In any good game, every valid strategy has a valid counter. If camping doesn’t have a valid counter, then that just means it’s not a very well designed game.
For instance in CSGO, “camping” is one of the main parts of the game for both teams during different phases of each round. There are dozens of strategies to clear campers out. You can lob a grenade, throw a flashbang, or throw a smoke to block their potential line of sight. You can send in two or more people at the same time to try to overwhelm them. You can wait til you hear them reload or unscope or walk away. You can try to come at the site from a different angle and get a flank on them.
Most of the time I find that if people are getting killed over and over to campers when so many valid strategies exist, it’s less that the other person is camping and more so that you can’t overcome that.
I forget which map it was, but Battlefield: Bad Company 2 had a particularly broken area where a medic class (machine gun and 4x scope) and assault class (ammo drop) could pin down the opposing team at their spawn point, from a distance, indefinitely.
Took me and a buddy around a minute to find it, so we weren’t doing something particularly unusual.
Good design could have rendered this tactic inoperable. I don’t know if it ever came.
If camping is too effective, then the map or weapon balance is what needs work.
For example, of people are camping spawn points, why is the spawn point so easily accessible at all? Why don’t players spawn behind cover with multiple exit points? Do they not get temporary invulnerability?
Or camping objectives. Why is there only one, easily defended path to the objective? Why isn’t there a path for you to sneak up and just stab the camper in the ass while he’s staring down the scope? Or just walk around him and ignore him completely?
Watch some professional CS:GO. Those maps have been refined and balance-tweaked for decades. You can’t just camp one objective because there are two objectives. Every good camping spot is still leaves you exposed to getting flanked. Even with arguably the most OP camper’s weapon in any competitive game - the AWP, teams still only run 1 AWP, maybe 2 at most. Simply because camping alone isn’t effective.
I’m a fan of spot check camping where it allows the player to rotate through strong flank spots. If you stay in one, you get caught, if you stay active you can get quite a few kills.
Like others said it’s a balance issue, but there’s definitely something to be said about the toxicity of staying in a single corner to spawn kill, or taking the tank and going 31-0 the whole game, but failing to push any objectives.
I was in the Army, and camping was like 99% of combat. Sitting quietly and waiting for the enemy to walk into your line of fire is a tried and true military mindset.
It is the designer’s responsibility to make the game fun. If the optimal strategy is to camp, and it isn’t fun, the game has a design problem. Players shouldn’t play games that aren’t fun.
The players are just doing the best strategy. If that’s the best way to play, then the game is designed badly and is on the designers. I never blame xxgigaguy420xx for just wanting to win.
I’m generally fine with it besides aggressive spawn camping
not in a shooter, but one of my favorite past times is chilling out camping a route between places with friends and “guild” mates in an mmo and just chatting and drinking while we wait for someone to stumble in. Sometimes people bring enough friends or heavy equipment to make it a fight. Its chill.
If people can do it but it doesn’t make the game fun, then it’s a poorly designed game. Find another game. It’s not up to the players to follow some unwritten rule. It’s up to the devs to put appropriate rules into the code.
It’s part of the game, some people enjoy playing that way or can’t win any other way. All devs can really do is find creative deterrents for the behavior that other players can use. (Drill charge for example in MWII)
I know it’s probably been done in other games, but the drill charge solves so many issues. In past games, you can maybe get a camper with a grenade, but now it’s almost guaranteed (especially if you also run in to finish them off if it doesn’t get them). It was a brilliant addition to MW2 and I hope it stays in basically all CoD games.
It depends on the game. For something like COD, it feels like it goes against the fast-paced nature of the game. However, in squad-based games like Battlefield it’s a sensible tactic. You want to observe your surroundings and do some overwatch rather than running in guns blazing. (However if you’re just sitting on a hill sniping other snipers for 30 minutes rather than playing the objective it can be annoying).
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A fun target for grenades.
In any good game, every valid strategy has a valid counter. If camping doesn’t have a valid counter, then that just means it’s not a very well designed game.
For instance in CSGO, “camping” is one of the main parts of the game for both teams during different phases of each round. There are dozens of strategies to clear campers out. You can lob a grenade, throw a flashbang, or throw a smoke to block their potential line of sight. You can send in two or more people at the same time to try to overwhelm them. You can wait til you hear them reload or unscope or walk away. You can try to come at the site from a different angle and get a flank on them.
Most of the time I find that if people are getting killed over and over to campers when so many valid strategies exist, it’s less that the other person is camping and more so that you can’t overcome that.
I forget which map it was, but Battlefield: Bad Company 2 had a particularly broken area where a medic class (machine gun and 4x scope) and assault class (ammo drop) could pin down the opposing team at their spawn point, from a distance, indefinitely.
Took me and a buddy around a minute to find it, so we weren’t doing something particularly unusual.
Good design could have rendered this tactic inoperable. I don’t know if it ever came.
If camping is too effective, then the map or weapon balance is what needs work.
For example, of people are camping spawn points, why is the spawn point so easily accessible at all? Why don’t players spawn behind cover with multiple exit points? Do they not get temporary invulnerability?
Or camping objectives. Why is there only one, easily defended path to the objective? Why isn’t there a path for you to sneak up and just stab the camper in the ass while he’s staring down the scope? Or just walk around him and ignore him completely?
Watch some professional CS:GO. Those maps have been refined and balance-tweaked for decades. You can’t just camp one objective because there are two objectives. Every good camping spot is still leaves you exposed to getting flanked. Even with arguably the most OP camper’s weapon in any competitive game - the AWP, teams still only run 1 AWP, maybe 2 at most. Simply because camping alone isn’t effective.
As long as the game is balanced and there are enough counterplays to camping, I’m fine with it.
If camping is a problem, it’s almost always a system issue.
I’m a fan of spot check camping where it allows the player to rotate through strong flank spots. If you stay in one, you get caught, if you stay active you can get quite a few kills.
Like others said it’s a balance issue, but there’s definitely something to be said about the toxicity of staying in a single corner to spawn kill, or taking the tank and going 31-0 the whole game, but failing to push any objectives.
I was in the Army, and camping was like 99% of combat. Sitting quietly and waiting for the enemy to walk into your line of fire is a tried and true military mindset.
It is the designer’s responsibility to make the game fun. If the optimal strategy is to camp, and it isn’t fun, the game has a design problem. Players shouldn’t play games that aren’t fun.
The players are just doing the best strategy. If that’s the best way to play, then the game is designed badly and is on the designers. I never blame xxgigaguy420xx for just wanting to win.
I’m generally fine with it besides aggressive spawn camping
not in a shooter, but one of my favorite past times is chilling out camping a route between places with friends and “guild” mates in an mmo and just chatting and drinking while we wait for someone to stumble in. Sometimes people bring enough friends or heavy equipment to make it a fight. Its chill.
No problem. Its a legitimate tactic. There are plenty of ways to deal with camping.
It’s the natural outcome of a skill mismatch. My favorite solution is get gud
If people can do it but it doesn’t make the game fun, then it’s a poorly designed game. Find another game. It’s not up to the players to follow some unwritten rule. It’s up to the devs to put appropriate rules into the code.
It’s part of the game, some people enjoy playing that way or can’t win any other way. All devs can really do is find creative deterrents for the behavior that other players can use. (Drill charge for example in MWII)
I know it’s probably been done in other games, but the drill charge solves so many issues. In past games, you can maybe get a camper with a grenade, but now it’s almost guaranteed (especially if you also run in to finish them off if it doesn’t get them). It was a brilliant addition to MW2 and I hope it stays in basically all CoD games.
It depends on the game. For something like COD, it feels like it goes against the fast-paced nature of the game. However, in squad-based games like Battlefield it’s a sensible tactic. You want to observe your surroundings and do some overwatch rather than running in guns blazing. (However if you’re just sitting on a hill sniping other snipers for 30 minutes rather than playing the objective it can be annoying).
Sniping other snipers is part of the meta in Battlefield.