So as has been mentioned in a number of threads as of late, what is the deal with the ridiculously uneven team numbers lately? Just had another game (Blackbolt) with us 4 Chaos attackers against 11 Loyalist defenders for more than the first 5 minutes. By the time we had more players (ending with 10 Chaos vs 14 Loyalists), they just spawn camped from the bridge and that was pretty much that.

Kill farmed.

Game over.

This is becoming more and more common and it really makes the game unenjoyable for those matches. I've even seen my faction choose to just sit at the spawn rather than feed the enemy free xp.

I totally get the need to cover enemy spawn points as a method of defense, but with Blackbolt especially there is almost nothing you can do if their entire faction choose to shoot us like fish in a barrel while we scrabble around trying to get through to, you know, play the game. This is only impacted further when the teams are heavily one-sided, and even more so when that balance is in favor of the defending team.

This re-raises an issue that I have brought up a couple of times now regarding hacking xp, and not being rewarded unless the cap is successful. It really makes me wonder what is the point of traversing through the ridiculous quagmire of spawn camping I described above, to try and hack a node when I am not even getting the reward for that?

TL : DR version -

Please try and fix the team balancing issues when matches start. A game should not be able to begin unless there are at least X people on each team. That way at least the playing field is relatively even.

Hard spawn point (the main base ones) should not be easily campable by entire teams and tanks.

Reward your tacticals / traitors who are capping your points right away, otherwise it becomes more xp profitable to kill farm, which is counter-productive to the objective on any current game mode.

Sorry for the whinge.

/Rant

You get rewarded for completing a task instead of attempting to complete it and failing. This isn't kindergarten where you get points for trying. They'll fix the match balancing soon enough, until then hang tight and keep on shootin.

I'm aware this isn't kindergarten, but other than the actual capture, every other action that is an xp source is instant. Healing, ressing, giving ammo, obviously kills and assists, and even interrupting which is clearly just a free instant 500xp to anyone of ANY class who can get close enough to a defended point and hold down E, which is no different to trying to cap.

It is just as hard for a SPECIFIC class to have to get in there to an equally defended point and hold down E long enough to initiate the hack whilst under heavy fire. If the point starts capping, the required action is complete and therefore should give the bonus.

There already aren't enough people playing capping classes as it is, and making it easier to just plasma spam or whatever and rack up those points means there is no incentive for more people to try and further their factions objectives. It will turn matches into kill farming death matches instead of tactical objective based goals.

Anyway, my main point was about the team balancing issues and so long as that is something being addressed that will at least alleviate my frustration somewhat.

Don't focus on the xp too much. Eventually you won't even care about it because you max it out. Spawn camping is a pain, but unfortunately its a problem endemic to all video games atm. Most people only play to win at all costs. All I can say is lead by example and play to have fun with sportmanship.

They mentioned that they're going to add more assist exp down the road and also once squad leader and faction leader commands are in, you'll get points for following orders/defending. But that might be a ways away.

1 Point Cap = 10 kills..... soooo ya, farming kills alone isn't very profitable. Sadly, neither is defending until they give exp for staying to defend stuff.

What would be GREAT is if they could change how spawning works and have more dedicated spawn rooms rather than randomized spawning around points. That way you gotta walk back to the points and get vehicles and such. Blackbolt is probably the worst map in the game and needs reworking. The enemy team barely has to do anything except pull a predator, sit in the middle, and get everyone else to sit on the roof tops. There's very few ways up from the spawn at the start which is insane. Also little to no cover. The elevators also take forever and the instant ones by the attacking spawn zone freeze you in place and make you slowly walk off at the top, letting you get shot at. Basically just a terrible map.

The team balance thing is w/e because later not every fight is going to be "fair". If your faction can't provide enough players for a specific fight, too bad. You're going to lose that zone/continent or w/e once the world map is out and that's just going to be that. Much like how it was in Planetside.

Though currently because none of that is in the game and all it has is instanced queued combat, its a bit annoying. Nobody wants to play 4v10 because there's probably no other matches going on. You can't just leave and deploy somewhere else in another fight or go do PvE until it gets better. You're just stuck with a shitty match until the rounds over. :|

those are the matches you discover your artistic flair with a melta gun, i find the worst map to have less players is the desert one where you can only cap one at a time, id like the spawns to be a little closer to where youy actually want to be but then again that removes one benefit from the rhinos

Obviously you will eventually reach "level cap", but if the loot boxes are going to be bought with the points you earn during matches you will still want to be seeing that xp come in after you hit max level.

Capping a point is clearly the favorable option in an ideal world, but with the current lobby shooter mechanics we are playing with it can be easier to farm out 10 kills than it is to actually push a node and cap it, especially for camping classes like Stalker Bolter, Plasmacannon & Lascannon. Hell, even sitting in a Predator tank can rack you up an impressive killcount in seconds. The main objective is to capture / defend the nodes, and considering that this is supposed to be the main source of xp gain it is so often easier to "not be part of the team" and kill farm.

Where this is not part of the game yet and we just have a glorified lobby shooter, this unbalance is ruinous. It's not like you can say "Oh well, this base is overrun, lets go hit another one" like it will hopefully be eventually. At present you have to go "Oh well, this base is overrun. Let's get kill farmed for the next 20 minutes until the next match and hope it isn't the same deal"

I'm not sure we're playing the same game. Because when its 16vs16 nobody gets spawn camped.

When its 4v10 sure, but chances are you're playing at night/off-peak when nobody's on. We know that spawn mechanics suck but they don't seem to care about it as priority cuz they're trying to pump out content and test it so that all bugs are fixed.

But what they do need for sure (and this is in all maps) is more god damn cover along the main paths. And I mean VIABLE cover. Not an angled small piece of rubble that gets you shot because your shoulders are sticking out, no, ACTUAL cover. Also need lots more cover or base guns around the spawn zones so players can push back a little when they're getting camped.

Not sure where you're getting seeing these "miraculous kill farms in seconds". In a regular match a well placed Predator has to wait for awhile between kills. You'll get like 5 or so against a dumb team within a couple minutes but after they respawn they'll catch on and you gotta move or be prepared for plasma weapons and lascannons.

Regular matches kills aren't farmed as fast and cap points are the way to go.

To be honest, you're right. Hard spawn points are only camped when you are properly outnumbered, and spawn camping a Rhino is just common sense until you get it destroyed (not destroying it and camping it is a bit douchey but meh, what are you gonna do?).

The design of Blackbolt it particularly annoying as the entire front line is lower ground and prone to plasma spam until you can get a foothold on the map, but the recent patch notes suggest there are now more viable routes for attackers. I haven't seen yet as every game I've played today has been the new map.

Totally.

Again, I think this may well have boiled down to my main rant about the team balance in games lately, but in those really shitty games (Blackbolt and Olipsis, I'm looking at you!) the defending team get dug in at the various camping spots, pull up a Predator in the middle, maybe some Rhinos around the edges for extra spawn points and storm bolters and your hard spawn point(s) become no-go zones. Again, this is worse in Blackbolt where both hard spawns are basically in the same place with a communal choke point, and only really prevalent when heavily outnumbered.

This is true, but that was the main point that got me so riled up in the first place. So many games lately had become so heavily one-sided that they were not "regular" matches but kill farms. Members of the defending team were getting more than their fair share of bonus 500xp every time they stopped our hacks (on multiple occasions), but they also were reaping in the 100xp per kill from camping our only modes of entry. In most cases you couldn't even get a Rhino in somewhere sensible before the plasma / lascannon spam or the camping Predator took you out.

Again, I realize I am not talking about "regular" matches, but they are becoming so much more frequent that I don't want to see them become what a "regular" match is and the standard of match we expect to be playing become a rarity.

There will probably always be a way to do something about it.

Two spawn points. At one point or another, one has to break. And while, yes, it sucks up time for a match, that just means they're good at defending, and I can't see that being punishable or fixable.

Have you tried laying down a crap ton of suppressive fire on the bridge? Predator tanks are useful in that scenario, especially when stacked up with a full crew. It forces enemies to take cover while they lay down the fire, giving time to organize and regroup.

I don't know the exact ramifications of this situation (I've never been spawn camped before) but that's all I can say for it. As long as there is a way to get out of that kind of situation, then it isn't cheating as much as it is winning. If that situation is truly an IMPOSSIBLE one, then yes some actions should be taken.