to do this because the map layouts are part of what keep NS fresh from round to round. But the second problem could be countered by this 'ghost' method. I haven't thought much about the Marine side, but here's how I think it could work for Aliens:
<b>For the Alien side:</b>
- The mapper still places default spawn locations. If you choose to stay in spectator mode during the respawn cycle you will spawn at one of these locations. AFKs will therefore not enter ghost mode and will not clog up the respawn queue indefinitely.
- During spectator mode you will be allowed to enter 'ghost' mode roughly 10 seconds before spawning.
- During ghost mode, you can choose a location to spawn at (including your orientation), provided it is within the 'Hive area' (designated by the mapper)
- Once you confirm your selection of spawn location, you will be bound to that choice for 5 seconds and then spawn automatically. The 5 second countdown makes it harder to predict the enemies' movements and spawn right behind someone for an easier kill. Campers (who don't move) will of course be very vulnerable to this, but they aren't really doing anything skilful by camping in one spot. The other plus to this is that spawncamping is decentivised in favour of killing the Hive. Also spawncamping a Hive early as a strategy to reduce the number of Aliens on the field (and therefore reduce Alien map control), is made more difficult. To do this more than one person would be needed (making it a team strat and not just a rambo strat).
- The game still decides which Hive you respawn at, and you cannot change this. You can only decide where in each Hive you spawn.
Comments
Edit: You could argue marines are already covered with "squad respawning".
Provided this is done so the spawn order is actually 'random' (or impossible to predict with certainty), and that the 'dummy' eggs would not be easily distinguished from the 'real' eggs, this is not a bad decision. But I'm curious as to the limitations of where these eggs would be 'laid'. I remember them saying that the Hive would 'lay' them, in which case the eggs would need to be dropped in such a way so as to be spread evenly throughout the Hive area to make spawncamping more difficult (e.g. at the top of a hill so they would roll into different locations). But this still brings up the problem of them always rolling to predictable locations, and it creates a bit of a headache for any conscientous mapper.
If the eggs simply 'appeared', in random locations (obv. with anti-collision measures taken), it would be less predictable, but that would defeat the whole idea of the eggs, because instead of the Aliens simply appearing, the eggs would simply appear out of nowhere, so even though you have explained where the Alies come from, you're still stuck in a chicken/egg debate. You could make them grow/emerge from the DI somehow, and if Aliens had control over placing DI that would enable them to create more possible locations to spawn at within the Hive area. You could purposefully put DI in hard-to-reach places to give the Aliens a higher probability of having safer places to spawn at, which would be a nice payoff.
I do worry though that the team might be taking a stylistic stance on this over a balance/gameplay stance.
If the marines get squad spawn then the aliens should get this.
that sounds fair, but it doesn't really go along with the whole idea of an asymmetric gameplay, maybe aliens will have something else in their sleeve than mobile respawns?
Provided this is done so the spawn order is actually 'random' (or impossible to predict with certainty), and that the 'dummy' eggs would not be easily distinguished from the 'real' eggs, this is not a bad decision. But I'm curious as to the limitations of where these eggs would be 'laid'. I remember them saying that the Hive would 'lay' them, in which case the eggs would need to be dropped in such a way so as to be spread evenly throughout the Hive area to make spawncamping more difficult (e.g. at the top of a hill so they would roll into different locations). But this still brings up the problem of them always rolling to predictable locations, and it creates a bit of a headache for any conscientous mapper.
If the eggs simply 'appeared', in random locations (obv. with anti-collision measures taken), it would be less predictable, but that would defeat the whole idea of the eggs, because instead of the Aliens simply appearing, the eggs would simply appear out of nowhere, so even though you have explained where the Alies come from, you're still stuck in a chicken/egg debate. You could make them grow/emerge from the DI somehow, and if Aliens had control over placing DI that would enable them to create more possible locations to spawn at within the Hive area. You could purposefully put DI in hard-to-reach places to give the Aliens a higher probability of having safer places to spawn at, which would be a nice payoff.
I do worry though that the team might be taking a stylistic stance on this over a balance/gameplay stance.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I really like the idea of the alien commander being responsible for placing spawn locations and them not being simply limited to the hive but for the entire infestation.
FPS glowie control before spawning.
I think it's taking a simple matter and making it complicated.
Mapper puts down 20 something spawn entites near the hive (they won't all be eggs of course).
Aliens immediately spawn within an egg randomly selected by the server upon dying and remain there for the 10-15 seconds it would normally take to spawn. In addition to spawning your egg, the hive spawns two others in one of the random positions of the spawn entities similar to yours. At any given moment, you might find 9 eggs near the hive.. only three of which are actually players getting ready to hatch.
As for preventing the marines from spawn camping, the annonymity of the eggs is plenty reason enough. You'd likely be wasting bullets shooting eggs. Maybe you'd get lucky but most marines would prefer not to count their skulks before they hatch. However, if a marine comes barging in with a grenade launcher and the eggs are close enough to take out multiple.. might even be likely he can destroy some players.. I say that's brilliant. Don't touch a thing. In all likelihood, some aliens will manage to spawn anyway and he'll have to deal with them.
Yes, I was under the impression, either from a podcast or another forum post, that the idea was that the hive laying eggs was going to be difficult as this wasn't going to have the right effect graphically so they were going to have glowies floating around which would then land and form an egg from which people spawn. This seemed like a great idea as it doesn't break up the feel of the game with eggs just appearing out of nowhere while retaining the flexibility of being able to spawn anywhere within the hive area.
I like the idea of the alien commander being able to set spawn points (or maybe gorges could do this for a commander-less game?), not sure if you want to show this with glowie swarms around these points or not as this would make it much easier for marines to spawn camp.
Anyway, back to lurking... <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
I think it's taking a simple matter and making it complicated.
Mapper puts down 20 something spawn entites near the hive (they won't all be eggs of course).
Aliens immediately spawn within an egg randomly selected by the server upon dying and remain there for the 10-15 seconds it would normally take to spawn. In addition to spawning your egg, the hive spawns two others in one of the random positions of the spawn entities similar to yours. At any given moment, you might find 9 eggs near the hive.. only three of which are actually players getting ready to hatch.
As for preventing the marines from spawn camping, the annonymity of the eggs is plenty reason enough. You'd likely be wasting bullets shooting eggs. Maybe you'd get lucky but most marines would prefer not to count their skulks before they hatch. However, if a marine comes barging in with a grenade launcher and the eggs are close enough to take out multiple.. might even be likely he can destroy some players.. I say that's brilliant. Don't touch a thing. In all likelihood, some aliens will manage to spawn anyway and he'll have to deal with them.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm all for this idea, but the decoy eggs should do something once their usefulness has run out... maybe a small explosion of 25 hp or so? (more for theatrics than anything else)
I think it's taking a simple matter and making it complicated.
Mapper puts down 20 something spawn entites near the hive (they won't all be eggs of course).
Aliens immediately spawn within an egg randomly selected by the server upon dying and remain there for the 10-15 seconds it would normally take to spawn. In addition to spawning your egg, the hive spawns two others in one of the random positions of the spawn entities similar to yours. At any given moment, you might find 9 eggs near the hive.. only three of which are actually players getting ready to hatch.
As for preventing the marines from spawn camping, the annonymity of the eggs is plenty reason enough. You'd likely be wasting bullets shooting eggs. Maybe you'd get lucky but most marines would prefer not to count their skulks before they hatch. However, if a marine comes barging in with a grenade launcher and the eggs are close enough to take out multiple.. might even be likely he can destroy some players.. I say that's brilliant. Don't touch a thing. In all likelihood, some aliens will manage to spawn anyway and he'll have to deal with them.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is no different to what you have now, apart from it has been made easier to spawncamp, since the player will spawn from 1 of 3 visible eggs instead of 1 out of 18 invisible (but known) spawnpoints.
Suppose the spawn time is 15 seconds. The other two 'hatch' in a similar manner but nothing comes out at random intervals with respect to the 15 seconds. So perhaps one would hatch after 6 seconds while the other would hatch after 18 seconds (though cutoff should be minimum 5 seconds and most 25 seconds, something like that).
<!--quoteo(post=1695111:date=Dec 4 2008, 01:53 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Crispy @ Dec 4 2008, 01:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1695111"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is no different to what you have now, apart from it has been made easier to spawncamp, since the player will spawn from 1 of 3 visible eggs instead of 1 out of 18 invisible (but known) spawnpoints.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You're not looking at the big picture here, Crispy. You forget that the hive spawns players far more frequently than once every 15 seconds. Perhaps if all aliens were alive except for one, you'd see only three eggs, however, if more than two players die within the time frame of 15 seconds, you'd see somewhere in the vicinity of 6, 9, even 12 eggs! If the fake eggs die off at random intervals, the numbers won't even be multiples of 3. Could be more or less.
You're not looking at the big picture here, Crispy. You forget that the hive spawns players far more frequently than once every 15 seconds. Perhaps if all aliens were alive except for one, you'd see only three eggs, however, if more than two players die within the time frame of 15 seconds, you'd see somewhere in the vicinity of 6, 9, even 12 eggs! If the fake eggs die off at random intervals, the numbers won't even be multiples of 3. Could be more or less.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Okay, so with more eggs it brings us closer to what we have now, but it's still not perfect because all the eggs are visible. But the worse thing is with your idea the spawnpoints are still pre-determined. They are still fixed, therefore thay can be memorised and their positioning analysed to allow campers to stand in 'optimum' positions. Three times as many possible spawn locations will make this harder, but it's also verging on being impractical. Where do you think you're going to have the space to put 3 times the amount of spawnpoints in the Hive area all clear of collision? If you make the Hives bigger it means Aliens have to travel greater distances and aids the Marines and their ranged weaponry.
<!--QuoteBegin-Flayra+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Flayra)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The marines still spawn from infantry portals the same way but aliens currently spawn from "egg clusters" - eggs are produced at a certain rate and then aliens hatch out of them. They can choose which egg they hatch from and when.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The 'when' part is important, as this would eliminate some of the predictability of the spawn order. If the 'where' is still governed by a set of predetermined spawn locations, it's only a partial improvement.