Alright, so I just got done forging a map primarily made for asymmetrical objective games like one flag. However, it will support every main competitive game type. It has a design with some aspects similar to High Ground and Pinnacle - the ground is uneven and the attackers have to push uphill against an imposing, somewhat fortified structure. I'm not concerned about the objective games, more with good ol' team slayer and other team games like oddball. I'm not sure if I should stick with the default fixed spawn system I'm using for CTF and assault, or if I should allow dynamic spawns. For all intents and purposes, pretend this map is High Ground. Here are the standard arguments about the competing spawn systems for team slayer: - DYNAMIC. It makes the game more fluid, makes spawn-trapping impossible, and resolves the inherent disadvantage of being the team that spawns on the beach. (This disadvantage is fine in asymm objective games since you alternate, but sucks in slayer if you are forced to always spawn there.) - FIXED. It makes MLG-style games possible where you push to gain map control and set up spawn traps. Makes for a much more strategic game where the mid areas of the map really matter, and teams won't spawn behind you (i.e. punish you for pushing forward). On the other hand, blue team gets the short end of the stick by having the inferior spawn area all game long. Their only good option is to literally push all the way into red base and control it as much as possible, forcing red team to spawn in the neutral middle. I don't think there's any other choice here - basically because of the design of the map, I have to pick my poison. Is there anything else I need to consider? Right now the map has a fixed system but I'm concerned that that's not fair to blue team. Also the map is shaped weirdly (not as rectangular as High Ground, not quite as circular as Pinnacle) so I can't decide which choice is appropriate.
All I can offer is that ive been told repeatedly, Dynamic spawns on Asym. maps, and static spawns on Symmetrical maps.
I did not know that MLG preferred spawn trapping. I think that is intuitively backward from professional game play, as it shows a lack of skill on the competitive side. As for dynamic spawning, one cannot say that you prevent spawn trapping, but you certainly make spawning more safe as there are simply more places to choose from. That is the only purpose of dynamic spawning that seems even close to reasonable. The one argument I heard that makes some sense is that in slayer, a team has a psychological interest in never letting the enemy spawn behind them from their own base. From a slayer point of view, I cannot say this is valid or not. In fact, unless someone were involved in actually designing the original intent of slayer, they cannot say for certain either. We can all have our opinions (and I realize you are asking for that as well, but I want to clarify that this comes down to opinion). For me, this debate has switched from an obvious choice to include dynamic spawning to a trade off of either creating safer spawning experiences whenever possible (not so possible with flag and bomb) or not allowing the other team to route you so simply as by spawning from your own base. I believe that these two trade offs can be mitigated and that either one of the two design impacts can be minimized simply by the way you design the map itself. [br][/br]Edited by merge: After reading your post, I realize the thread has to do with asymmetric maps. I did not know of any argument why the discussion involving dynamic spawning was specialized for asymmetric maps. Can someone explain this? [br][/br]Edited by merge: One last thought (for now)... If your map supports stock pile and you intend to use one big neutral respawn zone to cover the map to implement dynamic spawning so that it eliminates the effects of the team respawn zone, then you will break stock pile team respawn, because stock pile appears to spawn every Respawn Zone on the map for stock pile games.
I ONLY use static spawns for CTF, Assault, Stockpile, and any other gametype that is side-based. Dynamic spawns work the best for everything else like Slayer, KOTH, Oddball, 3-Plots etc.
That's not wholly true anyway (arena maps are symmetrical and almost always use dynamic spawning, outside of objective games which they are poorly suited for). But it's a bit simplistic for what I'm wrestling with here. On a classic asymmetrical rooms-and-hallways map (Chill Out, Lockout, Damnation, Guardian) a dynamic spawn system is a must. But on such a map there's not really such a thing as a team spawning "behind" you, because the fairly square or circular shape and compartmentalization of the map means that a team could be coming from anywhere even if they were forced to always spawn in the same half of the map. The argument I'm talking about is more about long, rectangular maps where each team has a clearly defined base (even in a slayer game) - a la High Ground, Valhalla, Narrows, Longest/Elongation, etc. On Valhalla if you pushed to mid in a slayer game, you would still expect the other team to spawn on their side, not in your base, because it had fixed spawning. But Narrows and High Ground had dynamic spawning for slayer and competitive types hated it. My concern is the same one Bungie probably had on High Ground - that it's just too unfair to force a team to spawn in the weaker position all game. You can do funky stuff with the weapon layout to try to balance it, but it's a tough nut to crack - it's much easier to just make it dynamic. Actually not. At a high level of team play, it takes superior coordination to control the middle part of a map and force the other team back into their base, and even more so to set up a good spawn trap and hold it without the other team breaking it. It's annoying when spawn traps happen because one team is badly outclassed or because the map has a broken spawn system, but when two good teams play each other on a good map, a true spawn trap is a testament to your teamwork. Well, like I said, the other consideration is that blue team has a significant height-and-cover disadvantage, a la High Ground. I'm pretty sure that's why Bungie put a dynamic system on High Ground for slayer. Well that is certainly my other option. I'm mulling that over. I saw that thread, but fortunately I don't do the "one huge respawn zone" thing. On my maps that use dynamic spawning, there are no spawn zones at all, just lots of respawn points. Then I might add gametype-specific respawn zones for objective games only.
IMHO, anything involving exploiting the map's poorly laid out design of spawn points that enable spawn trapping CANNOT be called competitive skill. It is exploiting the fact that someone didn't design the spawn layout correctly.
Take it up with MLG. I don't have a dog in that fight. Anyway I think you're getting too hung up on the spawn trapping aspect - what is really the point is that on a long, rectangular, two-base map you usually expect a pushing type of gameplay oriented around capturing and controlling sections of the map. If the other team will proceed to then spawn behind you because you've pushed them back far enough, that substantially changes the gameplay. Some people like the pushing/controlling game, and don't want a map that seems designed for that style to punish them for doing what comes naturally. That's my concern with this particular map.
Indeed, it is another topic for another day... And I can appreciate your point when you say people like controlling the map. In that regard, it makes a bit more sense.
Here is the way it works; spawn trapping is hard as balls on a well designed MLG map, but still possible. A good spawn trap is not "Oh herp derp they are respawning in the same spot every time," it lends itself more to "Okay, we control two of their areas, now they will spawn in one of the other two, watch them both." It rewards teams that are incredibly well-coordinated and puts the value of teamwork above the individual skill, emphasizing the team-based competitive aspect that Halo is known for. Dynamic spawns, on the other hand, add randomness into the game because you never know where the other team is. Instead of putting the game to skill and teamwork, it puts it based on luck and fortune, which is far less competitive. Basically put; if you have the ability to spawn trap, so does the other team, so you have to both push for that control while protecting yourself from it. And a well built map punishes you for letting the other team control it. OT: static for Asym gametypes , static for sym gametypes. You have enough spawning pieces to set it up for both, and the extra effort will pay dividends.
I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting. Are you saying to make two different static systems? How would they be different from each other? A real world example based on a familiar Bungie map might help me understand what you're getting at.
I'm sure you've played maps with different starting spawns for symm and asymm. Think of spire, having the symmetrical spawns as they are now, but in an asymm gametype placing defenders spawns around the tower and attackers where the first phase of invasion takes place. What bungie should have done. For skinnier maps like high ground, however, this doesn't really work because the map isn't wide enough. Depending on the map, static spawns can either be great or terrible. In those that longer than they are wide and have real bases like valhalla, static spawns can work well, however in those like sandtrap that are rounder and have no real bases, flow will often lead to one team pushing the other out of its side of the map in which case dynamic spawns are essential for gametypes with static objectives. When setting up hard respawn zones on the former, I prefer to place them overlapping significantly in the middle so should one team get too close and start camping the enemy base, the team with no base has somewhere a safe distance away to spawn.
Ah, I gotcha now. I think that won't work for this particular map, but it's a good suggestion in general. And I agree about The Spire. It seems so obvious that it makes me wonder if it was really not working out in testing, so they switched it. I don't like the current setup at all though - only incompetent teams ever allow a score in one flag. Yeah, that's exactly what I do as well, and that's how the map is currently set up. Each team has a base area that belongs solely to them, with roughly 3-4 large spawn areas apiece and a few scattered extra points, and the entire middle 50% of the map is neutral with either team allowed to spawn there.
Okay, I am catching onto this now.. Good thread... I can readily see the problems with high ground giving one team a spawning advantage if it were static. But... @Reflex - did you mean static for asymmetrical maps like high ground, leaving one team at a disadvantage to poor spawning locations? or did you get these backwards?
I think for the time being I'm going to roll with across-the-board static for team games. What I've done is diversify the starting spawn areas for the low ground team as much as possible to make spawn trapping harder and leaving the starting area easier. I've also given them some very subtle weapon superiority - two plasma pistols near their base as opposed to just one for red team; a grenade launcher (red team only has a sword to offset, which on this map has limited usefulness outside of defending an objective); and a clearer path to the real heavy hitter, a neutral banshee - not actually a shorter path, but a more direct and obvious one. Also, because a lot of the travel on the map is done via man cannons, I've simply given the downfield team more of them so they can quickly move up into neutral areas or the red base. I'll run some slayer on it soon and see how it works out.
Dynamic always worked fine on High ground, if you could capture the base, then the other team was stuck on the Beach and had to move up. That really made high ground a great map, no matter what game type you played. It also promotes power location and map control, if the winning team is stupid enough to leave the base and go to the beach, then they will lose the base as the other team will start spawning in there again.
I accidentally screwed up the spawn areas on Kiparis at one point and of the joy of playing multiflag with dynamic spawns. Trust me when I say you do not want dynamic spawns with static objectives.
I have studied halo's spawning system and in slayer I belive it plays better with no respawn zones, only 1 initial spawn for each team, which then forces the rest of the team to spawn on nearby respawns close to the initial spawn. With no respawn zone players will spawn closer to team ,rather than spawning in zone that is usually a fair distance from battle. I have tried a few spawn systems, using team and ffa, but now I set to neautral and use zones....although this can effect the setup for invasion.
That's not quite true. The game would still spawn the other team in the back of the base if your team was mostly located around the wall and the tower with the laser in it (which for obvious reasons the best area to hold). They might spawn on the beach at first and subsequently spend a little time down there due to the game treating teammate proximity as preferential, but if you killed them down there enough they would surely spawn behind you inside the base at some point.
True, but thats due to the fact a dead team mate gives a bad influence on a spawn spot. So many people dying at the beach will indeed make people spawn in the back of the base, altho that rarely happened to me and if it did, usually 1 or 2 team mates were near the rockets or near the shotgun to 'spawn kill' the other team.