Barktooth;
The spawns basically become outdated because the opponent can still move around the map while you are picking. [/QUOTE]
Possible solution: Upon death the player does not receive spawns to select until they click. Their first click gives them the spawns, the next selects as usual. This has the bonus side effect of stopping players accidentally spawning after death due to frantically clicking in during combat. Spawn selection is done using the enemy location at the time of the first click, not player death. Currently the killing player knows 100% when selection will occur, taking it partially out of his hands is important. The killing player can still influence the spawn, by staying at the location of the kill, however by doing so they waste time and they cannot go aggressive directly after the kill – or rather they can but their opponent may pause to respawn for a second.
If you were to drop spawn selection this becomes easier as you simply use the enemy location pick when the player clicks to respawn with a 4-8 second delay on forcing spawn.
Using the time of player death as the decider is not ideal.
Barktooth;
On smaller maps like ASDF there’s no place to spawn you where the opponent wouldn’t be able to get within LOS to you in the time it takes you to pick a spawn.[/QUOTE]
The above change is a potential problem for maps like ASDF because they are small and have very good access between all areas from the center and imo not really fixable with a “spawn system”. With the current systems (ut4 and 2k4) players have a good idea where their opponent is spawning – with the above change the winning player can go mid and wait for the respawn. Neither is really “ideal”. imo this is asdf specific and I don’t think it would effect other ut4 duel maps as heavily – erase, solo, mimic, deck. Possibly protracted, but mainly because of the asdf inspiration. Picked these due to the recent cup..
Rather than the spawn farthest/spawn far away system an algorithm that takes distance of previous spawns into account could be used. Initially random and when the opponent gets a kill the player is given a spawn of similar “distance”. This would potentially mitigate “luck” of close spawns (due to them being reversed, giving the comeback player similar opportunities) while adding another layer of “skill” to spawns. Rather than knowing “killed him at X, will probably be at Y” players will need to remember the distance/order for their deaths in relation to the enemy player, pushing the potential “skill” cap fairly heavily. For this to work it would need to be applied at time of death with instant repsawns. For lower level players this still plays out roughly in the same way, close spawns are heard/seen and more easily converted and when the dying player becomes the killer they are given close spawns to work with as well.
Player A kills Player B – Player B spawn is selected randomly as close
Player A kills Player B – Player B spawn is selected randomly as medium
Player A kills Player B – Player B spawn is selected randomly as close
Player A kills Player B – Player B spawn is selected randomly as long
Player B kills Player A – Player A spawns close
Player B kills Player A – Player A spawns medium
Player B kills Player A – Player A spawns close
Player B kills Player A – Player A spawns long
Player B kills Player A – Player A spawn is selected randomly as long
And so on.
An example of where this may not play out as “fairly”. Player A high at rocket lift on asdf kills Player B on rocket lift – Player B spawns at pulse and dies instantly. Player B eventually kills Player A in front of jacket, under pulse. Player A spawns at upper pulse spawn because it is the “closest”. Player B is unable to chase easily as he is on the ground, nowhere near a lift. You could say in this case the player could swap to shock as soon as the killing blow lands and pop a core at the pulse spawn.. but there are less options.
The final “problem” that players would need to accept is that once a player is in “the lead” spawn killing changes from a known (killed here, likely there) to much more response based. There would be no way to know where the opponent is spawning, beyond areas of the map that happen to have more spawn points. You can spawn right next to the killer. However the usual “three bad spawns can loose the game” does not apply as hard as 100% random as you will be gifted three bad spawn when you kill them.
While 2k4 spawns did not need spawn protection they did influence how the game played, which is something that should be taken into account. Did they influence players in a good way or not?
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