Spawn rework suggestions

Introduction


This post is strictly about ground RB. I have many, many battles in ground RB, but on the other hand, I have practically zero in ground AB, thus I have no idea what goes on in there.

This post is only about respawn mechanics, and thus air battles are not talked about here.

The post will start with observations, an analysis of these observations and finally suggestions to help alleviate the problem.

The discussion will mostly be around the Domination game mode, the Conquest and Battle game modes are in my opinion mechanically flawed on the majority of maps and “fixing” those is not the subject of this post.

This post will also not talk about CAS. CAS is its own problem and one that Gaijin has been very adamant about not changing.

I have no illusions of the devs reading this post, but it is healthy to vent.

The target problem: Spawn killing


Spawn killing has been a recurring thing for pretty much as long as I remember in this game. Gaijin has taken different approaches towards it over the years, once upon a time, the enemy team’s spawn was a Killzone, now it is only a detection zone and a marker appears over those who shoot at players still under spawn invincibility.

Needless to say, spawn killing is more prevalent than ever and is a hotbed for frustration, I’ve only taken a brief look at the forums before making this post and noticed three different posts complaining about some form of it already.

Spawn killing, and spawn killing


Before diving into behaviour observations, there’s a difference to be made, what I will be talking about here is “premature spawn killing”. The spawn killing that happens when the opposing team has been mostly wiped out and the battle is basically over is not a problem. I don’t think it feels very good but it is mechanically too deep-rooted to be fixed, and ultimately the battle is over at that point so whatever.

What we will be talking about here is the spawn killing that happens early or midway into the game, when it often makes no strategic sense, and when the battle is still very much ongoing.

Spawn killing behaviors


In almost any given battle, there are almost always 1 to 5 players in each team that will have taken positions overlooking the enemy spawn at an early point in the game. The frequency and severity of those occurrences increase drastically the higher BR you go (for reasons that will be detailed further below).

This often leads to absurd situations where one team controls all the points but is being spawn-killed nonetheless, or, even absurder, situations where both teams are spawn-killing each other.

Similarly, the higher BR you go, the more objectives are ignored in favor of spawn killing. It’s not uncommon to have battles where none of the points get captured for the first 5 minutes.

The results of these situations vary, sometimes a team loses because it was too focused on spawn killing instead of the objectives, some other times a team is so effective at early spawn killing that it manages to end the game early. In either case, the gameplay loop is broken and the battle doesn’t feel very satisfying.

Why is spawn killing frustrating in War Thunder in particular?


War Thunder is far from being the only game where some sort of spawn killing happens. If you’ve played Battlefield or virtually any FPS, chances are you’ve died right after spawning many times. So how is it a problem for War Thunder but not for these other games?

The answer is quite obvious, but I believe it needs to be said anyway. War Thunder is simply uniquely punishing. While death in a FPS simply means that the enemy gets +1 score, death in War Thunder means that:

  • Your team loses 100 tickets
  • You have to pay repair costs
  • Your ability to respawn is tied to your performance, so if you die in spawn chances are your battle will instantly be over
  • Unless you have a backup, you’ve lost the ability to play this vehicle for this battle

Your first spawn didn’t go so well, you went to capture a point, so did the enemy, and you lost the firefight. Oh well, that kind of thing happens. But you’re not done yet, you’re only 2 minutes into the battle and you still have 3 perfectly capable vehicles in your line-up.
So you respawn, determined to take back the point that was rightfully yours but has been illegally stolen by truants, you press forward in the general direction of the point, 3 seconds pass and suddenly your tank blows up.

“Damnation! These Rolls-Royce engines again!” you think to yourself, until the killcam tells you that what killed you was not in fact these blasted British engines, but a Type 16 (FPS) sitting on a rock at the border of the other side of the map, a spot which happens to have visual on your spawn.

Some variation of the above example happens pretty much every battle, and a desk is harmed every occurrence of it.

Causes


The causes for these behaviors are numerous, a lack of incentive to not do so, inadequate map design (Carpathians being a prime example of genuinely terrible map design), a lack of pushback and the way spawns work.

Map design


A lot of the maps have been reworked recently, which surprised me, I really thought Gaijin would never bother actually trying to change the maps besides band-aid fixes such as removing traction to make OP spots inaccessible or putting a rock here and there.

I’m sorry to say however that this effort to redesign the maps, while welcome, has been wholly insufficient so far. The main reason why spawn killing drastically increases at top tier is that most of the maps completely break down at top tier.

Most of the maps were introduced back when top tier was not currently in service vehicles, and the technologies these vehicles possess allow them to reshape how maps are played.
Top tier vehicles have

  • Speeds that range from “fast” to “very fast”, allowing them to go from their own spawn to the enemy spawn in a matter of a minute on smaller maps.
  • Crystal-clear thermal vision coupled with very good scope magnification, allowing them to make out enemies at very long range
  • Incredibly fast APFSDS shell, giving them the ability to take shot opportunities with short time windows that would be otherwise impossible

The spots used for spawn killing at top tier are generally unusable at lower BRs, the capabilities of modern vehicles make them able to turn normally impractical spots into META spots…

Incentive (or the lack of)


You’ve captured A. You notice that your team has also managed to capture B but the enemy team took C. You have two options, either you:

  • Redeploy to C, C is far away from A and this will take you between 1 to 5 minutes depending on the map, and during that time your side armor will be exposed to enemy TDs.
  • Push on towards the enemy spawn since you want score and score isn’t going to earn itself

Most players will choose the second option, and it’s only natural, it’s the one that is the most likely to earn you score. This example is pretty generous, but even if the capture point is the one next to yours and not the other one on the other side of the map, players will tend to ignore it regardless and go for the spawn.

Spawn killing is easier than killing spawn killers


The mini-map shows you precisely where the enemy spawns are. You can thus pick any spot that has visual on one of the enemy spawns, scope in, and have the entire enemy spawn within your scope.
But what about the one spawning? They can choose between 2 spawns, or on the worst maps (Carpathians for instance), only 1.

So they spawn.
They know there’s spawn killers somewhere. Earlier, they saw a teammate die in the spawn on the minimap. They make use of the temporary invincibility to scout with their binoculars. They don’t have time to check behind them, so they only look to the sides and in front of them.
Ah! There! Bearing 215, behind a rock, antennas, and the top of a turret.
Hard to identify the tank so they don’t want to risk a shot. They have a stabilizer, so they decide to act oblivious and start driving expecting that the spawn killer will expose himself.
And the spawn killer does. It turns out to be a TAM 2IP, an excellent gun and high mobility, but a turret armor that leaves a lot to be desired. Still driving, they take the shot.
Cannon breech. Could be better, but at least now they can leave the spawn safely.
Or so they think, until they blow up a second later, shot by a second TAM 2IP, bearing 305.
The spawn was already under a crossfire and their fate was sealed the moment they chose to spawn.

The enemy could be anywhere, but you can only spawn here or there. It is no surprise many don’t even bother to spawn on the ground after their first spawn and only spawn in the air instead.

How to alleviate this?


Preface


2 suggestions will follow. The first one is practical and something the CDK is already capable of doing, it only requires making sure the maps are adapted to make it viable.
The second suggestion is very theoretical, the CDK has some partial support for it, but most likely a good amount of engineering would be required to make it work still. The impact on the gameplay loop would also be vastly bigger.

Neither of these suggestions is “the ultimate answer to spawn killing”, be it individually or combined, they only aim to reduce the problem and revitalize the gameplay.

Multiply options and obfuscate the spawn


image

(obviously this is a quick photoshop, Gaijin knows how to do UI and would make this look cleaner)

The general idea is to let players spawn pretty much anywhere in their inner lines. The enemy spawns are no longer shown on the map, only a reddened-out area in which enemies could spawn anywhere.

Spawn killing becomes harder as you can no longer fit the enemy spawn in your scope, it is now much easier for opponents to spawn in your blindspots, making spawn killing more dangerous and giving them more options to turn the battle around.

This requires reworking some of the maps to make the most of a team’s inner line be a viable spawn but is otherwise a relatively simple change that does not have deep repercussions over the gameplay loop.

Facilitating back and forth via dynamic spawns


Earlier, I wrote that one of the reasons spawn killing is so prevalent is because there’s essentially nothing else to do. You’ve captured the point you were going for and killed most of the enemies that went there, going to the other points is often impractical so advancing to the enemy spawn is only natural.

But what if we suddenly there were enemies in their way again?

I will take the Advance to the Rhine map as an example here.

MapLayout_Domination_AdvancetotheRhine_ABRBSB

Advance to the Rhine is a tiny, tiny map. Perhaps the tiniest in the game.
Spawn killing inevitably happens there, as the spawns are so close to each other and the objectives.

Paradoxically, I’ve had some of my most intense and satisfying battles on this map. The fight over A notably is regularly hectic. The reason for this is because there’s a constant back-and-forth. The map is so tiny that both spawns can get to any of the strategic points in little time, and thus it’s easy to reinforce your team fighting for the point after you’ve died.

You can win the first firefight of the battle over A, and by the time you repair the damage you may have taken, pushing to their spawn is already out of the cards as the enemies you and your teammates killed are already back to A.

How to recreate this?

Obviously, making every map like Advance to the Rhine would be a terrible idea and many people would be displeased. So how to implement a similar back-and-forth on larger maps where the distance from spawns to strategic points is sometimes over a kilometer?

Some FPS have a feature that lets you respawn on squadmates, the idea would be to have a similar feature in War Thunder. Spawning on a squadmate would work differently, it would require no enemies in the immediate vicinity of the squadmate, and there would be no spawn invincibility.

The goal is to give players the ability to reinforce the team more immediately, in places much closer to the battlefield than a faraway spawn, and thus prevent the enemy team from advancing to the spawn.

That’s crazy!

I imagine some people would dislike that idea, as the impact would be significant, make close-range engagements more common than long-range ones and possibly create a rather twisted loop of revenge-killing.
However, do note that I specifically said squadmate, not teammate. Squads can be a maximum of 4 players in War Thunder, and automatic squads as far as I know are only ever 2 players, so the impact shouldn’t be so drastic.

Nonetheless, this would be a big change and one that requires a fairly significant amount of engineering, so I’m only throwing the idea out there for Gaijin to consider something along those lines in some form or another.

Implementation and roll-out of these suggestions


There could very well be unintended consequences and complications with these suggestions, so I am by no means suggesting that these should be applied to every map right away.

I’m suggesting reworking a singular map (or doing it on one of the occasional new maps) with either or both ideas in mind and making the map have (slightly) increased appearance rate for a time to test the waters.

There wouldn’t even be a need for written feedback, I believe simply looking at the stats regarding banned, disliked and liked maps would be enough to get a good picture of whether players overall like the change. See how many ban the map outright, how many spend a dislike on it and compare with the average for any given map (I’m not sure the “like” option would be a good indicator, I think that one is far less used than the ban and dislike options).

End of this post


This forum revamp is a bit wack, the forum seems more geared towards shorter posts now so I’m sorry for dropping an essay, but hey if you read it all, then that means you are not scared of words, and you should be proud!

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If your gonna do a suggestion add a poll and more pictures.

Spawn camping =/= spawn pushing. Both suck, I think most players can agree on that much.

In my experience, I frequently feel forced to spawn camp on the increasingly-small maps, because either I risk being shot in the side/rear (often by a guy who I just killed a minute or two ago), or because there’s hardly any space beyond the caps and thus protecting caps = effectively spawn camping.

What is my suggestion here?
Pull a page from OG Star Wars Battlefront 2 (PS2), and also funny enough Naval Enduring Confrontation - caps become spawns and spawns become caps. Thus instead of a map having 2 spawns per team and 3 caps down the middle, that map would have 7 caps that double as spawns for the team controlling them, where each team begins the round with just a single cap automatically under their control, taking a page from OG SWBF2 Command Posts.

Then, suddenly, after a light tank or TD clears out a flank, it isn’t forced with the impossible paradox of “spawn camp or expose your side/rear to revenge kills from guys respawning in another tank.” Instead, that light tank can go capture the enemy rear spawn zone to cut off reinforcements without needing to spawn camp, while the guy who just died on that flank can instead spawn closer to the front line at a cap under his team’s control and help out somewhere else. Then if that guy chooses to spawn trying to get “revenge” on his killer, and he dies again, it’s his own fault and he has nobody else to blame, period.

I want to push back my opinion about spawncamping and just want to say thank you for the effort and time you put into this. THANK YOU! I got much respect for this well thought through text. And I like the idea.

So … my opinion on spawncamping? Avoidable in in at least 50% of the time.

Yeah, I think that would be a better solution in the long run, but that would be a different game mode altogether and it doesn’t seem like Gaijin wants to change the format of battles, at best, we may see something like that in the occasional world war event

Nice job mate!

Your overall suggestion is very similar to my own thoughts to this matter:

https://forum.warthunder.com/t/i-have-enough-about-the-spawnkillers/45457/25

So like you idea of dynamic spawns - tbh i am not really sure about partner (random or selected squadmate) spawns as this creates severe issues if you think this through.

So you kill player A but his partner B has delayed his spawn and joins a split second before you killed A - either you have to reload or repair, but in both cases B can kill you - or even worse his presence allows player A to respawn and kill you…It simply matters which proximity parameters were set. So it depends how you would implement it.

In any case: There is no need to mark the enemy spawn on the map. Experienced players will know it anyway.

PS: I would change your tag “ground” to “ground-rb”…

Despite i uninstalled SWBF 2 after a few hours (after paying ~90€ for prem edition) and continued playing SWBF 2015 - it is obvious that gaijin is somehow not really consistent in their view on things - in certain aspects they try to create some artificial realism (so being not a shooter) and on the other hand they describe kills as “ultimate goal” like in their announcement for the(s)kill bonus (so being a shooter).

Imho gaijin could learn a lot from looking at “real” shooters - besides the mentioned dynamic spawn, a kind of partner spawn looks interesting; but alone a possibility to swap partners (so to choose a guy with a similar vehicle and playstyle) would be a benefit to get access to rewards regarding support of squad mates.

First of all, nice text.

I think what people do in their first spawn affects spawn camping (SC) a lot.
I can’t even recall how many times I’ve seen whole teams going to a single cap point, ignoring 95% of the map, which is practically an invite for people to camp up near their spawn, totally unnoticed.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t support blatant SC across the map and things like that, but very commonly teams decide their faith before they’ve even spawned for the first time, and that falls completely on them.

It’s hard for them to eradicate that behavior, so even if they improve spawning mechanic, people will still be able to find really nice spots to overlook areas that are in close proximity of spawns, thus you won’t die in spawn, but 100m from it.

Gaijin actually made a good change regarding repair costs. Now if you immediately die (killed 10s after spawning), you’ll only pay a fraction of the full repair cost. So from the economic standpoint, SC isn’t that bad, just frustrating.

That’s a brutal skill check map. If your team manages to control the “castle” on the hill, you’ll most likely win. But yet, I still see people totally ignoring going there, like it’s their first time playing the map. Although, I do agree with it being such an easy map to spawn camp.
That maps needs a complete overhaul, with multiple spawn points (as every map should have) and drastically changed routes from spawns to cap points.

So true.
Loads of maps are practically the same for years now, not changing much to fit highly advanced tanks we have in the game now.

You only need two caps to bleed the enemy tickets, so why risking it going for C if you can defend A while your teammates defend B. Not only you’re defending your caps, you are also at an advantage if you find a good position, since enemies will have to push you, and it’s obvious who has the advantage there.
Trying to go to C is actually highly detrimental to your team’s success in some cases.

That’s the risk many people won’t take, rightfully so. Why should you try to flush out a possibly entrenched enemy when your team is already winning ?
You should prioritize entrenching yourself, so that you can get an advantage over enemies that need to push if they want to win the game.

Yeah, I agree having 1 or 2 spawns is too little, especially on some maps.

In my opinion it’s fair to give the team which got the control of an area some time to consolidate and move up a bit to advantageous positions, especially since many caps in the game don’t provide any positional advantage.
Dynamic spawns could work, but it would require loads of fine tuning.

Every overwhelming action begins with an opening kill, which creates more opportunities for advance, since you’re getting the numbers advantage.
Giving the losing team a chance to immediately recover their losses could just create more stalemates.

All in all, some of your points would change the game for the better without any bad sides whatsoever. On the other hand, some things and mechanics you proposed would need detailed testing and fine tuning before ever reaching live servers.

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Good to see that players exist with a realistic view on the things how they are.

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I agree that the line for spawning is a better Idea than just having two points for a number of reasons.
One of them being the chaotic traffic jam we have at the start of the game where everybody decides to spawn at one point.
Again spawn camping is made harder as it attacking the with CAS/Heavy Bombers.

The only downside I can see is that by picking a spawn spot you can at least decide which side of the map you will spawn on depending on what you want to do in game.Maybe the whole side of the map could be divided into, say, three areas and the player chooses one of the three.

It would change a lot more about the game mechanics especially in GRB as we would have no clear idea of where the enemy was entering the game so the whole idea of simply cutting a supply line to win or spawn rushing in the end game would have to be re thought.It would bring about a different outcome.It might force a team to maintain position around the mid map having taken cap zones.

As a result of this Gaijin could implement the spawn points or the spawn line as a rotating option like they do with the Capture zone positions.
Changing one small thing could make a big impact.I do feel a large number of the player base are looking for Gaijin to shake the game up a bit and break the dominance of the old veterans just a little bit.
I think losing the spawn points would help.

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Is a dynamic spawnarea that adapt to the average distance to the enemy a possible solution respectively what you mean?

1.I agree with the OP
2.If you think about it ,how important to the game is the marked spawn point?
Very as it shows up the direction from which the enemy travel and how we can intercept them.Spawn points are the ultimate destination for a team once the zones are captured and the endgame is the spawn rush.That in it’s essence is the game.The spawn points are the game.

Now think about the impact on the game that removing those spawn points would make.It could be huge.Teams would have to rethink their strategy once the zones were taken as there is no spawn point to rush and no clear endgame destination.You wouldnt know exactly where the other team were going to enter the map.

My point was that being the case WT could rotate the Spawn point setup to create a different version of the game just as domination might be a different version ,or a 3/Single cap version.

A rotation of spawn arrangement maybe.

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spawn camping would be fixed if spawns were changed into a front, instead of 2 easily camped spots.

that alone would fix alot of spawn camping issues.


here you see an image on how it can be implemented on karelia, for example. just a small map. it needs maybe some adjustments from roads that can be traveled upon. but you would be able to choose your own spawn point inside the entire spawn area. if enemies are on the left, you can choose to spawn in the middle of them, behind them maybe even. or choose to spawn all the way to the right, and try to flank them, suprise them. it would change the dynamic so much. CAS would have to do more scouting before simply traveling up to a simple 100x100 square spot spawn point, they would have to scout that entire zone for enemies.

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Exactly and you have no intercept lines as you have no fixed line of travel to 90 degree off.

As it may be a great game changer for some or a game destroyer for to others I suggested it could be used in rotation possibly.

Imagine teams that communicate with headsets would want an option to spawn together in the same place.

Absolutely agree, as a long time Battlefield player I’ve been saying that War Thunder essentially has taken the game modes from those style of games (like GRB Conquest) without implementing the mechanics that make them work and enjoyable. Even if squad spawns are too much for the community, i thoroughly believe spawning on currently capped points until they’re forced neutral would make for more dynamic battles and help alleviate early spawn camping. Backcapping an enemy objective and having the team pull up behind an enemy team who got too aggressive too early has totally turned games around and means enemies have to be careful about pushing so hard.

Something you briefly touched on is the respawn mechanic creating frustration, which it totally does, but more than that it’s also a large reason many people play the way they do; why play the objective when you can very quickly knock the legs out from the enemy team within a few minutes sometimes. Most of the matches are over well before the ticket bleed from objectives ever matter because half the enemy team is already dead and gone. Which is very much not the case in games with similar modes. If CAS and Helis are an issue they could very much put a cap on the amount allowed at any given time; unfortunately, I don’t see Gaijin making that change.

I very much believe changes similar to that and those you’ve put forward would drastically increase the playability and enjoyability of the game across the board. Everyone can play what they want within reason, large vehicle lineups would be more about having better tools for specific situations without being heavily punished for switching, one death leavers would probably go away entirely, but much of the core mechanics of how the game works are built from monetization up, which is sad.

First off, well done for a first post.

I like the idea of adding a row of spawn points, but I worry there are more than a few maps where the design of the playable area is so bad that it either will break the game at the start of the match or they won’t be useful. I would recommend amending your spawn suggestion so that Spawn 1 and 2 are the only ones available at the start of the match, and the rest open up on respawn. This way SnailGod™ doesn’t have to comb through the maps and filter out potentially broken early spawns you could pull off.

I think, too, you did not mention that one of the other problems with spawn killing is that it awards easy SP, so that even if you kill the spawn camper, they likely have plenty of SP to do it again or spawn some kind of crazy CAS vehicle and take revenge on you for saving your team from grief. I would suggest making the game award NO SP for kills inflicted on tanks that died within 15 seconds of becoming vulnerable.

This is a part of the game I think everyone hates to be on the receiving end of. I don’t even think it’s that fun to do, but it is effective and SnailGod™ demands we complete tasks and get wins, so we do what we must. I hope you manage to get some traction with this.

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