Recently, I participated in the Halo: Reach beta and found it barrels of fun. But one particularly event caused me to rethink Online Games as a whole. You see, our team was given a time limit to bring a flag (presumably it's holy) back to our base, but as I entered the base, I turned a very sharp corner. Oops. Crouching soldier, shotgun in face, spawn at the bottom of big hill, have to go up all over again, of course, this was camping on my killers part.
Camping: The game style of staying in one spot and keeping an area secured does not sound very unfair at first. I mean, that is a key component to how snipers work and needs to be done to utilize them correctly. But then, how are other players supposed to get through said area when the player is already expecting them and already has a perfect shot lined up to take them down. The incident on Reach and a mass of other online shooters has caused me to think about this gameplay style a lot.
As mentioned, camping is essential to a lot of classes, let's pick a good example. The Engineer from Valve's Team Fortress 2. His whole gameplay is completely revolved around defending one area, he must construct a sentry gun and keep it repaired and safe, whilst making sure no one can put an end to himself.
Bad gameplay? Well, there is a huge difference between camping in TF2 and say, Modern Warfare 2. Namely, the Engineer can EASILY be destroyed, it only takes one Spy to shank him in the back, a Demoman to destroy the sentry from afar, a Medic's ubercharge to kill both him and the gun, and the "Camper" can kiss his HP goodbye. However, in MW2 players can use a shotgun as a secondary weapon, which has an utterly ridiculous amount of starting ammo (30 shots I believe) all of which can easily kill a player in one hit. It makes it almost impossible to defeat the camper unless players attack in groups. That, is not good game design.
So what causes camping? Imo, the biggest reasons as to why camping may be seen is map design and weapons. Maps need to be very spacious and have no areas that provide more of an advantage than another, there must be several alternate routes to locations and importantly, an incentive in the map structure not to camp. There is a ton of other factors, but all those can be rendered useless if the weapons are poorly implemented. One example of bad weapon design is the energy sword in Halo 2-3, the grenade launcher in MW2, the Spys knife in TF2, and arguably the AWP sniper rifle in Counter Strike: Source.
tl;dr What are your opinions on Camping? And how do you think it can be discouraged/used successfully?
Camping: The game style of staying in one spot and keeping an area secured does not sound very unfair at first. I mean, that is a key component to how snipers work and needs to be done to utilize them correctly. But then, how are other players supposed to get through said area when the player is already expecting them and already has a perfect shot lined up to take them down. The incident on Reach and a mass of other online shooters has caused me to think about this gameplay style a lot.
As mentioned, camping is essential to a lot of classes, let's pick a good example. The Engineer from Valve's Team Fortress 2. His whole gameplay is completely revolved around defending one area, he must construct a sentry gun and keep it repaired and safe, whilst making sure no one can put an end to himself.
Bad gameplay? Well, there is a huge difference between camping in TF2 and say, Modern Warfare 2. Namely, the Engineer can EASILY be destroyed, it only takes one Spy to shank him in the back, a Demoman to destroy the sentry from afar, a Medic's ubercharge to kill both him and the gun, and the "Camper" can kiss his HP goodbye. However, in MW2 players can use a shotgun as a secondary weapon, which has an utterly ridiculous amount of starting ammo (30 shots I believe) all of which can easily kill a player in one hit. It makes it almost impossible to defeat the camper unless players attack in groups. That, is not good game design.
So what causes camping? Imo, the biggest reasons as to why camping may be seen is map design and weapons. Maps need to be very spacious and have no areas that provide more of an advantage than another, there must be several alternate routes to locations and importantly, an incentive in the map structure not to camp. There is a ton of other factors, but all those can be rendered useless if the weapons are poorly implemented. One example of bad weapon design is the energy sword in Halo 2-3, the grenade launcher in MW2, the Spys knife in TF2, and arguably the AWP sniper rifle in Counter Strike: Source.
tl;dr What are your opinions on Camping? And how do you think it can be discouraged/used successfully?
