I've recently become really uncertain whether to have respawn areas on some of my BTB maps. I'd definitely use them for assault/ctf, but what about slayer? Having each team spawn on their own half of the map adds a lot of strategy for sure, giving advantage to the team able to hold the middle ground and press forward. BUT... as we all know this invariably leads to potential spawn-ganking situations. One only has to look at paradiso or hemorhage to know exactly what I mean. Breakpoint, on the other hand, does not seem to use spawn areas on slayer games and this really reduces the banshee/wraith spawn raping incidents (when compared to CTF where spawn areas are used.) Of course, not using spawn areas means people may randomly spawn behind your line, deminishing the value of certain team strategies. e.g holding the centre ground on hemorhage. I'm interested to know everyone else's thoughts on this.
Well it depends what map you're making really. If it's something like Last Resort then understandably you /never/ want the opponent to spawn in your base, but on maps like Boneyard and Spire it matters considerably less since they're just big clusterfucks anyways.
The only real way to see if it works would be to just test it out. Although if you're looking for theory, I can imagine a spawn system in which each team has a Weak Zone that covers say, 3/4 of the map and excludes the enemy base. That would allow for a measure of safety in the bases and also would allow a team getting spawn-raped to spawn behind their attackers in the middle, and if necessary switch bases.
I kinda know the theories. My question is more about which is the lesser of 2 evils: paradiso type spawn raping or breakpoint style cluster ****ing (lol thanks to MattKestrel for my new favourite phrase)
It depends upon the map, the game type, and your preference. Personally, I would primarily only want to use strong respawn zones dividing the map for objective games. All others I would shy away from strong zones and prefer weak zones to gently push a team spawn into particular areas, like bases where the cover of the base provides protection.