Spawn camping, legal?

[Gumby]

So I've heard conflicting stories about this from the admins.

Are Spies allowed to sit outside of the spawn waiting for people to come out and backstab them immediately after?  I know they can take out the tele's and other stuff Engies are setting up, but I've gotten myself killed a few times because I didn't want to kill any of them right outside their spawn.

So I want the TE members to weigh in here.  Do the same rules apply to Spies that go for everyone else, or can I sit outside of Smurfette's spawn, and wait for her to come out so I don't have to waste time and stare at that heavy's ass while I wait for her to get far enough away?

[Hitman Smurf]

I stand at spawn and stab people. If a pyro can't come out and puff the area to look for me or someone can't switch for two seconds to do so, the entire team deserves to get stabbed. It's not like it's a medic+demo putting stickies on the door.

It's one guy....with a knife.

[Luggage]

I think spawn camping is spawn camping, be it demo + medic or lonely spy.  That said, I am actually in favor of spawn camping since it is a legit part of the game.

[Giant Flying Head]

Spawn camping has always been a heated issue in the clan. That being said it was desided by the majority of the clan that any class doing it is still doing it. So that means stay out!

[DiscoStan]

I think there's a huge difference between making passes at the spawn area vs. parking yourself at the door waiting for people to come out.  IE, sapping teleporters and killing the engineers that try to save them is okay.  Heavy+Medic sitting in a corner blasting anything that walks out is not.  I'm also okay with ubering someone to wipe out all the engineers' hard work or killing off medics, but when the uber runs out the pair should be out of the spawn area.

[Mustard]

This is one issue Hitman and I have always agreed on.

I think it's difficult to make a uniform definition of what's right an what's wrong in spawn camping. To me, it seems like common sense that a spy is ok, and heavy+medic is not, being that there's a world of difference there in terms of survivability and destructive force.

[crazydog]

What if we put this on
http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=65094
and forget about spawn camping altogether?

This plugin defends against some common server problems such as spawn killing and camping. All features can be easily disabled if you don't want it on. Spawn killing is prevented by simply blocking the damage from happening, protected players will be a different color. They will be protected for a length of time and/or until they travel outside of 'x' feet from their spawn. The anti-camp module is completely customisable, you can change how long the player has to be camping to begin punishment, the severity of the punishment, and much more. The new integration into the SourceMod menu to enable or disable any features easily while in-game enhances the ease-of-use of this plugin.

It actually detects spawn camping, so i think it would be perfect.

[Luggage]

mod is in concept a good idea, but I think will be an issue in some maps where camping is totally legit strategy for red, e.g., payload maps

separately, if spy spawn camping is ok, is sniper ok as well?   why not sentries then since they can be easily taken out with a single uber or half-decent demo/soldier/heavy?

[crazydog]

Maybe the spawn camping detection is too much - but at least spawn protection would help out a bit.

[Hitman Smurf]

IMO, if your team gets spawn camped and keeps getting destroyed that's your own fault. Learn to play.

[Fraggle79]

I like crazydog's plugin idea. If you can't get out of spawn, you can't play... so then what is the point of being there.
I play CS more now because of this mess. In fact cs or gungame had something like this and it worked.

[Baltika (#9)]

mod is in concept a good idea, but I think will be an issue in some maps where camping is totally legit strategy for red, e.g., payload maps

separately, if spy spawn camping is ok, is sniper ok as well?   why not sentries then since they can be easily taken out with a single uber or half-decent demo/soldier/heavy?

The issue (at least for me), is that if I die as soon as I step out of spawn, I'm not having fun.  If a sniper doesn't have to re-aim, if a demo doesn't have to move - it's not fun.  It's not my fault, I had no chance to react, and I have to sit in spawn for another 15 seconds.

Having to build an uber in spawn, to get out of spawn is ridiculous.  On most maps, if you have to do this, you're fucked.  All because some asshat demo sticky jumped past all the sentries and stickied the lone exit...

If this was a hyper-competitive server, and it was posted as allowed, I'd be fine with it.
But since we have some people that only know how press the mic button when they want to spam their favorite song, and it's posted as not-allowed - it's not allowed.

As for the spy vs. any other class debate...
I'm going to have to side with the spy (in my opinion).
The spy isn't going to kill everything that comes out of spawn, as soon as it comes out of spawn.

[LTK]

The issue (at least for me), is that if I die as soon as I step out of spawn, I'm not having fun.  If a sniper doesn't have to re-aim, if a demo doesn't have to move - it's not fun.  It's not my fault, I had no chance to react, and I have to sit in spawn for another 15 seconds.

Having to build an uber in spawn, to get out of spawn is ridiculous.  On most maps, if you have to do this, you're fucked.  All because some asshat demo sticky jumped past all the sentries and stickied the lone exit...

If this was a hyper-competitive server, and it was posted as allowed, I'd be fine with it.
But since we have some people that only know how press the mic button when they want to spam their favorite song, and it's posted as not-allowed - it's not allowed.

As for the spy vs. any other class debate...
I'm going to have to side with the spy (in my opinion).
The spy isn't going to kill everything that comes out of spawn, as soon as it comes out of spawn.

Agreed here and with Disco. 

[Frag_68]

I think spawn camping would be if you can repeatedly die by standing in the only exit out of a spawn or a blind exit, you're getting camped.  A demo taking out teleporters and leaving the area is not spawn camping.  A spy backstabbing people is not spawn camping.

[Mustard]

separately, if spy spawn camping is ok, is sniper ok as well?   why not sentries then since they can be easily taken out with a single uber or half-decent demo/soldier/heavy?

Because of the nature of how one plays spy, it's impossible to kill everyone that comes out. If multiple people come out at the same time, maybe one of them will get hit. And if that person doesn't spy check the next time they die, they deserve their death cause they suck ass. A sentry  kills a lot more people and can't be defended against nearly as easily. I think taking an all or none stance to spawn camping is just silly, it's not considering the way different classes play.

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