Spawncamping: The final word

[Witchiebunny]

I will warn you all: I am not that far off from having my computer again.

My patience for spawncamping will be nil.

[Stormcaller3801]

This may fall into the category of the siege thing, and may not even be viable given the distance between spawns and the setup timers but...

What if you got your entire team to go Engineer and built a wall of Dispensers across the spawn exits before the start? No sentry guns, no serious attempts to keep people blocked in. Just a whole lot of Engineers saying "We need a dispenser riiight here," over and over again, while building a wall of Dispensers.

[Kumagoro]

[Stormcaller3801]

I agree. But it'd be less funny if you did it and your entire team was banned as a result.

Well, not funny for you. For the other team it'd be hilarious.

[Witchiebunny]

....in that instance, I think there'd be an agreement of "we're gonna screw around this map"

In which case, I'd want to join in. x3

[Purplecat]

Last I checked dispensers dosen't exactly shoot back at players. I guess you can be spawncamped by telefrags (due to enemy teleport exits at the spawn), but if a team manages being spawncamped that way, they must have some really thickheaded players...

While we're at it, building a sentry somewhat near the spawn in maps like pl_badwater is fair too as long it's at the "traditional mapstart siege". But that's usually a bad idea as at the "traditional mapstart siege" the attacking team usually have a uber or two anyway.

[Sekh765]

[Hissho]

I have a lot of issues under this topic that branch out of the general concept of spawncamping, so bear with me.


Ambiguous definition(s)
The definition of spawn camping is *absolutely not clear*. It seems like every admin/moderator I've encountered has a different idea of what spawn camping is/isn't, and what is *close* to spawn camping, but is tolerated. This causes a lot of grief for everyone in the server, especially if someone feels wrongly accused. And even if someone wants to play by the rules, said rules are so vague or nonsensical that it's nigh impossible to abide by them since they fluctuate based on who's the current admin.

Because of this, I suggest a team of admins/mods should write up specific rules for every map in the rotation. It doesn't seem like there's any way around this to me. Each map has a different construction, with a lot of the final cap points adjacent to the red team's spawn. This is where I hear/participate in the most bitching over what is/isn't spawn camping. Just one example: Cranetop Map 2. Often, engies will build immediately outside of red spawn at the last cap point, then red team will go bonkers when there are stickies in front of spawn. Additionally, BLU will usually lace the cart tracks with stickies, almost entirely blocking red from getting more than 7 feet outside their spawn. Seems like everyone I just mentioned would be in violation of spawn camping in my eyes. However, at this spot, good coverage of the cart is *necessary* if you're going to win, and obviously a turret facing the cart needs to be taken care of. There needs to be some leniency on the rules in these situations. Please don't try to pick apart the anecdote--I'm just trying to point out one situation out of many where the ambiguous rules fail and people often get angry with each other.

Hollow words/unfair treatment
In addition to all admins/mods not being on the same page with rule definitions, enforcing of the rules seems biased toward whatever team the admin/mod is on at the time. I've seen admins turn a blind eye while on BLU when their team is building turrets covering RED's spawn, or while demos are questionably sticking spawn entrances, but the moment someone on red does anything of the sort, the admin is on their case. I don't know if it's just a matter of keeping up with everything that's going on, but either way this is unfair treatment and is really demeaning for the one person that gets singled out when there are 3 others on the opposing team pulling the same BS. This also occurs when individuals are *complaining* via text that someone is spawn camping (or trying to, because I nip those individuals in the bud as quick as I can), and the admins will not give so much as a verbal warning--not even a general one saying something like "if you're protecting an area very near an enemy spawn, please stop right now" (however flawed/vague that statement is). It doesn't even need to target anyone until things have been investigated. I'm not sure if this is just an issue with having too much to keep track of at once, but it really strikes a nerve with me.

And on top of all this, I have yet to see anyone so much as kicked for repeated offense of most of the server rules. No need for a permanent ban, just an obvious "cut it out". But like I said, without rock-solid rules, admins can't enforce for rock-solid reasons. And without that power, all of their enforcing is practically empty.

(I'd also like to tip my hat to mic spam, too. I've only seen one person get muted and that was after about 15 minutes and of the same crap over and over (resulting in more than one headache).)

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I think that about sums it up for that stuff, but I also have some personal gripes I'd like to see addressed.

Teleport entrance camping
I find it extremely frustrating and unenjoyable to be playing engineer and constantly have my teleporters downed on large maps, especially on BLU. It's very difficult to mount an offense on some of the larger maps without a teleporter, and it really slows the team down. I understand it can be necessary in order to defend on RED, but entrance sapping every 1-2 minutes is one of the reasons I rarely play engineer any more. In addition to this, said spies also tend to hang around areas very *close* to spawn, backstabbing unsuspecting people. I realize this isn't *spawn camping*, but if the front line is 2 capture points ahead of where said spy is, it really feels like it. It causes players to never even make it to the fray, but instead get picked off while hiking the 30 second walk to the front lines after just waiting 20 seconds to respawn. Not fun.


Sniping from spawn
I realize this didn't make the "official" rules, but the official spawn camping thread does say that this is illegal. My question is why. I can't think of many maps where a sniper is very effective while standing *inside* spawn. On top of that, snipers need range, and on maps where they are camping near their own spawn, it's probably just because that's their best vantage point. Telling them not to snipe from there is like asking them to not play sniper period it seems. However, covering the enemy team's spawn door or immediate area as sniper and headshotting anyone that comes out is definitely an issue. This is complicated even more if said spawncamping sniper causes an enemy sniper to start sniping from inside their spawn. But, again, where else are they supposed to snipe from if the enemy team is that close? This is the kind of territory where the rules need to be more clear.
This rule is in place to help ensure the enjoyment of *all* players on the server, and it is not fair to BLU if they're trying to attack and they can't get out of their spawn for an entire round.

Multi-exit defense maps
I'm thinking particularly of Steel. If you're trying to cap E (before D is captured), it's almost impossible to not furiously cover RED's E exit on a legitimate cap attempt. There are other exits available, and the person standing on the cap point is nigh defenseless against the unrelenting RED players coming out of the spawn door unless they "spawn camp". Let's say a demo has sticky jumped onto point E, trying to ninja cap it. Why in the world would that demo be unallowed to sticky the E exit, considering there are multiple spawn exits, and he's basically defenseless without stickies on that area? Yes, his actions would constitute spawn camping, but it is *necessary* to complete the map objective.


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I tried not to say anything offensive, but if I did, please let me know. I'm a bit miffed. ><;

[Arcalane]

Which part of "don't camp spawn doors" is that hard to understand, people?

This goes for maps with any number thereof. Just because there are multiple exits doesn't make it okay to block one of those.

In any case, we do not have the time to go through and lovingly hand-craft rules for each and every individual map.

One thing of note; we are not omnipresent all-knowing deities. We do not see through the eyes and hear through the ears of every member of our team. Someone doing something wrong? Tell us. We can't fix things we don't know about! On this note, I'd like to throw this out to everyone; please try and be as efficient with reporting as possible. Don't just tell us there's a troublemaker on a server. Tell us who it is, what they're doing, the server they're on - the more information, the better.

RE Sniping from spawn; this is something of an issue on maps like the first stage of Goldrush, where BLU snipers can fire freely from behind the starter gates, inaccessible to spies and often pyros if they hug the back wall. Taking damage, incoming rockets or grenades? No problem, just run into spawn again! RED snipers do not have the same luxury from their back-line positions.

Incoherent? Maybe. It's almost 6am.

[Purplecat]

Problem is that we used to have a more complicated rules about what is allowed and isn't allowed with spawncamping, and this only led to even more confusion and bickering what is spawncamping and not. Such as the multiple exit defense rule, we used to have a rule that said it was ok to do that when there was multiple entrances, but it only led to more and more bickering. If you are capping a point and is only defending yourself it is fair to defend yourself against people who is attacking you, as long your main intent isn't spawncamping itself.

Note that killing someone coming from spawn is not against the rules. It's when you camp the door and doing it repeatably when it is against the rules. And there is no rule about shooting into the spawn when it opens (this seems to be a common misunderstanding).

Teleport entrance camping... spies already have a hard enough time as it, being able to sneak into enemy base and take out the teleport entrances is one of the few strengths they have (Demomen are the superior class for taking out sentries...). Plus this rule is so unenforceable it's not even funny.

Sniping from spawn rule was a compromise since it was usually countered with... spawncamping.