Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

[Punk_FAS]

Lately, perhaps my biggest source of frustration on the DM server has been the fact that you can kill someone, survive by the skin of your teeth, and that person can respawn literally at your feet, reclaim the weapon that dropped from their previous life, and you now have to kill them twice (and this can happen repeatedly). That, or like on DM4, you can respawn at GL 3-4+ times in a row after death, and meanwhile your opponent respawns at yellow armor, or somewhere else much closer to the action, or to good weapons, and this can give them a huge advantage in a tight game. It would be great if the reason I lose a match isn't because the spawn gods saw to it that it wasn't in the cards for me to win that map, but because my opponents played more skillfully than I did.

Spawn farthest is only an issue when it's a 1v1 situation, and if you know anything about the DM server, the chances of that happening are slim to none. It would be nice to know that anybody that dies by yellow armor on DM4 is getting booted to GL (or wherever they end up when dying in that area). This way all death penalties are equal, and there's no need for irrational feelings of having the cards stacked against you or whatnot.

Also, so many times I am setting up for some jump, and as I'm hop hopping toward the box or whatever, someone will randomly spawn in my way, breaking the flow, and again creating more frustration (with the spawn mechanic).

Spawn farthest is perfectly fine for FFA, and is better than the randomness of whatever is being used now.

Also, can we get a REAL 1-second (or whatever) spawn protection? Sometimes there's literally nothing. I don't see the benefit of the randomness.

PS - I believe I brought this up not too long ago, and I was directed to another thread, but I don't know where that is now. If a poll is suggested, that wouldn't work because 90%, if not more, of the people who play on DM don't appear to visit the forums at all, or at least with any regularity.

[|iR|Focalor]

Let's get to the heart of the matter and edit out all the fat and gristle.

Lately, perhaps my biggest source of frustration on the DM server has been the fact that you can kill someone, survive by the skin of your teeth, and that person can respawn literally at your feet, reclaim the weapon that dropped from their previous life, and you now have to kill them twice (and this can happen repeatedly). That, or like on DM4, you can respawn at GL 3-4+ times in a row after death, and meanwhile your opponent respawns at yellow armor, or somewhere else much closer to the action, or to good weapons, and this can give them a huge advantage in a tight game. It would be great if the reason I lose a match isn't because the spawn gods saw to it that it wasn't in the cards for me to win that map, but because my opponents played more skillfully than I did.

It's FFA. Shit happens. Lose gracefully. You've got a ping lower than most people, and you tend to win more than you lose.

Perhaps
Ur
Now
Karen?

This is still America (for the time being) and you do have the right to freely express yourself, but when you do, try not to completely contradict yourself.

you can kill someone, survive by the skin of your teeth, and that person can respawn literally at your feet, reclaim the weapon that dropped from their previous life, and you now have to kill them twice

Also, can we get a REAL 1-second (or whatever) spawn protection?

You have to kill them twice... so how about make it IMPOSSIBLE to kill them for the first second while they are picking up that weapon and aiming it.

[Punk_FAS]

You have to kill them twice... so how about make it IMPOSSIBLE to kill them for the first second while they are picking up that weapon and aiming it.

They wouldn't respawn at your feet, where their previous life's weapon was dropped, with spawn farthest on.

I've laid out some of my issues with the current spawn algorithm/mechanic. What are the advantages of the way it is now? Does it enhance gameplay, or is it more of a source of frustration than anything else?

[Punk_FAS]

Another example: On DM5, in the chain/red armor area - If someone is in that room, with spawn farthest on, you won't get someone respawning on that spawn pad. With the way it is now, you're going to respawn there, and most likely the other person in there will have full red armor, full chain, probably rockets and rail, etc. You're going to have to run 'naked', without any spawn protection potentially, to the chain for most likely just 50 bullets. Even if you're using a bot, you're losing that battle against the aforementioned stacked guy camping that room. Now if you, by choice, decide to drop down in there that unprepared, that's on you.

[|iR|Focalor]

You have to kill them twice... so how about make it IMPOSSIBLE to kill them for the first second while they are picking up that weapon and aiming it.

They wouldn't respawn at your feet, where their previous life's weapon was dropped, with spawn farthest on.

I've laid out some of my issues with the current spawn algorithm/mechanic. What are the advantages of the way it is now? Does it enhance gameplay, or is it more of a source of frustration than anything else?

You said "ALSO". Also means "additionally".

Also, can we get a REAL 1-second (or whatever) spawn protection?

Spawn farthest doesn't really matter if it's packed with 16 players like it is frequently. Then you'll have MORE people complaining about the spawn protection being too long.

Pad campers with railguns are annoying. People like "dirty cop" base 98% of their game on it. But they also tend to be the lowest skilled players as well, and are easy to kill. I've never seen these people win a map with a pad camping strategy either, even against any number of other low skill players. It's gonna happen, just live with it. If they get one or two here and there, it keeps them playing. If you take away their only chance to get anything, they'll stop playing.

Notice how you're only complaining about people spawning up near you because YOU have low health. You fail to mention or think about the numerous times when people might spawn up near you only to get pad raped 3 or more times in a row. I know this because I'VE DONE IT to people on numerous occasions. And you know what? I don't feel bad about it, ...because they do it to me too. It happens sometimes. It's an open-to-all FFA server with skill levels from "really good" all the way down to "two ticks away from brain dead". You seem to be overly concerned about competitiveness here. It's really not a competitive server. It's a server where you want to be competitive. If that's the way you want to play it, do it, but don't ask for changes that you think will give you a better advantage and let your skill prevail over the randomness built into the game you walked into. A shitty wants to get lucky now and then. Shit happens. Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug. The random spawn shits on EVERYONE sometimes, it ain't just you.

[Punk_FAS]

Spawn farthest doesn't really matter if it's packed with 16 players like it is frequently.

It still makes a very noticeable difference, like in the DM5 scenario I mentioned above. I was playing tonight and was constantly encountering situations where it would have made a difference - on DM1, coming from the red armor stairs (on the tasty modified dm1) towards lift/mg, I went to jump towards mg, and someone spawned right there on the pad in front of me, blocking me mid-jump, and making me drop onto that ramp that serves as the exit from lower rl. That never happens with spawn farthest.

Then you'll have MORE people complaining about the spawn protection being too long.

For ONE second? That's just long enough to spawn and not have a random spammed nade and/or rocket explode before you can even process where you're at, or knock you into lava, or start you off with 8 health or whatever before you have a chance to try to get back on track. In fact, isn't it about that long now when it actually goes for the full duration? It seems to be random now. Sometimes there's literally nothing, and sometimes it's a second or so.

The random spawn shits on EVERYONE sometimes, it ain't just you.

Yeah, and who enjoys that? If everyone dislikes something, and there's an easy alternative to improve everyone's experience, why wouldn't you switch to that better alternative? The lower-skilled players, who are easy to kill, are going to have to deal with it more than anyone else actually. If they're dying more often, they're also being subjected to the RNG of wherever the current algorithm decides to respawn them more often. If you're concerned about them sticking around, then this would be a change that would enhance their gameplay experience even more than it would mine.

[|iR|Focalor]

If everyone dislikes something,

"Everyone" isn't coming here and posting their displeasure with the spawn protection length. And if you go on the server and start interrogating everyone about their opinions on the spawn protect length, sure you're probably gonna get several people agreeing with you that it should be longer. Problem is... they didn't come to that conclusion on their own. You planted the idea in their head. If they were really bothered by it, they would've already been here posting about it before now.

Seriously. You have a good ping. You kick most peoples asses. You win most of the time. Stop being a karen.

[Admin]

Also, can we get a REAL 1-second (or whatever) spawn protection? Sometimes there's literally nothing. I don't see the benefit of the randomness.

Spawn protection time is not random. But it cancels if you press the fire button to shoot at someone. (If you want the full second of protection, don't shoot — scoot!)

That never happens with spawn farthest.

The SelectRandomDeathmatchSpawnPoint() logic on tastyspleen's FFA servers goes extra lengths to try to be random.

It also tries REALLY hard to avoid a telefrag on spawn (to a greater degree than the default Q2 spawn code.)

Nonetheless, reading over the code, it does behave differently than the default Q2 logic, as a result of its anti-spawn-frag code. The original Q2 logic simply tried to avoid spawning in the 2 pads that were nearest some other player (after that, all bets were off.) The tastyspleen code, by contrast, considers every possible option to avoid a spawn-frag, but otherwise is random. In practice, this means that (spawn frags aside) the original Q2 SelectRandomDeathmatchSpawnPoint() logic avoided the 2 "nearest" spawn pads, where as the tastyspleen code is purely random.

So that's interesting. (…It's indeed more random than standard, but it's been like that for 16+ years.)

:shrug:

[Punk_FAS]

If everyone dislikes something,

"Everyone" isn't coming here and posting their displeasure with the spawn protection length. And if you go on the server and start interrogating everyone about their opinions on the spawn protect length, sure you're probably gonna get several people agreeing with you that it should be longer. Problem is... they didn't come to that conclusion on their own. You planted the idea in their head. If they were really bothered by it, they would've already been here posting about it before now.

Seriously. You have a good ping. You kick most peoples asses. You win most of the time. Stop being a karen.

Focalor, this bothers me, and I'm trying to get it changed. I'm laying out the reasons why the way things are now creates a frustrating gameplay experience. They may have noticed it, but don't know it can be changed. Anyway, other than it's me, and it's something that bothers me, what reason do you have to be invested in this one way or the other?

[0rbisson]

I think the DM server just hates me...Period. Especially on dm8 99% of the time I spawn bottom shot gun. And I can assure you someone can launch a nade from the other side of the map and it will somehow hit me

[|iR|Focalor]

what reason do you have to be invested in this one way or the other?

The fact that I play on these servers TOO, and I'm okay with the way things are. If someone spawns up near me, I shoot at them. Sometimes I have 5 health left and they take me out. Sometimes it's the other way around, and they've whored the shit out of armor and health and I've slugged it out with 2 or 3 other people already trying to make it to their location to take THEM out SPECIFICALLY, and I chew them up, but run out of ammo before it happens... and then I spawn up beside them and blast them once or twice to finish them off.

If you play long enough, you're gonna be on both the giving and receiving end of it. The last thing I want is everyone being immune to damage when they spawn up next to me. I'm sure you'll find that if you record yourself playing for about 10 or 12 maps straight, if you're really honest, you'll be able to spot many times where you patrol advantageous areas with a specific weapon like a railgun because you know that many people spawn up there and there are limited options for weapons in that area... such as on Q2DM4 where people tend to patrol the area from the yellow armor under the stairs to the MG corner because it's a cluster of intersections with lots of traffic, and limited weapons. CG spawns can be heard and picked off as they climb the ladder, people coming from BFG or the RL area can be hit easily in those two tight halls from the MG, and you can hear everything going on around the YA from that corner as well.

You're a low pinger who tends to use the RG the most. Which means that on Q2DM3, I'm willing to bet that much of your time is spent patrolling the upper ledge from the MG area to the RL room doorway with a railgun. People tend to do that because in that area they can find many new spawns with only MG or SG, and the only real threats to you there come from rockets on one end, and the RG at the other end, and unless it's really crowded, you can usually have time to see/hear it coming and prepare to take them on. The person coming from RG is disadvantaged as they are restricted to a smaller path while you can move across their path making them have to be more accurate.

And if it happens to be a time when there are only 2 or 3 people on the server, personally I like the fact that it doesn't spawn me all the way on the other end of the map. If it's DM6 and the 1 other player is doing NOTHING but making rounds on the red armor and yellow armor, then spawning me on the other side of the map makes me have to spend too much time going after the RL and CG over and over, only to be rushing face-first into someone with a RG and 200 armor every time. And if there happens to be a 3rd person there who completely sucks, they always tend to materialize out of thin air the second I get into it with that red armor whore, and they reduce my already non-existent chances of killing that person and removing them from the red armor. But if I can spawn up near the RG a couple times, maybe I can nail a few shots and whittle them down to where I can finish them off with my next spawn.

So as far as I can see, it ain't broken. Fixing it will break it.

[Punk_FAS]

Also, can we get a REAL 1-second (or whatever) spawn protection? Sometimes there's literally nothing. I don't see the benefit of the randomness.

Spawn protection time is not random. But it cancels if you press the fire button to shoot at someone. (If you want the full second of protection, don't shoot — scoot!)

Ahhh, ok. I think I often, habitually, hit fire quickly after I die, so I guess I'm cancelling my own spawn protection (and I've seen others appear to do the same thing). Do you actually have to fire a blaster shot, or will just pressing fire cancel it, whether or not the weapon actually releases a projectile?

[Admin]

I think I often, habitually, hit fire quickly after I die, so I guess I'm cancelling my own spawn protection (and I've seen others appear to do the same thing). Do you actually have to fire a blaster shot, or will just pressing fire cancel it, whether or not the weapon actually releases a projectile?

It was intended that you would need to fire a shot to cancel it.

Though one could imagine a bug where the mouse was still down from when you clicked to respawn, and having that incorrectly cancel the protection. (Haven't looked at that code in awhile.)

[Punk_FAS]

quadz, is the only reason for the current spawn setting to minimize telefrags? I still get telefragged at least once on most every map, and fairly frequently I get telefragged twice at the beginning of each map rotation. Sometimes I get a telefrag myself, but that seems to be rarer than me dying once or twice to that. Was being telefragged during a match a big problem with spawn farthest on?

I keep constantly encountering in-game scenarios that are only taking place because of the current spawn mechanic. Like I think I already mentioned, running around the map, with momentum, heading to the armor, a weapon, trying to escape someone, etc., and then someone will literally spawn on a pad you're maybe one character's size away from, blocking your path, taking way your momentum, making you miss that jump, get killed from that person that was chasing you, making you miss the mega, or whatever. I don't think that happens with spawn farthest on.

I think I'm noticing things more, if they've been this way for 15+ years, because the server limit was increased over the years (wasn't it?). That or the average server population has increased. I wish I made a demo for every game I played, then I could reference specific examples of how the way things are takes away from the fun of the game. It's honestly one of the most rage-inducing things I encounter lately. It's not like there's really much other choice these days on where to play either (not in the US), so it's not like I can play elsewhere.

[Punk_FAS]

Here's a demo where it kinda shows what I'm talking about (but not the worst instances, imo). I'm sorry it's not in video format, or snipped, I don't know how to do any conversions.

This is on DM3/Frag Pipe. Check out when I have 7 frags. I respawn at RL. When I respawn, there are already TWO people right there in that tiny little area going at it with RLs. I of course get caught in the crossfire and have no chance of doing anything with that respawn. That kind of thing doesn't happen with spawn farthest. This happens again later in the map, when I have like 18, 19, or 20 frags.