As some other people have pointed out, movement has a lot to do with this. In Titanfall 2 there are many god-tier camping spots and many zero-recoil weapons, but you usually don't last long as someone can grapple to your exact location within 20 seconds (maybe not if they're new to the game, though)
Yeah i agree. Even if your camping in a building, someone with good movement will move out of your field of view quicker then most people can react. And if they have a softball they will fuck you up
that's an interesting point. A camping spot is only as good as the players defending it. My thought is that the more ways there are to access a spot, the harder it will be to defend
@@garbaj One other thing you might consider is visibility. TF|2 pilots are lit up like Christmas trees, and can be seen from halfway across the maps. Sticking to one spot is dangerous.
Another source of camping is game mode. If you can complete the objective by sitting still, a lot of players will do it. That's why I like game modes where the objective moves. Think Hardpoint in CoD, or Payload in Team Fortress 2. You can still camp, but it's not nearly as effective because you are forced to move to complete the objective.
That's a good point. I've been so completely focused on deterrence that I forgot you can actually give players a reason/reward for staying mobile as well. I'll be giving this some more thought
Points don't need to move. For example, demolition in call of duty. People on the defending site will defend, "camp", the objectiv and attackers will attack the site. but when the bomb is planted playstyles completely switch, which is why, imo, demolition is the most fun mode till date in FPS games. You should take a look on how that goes
@@garbaj how about getting faster the longer you run, it would be pretty funny, like that it will push peopels to kill other player as fast as possibel so they don't gaine to much speed and being faster could make melee waepons stronger, or you could go soo fast that you'd be turned into a fire ball
Have you ever played hardpoint? Because my sweaty ass friends camp by spawn manipulation. If they fixed it cool but i doubt that was fixed even in recent CoD games.
I have experimented a ton with making maps and customs in Halo. It actually taught me a lot. One thing you want to be careful of is to not turn your maps into swiss cheese, where in an effort to avoid camping, you basically get shot from every direction all the time and feel like you have no control. This is a very easy trap to fall into, and it can make your maps really annoying to play because there is absolutely no cover, or anywhere to form strategic plays. Map design is HARD, it is all player psychology and making sure that everyone had the opportunity to come back and succeed. You also need to really consider the differences between camping and power positions, the two are very similar, but power positions take actual work to hold down and have weak spots, a skilled team can make it almost feel like a camping spot. Verticality is your friend!
Yeah avoiding camping in games like cod (especially mw2019) can be pretty hard at times. I hate when people camp against me, so I try not to camp against other people, but in doing so I just end up getting shot from like 5 different angles because the enemy team is all sitting in windows waiting for someone to push. It’s especially bad in modes like domination, where the enemy team gets the upper hand and all of a sudden you can’t even get out of spawn because you just get shot at by the entire team the second you move out of spawn, so all you can really do is camp in spawn and hope they get bored of camping and come to you.
This ^^^ it's the difference between someone sniping from the sign in Highrise vs from the top of the rust tower. One was difficult to counter and the other had amazing visibility for both the person on top and everyone they can see.
A little tip for camping: usually camping is a fully legitimate tactic in SOME situations, as a game where grenades or anything to either scare or kill a camper is available to every player, also in my opinion snipers are supposed to be camping, cuz quickscoping is more annoying, at least for me.
camping depends on the game aswell. in a fast paced arcadey shooter like cod, it's really annoying because it goes against the general flow of the game: run and gun. but in a more realistic tactical shooter like sandstorm, camping would be the best strategy in some cases, as it would be done in real life
The problem with camping spots is that they have cover on multiple sides. By removing every possible camping spot you slowly remove all the cover, which eventually leads to no place being safe. That might sound good but when no place on a map is safe gamemodes like ffa and even some team-based modes will be hell and you’ll die every 5 seconds
Cover should be directional. Using it to protect from one, maybe two, directions leaves you exposed with your back turned to another. That way smart players who know their enemy locations can still utilize it without it becoming an easy win strategy for people who want to just shoot at targets coming from a single direction.
@@LiveActionKimPossibleRufus This is exactly how csgo maps feel. you're always exposed to one angle or area of the map, so you need to play very smart, especially at a higher level where the ttk is instant because people are headshot machines and a lot more creative in how they play out a round
Came here to say this. If you can't get a second to breathe it's just no fun. It'll be like shipment on COD but way worse. There should be a penalty for camping like if you're sitting still you are easier to kill than if you're moving. I wouldn't wanna play a game where you're out in the open most of the time and everyone usually has a clear line of sight to you. That just sounds maddeningly frustrating
@@drgore1797 great point but it’s also very fun to have high action all the time like games like titan fall 2 it may be very tiring but still super fun. like you said COD maps like shipment are not very fun when your constantly dying but when you have those like 3 minutes every like every couple minutes when your constantly killing people is pretty fun. idk thought either way your gonna have problems. another problem is of course spawn killing but there’s still ways you can kinda fix that.
I was just about to point out that in the example he showed he should have not removed the wall that you can duck under but instead shorten it so even if you are ducking you will still get shot. Basically the map should still give covers so you are not as open but its not too much cover that you can just stay and chill at that place.
@@jamo9437 you could still have alot of action in the map by having a part of it as a big open space and also having smaller and a bit safer spaces that you can hide at and take a break at like . For example you just gone to a gun fight and you know you have used all of your ammo so you decide to take a break and get behind cover to reload and then go back to the gun fight which in most cases is going behind a wall or a small building thats near the open space.
The line of sight (LOS) of the camping spot is one of the highest factor for camping because you could find a safe spot where to rest for a couple of seconds while having a great placement to find a lot of people passing in different areas. What you could do: safe spots are extremely important for the pacing of the game (you give the player time to lower the adrenaline and let the endorphins kick in) and a couple must be there, to prevent people from using them for too long they must be ineffective as camping spot, usually a good place for rest is a room with 1 to 2 access to it. You could put them on the "outskirts" of the map and low ground (usually on the angles) with poor LOS to the center of the map and easy access from the outside. Try creating a map that pushes the player in the middle of the arena like this you can control a little bit where the game will be more hectic. Give a spot to conquer as a "decent" camping spot with good LOS but bad cover (the arena you showed has a good center of the map except for the low walls). Cover and LOS should always be one the inverse of the other. The last thing missing is the objective of the game, for example if you have a team Deathmatch (if everybody gets killed once you lose) having the "outskirts rooms" is a bad thing since the ambush it's a very effective way to win, while having 2 decent camping spot in opposite areas is a good experience for the player (you could add side roads to attack each other). If you have a kill the most people kind of gameplay than the ambush (on the outskirts) is an ineffective strategy (low people passing through) then the outskirts cover is fine. Tool your map with the game type.
I should preface this by saying I’m not a camper, I typically rush in FPS games cause I don’t have the patience to camp. But I think you’re going about this the wrong way. By doing what you’re doing you’re eliminating power positions from play. If you haven’t already I highly recommend watching bdobbinsftw’s old call of duty videos. They are some of the best videos analyzing map design in FPS games. In effect, the more you make a piece of of the map less appealing to camp you’re making it also less appealing to fight over. No piece of cover has an exceptional advantage over any other piece of cover so in the aggregate it’s like fighting in a flat parking lot. By taking away power positions each map loses its identity, there’s fewer choke points to strategize around and it becomes harder to incentivize creative player positioning. I’d actually recommend you take a look at the map design in MW2 as that game was a campers paradise. But the difference here was that every camping spot was countered by at least one other spot, so if someone was camping in spot A you could go to spot B. And the other team can counter that by covering spot B with spot C. This not only makes you strategize and think through gameplay but it also encourages movement throughout the map, which you can then influence. You seem dead set on a low TTK game so I’d recommend increasing player’s ability to traverse the map, whether by speed, movement abilities, or clever map design, and by adding in counter camping spots that players can strategize around. What I strongly advise against is halo 5’s map design where it was so open you basically had to rush everywhere constantly to avoid getting shot by someone who had better line of sight. Ultimately I don’t think you’ll ever be fully rid of camping so my suggestion is to keep it in check with counter camping positions.
I fully agree with this. Without camping the game becomes homogenized where only one strategy is best. Maybe a player can't slide as well as other players or cant flick shot as accurately. Camping won't feel like a cheap strategy in your game as long as you give the players tools to combat it. Camping really isn't crazy effective in MW because with simple communication to your team, an RPG into the room wins. Semtex blast radius is so large in that game, it can clear a good sized room easily. Taking away options for how to play feels bad.
I feel like this is a very good way of putting it. Camping isn’t really an issue. Let’s be honest, people really only complain about camping when they’re mad, yet will end up camp themselves. Camping can be good for a game if it is designed with it in mind. Your point about choke points and power positions in a map is exactly why camping is necessary. It’s just one component in a larger strategy. And what about a game mode like domination or hardpoint, where you need to hold a specific area on the map by standing there? Those areas can’t just not have any cover, especially with low TTK. In game modes like that, camping is essentially necessary to properly defend a position, so it should be balanced rather than entirely discouraged. On a side note, I actually like very low TTKs. I mainly play hardcore mode in CoD, where most guns can kill in a single hit. This way, cover and concealment are much more important, which makes how you move and strategize a more engaging mechanic, since all it takes is one lucky shot to kill you. Of course, people will camp, but one well-placed shot from a counter-camping spot can quickly end a camping spree, so staying in a spot long-term tends to be discouraged. Plus, the more areas you can watch while camping, the more potential places you can get shot at from. I’ve found that this seems to be a good way to balance camping with movement while keeping a low TTK.
You can also add strong indirect fire weapons, like grenades. These work well when you know an enemy is definitely in whatever location, and making them strong is one way of encouraging people to move away from powerful positions.
Another really important one: Visibility. In modern warfare, you become extremely difficult to spot especially in hardcore due to realistic camoflauges in dark rooms, making camping that much more effective. making players stand out from the environment gives potential camping victims much better odds by decreasing the time it takes to react
No just don’t make skins like that that’s the only way to combat it if it blend in to good in a game with subpar camos…then don’t release it b/c that automatically makes it pay to win
@@corporaljay6165 I saw in a vid yesterday using this example, where in TF2 the background and maps and scaled down in their saturation or color pallets, but the character models all are colorful so they are easy to identify. Whereas another example, in Overwatch/Paladins everything is colorful, but the teams are outlined in red and blue to identify. With modern realistic shooters, what they lack is these color formats of either having colorful backgrounds and desaturated models or vice versa which works best. Best looking fps visually when it came to color pallets, lighting, and map design would be Bo2, not to mention all guns and playstyles were viable. Of course these styles vary based on the type of fps game for the overall vibe, but like I said the main issue with the modern realistic style is everything is too gray. Best example of this 1st happening that I can think of is in Cod Ghosts. Soke may argue that mw3 and mw2 were the same, but to me Ghosts was extremely gray/bland feeling and maps were too large at the time, slowing down the pace and rewarding passive players
@@dariusmatthews2521 colorful/animated camos are dope tho, and def aren't going away, that we could tell ever since bo2 for example. I don't think that's the problem nor are they pay to win by any means, and if anything you're at a slight disadvantage, and also you become easier to identify individually from the rest of the lobby (that is referring to colorful/vibrant or unique skins). Only cases when skins become, "pay-to-win," is if the character model is better camouflaged or if they have some reduced affect on their hitboxes, but that's not common with the majority of camos/skins released in fps imo. The only small weird scenarios that this pertains to from what I've seen is in Apex Legends
A little camping is good. When there's an vantage point to hold, it creates a secondary objective for the players. However, there should be a lot of flank routes so taking and retaking the point wouldn't be too frustrating.
I think movement speed and abilities have a huge influence on it as well. Look at Overwatch for example. Some heroes can be easily suppressed by a bunker comp. But other heroes with higher mobilitiy like tracer, ball, sombra, lucio, pharah etc... are able to get past those. I don't really recall camping being an issue in Quake or Unreal tournament.
A big thing to support this is Titanfall 2, a good amount of the guns can one shot or otherwise quickly kill a player over various ranges, and there are some good open spots in a munch of maps, but every player has so much movement potential that camping becomes genuinely difficult. It’s hard to line up a shot if you’re not moving just as fast as your opponent, and even if you’re in a nice open spot with plenty of sight lines, standing still is generally gonna get you killed really fast
Overwatch is kind of a unique case where the devs did a really good job of discouraging camping on an individual player level with smart map design and objectives, but also allowed for bunker comps to exist with the sheer amount of shields in the game. It's pretty interesting.
I genuinely don't understand why most people can't comprehend the difference between camping (sitting in some random corner of a map, waiting for someone to happen by) and holding a position (taking a position that allows for spacial deniability or in reaction to enemy movement, ie you see someone going a direction so you take a shortcut to where theyre going to be and cut them off).
Most people in gaming consider staying in a window and killing people as they continue to come down the street camping. I don't I consider it smart. If people are going to continue to come down the street for easy kills for me why the hell would I move? The type of camping you're talking about just sitting in a corner to me isn't a factor in any game I've ever played. Sure it happens here and there. The only time I would ever do it is if I hear somebody downstairs and I don't think they hear me. Why would I not wait in the corner for them to come through a door? If I can hear their footsteps why would I run out to meet them?
TF2 does something like that. The player models are always backlit so it creates a bit of a highlight behind the characters, it also helps to quickly identify the class of the enemy too.
@@sirshotty7689 it's the phong shader that TF2 has that makes them stand out and the outlines of the model, if you remove all the textures you can actually still recognise the class just off the way they stand and are modelled. That game is a masterclass in good class design imo (anticheat is a very different story but at least there's something good to look at there)
Here's a proposed mechanic: Adrenaline. As you actively move around and cover the distance, you slowly gain a temporary buff that wears off if you stand still or pace a short distance, that lets you take a bit more damage on the chin. Not by much, but just enough to keep the camper nervous.
@@kaiprzadka6896 I dunno that seems like a lazy way of doing it. Nobody likes debuffs. I think the way to do it is by deliberate map design, player movement, and TTK. You need to reward and encourage the player for movement, not punish them for staying still, but do it in a way that they doesn't penalize anyone. Doom Eternal does this amazingly well through game design alone. You literally cannot stop moving or you get surrounded in seconds. The levels are large and very vertical, encouraging players to move and flank, in return making them feel like a badass. Each tool and weapon has a purpose in that combat loop. You need to use them all to survive. In that way, they designed the whole game around the need to change your playstyle on the fly, and that sitting in a corner is never the best tactic.
A good idea is to provide incentives to move around the map. In Classic Arena FPS games like Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament, Powerups being in specific, open easy to access locations around the map means that any campers might miss out on these power-ups which give players a massive boost in killing power, therefore, camping is discouraged.
Also immediately thought of Quakes item pick ups. Encourage movement. The opposite also works. Like in Battlefield with spotting mechanics and gadgets like motion sensor that can announce player positions. Which discourages sticking around for too long.
Limited bullet count, with either scavenger mechanics or ammo crates also forces people to come out of cover. And since you never want to be fully out of ammo, the idea of camping to the very last second usually means a death sentence while running back to the crate to refill.
@@Volvary Quake 3 Also did this to an extent, your ammo won't last forever, and you'll need to go around to explore the map, not to mention the little health pickups that could overheat you, and the armor shards that did the same to your armor, this meant the best players knew they needed to get these items before other players did, good players frequently moved around the map, camping never really occurred expect maybe on one or two maps with the railgun and even then they were at a disadvantage cause they couldn't grab health, armor or power-ups while keeping the railgun spot camped.
As World of Warcraft and Killing Floor 2 has taught me players respond better to positive feedback then negative feedback its better to encourage the player to do something more beneficial to get them away from the thing you don't want them to do or to encourage them to do something you want them to try instead of discouraging an action by negatively effecting the player for doing it. While it may be cathartic for those that hate campers to prevent camping outright you are slimming down your player base and even a very experienced player can get action fatigue if you don't give them a breather of some kind even in a Arena setting.
I think that "camping" has a place in games depending on objective, I also obviously think that objectives are a great counter measure to the idea of camping. If a game wants to discourage it, make sure that the objective encourages the opposite. I also think that information plays a big part in camping avoidance, or at least, reducing it's effectiveness, and preventing it from feeling frustrating to deal with. The best example I can think of when considering camping as far as existing and it's effectiveness, was actually a fairly unknown game from the mid 2000s, Ghost Recon Online (or Ghost Recon Phantoms depending on when you played). It was a 3rd person cover based shooter. Sounds like a complete recipe for camping all day every day right? Except camping was hard to do effectively for a few reasons. First was the main game mode was a conquest style of map domination, the map was laid out fairly linearly extending out in the directions of each teams spawns, the goal was to capture points in specific parts of the map, starting with a neutral start point, and then moving a set amount of space back or forth toward whichever team lost the subsequent point. Meaning that pushing the objective was always the goal, you could sit in hiding around the objective a bit, but if you weren't actively doing something to push your team towards the goal of capturing the points, non of your "epic fragz" amounted to much, and laying in some random part of the map waiting for people wasn't a great way to help your team because if you weren't close enough to the objective, the enemies could easily just ignore you. Overall the objective mostly discouraged the idea of camping or made it less effective. The second was the tools given to the players. GRO was a class based game, made up of assualt, engineers (later called support) and Recon classes. The Recon class was the class that helped most with the camping idea. one of and if you asked any good players the only main skill the recon class had was an ability called Oracle, which would pulse a scan wave across an area in front of the recon player, and would actively outline any enemy in red wherever they were within the range of the scan, meaning that you couldn't just hug cover forever and wait for free kills from passerby's because typically there were at least a couple recons on either team that were keeping the entire enemy team scanned fairly regularly. The Oracle tool made camping a lot harder since a big part of the team play was having constant information on enemy locations. You can't ever completely remove camping in every shape and form, but I feel like there are plenty of tools that can mitigate it's effectiveness overall, it's just about understanding the kind of game you want to make, but if ubisoft can make effectively stifle camping in some after thought 3rd person cover shooter, then it's possible to do it well enough.
I tend to be the more cautious player, attempting to hold down a smaller zone of the map. Mostly because I don't have the reaction speed or aiming skill that some players have. In any FPS when I try and move around the map a lot, I loose just about every gun fight I come across. So for me at least, camping is not something I "enjoy" but a natural reaction to getting stomped at every turn, and not wanting to cost my team the game due to my high death count.
I think more games could help with this problem by making other ways to be effective. There's several heroes in Overwatch that you can be effective with, without having amazing aim. Even in a game like Battlefield, I have friends that don't really have great aim, but they help by getting great at vehicles, or going around rush reviving everyone.
huh, I've never thought about it from that point of view before. As far as your reaction speed and aim is concerned, which of the two would you say you're better at?
@@garbaj I would say my aim is better. If I get the jump on someone, I'm pretty good at landing my shots. It is just when the two of us are on level playing fields, I get crushed. It's not even just in one FPS game, it is all of them. I have to tilt the odds in my favor by holding down a zone and getting the first shot off.
@@seporokey I agree 1000%. In Overwatch I was able to get a much higher ranking than in other FPS games. Games that allow for support roles are my cup of tea. Let me play a healer or support class? *chef kiss*
@@ramblingiant3318 well see I'm sorta the opposite kinda player I play very aggressively and run around the map a lot because I dont necessarily have the most accurate shots, but I hate to be the first one to be seen and shot at, in fact I probably will die in most gunfights engaged at the same time. you'd think that would just lead me to hide somewhere so I wont be seen first and then shoot at someone from afar, yet my natural reaction is not camping, its rather being the one to moove so quick that I bust campers and people across the map so even though both of our skills could lead us to camping, as camping anyways is enhanced by a good reaction time and accuracy, I think accuracy is more rewarding when camping, and vert short reaction time is probably more useful when running around excessively like I do
i think you must consider: What option the players have? Can they jump? Fly? Shoot on walls? Can they call for artillery? All this possibility can give you a better way to build your map.
In real warfare either you destroy their camping spot, you call for backup (artillery? Airstrike?) or you fall back because you can't win against them, to my understanding.
yup, in valorant you can just drop a smoke bomb from the sky in the corner forcing campers to move, it is not what you remove from the game that matter, it is what you give in return
Camping is good for reloading or healing, so no camping spots would be bad, but very good camping spots would break the game, I suggest adding a hole in the wall, where you can't surprise attack anybody, but can rest and heal.
@@Yaz42886-zzz idk why you would need that time in the first place. In Quake you dont have heals at all, in Apex having small rock is enough. Speaking about size - deal with it, I quess there will be bigger ones. Teammates can cover you, if it is deathmatch - overall chaos after you broke line of sight can provide enough cover itself
@@markedforstrike I am talking about the game in the video why do you start talking about other games unrelated to this? idk any of the games your talking about I am just saying that if there is healing in the video game of the video then the map is too small.
I once played on a CoD4 private server and my favorite map was a custom map where you could shoot trough any walls. If you had enough experience and knew where people usually camp, you could kill them throught the wall. Having thin walls like that could help you "block" some line of sight while keeping the player in a somewhat dangerous zone.
just make a huge, flying fist that will be crushing players who haven't been changing positions too much. I think the "fist tactic" wouldn't affect the overall character of the game.
From my expirence I liked the :camping" spots in mw2 because they were open and obvious but also once you get a kill or two from that spot everyone knows where you are and WILL be coming for you. It was always fun for me to snipe a couple people and then pack up and run and gun to a new vantage point It made me feel like an assassin A lot of the modern games feel straight up unfair with little hidey holes with only one good way to get in or out so I don't camp anymore I wish there was a game with a good balance
It's a shame Blacklight never caught on as a strong contender of the FPS genre because the inclusion of the HRV (in-game wallhack basically) gave campers a run for their money. Can't really camp efficiently when someone can see you through the wall and fling a molotov at your location to rat you out of your spot.
I really enjoyed Blacklight: Retribution. There was a mechanic that basically gave you wallhack like ability powered by recharging battery. So every now and then you could just activate it for a second and see through terrain. Every player had it so people just didn't camp.
I recently played laser tag with some friends, and one of the ways they make it more casual was a 2 hit TTK, and a spawn delay. The map design was also jank and unbalanced, but meant for kids. If you went around town trying out every Laser tag and figuring out what makes it good/bad it could be good research into your project
I remember going to laser tag once. I don't remember much about the playfield now but there were "bases" with targets that if you could shoot them multiple times in quick succession your team would receive a major score boost.
another important factor to camping is how well you can hear other players; if everyone's footsteps are audible, campers will feel more safe knowing they can sit in a spot until they hear someone approaching
Hence the integration of "ninja" like perks in many games. I think Halo does(did) it right; active radar gives lots of information for everyone, but it can be defeated by crouching or walking slowly, while also reducing footstep signatures.
I say, either: - give the players and option to spawn on teammates - make the spawns switch between the halves of the map when a certain amount of enemies leave the halve their teammates are in - make a class that counters campers (something like the spy from tf2) - make a weapon that counters campers - make a system where a player's position would be revealed on a radar, like when a gun is shot without a silencer, or when someone is spotted
Spawning on teammates is cool and all, but if you can spawn on someone being stared down by 3 snipers the system shouldn't be in place. Phantom Forces is like this and it sucks balls. It's only a good idea if done right.
That first point... That is a HORRIBLE idea That will just encourage people to stay around in a good spot and sit there to let others spawn on them. Could maybe nerf it through having some delay, etc, but then you are basically making TF2 Engineer x3
1:40 An alternate solution: You neglect how players could approach from the right, where they have high ground and can retreat back down the ramp on their side. This pretty much invalidates the position. The only issue is getting there, which could be solved by providing more cover to allow players to go up along that flank. In doing so, flanking the camper could be more fun. However, I'd say in this scenario that you shouldn't even bother making that position more unsafe. Sure, players can hide behind that wall, but you also have to consider that if they peak up at least half the map can see them there (and shoot them). That would be a very poor camping spot, because the main advantage to camping is you control how the enemies attack you. Yes, the element of surprise is a benefit of camping sometimes, but flanking or even just jumping around a corner right in front of an enemy have surprise in them too, and can in fact work assuming you are prepared and aren't yourself surprised. And if you already know all the camping spots on a map, that doesn't mean you'll counter them. Even if you know where the camper is, you may have trouble getting them because they are waiting for you and know where you will need to go. That's why flanking a camper is so strong; flanking breaks the camper's control of the situation. And the element of control is why the example "camping spot" here is quite poor: - You can get shot from any area on ground level. - You have no control of two of the walkways, which give the enemy a path to high ground with cover, and a flank route (by running across a walkway you have very little control of due). - Very wide area you can get shot from - Flank route - This is likely just an example map, but it's very small and move speed as shown is high so players will struggle to camp anyway. That is, assuming they won't have designated spawn points that anchor them to some side. The _REAL_ problem I see with that map is how much of a death pit the lower ground is (not just due to campers). If you stand in the open you're dead to everything ofc, but even if you hide under the center area you can be shot from anywhere not on a walkway. If you fall down there, your options to get out are very limited even if you use the mantling mechanic (if you want to have it be used here, you could put some pillars or something players can use to get up to the top again). If this were a control-point based map, I'd have to put the control point on the upper portion so that everyone is focused on that instead of the poor souls who fall into the low ground. Ofc it's an example map, again, so I can't be fair by picking on it like this. tl;dr Flanking/approaching in general is probably the best counter to camping, as they allow players to escape the camper's control (that's why copious amounts of movement capabilities in games removes camping, it gives said approach options) That example map has a pit of certain doom and is overall quite small, though ig that's fine since it's for demonstration purposes. Whatever you do though, _don't_ make a mechanic that directly ruins camping such as becoming weaker or something for standing still. Punishing players for standing still just distracts them from the game.
Or he could remove the ramp in the middle where he started in the video or make it a little smaller to the point where you can shoot players over it, Or make the ramp go down then up so then the campers could easily get shot at, Or add a grenade/grenade launcher into the game and keep the ramp how it is so the campers can't camp there because someone could just yeet a grenade over the ramp killing the campers or forcing them to move.
If you want to encourage the run and gun through map design, create maps where the only way to keep your back safe is to keep moving forward. Tight, twisting maps, with almost no long sight lines, and not too many intersections. One thing this lets you do as a map designer is incorporate a high degree of elevation difference in a map. Like, a three-floor section of partially destroyed office building. I remember one DoD:S map that was devastatingly simple. It was two square loops, each with two floors. The center section was open and had a hole in the floor. In every outside corner was a shielded stairway, and the outer corners were rooms. Where the center hall met the sides, there was a wall preventing you from shooting all the way down the center hall from one side of the map to the other. As long as you kept moving forward, your rear was relatively safe. It's when you had to stop at the corners they'd catch up to you from behind...
I'd just be logical and throw a grenade in that area, Which the Blast zone is immense in a confine space... It will disorientate or even kill the person. lmfao.
From my experience, when campers are inside a very small aperture, it is easy to dislodge them via grenades or low precision but high power weapons (RPGs, explosive type weapons). If the camper has a good hiding spot but the hiding spot is also a place where you can easily get stuck, then it can become harder to defend and then less valuable to camp. I think it's also important to place these kind of spots in the middle of the map and not in the immediate proximity of spawning points, which means you have to earn it to get there. Especially if it's straight in the middle between the two teams spawning points and when it is hard to defend, this can be a viable strategy.
Reminds me of Quake 3 matches, where you would preventively shoot a rocket in the direction of common camping places. And since mobility was incredibly high, staying still was often a disadvantage.
This is my main grip with some maps in Splitgate. When players don't have a way to punish grouping/camping, the map tends to take a turn for the worst. So gamemodes with no access to the rocket launcher or plasma gun tend to make some maps (Atlantis and Abyss mostly) absolutely unplayable.
camping seems like one of those problems that is solved by engaging with it. Having someone lock down a side of the map makes it more dynamic. You can no longer safely walk a stretch of land without friendlies helping you with suppressive fire, or with some vision impairing tool (flashbangs/smokes). Your game is def closer to quake than CS:GO, but I think there might be something you can draw from there.
One of the best ways to avoid camping is to have resources that are worth going for. Whether it's that you have a very limited ammo supply and need to frequently pass ammo packs, that there is armors you can pick up, or maybe a special powerful weapon you can get in the middle of the map. Quake is a really good example of this, as map control becomes a key focus VERY quickly, and though camping in one spot is good to get the jump on someone, it doesn't matter if you got the jump on them if they have better weapons and more armor. Don't try to negate camping, just make it a less viable strategy.
Honestly you've inspired me to get into making a game since I've been 3d modelling guns already and I've gotten sick of certain things in modern games so I might as well try and make my own. Probably gonna start off simple with getting the base mechanics down and then adding all of the graphical shit. Love your game dev vids.
So the thing is, Camping is highly effective, because it's realistic; shoot at the enemy, while endangering yourself as little as possible by utilizing cover and concealment. Problem is, realistic and effective doesn't always mean fun, especially in this case. It's fun to camp, but it's extremely frustrating to be camped. I hate slow TTK as well. It's an area Tarkov really screws up, late-game it just becomes a game where you unload mags of rounds into each other while side-stepping back and forth. It's braindead stupid and it's not fun. But it can be frustrating when a gameis very fast TTK and just boils down to seeing and clicking first; it's not a firefight, it's just a sort of reaction-time tester. See, point, click.
Tarkov late wipe is the exact oposite of that, people restrain from even wearing helmets because they know that no matter how good your helmet is, its just to late into the wipe so you will get 1 taped in the head none the less, and class 6 armor get's shreded way faster then in early wipe.
I think slow TTK leaves room for other mechanics to have an impact on your gameplay. In apex, movement is a big thing. You can't solely rely on people walking into your crosshair and die. It is down to consistent tracking, recoil controlling, and taking good advantage of covers.
Camping as a strategy is meant to help low accuracy players with an upper hand, while giving them a disadvantage with tactical information. You can take, for example, CSGO, where half of the players that play casually camp one spot or another, but don't have any good advantage against a map centered player. Although camping is not necessary in any means, it helps new players to acomodate to the mechanics of the game in some sort, and also give them a boost in confidence knowing they can do something even if they are not doing the best. In map designing, what I think helps a lot to keep players motivated to move is not that there is no spot to camp, but that there are multiple entrances to the same spot, and an objective driven match, like destroying something or capturing a point. Warships make a lot of sense in that regard, the map configuration makes it so you can't be too long in the same spot, at risk of being flanked and torped, or be a sitting duck for a cannoneer ship
I think you can fix camping by making objectives that doesn’t make camping beneficial. If you get points or wins by killing, survival or defending something then people are going too camp because of the advantage they get. Another solution is give people a point multiplier based on how active people are in the match.
This is in part what makes certain online games (Splatoon, Pokemon Unite, etc) different from their counterparts: KO'ing an opponent is NOT the primary objective to decide the outcome of a match, it just facilitates said objective.
One thing that really helps stop campers is throwables that bounce being able to throw a frag or flashbang at your opponent with exposing yourself is a really important factor in denying campers.
This might not be exactly related to the video, but I find it interesting how the biggest skill gaps are often found in shooter games when the pacing and movement speed is opposite the TTK. On the one hand, you have games like CS and Valorant which have huge skill gaps with slow movement and fast TTK (coming from fast reflexes and the ability to isolate angles in order to turn a 1vx into multiple 1v1s), while on the other hand you have Halo 5, Apex, and Splitgate, which have big skill gaps (despite bullet magnetism being broken in Halo 5) from fast movement and slow TTK (originating from the importance of how you move in the middle of a fight). Compare these to CoD, which has fast TTK and fast movement and ends up having a considerably smaller individual skill gap (although teamwork and strategy are still critical at high levels), or classic Halo which still has a significant skill gap from mid-fight movement but not as big because you have fewer options.
I'm still figuring out where I want my game to be as far as movement/ttk balance is concerned, but that is an interesting point. I think it's important for a game to have a high skill ceiling so that top tier players have a reason to keep playing, but I don't know if having a large skill GAP between individual players is necessarily a good thing. Any thoughts?
@@garbaj sorry by skill gap I meant skill ceiling. Of course the balance between movement and TTK also has to make sure it's not too easy to get away from a losing fight (hence why Splitgate and Halo 5's ttk is faster than classic Halo) but this, just like the camping issue, is dependent on map design because larger, more open maps mean it'll take longer to take cover, along with other factors. It really depends on what kind of playstyle you want to encourage of course. A slower, more methodical game like CS or Valorant has a different appeal from an adrenaline-pumping, mid-fight-outplay, hitscan-based, this-videogame-is-a-sport-and-we're-gonna-tell-it-to-your-face, give-the-tall-finger-to-reality arena shooter like Halo 5 or Splitgate. Anyway, a high individual skill ceiling (as in the skill ceiling as an individual player as opposed to skills like teamwork) makes for really exciting gameplay to watch, particularly in esports (Think of how exciting it is to watch a Clutch 1v4 or 1v5 in pro CS or Valorant).
Personally I value movement a lot. I absolutely despise the movement in games like cod and VS/Valorant. Valorant literally punishes a players ability to aim for as little as crouch-walking. Maybe I'm missing the point in that, but it just doesnt make sense to me. Anyway instead of insulting games i dont like im gonna try and put useful thoughts. I think movement abilities like those of Titanfall are super fun, because they allow you to make your own escape route in case of a dire situation. And yet team fortress 2 also has a wonderful movement system despite the lack of abilities, because you only really have 1 mode of speed: Walking. the game requires you to put this one simple mechanic to the best of its ability. There is so much nuance to the movement of a spy or medic in that game. as for movement-TTK balance and skill ceilings and skill gaps, I'd say that takes another video lol.
@@garbaj Large skill gap is just the natural result of some people getting REALLY good at the game. At that point where people want to play so much that they're so good they become unfun to fight against by beginners...you'll have an addictive game with good depth. At that point you should just treat the issue with some type of rank system that guides players into fighting opponents closer to their level. Though you want some intermix so noobs can encounter better players and learn by seeing them and playing with them, you know for the purposes of making learning the game more accessible. Either way, a large skill gap isn't inherently bad, it just necessitates some easing in for the players.
I have about 2/3k hours in CoD collectively, more so the older titles as well as 1k hours in Escape From Tarkov and 2k hours in Cs. I tend towards a more aggressive playstyle and dont particularly enjoy being camped although I respect that different people have different approaches to games. I dislike playing against campers the most when it feels like there is next to no counter play, or the counter play has a very slim chance of working out. That is frustrating and ultimately drives me away from a game. I think another angle to not forget is that adequate cover is required in FPS games. You cant just remove all cover from the game to remove camping. It will also harm the feel of the gunplay and gunfights in the game. A balance needs to be reached between cover available and making sure that the cover is not overpowered. Thank you for a really interesting and thought provoking video!
Try using flashbangs, smokes or any other tactical weaponry on common camping spots, that's usually how i do it, and when it doesn't work just start sounding
Idk why your vids started popping up in my recommended box but I'm glad they did because they're amazing. Informative, interesting, short, and straight to the point
a potentially more viable(though less funny) option could be gaining fewer points if you stand in one spot for too long, or alternatively having a score multiplier for moving around
@@anchithacharya7836 could make harsher punishments for those who do it in most games they join, similar to punishing players for leaving a game early over and over
Maybe have a few small zones in very weak positions that you have to regularly return to to get points. Could be a good way to keep people moving. You have to keep going back to get the points, but you can't stay there because its a terrible position and you'll get killed.
Sound cues are also important for dealing with campers, if you know roughly where the camper is, you can usually tell what sight lines they’re watching. On the other side, if the camper knows roughly where the other players are, they know which sight lines to move to or focus on. Creating a sound disadvantage could be useful for reducing the effectiveness of campers.
high visibility helps overcome the camping problem too. a big issue with MW2019 is that there's so much clutter and junk, and player skins are generally so bland that it's hard to see people when they camp. games like block ops 2 had decent TTK, but had a thin "cell shaded" style red outline on enemy players that made them easier to spot in rough conditions. Black ops 3 had crazy cool player skins and literal red lights on enemy player models that made them easy to see at all times, but high maneuverability probably played and equally significant role in overcoming campers in that game.
Yeah definately, the bland skins on the bland maps makes it nearly impossible to see someone camping in a dark room. Say hackney yard for example, you wouldn't see someone using even the nerfed roze skin if the room is both dark and bland.
The sound of footsteps also makes a difference. For example in modern warfare where footsteps are loud and there is no real way to reduce them like in older cods, you cant flank the campers or even enter the building theyre in because they will hear you from miles away
in most games your accuracy also increases when standing still, which also makes camping, or rather "standing still/going low" better compared to someone who is still running from point a to b. an interesting mechanic would be to flip it around completely, so that your accuracy is just as good or even better when running at full speed.
I'm not sure if that would 100% fix it. Even if there was no accuracy penalty for moving, you always have lower accuracy while moving just because it's harder to track targets while you're moving. I think a better fix would be that if you are moving you deal more damage, or shoot faster or something like that.
@@Anti_Septikum almost zero shooter games nowadays are realistic. I can count the amount of highly realistic modern shooters on one hand, whereas much less realistic, more mainstream shooters come out every few months
I'll have to do you one backwards and say that it depends on the game for all of your questions in terms of a player BUT in terms of being a designer it can be framed by the priorities in your game. To find your priorities, just define what camping is in the game: sounds simple but, in answering the questions, you find your natural tendencies of personal design. Example: "Camping in my game is holding one position and being able to cover yourself while firing easily on other areas." From here ask "what are the priorities?" Seems like "positionin", "firing", and "areas" are priorities and camping is what unifies their relations, but personally which does it relate most to? From here the tendencies take over: if you say positioning, then you might want to focus on the map layout and pathing; what contributes to your position more, getting there first or waiting for someone else to come? If you say firing, then do certain guns inherently seem to favor a camper? If you say areas, then does the TTK of guns change drastically over distance rather evenly, or do some locations change how effective a gun is? You can use this process to examine games and by moving in a question-answer/question-answer/question mode you can keep scope down, as well as easily abandon/pick up a line of ideas by following along whatever priorities come to mind. Great job on the game and thank you for the devlog.
It really depends on what type of game you're making. If the movements are slow and heavy and you have to wait for the enemy team to push toward you, you're more likely to stand your ground. If the goal is to get as many kills as possible (TDM) and there's no map objective, assume people will try to find the best strats to get their K/D up. I don't know a game where no one camps. Even in Halo, you fight to get the sniper and move out to the highest point or a spot that gives you an open view. That's just how some people play. Great map design will allow players to attack these campers from an unexpected angle (above, bellow, behind or make the camping spot symmetric for each side of the map). But you can also give the player a reason to keep moving, whether because it's fun (TitanFall), to get a special weapon / bonus or simply because you're an easy target while standing (like most Arena shooter). When you want a map to feel like a king of the hill (fight for a spot on the map) therefore resulting in camping. Losing players should be able to take second routes that cannot be engaged from that advantage point. Forcing the winning team to a showdown. You're always gonna need some sort of cover. That cover can only block off one or two direction, allowing the player to use it and avoid a specific encounter (to reload). You're still an easy target from every other directions and explosives. Again, it's really difficult to avoid camping, but you can always give players a way to counter it, a way to fight back.
@@Yorick257 Yep you’re right. UT was a lot more rewarding for the players who kept moving. Also the best way to stay alive. The weapons, maps and movements all played a part. Same for Quake… (honestly I just miss arena shooters in general now).
I like the way you laid this out. Applying simple game theory gives new perspective on mapping. That's one of the reasons i enjoyed Halo 5 so much. Smart map design (mostly). I appreciate your mention of unorthodox angles and AOE type weapons. Those are big parts of developing a meta.
I feel like the video is a bit incomplete, as any design quirk or system will impact the state of camping - like the ability to heal up - say you have a sniper type weapon that takes half health, reloads slowly, and there's no healing, that least factor mitigates the high TTK, camping is still a good strategy to soften enemies for your teammates, but adversaries still have time to get to cover(assuming you're always just a few seconds away from appropriate cover), identify where they're being shot from, and counterattack, forcing players out of the camping spots. Say only one weapon can effectively serve as sniper, and you can only carry a handful of sniper bullets, and you have to get out of the camping spot to recover ammo, that's another way to force people out;
the map played at 2:34 gave me distinct gears of war vibes. I'm not sure if it's the scaffolding but it reminds me of a specific map I used to play on horde. Ty for sharing
I like how the one guy explained it. Staying in one place and not getting kills is camping, but staying in one place and getting kills is called "Holding a Control Point" Its not the fault of the person staying in one place who's winning for their team, it's the fault of the people who keep coming back and letting them get kills.
If you're going to make a military game (military meaning an FPS in this case) then there will inevitably be tactics. If everyone is running around the whole time just for no reason, then what's the point? Finding a strategic location will give you an enormous advantage. Hiding in the same corner of some room, however, (aka camping) is not usually something that can last you the whole game unless you're playing against bots.
I'd define camping as someone continuing to go back to the same control point after dying over and over again. You can't cry camping just bc you got killed by someone holding an area just once, but it's also your fault if you keep going back to the same spot that the "camper" is holding.
@@therageboi7618 a good game will make it so that you don't spawn somewhere that will allow you to get back to the same control point without killing your way there, and if you do that, you deserve the control point.
Yea it's not the fault of the "camper" his goal is to get kills fpr his team. If you and your team keep running by his location and getting gunned down that's YOUR fault. Hes controling a zone that has a target rich enviroment.
It’s not the fault of the victim what the hell are you on about. Not everyone is going to know where every little scum is camping. People go back to those areas because they expect people to be gone from it, not still camping, but it’s sad that people camp in the same spots for entire matches It’s the fault of the camper, not the victim. Campers help ruin the game for the lower level players as they can’t get kills and get better guns and shit
I have an idea if I may interject myself: What about maps that have changing structures. Let's take that spot with the half wall for reference. What if after 30-60 seconds, the maps cover system changes. Walls come from the ground, platforms sink, flank routes open and close. There could also be a routine pattern to it which would encourage moving from strong point to strong point. I think the problem with no "camping" spots is there would be no flow to the map without advantageous positions. Also, any kind of advanced movement, increased agility, or "peakers advantage" would greatly decrease the advantage a stationary person behind cover would have. Take a game like Rainbow six siege for example. It's one of the slowest campiest low ttk games there is, but because the gadgets of the operators, it's almost always smarter to be the aggressor in situations.
I'm largely indifferent to camping, and will camp on occasion I think having good counters to it is really satisfying, few things beat the joy of seeing 3 peeps squirt out of a spot after lobbing a grenade into their hidey hole, or blasing a rocket into them for that multi-kill Having certain areas of the map be locked down funnels people to different places, though when things always play out the same way its just frustrating, so there needs to be lots of routes to move though Camping spots need to have a lot of flaws, also Would be worth looking at halo 3's multiplayer levels to get a feel for how they dealt with things which I think they did better than other game companies at tackling
I believe there is nothing at all wrong with camping. It is not like it is severely overpowered. It is just a strategy to combat the people who go Gung ho sprinting in blindly or those people who try to be the top players alwayd and feel like failures if they aren't top place on the leader boards, the ones who have the skill to flick from one target to the next but fall flat on their face because they have no strategy and get killed by people with strategy. The big reason it is so frowned upon is because of those that get so worked up when they die or are losing. The ones who want to blame the internet or the game or the other player or the sun in their eyes or literally any other reason. Those people can't handle the thought of losing so you hear them over and over complain about the same thing. To those people I say, "No it is not their fault you want to run out into the open full speed ahead and they don't let you. Maybe instead of complaining, prove that you are good at this game by learning strategies to win. Go methodically forward if you want to advance. Not sure if you know this or not but this is a war game and anybody I have seen run out in the open going Gung ho has died right away." If there is no glitches or spamming explosives nonstop (mw2 days) then all is fair. (BTW I haven't played cod or and shooter games in over 5 years. I was actually extremely good. I wasn't one to camp ever but it never bothered me. I guess it didn't feel like real life to me like it does to other people. Also I do know not everyone who complains about campers is that over the top about it, it was more just an example. What I do know 100% is any hate or negative for campers comes from the frustration of dying without them standing much of a chance in any combat situation because they probably are actually pretty good at the game and are used to it being the other way around since they know in an open battlefield one one that they might have the upper hand due to skill. But skill is only the half of it and players don't want to believe it. The point in war is to win. In a tdm, running in makes you more likely to be killed. Now when the goal is not just to get kills but also try not to get killed so the other team doesn't get more points, you need a game plan. A strategy. That strategy could be anything that gives you an advantage. Flashbangs before turning corners, advancing slow, staying back, flanking, etc.
@@jarofsake2356 Yeah, happens some times. It's funny how people can't fathom someone writing more than a sentence or two but would watch a 30 min long rant at the same time
Hey i just found your channel. Your ideas of upgrading weapons during a game is super, and your map design shown here is really new, that's good stuff that i didn't met in any game. What seem odd would be how small it looks now.. i don't know how many players you want to put in here to fight, and for how long, but it might be a good idea to increase map capacity with a low number of players. Can u imagine having to spawn there? Camping or not it's too small. But this architecture is so nice
I think this map is just a practise room where guns can be tested so the point isn't to have this be a playable map but rather a dev room. I think rooms like this which are just a random set of geometry to test and demonstrate different things are common in shooter game development.
Honestly a great perspective on camping in video games, and with a lot of good info. Although I may go about the solution in a different way. Rather than preventing camping I would say styles of play. Titan Fall comes to mind with the movement. While camping was viable in the game, the rewards for learning the movement far out weighed the benefits of camping.
loving this trend of game makers, especially first timers showing their development and though processes on yt. game maker toolkit's also doing (though he primarily makes game easy)
@@nobodyinparticular968 What if it's permadeath? That sometimes impacts it. Hunt Showdown has that but people usually call you a camper if you don't run across an open field into their sniper scope and vice versa.
@@NgaMarsters for some reason salty is slang for angry, i was implying that sometimes players are mad at others for reasons that seem logically invalid, meanwhile at other times its perfectly understandable to be angry if, say for example, your team couldnt advance because there was some dude sitting in a corner leeching all the fun out of the game, id be pretty angry at them too, meanwhile being angry just because theyre not literally walking into your line of fire is a bit questionable but the difference is not that big between the two, oftentimes it's hard to tell which you're looking at
From what I've experienced, a faster ttk usually results in a better ability to eliminate campers if you're playing closed circuit maps (with fps shooters, that is). Usually, most shooter style games have some form of explosive or bullet penetration that mitigates the difficulty.
Another factor is lag compensation and how much it favours the aggressor. By the nature of online games, the person moving around the corner sees the camper a split second before the camper sees them (because on their screen they are yet to move around the corner). If the game mechanics allow the attacker to utilize that time window, it can really punish campers.
Another huge factor in camping is visibility. In Modern Warfarre, along with having secluded rooms and buildings you are also hidden in shadows and are very difficult to see. Camping would be significantly harder in any game with player outlines or generally good visibility.
It really depends if you're going to have any kind of class system in your game. Even giving certain weapons or upgrades to weapons can incentivize the player to a camping playstyle. Think the sniper in TF2 or picking up a rail gun in Quake. Ultimately, you want to have a balance if you include these elements so that there isn't too much camping, but that people who are built for it can take advantage of it without becoming very overpowered.
Personally I’m pretty fond of higher TTK games. I want to feel like I’m properly battling someone, which is harder to get when you both will die within two seconds of seeing each other
I can definitely see where you're coming from on that, but I prefer lower TTK just because it's more realistic. IDC if you're wearing armor, you're not taking 10-20 shots from a gun without going down. And similar to that, playing call of duty on regular core mode is a battle like you said, but it incentivises people who run and jump when they shoot, which is harder to counter, and definitely not realistic. If I play call of duty, it's usually hardcore or I'll just play siege or something because I don't want to dump an entire mag into someone to kill them.
I am the opposite. If it’s more then like 4 shots to the body to kill I feel like the game feels fake and people feel like sponges. I love my very very fast and intense gunfights
A big part of why I loved TF2 was that ttk was low if you placed your shots propperly and got aggressive, but the movement most classes have meant that you often would have a few seconds to actually fight
I think of Gundam, where the opponents are nursing their damaged mechs to keep in the fight. Having that as a gameplay element would be highly satisfying.
I was just thinking about this the other day because I went back to Halo for a spot of nostalgia. I was struck by how powerful the shotgun in that series feels because of how dramatic it is compared to other weapons. The difference between an SMG and a shotgun in a lot of modern military games is often very subtle because they both prefer similar ranges and kill in roughly similar time-frames. But the difference in power between Halo's shotgun and most other weapons is so much more tangible because other weapons take a lot longer to do their job to the point where using the shotgun almost feels like playing a totally different game
Can you guys confirm if Mordern warfare 1 (2007) has a higher ttk than the later MW games? I always felt that guns after MW1 became too powerful and my brothers felt the same way.
I agree, with my reason being I hate Insta Kills in games unless it's a super Ability, like Ultimates in Overwatch and such, so you got to work for the insta kill ability. But games like Rainbow Six Siege and CoD games and such you can Headshot kill anyone no matter what, it doesn't feel appealing to me to reward Sneak attacks or Stealth with Free kills 100%
@@sakumaFR mw1 had lower ttk overall, with the exception of the meta guns m16 with stopping power would kill before the third shot fired. Later games made maps smaller and so smg rushing became the best ttk option
Blacklight: Retribution had great mechanic to prevent camping. Basically it was just free wallhack everyone could use but it made you vulnerable. Also it sorta makes you less want to use cheats too.
Scrolled down to find this comment. Blacklight made it really hard camping by giving you wallacks. Ironically Ghost in the shell also gave you wallhacks but encouraged camping in other ways that was really nasty, I would camp in one spot as sniper and get 10 kill streaks constantly :D until they nade spammed me.... Strange to see both of these games dead. I guess campers are the driving force of a online fps game XD
I've always been a high TTK kinda person. Low TTK feels like it practically gives the initiator a free win rather than an advantage, leading to the game feeling more like hide and seek than the sort of thing I'm looking for from a shooter. Doesn't help that I'm colorblind, putting me at a pretty stark disadvantage, especially in games with more grounded art styles (even in Apex it takes me much longer to see enemies than my friends outside of very close range).
I think the biggest thing you can do to prevent camping is mitigating the players fear of dying. Camping is not actually the best way to get the most kills. Camping is a good way to get a higher K/D ratio. But if dying is not a big deal then players are encouraged to take more chances and experiment with movement and the other mechanics you have in your game.
I'm old enough that I had experience with paintball before multiplayer first person shooters became refined and it absolutely pushed me towards a camping mentality.
So have a kill counter but not a death one? Like yeah your kills go up, but who knows how many teams you've died? I don't know or care because I'm here to have fun
@@_qpas_fury_1572 Reduced player info is never a good idea. The whole "only show good stats" approach was attempted in Overwatch, and it's exactly what makes the game so toxic. Everyone knows what they've done right, but none of what they've done wrong, and so most players think they're the second coming of Christ by mid-gold. It also stunts player growth for those interested in improvement, since they have a harder time figuring out what they need to work on. It's worth noting as well that the fear of dying in game isn't purely a scoreboard thing. People feel worse from bad experiences than they feel positive from good ones at a roughly 7:1 ratio, so unless they're hitting 7 kills a death that respawn screen is going to sting more than the headshots can make up for.
I think there's a fine line on what TTK I personally enjoy. I always hated CoD because it took like two bullets, but in Apex, I could empty an entire clip into someone and they wouldn't die. You need to feel like you have a chance to react, and fight back or dodge, but not enough that you can sip tea while you get shot. I think Team Fortress did that rather well, for me. Most weapons, apart from sniper, kill in two shots, at least, a direct hit with a grenade launcher to the scout doesn't instantly kill, and gives you enough time to try and fight the second shot more often than not.
I significantly prefer higher TTK specifically for this reason. I honestly can't think of a game with low TTK that doesn't have the issue of players being to afraid to do anything and either hold angles to watch chokes while still peeking briefly or hiding in a corner and camping. To some people pro-players might be an exception but even then compare fights in CSGO to Overwatch or even Quake 1v1s. Overwatch there's ALWAYS some kind of engagement and/or exchange going on. In Quake there's always a chase going on with a least a bit of damage being exchanged across the map. That's not true for CSGO which is a much slower more tactical pace to it. While some people might like that it really goes to show just how much slower paced low TTK games are.
I'd say a third thing that contributes to camping at least in modern warfare is perks being good at rewarding camping such as ghost being active all the time, eod (and trophy systems) making it harder to flush out campers with a grenade and next to no perks that punish camping
Also how many rooms only have two openings. One door, one window. Put a claymore at the door and look out the window and you have full control of the room. Particularly that accursed store in Picadilly.
In Call of Duty I actually kind of like when there's a guy sitting in an upstairs window with a good sight line mowing everyone down. It makes it kind of like a puzzle I have to solve. I have to use my brain and out think them and that's fun, and really satisfying when I finally take them out. Plus it makes me better at taking out headglitchers lol
I camp a lot in shooters, and I personally love both playing as the camper and playing against the camper. I will admit that camping is not fun in multiplayer games with high player counts in matches. It's a lot more fun when you only have a few people. My advice for preventing camping is to add indirect fire weapons like grenade launchers. These turn what would be a safe fortress into a coffin. You could also add weapons that penetrate walls. This also has the same effect. A game that does this well is Dusk. In that game, there are plenty of spots to hide , but you can't stay there for long. You can find a nice place to set up an ambush, but once you e used that spot you have to move. If you don't, the guy you just killed will respawn and shell the room with the riveter before going in. If he doesn't, somebody else will.
Making light and medium covers piercable by intermediate and high-power calibre firearms respectively would be great. It would also have the effect of belt-fed machineguns being viable for the meta of team games because if you really want to clear a building asap, you can spam belt-feds into every light cover to hopefully kill or flush out campers. Another feature that old BF games have that incentivizes pushing aggressively are breakable and semi-breakable environments. By making the map semi-destructible, camping spots become limited resources that need to be conserved for the remainder of the match. However, it should be noted that semi-destructible environment can take a toll on hardware.
Personally, I feel like the best games have a kinda "balance" to camping. There's incentive to do it to some extent. IRL, if given the opportunity most folks prefer ambush tactics. High reward/low risk, so it's definitely worth doing. Where I disagree with most people though is that I like to differentiate between "camping" and "ambushing". "Camping" is using the same hiding spot for several ambushes. All the best games tend to hide the best ambush locations in/near high traffic areas... when you pair this with map designs which allow respawned players to get back into the action without much delay, what ends up happening is that if you sit in the same spot for too long you end up being jumped by 2 or 3 enemies who know where you are (or get hit with a rocket/grenade). In an ideal situation, you'd want to discourage extended camping by increasing the risk as time goes on.
As someone who's played tons of custom maps, especially TF2 maps, a low TTS game, I have a decent idea of what map designs make camping harder; 1. Distance from spawn: Self-explanatory. The longer it takes from spawn in to camp means the more likely it is they get shot dead before they reach it. This also acts as a reward for careful play and a punishment for not paying attention, so long as the spot isn't *too* godly. (This doesn't work in games like CoD due to the variable spawn locations) 2. Cover density: moreso then just restricting the actual distance you can see, it's far more important to have a proper density of wide, high cover. Too little and it's sniper city. Too much and players will take too much time fucking from cover to cover like a maze and also get camped. (For example, I would add a thin wall in the middle of your map's bridge bottom, with the wall bring hollow to allow for walking between the two exits. This means a camper's attention will be split, and they're more likely to muck up or be abushed For the purposes of preventing camping, low cover pretty much only adds to density and not cover. That doesn't mean "don't use it", but use it wisely. The worst maps I ever played were maps full of too much low cover. 3. Ambush equalibrium: if a spot makes it really easy to ambush players, it should also make it easy *to* be ambushed. If there's a large, open sightline, the camper needs to be forced to stand *in* that sightline to use it, taking on the same amount danger they're putting their opponents in. My personal favorite example of this in TF2 is the sniper sightline on Pipeline stage 1, where you can get this really high spot with a great view of almost the entire half of the map and lots of great cover from attacks below... But behind you is a proximity door, with a direct line to the spot from both team's spawns that you can't see from said spot. This means that even if you know someone's approaching, you can't do anything about it until they get out of your ideal range and into their's,forcing you to ether engage in close combat or jump off and take massive (but not inherently fatal) fall damage It's a spot with high risk, high reward, and I think it encourages the right kind of camping, risky camping, without locking you in fully, so you can stop camping if things get rough. (This is another aspect of camping map design you don't often think about; if a spot's all-or-nothing, you're going to get campers there all the time, because dying occasionally is guaranteed and factored into the risk. But if you give them a real chance to get away, you encourage both an engaging chase and, ironically, them to camp less, since it's so much easier to jump ship then it is to stay and fight, encouraging them to move more while keeping the spots they like to camp in available, but also known, turning the act of camping from a one player clicker game to a back and forth game of chicken with the entire enemy team. That proximity door seriously does so much to help with all this.) 4. Proximity Doors and windows: pretty simple, if the campee sees the camper, even if neither can shoot eachother, it makes the camper less effective while not giving total advantage to the Campee. And a note on TTK; You can have it *generally* be low without making it *universally* low. Using TF2 as an example again, though sniper's rifle and Spy's knife have the lowest TTK in the game, it's only in their preferred environments; Sniper has to scope in for headshots, and spy has to stab the back for a backstab. Outside of that, the unscoped Sniper rifle and Knife,'s TTK is pathetic, almost triple most other weapons in the game, amoung the worst in the game, and the time on the sniper's SMG/Kunai or Spy's Revolver isn't great ether, unless you specifically use a weapon that's even worse statistically. (Jarate for sniper, diamondback or ambassador for spy) Every other class's (sans medic) primary weapons, the one they're going to be using against these two at close range, can kill in 1-2 hits or through 1-2 seconds of sustained fire, punishing camping by the nature of Response TTK for the camper being slow, but not for the campee. (Varying health is also a great tool for this, but it looks like your game might not have classes, implimenting that will be difficult... Unless base HP is tied to your gun.)
Some modern shooters such as titanfall have used skill based movement systems in order to speed up gameplay and thereby disincentive camping. Through wall running, rocket jumping, b-hopping or some other system, they all help eliminate camping due to peakers advantage and the difficulty to hit a moving target. Skill based movement systems also have the added benefit of both making games have higher skill ceilings and just being really cool.
maybe consider adding a kill confirmation system where players have to walk over to where the enemy died and collect their dog tags to actually be awarded the kill. This would force them out of any camping spot and force them to move around the map.
I think one of the main things is what game mode you're playing in. It's way easier and and more effective to camp in team death match than it is in an objective based game mode
One thing could be echolocation, basically have people firing place a blimp on the minimap temporarily showing their location, the bigger the caliber (eg. sniper) the more visible the dot/the longer it stays, this would encourage movement and not staying in one place
I've always liked a high ttk with small maps for a more arcadey feel and it also allowing for more chaotic things to happen in free for all situations. It also allows one hit kill weapons to feel way more rewarding once you get them. Halo does these and it's always a good time in my opinion
Honestly im a very big fan of a high TTK especially in a game where movement plays a huge roll, as if you get caught off guard by a camper, you have time to react, and campers will be less encouraged to camp as they know they can take a good bit of health. i think a good mix between level desgin and a high TTK is probably the best rout to go. Thats just my opinion though..
I appreciate holding an advantageous "zone" constantly moving and checking different entre points, I find it really cheap when someone holds a single angle and shoots you across a long section of the map because you could not even see them behind their camping spot. First still utilizes a good amount of map knowledge, the 2nd just exploits a single pre-scoped and not as contestable sightline.
I think battlefield has a workaround for campers in buildings: they are destructable. So say for instance there is a squad of campers on the top floor of a house, you could blow it the F up and leave them with essentially no cover
Lots of people are talking about movement being a good way to discourage camping in games like overwatch or Titanfall. But I think valorant does a good job to combat camping despite being a tactical shooter by allowing certain abilities to get information of where players are. This combined with the ability to wallbang does a good job to combat camping as there is a solid way to combat it and it becomes more of a tactical mechanic rather than just abusing maps
overwatch and titanfall literally do the same thing lol, hanzo has an ability that allows you to see enemies through walls, as does widowmaker, and perhaps another one i forgot, and titanfall 2 has the sonic knife, which is an ability you can choose, and does basically the same thing as hanzo's ability. its pretty cool imo
Not only this but audio too; everything being so incredibly easy to hear, especially footsteps, allows people the freedom to sit in one spot while they hear their enemy’s every move without they themselves being heard. That’s why the only thing that prevents campers from camping is dead silence, where they actually get a chance to run around and search for a kill without the enemies knowing where they are (via auditory cues). So, honestly, even though it provides another element of depth to your game Garbaj, I highly recommend you to keep it very subtle, and not be a main element of combat/intel.
Judging by that "bug" that allows mantling to "boost jump" around the map, your game's visibly going to be a Movement Shooter. That means camping is already going to be hyper weak by itself regardless of map design, and yet, you're choosing to make it even weaker because you don't find it fun. Never limit player strategies like that, players should be able to adapt their strategies around the battlefield. I've seen too many games where people complain about "camping", "running", or using the niche non-broken shit to play with their own strats. I personally think leaving the door open for other strategies can make for a more involved combat, and possibly attract a bigger playerbase.
Limiting player's strategies is a tool to be used like any other. Every Developer knows that when given the chance players will attempt to optimise the fun out of a game, it's the dev's job to reduce the likelihood of that happening by making the most optimal strategy the most fun one. Games almost always are designed to lean players towards a certain playstyle while still being open ended.
There are also mechincs that pins enemy players, taking away the informational disposition granted by camping. Things like destiny 2 radar, black light retribution visor and Seer scan all achieve this in various ways.
valorant death match used to highlight everyone's locations regulary on the minimap. You could also add some track abilities , or other methonds to displace campers. I'd say don't just rely on level design if you REALLY want to avoid this issue, make some new mechanics to prevent it
I think also encouraging movement helps. In games like doom your cross-hairs don't become more accurate when you stand still, so moving around isn't discouraged. In Titanfall, there is practically no delay between when you moving and pulling your gun out to the fire, so there is a lot less disadvantage to being being jumped
I really like Hunt Showdown, which has a really low ttk(every gun can oneshot a player if the conditions are met) but it's limited by the weapon , because it's set in 1895 , they usually have low fire rate or something like that. It does encourage camping but it focuses on sound (like a single step crouch walking at the wrong time can reveal you are camping) and there are consumables you can use to flush them out of cover or such. It has a big map , and setting up an ambush when you hear someone trigger a sound trap in the next building, then killing them feels really satisfying
I really like low TTK games with solid movement, and anti - camper map design, which is exactly what it seems your game will become. Very exited for more news on development!
It would have to fit the game's genre but I might add a shield (sized maybe 1/3 of your health) that charges slowly when moving (not in circles) and decays if you stay in one area too long. This penalizes camping and encourages exploration and movement.
you could also make a mechanic where people are trianglating your position, so the longer you stay the same stop the more accurate the tracking is so you're visible on the map
If some one is getting high kills in one area and has little movement other that of crouching maybe you could implement a feature that tell people on a mini map where they are
a big thing for map design is opportunity and flank. If theres a choke point to camp then you add in abilities to go around. then the decision is risk the higher chance of getting sniped by a camper but taking a more direct route. or take a slower round about way through the map. so any spot where someone can camp a high traffic spot what you do is add in ways to get to them that they cant defend from their camp. so if someone is trying to camp they are still at high risk and have to be alert. But of course if they are busy watching from behind its easy to fit through the point they were trying to camp anyways. This method allows the rushers and campers to have to make risk assessment choices based around what choices they think the other is going to make. you can never truely get rid of camping outside of having certain mechanics that you may or may not want in your game. while also having the issue of balancing no camping spots with no cover spots. if there is cover then someone will camp there and if there is no cover that can dimminish a lot of the game. So after doing all you can to eliminate all campable spots. any spot remaining that could become a camp spot you just make ways to avoid it so that the person camping gets less reward for holding that position while also increasing the risk of someone sneaking around them. This is super important for a counterstrike style game but many games with fast mobile movement options have other options because if you can dash and jump and grapple around the map like crazy it becomes very hard to hold a point as the other players can easily avoid it or at least get to you so quickly. I think the main way to solve camping in any game though is incentivize not camping. where lives and kills are very important obviously this becomes hard since being safe lowers deaths. But in a more objective based game or with findable loot or some sort then the mobile players become more dominant as waiting and camping loses those rewards in exchange for safety. This is how doom handles combat. They wanted players to go in and do the melee finishers so they made those very powerful and the only way to get more ammo. incentivized melee vs long range kiting. Players want to win and camping has always been a safe way to win so anytime you can increase the chance to win to the mobile side or at least increase the fun and mechanics for mobile players the reason to camp dimminishes and combine that with as you said removing campable spots its becomes unlikely anyone will camp and those that do wont ruin the game as they are at a disadvantage and there is counterplay.
As some other people have pointed out, movement has a lot to do with this. In Titanfall 2 there are many god-tier camping spots and many zero-recoil weapons, but you usually don't last long as someone can grapple to your exact location within 20 seconds (maybe not if they're new to the game, though)
A-wall spitfire campers were the worst but yea I agree with you
Yeah i agree. Even if your camping in a building, someone with good movement will move out of your field of view quicker then most people can react. And if they have a softball they will fuck you up
@@nethangarvey1293 And if you are trying to camp inside a building against Northstar or Scorch...
:3
that's an interesting point. A camping spot is only as good as the players defending it. My thought is that the more ways there are to access a spot, the harder it will be to defend
@@garbaj One other thing you might consider is visibility. TF|2 pilots are lit up like Christmas trees, and can be seen from halfway across the maps. Sticking to one spot is dangerous.
Another source of camping is game mode. If you can complete the objective by sitting still, a lot of players will do it. That's why I like game modes where the objective moves. Think Hardpoint in CoD, or Payload in Team Fortress 2. You can still camp, but it's not nearly as effective because you are forced to move to complete the objective.
That's a good point. I've been so completely focused on deterrence that I forgot you can actually give players a reason/reward for staying mobile as well. I'll be giving this some more thought
Points don't need to move. For example, demolition in call of duty. People on the defending site will defend, "camp", the objectiv and attackers will attack the site. but when the bomb is planted playstyles completely switch, which is why, imo, demolition is the most fun mode till date in FPS games. You should take a look on how that goes
@@garbaj how about getting faster the longer you run, it would be pretty funny, like that it will push peopels to kill other player as fast as possibel so they don't gaine to much speed and being faster could make melee waepons stronger, or you could go soo fast that you'd be turned into a fire ball
Have you ever played hardpoint? Because my sweaty ass friends camp by spawn manipulation. If they fixed it cool but i doubt that was fixed even in recent CoD games.
@@jondrew9086 vanguard is gonna have a hardpoint mode where the point moves
I have experimented a ton with making maps and customs in Halo. It actually taught me a lot.
One thing you want to be careful of is to not turn your maps into swiss cheese, where in an effort to avoid camping, you basically get shot from every direction all the time and feel like you have no control. This is a very easy trap to fall into, and it can make your maps really annoying to play because there is absolutely no cover, or anywhere to form strategic plays.
Map design is HARD, it is all player psychology and making sure that everyone had the opportunity to come back and succeed. You also need to really consider the differences between camping and power positions, the two are very similar, but power positions take actual work to hold down and have weak spots, a skilled team can make it almost feel like a camping spot.
Verticality is your friend!
Yeah avoiding camping in games like cod (especially mw2019) can be pretty hard at times. I hate when people camp against me, so I try not to camp against other people, but in doing so I just end up getting shot from like 5 different angles because the enemy team is all sitting in windows waiting for someone to push. It’s especially bad in modes like domination, where the enemy team gets the upper hand and all of a sudden you can’t even get out of spawn because you just get shot at by the entire team the second you move out of spawn, so all you can really do is camp in spawn and hope they get bored of camping and come to you.
This ^^^ it's the difference between someone sniping from the sign in Highrise vs from the top of the rust tower. One was difficult to counter and the other had amazing visibility for both the person on top and everyone they can see.
Couldn't have said it better!
A little tip for camping: usually camping is a fully legitimate tactic in SOME situations, as a game where grenades or anything to either scare or kill a camper is available to every player, also in my opinion snipers are supposed to be camping, cuz quickscoping is more annoying, at least for me.
i love making maps in halo 5 because the forge is so indepth you also make a fantastic point i always have trouble with positioning
camping depends on the game aswell. in a fast paced arcadey shooter like cod, it's really annoying because it goes against the general flow of the game: run and gun. but in a more realistic tactical shooter like sandstorm, camping would be the best strategy in some cases, as it would be done in real life
You call it camping, I call it pulling security lol
@@TheButterAnvil facts, people complaining about some self preservation lmao
@@Draagenn I'm memeing, camping in cod sucks
and so does anyone that still plays the fucking dead game
Another good 'tactical' fps for camping would be R6 Seige, because that's practically the entire point of the defending team lol
The problem with camping spots is that they have cover on multiple sides. By removing every possible camping spot you slowly remove all the cover, which eventually leads to no place being safe. That might sound good but when no place on a map is safe gamemodes like ffa and even some team-based modes will be hell and you’ll die every 5 seconds
Cover should be directional. Using it to protect from one, maybe two, directions leaves you exposed with your back turned to another.
That way smart players who know their enemy locations can still utilize it without it becoming an easy win strategy for people who want to just shoot at targets coming from a single direction.
Fax dis is what I was thinking throughout
@@LiveActionKimPossibleRufus This is exactly how csgo maps feel. you're always exposed to one angle or area of the map, so you need to play very smart, especially at a higher level where the ttk is instant because people are headshot machines and a lot more creative in how they play out a round
Not if the cover is just kept from being reliably on multiple sides or possibly moves to encourage you to do the same.
Smaller and less cover
I definitely think there’s a trade off because a map with no “safe” spaces become too hectic.
Came here to say this. If you can't get a second to breathe it's just no fun. It'll be like shipment on COD but way worse. There should be a penalty for camping like if you're sitting still you are easier to kill than if you're moving. I wouldn't wanna play a game where you're out in the open most of the time and everyone usually has a clear line of sight to you. That just sounds maddeningly frustrating
@@drgore1797 great point but it’s also very fun to have high action all the time like games like titan fall 2 it may be very tiring but still super fun. like you said COD maps like shipment are not very fun when your constantly dying but when you have those like 3 minutes every like every couple minutes when your constantly killing people is pretty fun. idk thought either way your gonna have problems. another problem is of course spawn killing but there’s still ways you can kinda fix that.
I was just about to point out that in the example he showed he should have not removed the wall that you can duck under but instead shorten it so even if you are ducking you will still get shot. Basically the map should still give covers so you are not as open but its not too much cover that you can just stay and chill at that place.
@@jamo9437 you could still have alot of action in the map by having a part of it as a big open space and also having smaller and a bit safer spaces that you can hide at and take a break at like . For example you just gone to a gun fight and you know you have used all of your ammo so you decide to take a break and get behind cover to reload and then go back to the gun fight which in most cases is going behind a wall or a small building thats near the open space.
The line of sight (LOS) of the camping spot is one of the highest factor for camping because you could find a safe spot where to rest for a couple of seconds while having a great placement to find a lot of people passing in different areas.
What you could do: safe spots are extremely important for the pacing of the game (you give the player time to lower the adrenaline and let the endorphins kick in) and a couple must be there, to prevent people from using them for too long they must be ineffective as camping spot, usually a good place for rest is a room with 1 to 2 access to it. You could put them on the "outskirts" of the map and low ground (usually on the angles) with poor LOS to the center of the map and easy access from the outside. Try creating a map that pushes the player in the middle of the arena like this you can control a little bit where the game will be more hectic. Give a spot to conquer as a "decent" camping spot with good LOS but bad cover (the arena you showed has a good center of the map except for the low walls).
Cover and LOS should always be one the inverse of the other.
The last thing missing is the objective of the game, for example if you have a team Deathmatch (if everybody gets killed once you lose) having the "outskirts rooms" is a bad thing since the ambush it's a very effective way to win, while having 2 decent camping spot in opposite areas is a good experience for the player (you could add side roads to attack each other).
If you have a kill the most people kind of gameplay than the ambush (on the outskirts) is an ineffective strategy (low people passing through) then the outskirts cover is fine. Tool your map with the game type.
I should preface this by saying I’m not a camper, I typically rush in FPS games cause I don’t have the patience to camp. But I think you’re going about this the wrong way. By doing what you’re doing you’re eliminating power positions from play. If you haven’t already I highly recommend watching bdobbinsftw’s old call of duty videos. They are some of the best videos analyzing map design in FPS games. In effect, the more you make a piece of of the map less appealing to camp you’re making it also less appealing to fight over. No piece of cover has an exceptional advantage over any other piece of cover so in the aggregate it’s like fighting in a flat parking lot. By taking away power positions each map loses its identity, there’s fewer choke points to strategize around and it becomes harder to incentivize creative player positioning. I’d actually recommend you take a look at the map design in MW2 as that game was a campers paradise. But the difference here was that every camping spot was countered by at least one other spot, so if someone was camping in spot A you could go to spot B. And the other team can counter that by covering spot B with spot C. This not only makes you strategize and think through gameplay but it also encourages movement throughout the map, which you can then influence. You seem dead set on a low TTK game so I’d recommend increasing player’s ability to traverse the map, whether by speed, movement abilities, or clever map design, and by adding in counter camping spots that players can strategize around. What I strongly advise against is halo 5’s map design where it was so open you basically had to rush everywhere constantly to avoid getting shot by someone who had better line of sight. Ultimately I don’t think you’ll ever be fully rid of camping so my suggestion is to keep it in check with counter camping positions.
I fully agree with this. Without camping the game becomes homogenized where only one strategy is best. Maybe a player can't slide as well as other players or cant flick shot as accurately. Camping won't feel like a cheap strategy in your game as long as you give the players tools to combat it. Camping really isn't crazy effective in MW because with simple communication to your team, an RPG into the room wins. Semtex blast radius is so large in that game, it can clear a good sized room easily. Taking away options for how to play feels bad.
@@pitfireX same
I feel like this is a very good way of putting it. Camping isn’t really an issue. Let’s be honest, people really only complain about camping when they’re mad, yet will end up camp themselves. Camping can be good for a game if it is designed with it in mind. Your point about choke points and power positions in a map is exactly why camping is necessary. It’s just one component in a larger strategy. And what about a game mode like domination or hardpoint, where you need to hold a specific area on the map by standing there? Those areas can’t just not have any cover, especially with low TTK. In game modes like that, camping is essentially necessary to properly defend a position, so it should be balanced rather than entirely discouraged.
On a side note, I actually like very low TTKs. I mainly play hardcore mode in CoD, where most guns can kill in a single hit. This way, cover and concealment are much more important, which makes how you move and strategize a more engaging mechanic, since all it takes is one lucky shot to kill you. Of course, people will camp, but one well-placed shot from a counter-camping spot can quickly end a camping spree, so staying in a spot long-term tends to be discouraged. Plus, the more areas you can watch while camping, the more potential places you can get shot at from. I’ve found that this seems to be a good way to balance camping with movement while keeping a low TTK.
well said
So, to say it shortly, dont eliminate camping spots, add counter camping positions.
You can also add strong indirect fire weapons, like grenades. These work well when you know an enemy is definitely in whatever location, and making them strong is one way of encouraging people to move away from powerful positions.
just hard to balance that tho
That's pretty much what grenades are used for irl too.
Just dont make grenades stupid like in mw wer u can palm it to the enemy spawn right out of spawn that is so infuriating
Adding explosives are a great way to flush out campers
Another really important one: Visibility. In modern warfare, you become extremely difficult to spot especially in hardcore due to realistic camoflauges in dark rooms, making camping that much more effective. making players stand out from the environment gives potential camping victims much better odds by decreasing the time it takes to react
No just don’t make skins like that that’s the only way to combat it if it blend in to good in a game with subpar camos…then don’t release it b/c that automatically makes it pay to win
similar to how TF2 has the characters stand out from the map.
@@corporaljay6165 I saw in a vid yesterday using this example, where in TF2 the background and maps and scaled down in their saturation or color pallets, but the character models all are colorful so they are easy to identify. Whereas another example, in Overwatch/Paladins everything is colorful, but the teams are outlined in red and blue to identify. With modern realistic shooters, what they lack is these color formats of either having colorful backgrounds and desaturated models or vice versa which works best. Best looking fps visually when it came to color pallets, lighting, and map design would be Bo2, not to mention all guns and playstyles were viable. Of course these styles vary based on the type of fps game for the overall vibe, but like I said the main issue with the modern realistic style is everything is too gray. Best example of this 1st happening that I can think of is in Cod Ghosts. Soke may argue that mw3 and mw2 were the same, but to me Ghosts was extremely gray/bland feeling and maps were too large at the time, slowing down the pace and rewarding passive players
@@dariusmatthews2521 colorful/animated camos are dope tho, and def aren't going away, that we could tell ever since bo2 for example. I don't think that's the problem nor are they pay to win by any means, and if anything you're at a slight disadvantage, and also you become easier to identify individually from the rest of the lobby (that is referring to colorful/vibrant or unique skins). Only cases when skins become, "pay-to-win," is if the character model is better camouflaged or if they have some reduced affect on their hitboxes, but that's not common with the majority of camos/skins released in fps imo. The only small weird scenarios that this pertains to from what I've seen is in Apex Legends
@@wxndws Yeah, I saw that one too, that's why I thought of it.
A little camping is good. When there's an vantage point to hold, it creates a secondary objective for the players.
However, there should be a lot of flank routes so taking and retaking the point wouldn't be too frustrating.
was thinking this, flanking routes is a good way to prevent god spots
@@jax8920 as a person who in fps games tends to be a sniper a flank route is important to prevent spots from becoming op
Make a map where there is just open high ground that why campers are not safe from the ground. And the high ground is also not safe ;)
CS:GO is something I would say they managed it well
@@MusicPxviMLP yeah, in deathmatch there are a lot of points to hold but they're nothing too op
I think movement speed and abilities have a huge influence on it as well. Look at Overwatch for example. Some heroes can be easily suppressed by a bunker comp. But other heroes with higher mobilitiy like tracer, ball, sombra, lucio, pharah etc... are able to get past those. I don't really recall camping being an issue in Quake or Unreal tournament.
A big thing to support this is Titanfall 2, a good amount of the guns can one shot or otherwise quickly kill a player over various ranges, and there are some good open spots in a munch of maps, but every player has so much movement potential that camping becomes genuinely difficult. It’s hard to line up a shot if you’re not moving just as fast as your opponent, and even if you’re in a nice open spot with plenty of sight lines, standing still is generally gonna get you killed really fast
Just like Funke said
Or like reinhard his chunky health and shield makes him good for pushing
Yeah, camping did exist in Quake/UT but you were laughed at more than being a nuisance
Overwatch is kind of a unique case where the devs did a really good job of discouraging camping on an individual player level with smart map design and objectives, but also allowed for bunker comps to exist with the sheer amount of shields in the game. It's pretty interesting.
I genuinely don't understand why most people can't comprehend the difference between camping (sitting in some random corner of a map, waiting for someone to happen by) and holding a position (taking a position that allows for spacial deniability or in reaction to enemy movement, ie you see someone going a direction so you take a shortcut to where theyre going to be and cut them off).
Isn't that last part flanking? Or am I confusing terminology again?
@@__lasevix_ That would just be cutting them off. Flanking is when you get behind enemy lines, so that you can kill them while they're distracted.
Most people in gaming consider staying in a window and killing people as they continue to come down the street camping. I don't I consider it smart. If people are going to continue to come down the street for easy kills for me why the hell would I move? The type of camping you're talking about just sitting in a corner to me isn't a factor in any game I've ever played. Sure it happens here and there. The only time I would ever do it is if I hear somebody downstairs and I don't think they hear me. Why would I not wait in the corner for them to come through a door? If I can hear their footsteps why would I run out to meet them?
you exactly described camping. yes camping is easy, and yes camping takes no skill. that's why most players hate it
Ha ha, when we do it, it's tactical area denial. When others do it, it's camping. That's the difference.
if you add lighting to your game, try to reduce the amount of dark spots, or even just make the player character models contrast from the environment
TF2 does something like that. The player models are always backlit so it creates a bit of a highlight behind the characters, it also helps to quickly identify the class of the enemy too.
@@sirshotty7689 it's the phong shader that TF2 has that makes them stand out and the outlines of the model, if you remove all the textures you can actually still recognise the class just off the way they stand and are modelled. That game is a masterclass in good class design imo (anticheat is a very different story but at least there's something good to look at there)
Here's a proposed mechanic: Adrenaline. As you actively move around and cover the distance, you slowly gain a temporary buff that wears off if you stand still or pace a short distance, that lets you take a bit more damage on the chin. Not by much, but just enough to keep the camper nervous.
I love this idea
Take a look at Six Seasons and a Game, we have pretty much exactly that implemented to counter camping
I think that might result in a situation where everyone just always has that buff, making it irrelevant.
@@OsaculnenolajO That's the point, no one should camp, so it's fair again. See it this way: If someone camps they get a de-buff
@@kaiprzadka6896 I dunno that seems like a lazy way of doing it. Nobody likes debuffs. I think the way to do it is by deliberate map design, player movement, and TTK. You need to reward and encourage the player for movement, not punish them for staying still, but do it in a way that they doesn't penalize anyone. Doom Eternal does this amazingly well through game design alone. You literally cannot stop moving or you get surrounded in seconds. The levels are large and very vertical, encouraging players to move and flank, in return making them feel like a badass. Each tool and weapon has a purpose in that combat loop. You need to use them all to survive. In that way, they designed the whole game around the need to change your playstyle on the fly, and that sitting in a corner is never the best tactic.
A good idea is to provide incentives to move around the map.
In Classic Arena FPS games like Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament, Powerups being in specific, open easy to access locations around the map means that any campers might miss out on these power-ups which give players a massive boost in killing power, therefore, camping is discouraged.
Also immediately thought of Quakes item pick ups. Encourage movement.
The opposite also works. Like in Battlefield with spotting mechanics and gadgets like motion sensor that can announce player positions. Which discourages sticking around for too long.
Limited bullet count, with either scavenger mechanics or ammo crates also forces people to come out of cover. And since you never want to be fully out of ammo, the idea of camping to the very last second usually means a death sentence while running back to the crate to refill.
@@Volvary Quake 3 Also did this to an extent, your ammo won't last forever, and you'll need to go around to explore the map, not to mention the little health pickups that could overheat you, and the armor shards that did the same to your armor, this meant the best players knew they needed to get these items before other players did, good players frequently moved around the map, camping never really occurred expect maybe on one or two maps with the railgun and even then they were at a disadvantage cause they couldn't grab health, armor or power-ups while keeping the railgun spot camped.
I never camp but I hate a power up system. I've always preferred tactical shooters though.
As World of Warcraft and Killing Floor 2 has taught me players respond better to positive feedback then negative feedback its better to encourage the player to do something more beneficial to get them away from the thing you don't want them to do or to encourage them to do something you want them to try instead of discouraging an action by negatively effecting the player for doing it. While it may be cathartic for those that hate campers to prevent camping outright you are slimming down your player base and even a very experienced player can get action fatigue if you don't give them a breather of some kind even in a Arena setting.
I think that "camping" has a place in games depending on objective, I also obviously think that objectives are a great counter measure to the idea of camping. If a game wants to discourage it, make sure that the objective encourages the opposite. I also think that information plays a big part in camping avoidance, or at least, reducing it's effectiveness, and preventing it from feeling frustrating to deal with.
The best example I can think of when considering camping as far as existing and it's effectiveness, was actually a fairly unknown game from the mid 2000s, Ghost Recon Online (or Ghost Recon Phantoms depending on when you played). It was a 3rd person cover based shooter. Sounds like a complete recipe for camping all day every day right? Except camping was hard to do effectively for a few reasons.
First was the main game mode was a conquest style of map domination, the map was laid out fairly linearly extending out in the directions of each teams spawns, the goal was to capture points in specific parts of the map, starting with a neutral start point, and then moving a set amount of space back or forth toward whichever team lost the subsequent point. Meaning that pushing the objective was always the goal, you could sit in hiding around the objective a bit, but if you weren't actively doing something to push your team towards the goal of capturing the points, non of your "epic fragz" amounted to much, and laying in some random part of the map waiting for people wasn't a great way to help your team because if you weren't close enough to the objective, the enemies could easily just ignore you. Overall the objective mostly discouraged the idea of camping or made it less effective.
The second was the tools given to the players. GRO was a class based game, made up of assualt, engineers (later called support) and Recon classes. The Recon class was the class that helped most with the camping idea. one of and if you asked any good players the only main skill the recon class had was an ability called Oracle, which would pulse a scan wave across an area in front of the recon player, and would actively outline any enemy in red wherever they were within the range of the scan, meaning that you couldn't just hug cover forever and wait for free kills from passerby's because typically there were at least a couple recons on either team that were keeping the entire enemy team scanned fairly regularly. The Oracle tool made camping a lot harder since a big part of the team play was having constant information on enemy locations.
You can't ever completely remove camping in every shape and form, but I feel like there are plenty of tools that can mitigate it's effectiveness overall, it's just about understanding the kind of game you want to make, but if ubisoft can make effectively stifle camping in some after thought 3rd person cover shooter, then it's possible to do it well enough.
Thank you for this reply, I 100% agree. Objectives and a rewarding class-based system can benefit a game overall, despite camping.
I tend to be the more cautious player, attempting to hold down a smaller zone of the map. Mostly because I don't have the reaction speed or aiming skill that some players have. In any FPS when I try and move around the map a lot, I loose just about every gun fight I come across. So for me at least, camping is not something I "enjoy" but a natural reaction to getting stomped at every turn, and not wanting to cost my team the game due to my high death count.
I think more games could help with this problem by making other ways to be effective. There's several heroes in Overwatch that you can be effective with, without having amazing aim.
Even in a game like Battlefield, I have friends that don't really have great aim, but they help by getting great at vehicles, or going around rush reviving everyone.
huh, I've never thought about it from that point of view before. As far as your reaction speed and aim is concerned, which of the two would you say you're better at?
@@garbaj I would say my aim is better. If I get the jump on someone, I'm pretty good at landing my shots. It is just when the two of us are on level playing fields, I get crushed. It's not even just in one FPS game, it is all of them. I have to tilt the odds in my favor by holding down a zone and getting the first shot off.
@@seporokey I agree 1000%. In Overwatch I was able to get a much higher ranking than in other FPS games. Games that allow for support roles are my cup of tea. Let me play a healer or support class? *chef kiss*
@@ramblingiant3318 well see I'm sorta the opposite kinda player
I play very aggressively and run around the map a lot because I dont necessarily have the most accurate shots, but I hate to be the first one to be seen and shot at, in fact I probably will die in most gunfights engaged at the same time. you'd think that would just lead me to hide somewhere so I wont be seen first and then shoot at someone from afar, yet my natural reaction is not camping, its rather being the one to moove so quick that I bust campers and people across the map
so even though both of our skills could lead us to camping, as camping anyways is enhanced by a good reaction time and accuracy, I think accuracy is more rewarding when camping, and vert short reaction time is probably more useful when running around excessively like I do
i think you must consider: What option the players have?
Can they jump? Fly? Shoot on walls? Can they call for artillery?
All this possibility can give you a better way to build your map.
I thought a good way to counter this was something like a grenade launcher or any kind of explosive really
destroyable terrain
@@mrosskne 2 words big meaning
In real warfare either you destroy their camping spot, you call for backup (artillery? Airstrike?) or you fall back because you can't win against them, to my understanding.
yup, in valorant you can just drop a smoke bomb from the sky in the corner forcing campers to move, it is not what you remove from the game that matter, it is what you give in return
Camping is good for reloading or healing, so no camping spots would be bad, but very good camping spots would break the game, I suggest adding a hole in the wall, where you can't surprise attack anybody, but can rest and heal.
You can reload or heal behind any cover like just a single crate or barrel in the middle of nowhere - this is enough
Also long its not too much im ok with it
If its just a random tower with open back im ok
@@markedforstrike it's not if the map is as small as the map in the video since there would me very little time to heal.
@@Yaz42886-zzz idk why you would need that time in the first place. In Quake you dont have heals at all, in Apex having small rock is enough. Speaking about size - deal with it, I quess there will be bigger ones. Teammates can cover you, if it is deathmatch - overall chaos after you broke line of sight can provide enough cover itself
@@markedforstrike I am talking about the game in the video why do you start talking about other games unrelated to this? idk any of the games your talking about I am just saying that if there is healing in the video game of the video then the map is too small.
I once played on a CoD4 private server and my favorite map was a custom map where you could shoot trough any walls. If you had enough experience and knew where people usually camp, you could kill them throught the wall. Having thin walls like that could help you "block" some line of sight while keeping the player in a somewhat dangerous zone.
just make a huge, flying fist that will be crushing players who haven't been changing positions too much. I think the "fist tactic" wouldn't affect the overall character of the game.
id actually love to see that in a movement shooter
I was thinking of a way to punish players who haven't been moving much during the match when I was watching the video
From my expirence I liked the :camping" spots in mw2 because they were open and obvious but also once you get a kill or two from that spot everyone knows where you are and WILL be coming for you. It was always fun for me to snipe a couple people and then pack up and run and gun to a new vantage point
It made me feel like an assassin
A lot of the modern games feel straight up unfair with little hidey holes with only one good way to get in or out so I don't camp anymore
I wish there was a game with a good balance
It's also fun to do this, and learn to adapt to different sights when things need to change can be great as well.
I don't consider moving one spot to the other is camping really.
I don't usually camp because it makes me nervous when coming the spot I am camping
It's a shame Blacklight never caught on as a strong contender of the FPS genre because the inclusion of the HRV (in-game wallhack basically) gave campers a run for their money. Can't really camp efficiently when someone can see you through the wall and fling a molotov at your location to rat you out of your spot.
I really enjoyed Blacklight: Retribution. There was a mechanic that basically gave you wallhack like ability powered by recharging battery. So every now and then you could just activate it for a second and see through terrain. Every player had it so people just didn't camp.
the main issue i had with blacklight was the time to kill was pretty inconsistent from what i remember. some guns killed quick and some took 30 years
@@benjamin8558 Also at some point there were only asia servers with 200+ ping which made it pretty unplayable. But damn, these comments bring me back
Man that's a throwback. I haven't heard anyone mention that game for years
@@TheGamingW0LF13 did you play ps4? if you did do you remember loadout too?
@@benjamin8558 I never got to play loadout sadly. It looked really cool tho
I recently played laser tag with some friends, and one of the ways they make it more casual was a 2 hit TTK, and a spawn delay. The map design was also jank and unbalanced, but meant for kids. If you went around town trying out every Laser tag and figuring out what makes it good/bad it could be good research into your project
I remember going to laser tag once. I don't remember much about the playfield now but there were "bases" with targets that if you could shoot them multiple times in quick succession your team would receive a major score boost.
another important factor to camping is how well you can hear other players; if everyone's footsteps are audible, campers will feel more safe knowing they can sit in a spot until they hear someone approaching
Hence the integration of "ninja" like perks in many games. I think Halo does(did) it right; active radar gives lots of information for everyone, but it can be defeated by crouching or walking slowly, while also reducing footstep signatures.
i played css and when i switched to cod mw2 i used to listen for footsteps to get the advantage
I say, either:
- give the players and option to spawn on teammates
- make the spawns switch between the halves of the map when a certain amount of enemies leave the halve their teammates are in
- make a class that counters campers (something like the spy from tf2)
- make a weapon that counters campers
- make a system where a player's position would be revealed on a radar, like when a gun is shot without a silencer, or when someone is spotted
Spawning on teammates is cool and all, but if you can spawn on someone being stared down by 3 snipers the system shouldn't be in place. Phantom Forces is like this and it sucks balls. It's only a good idea if done right.
@@icupo3 well that's why it previews before you actually decide to spawn on them
spy from tf2 is a bad example here cuz spy has the cloak and daggers which can recharge ur cloak meter when not moving
@@nazimachour5389 stock spy*
That first point...
That is a HORRIBLE idea
That will just encourage people to stay around in a good spot and sit there to let others spawn on them. Could maybe nerf it through having some delay, etc, but then you are basically making TF2 Engineer x3
1:40 An alternate solution:
You neglect how players could approach from the right, where they have high ground and can retreat back down the ramp on their side. This pretty much invalidates the position. The only issue is getting there, which could be solved by providing more cover to allow players to go up along that flank. In doing so, flanking the camper could be more fun.
However, I'd say in this scenario that you shouldn't even bother making that position more unsafe. Sure, players can hide behind that wall, but you also have to consider that if they peak up at least half the map can see them there (and shoot them). That would be a very poor camping spot, because the main advantage to camping is you control how the enemies attack you.
Yes, the element of surprise is a benefit of camping sometimes, but flanking or even just jumping around a corner right in front of an enemy have surprise in them too, and can in fact work assuming you are prepared and aren't yourself surprised. And if you already know all the camping spots on a map, that doesn't mean you'll counter them. Even if you know where the camper is, you may have trouble getting them because they are waiting for you and know where you will need to go. That's why flanking a camper is so strong; flanking breaks the camper's control of the situation.
And the element of control is why the example "camping spot" here is quite poor:
- You can get shot from any area on ground level.
- You have no control of two of the walkways, which give the enemy a path to high ground with cover, and a flank route (by running across a walkway you have very little control of due).
- Very wide area you can get shot from
- Flank route
- This is likely just an example map, but it's very small and move speed as shown is high so players will struggle to camp anyway. That is, assuming they won't have designated spawn points that anchor them to some side.
The _REAL_ problem I see with that map is how much of a death pit the lower ground is (not just due to campers). If you stand in the open you're dead to everything ofc, but even if you hide under the center area you can be shot from anywhere not on a walkway. If you fall down there, your options to get out are very limited even if you use the mantling mechanic (if you want to have it be used here, you could put some pillars or something players can use to get up to the top again). If this were a control-point based map, I'd have to put the control point on the upper portion so that everyone is focused on that instead of the poor souls who fall into the low ground.
Ofc it's an example map, again, so I can't be fair by picking on it like this.
tl;dr
Flanking/approaching in general is probably the best counter to camping, as they allow players to escape the camper's control (that's why copious amounts of movement capabilities in games removes camping, it gives said approach options)
That example map has a pit of certain doom and is overall quite small, though ig that's fine since it's for demonstration purposes.
Whatever you do though, _don't_ make a mechanic that directly ruins camping such as becoming weaker or something for standing still. Punishing players for standing still just distracts them from the game.
I have decided I have a brain small enough to not read this
You do that. I'll just shoot things
Or he could remove the ramp in the middle where he started in the video or make it a little smaller to the point where you can shoot players over it, Or make the ramp go down then up so then the campers could easily get shot at, Or add a grenade/grenade launcher into the game and keep the ramp how it is so the campers can't camp there because someone could just yeet a grenade over the ramp killing the campers or forcing them to move.
@@Jacob-jh1it Those are also good anti-camp suggestions, though grenade launchers are pretty campy. They're at least not movement based.
Aren't some of the tactical grenades like flashbacks also good for countering a camper in cod?
If you want to encourage the run and gun through map design, create maps where the only way to keep your back safe is to keep moving forward. Tight, twisting maps, with almost no long sight lines, and not too many intersections. One thing this lets you do as a map designer is incorporate a high degree of elevation difference in a map. Like, a three-floor section of partially destroyed office building. I remember one DoD:S map that was devastatingly simple. It was two square loops, each with two floors. The center section was open and had a hole in the floor. In every outside corner was a shielded stairway, and the outer corners were rooms. Where the center hall met the sides, there was a wall preventing you from shooting all the way down the center hall from one side of the map to the other. As long as you kept moving forward, your rear was relatively safe. It's when you had to stop at the corners they'd catch up to you from behind...
To avoid campers the only way I know to slow down camping strat is to add:
- kill cams
- The bullets can go through some walls
Like wooden walls
I'd just be logical and throw a grenade in that area, Which the Blast zone is immense in a confine space... It will disorientate or even kill the person. lmfao.
And don't be a clodpoll and push the same exact spot every single life
Multiple entrances to every room.
From my experience, when campers are inside a very small aperture, it is easy to dislodge them via grenades or low precision but high power weapons (RPGs, explosive type weapons). If the camper has a good hiding spot but the hiding spot is also a place where you can easily get stuck, then it can become harder to defend and then less valuable to camp. I think it's also important to place these kind of spots in the middle of the map and not in the immediate proximity of spawning points, which means you have to earn it to get there. Especially if it's straight in the middle between the two teams spawning points and when it is hard to defend, this can be a viable strategy.
Reminds me of Quake 3 matches, where you would preventively shoot a rocket in the direction of common camping places. And since mobility was incredibly high, staying still was often a disadvantage.
@@manveroo1340 i hope he brings rocketjumps in to his game :)
This is my main grip with some maps in Splitgate. When players don't have a way to punish grouping/camping, the map tends to take a turn for the worst. So gamemodes with no access to the rocket launcher or plasma gun tend to make some maps (Atlantis and Abyss mostly) absolutely unplayable.
camping seems like one of those problems that is solved by engaging with it. Having someone lock down a side of the map makes it more dynamic. You can no longer safely walk a stretch of land without friendlies helping you with suppressive fire, or with some vision impairing tool (flashbangs/smokes). Your game is def closer to quake than CS:GO, but I think there might be something you can draw from there.
One of the best ways to avoid camping is to have resources that are worth going for. Whether it's that you have a very limited ammo supply and need to frequently pass ammo packs, that there is armors you can pick up, or maybe a special powerful weapon you can get in the middle of the map. Quake is a really good example of this, as map control becomes a key focus VERY quickly, and though camping in one spot is good to get the jump on someone, it doesn't matter if you got the jump on them if they have better weapons and more armor. Don't try to negate camping, just make it a less viable strategy.
Honestly you've inspired me to get into making a game since I've been 3d modelling guns already and I've gotten sick of certain things in modern games so I might as well try and make my own. Probably gonna start off simple with getting the base mechanics down and then adding all of the graphical shit. Love your game dev vids.
Good to hear! Best of luck to you
@@garbaj Thanks!
If you want it done right, do it yourself. Power to you man.
Good luck bro, show me how it goes
This is what I want to do. I installed Unity, and realised I don’t know what i’m doing
So the thing is, Camping is highly effective, because it's realistic; shoot at the enemy, while endangering yourself as little as possible by utilizing cover and concealment. Problem is, realistic and effective doesn't always mean fun, especially in this case. It's fun to camp, but it's extremely frustrating to be camped. I hate slow TTK as well. It's an area Tarkov really screws up, late-game it just becomes a game where you unload mags of rounds into each other while side-stepping back and forth. It's braindead stupid and it's not fun. But it can be frustrating when a gameis very fast TTK and just boils down to seeing and clicking first; it's not a firefight, it's just a sort of reaction-time tester. See, point, click.
Tarkov late wipe is the exact oposite of that, people restrain from even wearing helmets because they know that no matter how good your helmet is, its just to late into the wipe so you will get 1 taped in the head none the less, and class 6 armor get's shreded way faster then in early wipe.
I think slow TTK leaves room for other mechanics to have an impact on your gameplay. In apex, movement is a big thing. You can't solely rely on people walking into your crosshair and die. It is down to consistent tracking, recoil controlling, and taking good advantage of covers.
Camping as a strategy is meant to help low accuracy players with an upper hand, while giving them a disadvantage with tactical information. You can take, for example, CSGO, where half of the players that play casually camp one spot or another, but don't have any good advantage against a map centered player. Although camping is not necessary in any means, it helps new players to acomodate to the mechanics of the game in some sort, and also give them a boost in confidence knowing they can do something even if they are not doing the best.
In map designing, what I think helps a lot to keep players motivated to move is not that there is no spot to camp, but that there are multiple entrances to the same spot, and an objective driven match, like destroying something or capturing a point. Warships make a lot of sense in that regard, the map configuration makes it so you can't be too long in the same spot, at risk of being flanked and torped, or be a sitting duck for a cannoneer ship
I think you can fix camping by making objectives that doesn’t make camping beneficial.
If you get points or wins by killing, survival or defending something then people are going too camp because of the advantage they get.
Another solution is give people a point multiplier based on how active people are in the match.
This is in part what makes certain online games (Splatoon, Pokemon Unite, etc) different from their counterparts: KO'ing an opponent is NOT the primary objective to decide the outcome of a match, it just facilitates said objective.
@@Stratelier I never thought about it that way but that’s completely true
One thing that really helps stop campers is throwables that bounce being able to throw a frag or flashbang at your opponent with exposing yourself is a really important factor in denying campers.
This might not be exactly related to the video, but I find it interesting how the biggest skill gaps are often found in shooter games when the pacing and movement speed is opposite the TTK. On the one hand, you have games like CS and Valorant which have huge skill gaps with slow movement and fast TTK (coming from fast reflexes and the ability to isolate angles in order to turn a 1vx into multiple 1v1s), while on the other hand you have Halo 5, Apex, and Splitgate, which have big skill gaps (despite bullet magnetism being broken in Halo 5) from fast movement and slow TTK (originating from the importance of how you move in the middle of a fight). Compare these to CoD, which has fast TTK and fast movement and ends up having a considerably smaller individual skill gap (although teamwork and strategy are still critical at high levels), or classic Halo which still has a significant skill gap from mid-fight movement but not as big because you have fewer options.
I'm still figuring out where I want my game to be as far as movement/ttk balance is concerned, but that is an interesting point. I think it's important for a game to have a high skill ceiling so that top tier players have a reason to keep playing, but I don't know if having a large skill GAP between individual players is necessarily a good thing. Any thoughts?
@@garbaj sorry by skill gap I meant skill ceiling. Of course the balance between movement and TTK also has to make sure it's not too easy to get away from a losing fight (hence why Splitgate and Halo 5's ttk is faster than classic Halo) but this, just like the camping issue, is dependent on map design because larger, more open maps mean it'll take longer to take cover, along with other factors.
It really depends on what kind of playstyle you want to encourage of course. A slower, more methodical game like CS or Valorant has a different appeal from an adrenaline-pumping, mid-fight-outplay, hitscan-based, this-videogame-is-a-sport-and-we're-gonna-tell-it-to-your-face, give-the-tall-finger-to-reality arena shooter like Halo 5 or Splitgate.
Anyway, a high individual skill ceiling (as in the skill ceiling as an individual player as opposed to skills like teamwork) makes for really exciting gameplay to watch, particularly in esports (Think of how exciting it is to watch a Clutch 1v4 or 1v5 in pro CS or Valorant).
Personally I value movement a lot. I absolutely despise the movement in games like cod and VS/Valorant. Valorant literally punishes a players ability to aim for as little as crouch-walking. Maybe I'm missing the point in that, but it just doesnt make sense to me. Anyway instead of insulting games i dont like im gonna try and put useful thoughts.
I think movement abilities like those of Titanfall are super fun, because they allow you to make your own escape route in case of a dire situation. And yet team fortress 2 also has a wonderful movement system despite the lack of abilities, because you only really have 1 mode of speed: Walking. the game requires you to put this one simple mechanic to the best of its ability. There is so much nuance to the movement of a spy or medic in that game. as for movement-TTK balance and skill ceilings and skill gaps, I'd say that takes another video lol.
@@garbaj Large skill gap is just the natural result of some people getting REALLY good at the game. At that point where people want to play so much that they're so good they become unfun to fight against by beginners...you'll have an addictive game with good depth. At that point you should just treat the issue with some type of rank system that guides players into fighting opponents closer to their level. Though you want some intermix so noobs can encounter better players and learn by seeing them and playing with them, you know for the purposes of making learning the game more accessible.
Either way, a large skill gap isn't inherently bad, it just necessitates some easing in for the players.
@@garbaj I was thinking a gap like tf2’s can work, TTKs for weapons averaging from 1 second to 0.6 seconds
I have about 2/3k hours in CoD collectively, more so the older titles as well as 1k hours in Escape From Tarkov and 2k hours in Cs. I tend towards a more aggressive playstyle and dont particularly enjoy being camped although I respect that different people have different approaches to games.
I dislike playing against campers the most when it feels like there is next to no counter play, or the counter play has a very slim chance of working out. That is frustrating and ultimately drives me away from a game.
I think another angle to not forget is that adequate cover is required in FPS games. You cant just remove all cover from the game to remove camping. It will also harm the feel of the gunplay and gunfights in the game. A balance needs to be reached between cover available and making sure that the cover is not overpowered.
Thank you for a really interesting and thought provoking video!
Try using flashbangs, smokes or any other tactical weaponry on common camping spots, that's usually how i do it, and when it doesn't work just start sounding
@@antiStrikerS 🤔
@@jsihavealotofplaylists that's what tactical equipment's for
Idk why your vids started popping up in my recommended box but I'm glad they did because they're amazing. Informative, interesting, short, and straight to the point
See if it were me, I'd just cause players to blow up if they were in one spot too long or something. There, problem solved :)
a potentially more viable(though less funny) option could be gaining fewer points if you stand in one spot for too long, or alternatively having a score multiplier for moving around
@@nibbletrinnal2289 that wouldn't stop trolls who don't care about points tho
@@anchithacharya7836 could make harsher punishments for those who do it in most games they join, similar to punishing players for leaving a game early over and over
Maybe have a few small zones in very weak positions that you have to regularly return to to get points. Could be a good way to keep people moving. You have to keep going back to get the points, but you can't stay there because its a terrible position and you'll get killed.
Or have a camper alert icon once someone kills 2 times from the same area
Sound cues are also important for dealing with campers, if you know roughly where the camper is, you can usually tell what sight lines they’re watching. On the other side, if the camper knows roughly where the other players are, they know which sight lines to move to or focus on. Creating a sound disadvantage could be useful for reducing the effectiveness of campers.
You are an actual genius.
high visibility helps overcome the camping problem too. a big issue with MW2019 is that there's so much clutter and junk, and player skins are generally so bland that it's hard to see people when they camp.
games like block ops 2 had decent TTK, but had a thin "cell shaded" style red outline on enemy players that made them easier to spot in rough conditions.
Black ops 3 had crazy cool player skins and literal red lights on enemy player models that made them easy to see at all times, but high maneuverability probably played and equally significant role in overcoming campers in that game.
Yeah definately, the bland skins on the bland maps makes it nearly impossible to see someone camping in a dark room. Say hackney yard for example, you wouldn't see someone using even the nerfed roze skin if the room is both dark and bland.
Same for bf4 and all the bf after that. The amount of campers increased so dramatically its so f annoying.
The sound of footsteps also makes a difference. For example in modern warfare where footsteps are loud and there is no real way to reduce them like in older cods, you cant flank the campers or even enter the building theyre in because they will hear you from miles away
in most games your accuracy also increases when standing still, which also makes camping, or rather "standing still/going low" better compared to someone who is still running from point a to b. an interesting mechanic would be to flip it around completely, so that your accuracy is just as good or even better when running at full speed.
I'm not sure if that would 100% fix it. Even if there was no accuracy penalty for moving, you always have lower accuracy while moving just because it's harder to track targets while you're moving. I think a better fix would be that if you are moving you deal more damage, or shoot faster or something like that.
I'm not sure if that's realistic
That'd encourage more running about and strafing but the issue is it'll be very wacky to work with, with stuff like scopes and ADS
@@Anti_Septikum almost zero shooter games nowadays are realistic. I can count the amount of highly realistic modern shooters on one hand, whereas much less realistic, more mainstream shooters come out every few months
@@EliFarb yeah that's why we need indie game companies
I'll have to do you one backwards and say that it depends on the game for all of your questions in terms of a player BUT in terms of being a designer it can be framed by the priorities in your game.
To find your priorities, just define what camping is in the game: sounds simple but, in answering the questions, you find your natural tendencies of personal design.
Example: "Camping in my game is holding one position and being able to cover yourself while firing easily on other areas." From here ask "what are the priorities?"
Seems like "positionin", "firing", and "areas" are priorities and camping is what unifies their relations, but personally which does it relate most to?
From here the tendencies take over: if you say positioning, then you might want to focus on the map layout and pathing; what contributes to your position more, getting there first or waiting for someone else to come? If you say firing, then do certain guns inherently seem to favor a camper? If you say areas, then does the TTK of guns change drastically over distance rather evenly, or do some locations change how effective a gun is?
You can use this process to examine games and by moving in a question-answer/question-answer/question mode you can keep scope down, as well as easily abandon/pick up a line of ideas by following along whatever priorities come to mind. Great job on the game and thank you for the devlog.
It really depends on what type of game you're making. If the movements are slow and heavy and you have to wait for the enemy team to push toward you, you're more likely to stand your ground. If the goal is to get as many kills as possible (TDM) and there's no map objective, assume people will try to find the best strats to get their K/D up. I don't know a game where no one camps. Even in Halo, you fight to get the sniper and move out to the highest point or a spot that gives you an open view. That's just how some people play. Great map design will allow players to attack these campers from an unexpected angle (above, bellow, behind or make the camping spot symmetric for each side of the map). But you can also give the player a reason to keep moving, whether because it's fun (TitanFall), to get a special weapon / bonus or simply because you're an easy target while standing (like most Arena shooter). When you want a map to feel like a king of the hill (fight for a spot on the map) therefore resulting in camping. Losing players should be able to take second routes that cannot be engaged from that advantage point. Forcing the winning team to a showdown.
You're always gonna need some sort of cover. That cover can only block off one or two direction, allowing the player to use it and avoid a specific encounter (to reload). You're still an easy target from every other directions and explosives. Again, it's really difficult to avoid camping, but you can always give players a way to counter it, a way to fight back.
As someone who often favors stealth or otherwise avoiding open fire, I approve of these design philosophies.
If I remember correctly, it was extremely difficult to camp in the Unreal Tournament. Probably because of the weapons system and objectives
@@Yorick257 Yep you’re right. UT was a lot more rewarding for the players who kept moving. Also the best way to stay alive. The weapons, maps and movements all played a part. Same for Quake… (honestly I just miss arena shooters in general now).
I like the way you laid this out. Applying simple game theory gives new perspective on mapping. That's one of the reasons i enjoyed Halo 5 so much. Smart map design (mostly). I appreciate your mention of unorthodox angles and AOE type weapons. Those are big parts of developing a meta.
I feel like the video is a bit incomplete, as any design quirk or system will impact the state of camping - like the ability to heal up - say you have a sniper type weapon that takes half health, reloads slowly, and there's no healing, that least factor mitigates the high TTK, camping is still a good strategy to soften enemies for your teammates, but adversaries still have time to get to cover(assuming you're always just a few seconds away from appropriate cover), identify where they're being shot from, and counterattack, forcing players out of the camping spots.
Say only one weapon can effectively serve as sniper, and you can only carry a handful of sniper bullets, and you have to get out of the camping spot to recover ammo, that's another way to force people out;
the map played at 2:34 gave me distinct gears of war vibes. I'm not sure if it's the scaffolding but it reminds me of a specific map I used to play on horde. Ty for sharing
I like how the one guy explained it. Staying in one place and not getting kills is camping, but staying in one place and getting kills is called "Holding a Control Point" Its not the fault of the person staying in one place who's winning for their team, it's the fault of the people who keep coming back and letting them get kills.
If you're going to make a military game (military meaning an FPS in this case) then there will inevitably be tactics. If everyone is running around the whole time just for no reason, then what's the point? Finding a strategic location will give you an enormous advantage. Hiding in the same corner of some room, however, (aka camping) is not usually something that can last you the whole game unless you're playing against bots.
I'd define camping as someone continuing to go back to the same control point after dying over and over again. You can't cry camping just bc you got killed by someone holding an area just once, but it's also your fault if you keep going back to the same spot that the "camper" is holding.
@@therageboi7618 a good game will make it so that you don't spawn somewhere that will allow you to get back to the same control point without killing your way there, and if you do that, you deserve the control point.
Yea it's not the fault of the "camper" his goal is to get kills fpr his team. If you and your team keep running by his location and getting gunned down that's YOUR fault. Hes controling a zone that has a target rich enviroment.
It’s not the fault of the victim what the hell are you on about. Not everyone is going to know where every little scum is camping. People go back to those areas because they expect people to be gone from it, not still camping, but it’s sad that people camp in the same spots for entire matches
It’s the fault of the camper, not the victim. Campers help ruin the game for the lower level players as they can’t get kills and get better guns and shit
I have an idea if I may interject myself:
What about maps that have changing structures.
Let's take that spot with the half wall for reference. What if after 30-60 seconds, the maps cover system changes. Walls come from the ground, platforms sink, flank routes open and close. There could also be a routine pattern to it which would encourage moving from strong point to strong point.
I think the problem with no "camping" spots is there would be no flow to the map without advantageous positions.
Also, any kind of advanced movement, increased agility, or "peakers advantage" would greatly decrease the advantage a stationary person behind cover would have.
Take a game like Rainbow six siege for example. It's one of the slowest campiest low ttk games there is, but because the gadgets of the operators, it's almost always smarter to be the aggressor in situations.
I'm largely indifferent to camping, and will camp on occasion
I think having good counters to it is really satisfying, few things beat the joy of seeing 3 peeps squirt out of a spot after lobbing a grenade into their hidey hole, or blasing a rocket into them for that multi-kill
Having certain areas of the map be locked down funnels people to different places, though when things always play out the same way its just frustrating, so there needs to be lots of routes to move though
Camping spots need to have a lot of flaws, also
Would be worth looking at halo 3's multiplayer levels to get a feel for how they dealt with things which I think they did better than other game companies at tackling
Halo 3 maps are some of the best. 2 had some good ones as well, but still pretty flawed.
I believe there is nothing at all wrong with camping. It is not like it is severely overpowered. It is just a strategy to combat the people who go Gung ho sprinting in blindly or those people who try to be the top players alwayd and feel like failures if they aren't top place on the leader boards, the ones who have the skill to flick from one target to the next but fall flat on their face because they have no strategy and get killed by people with strategy. The big reason it is so frowned upon is because of those that get so worked up when they die or are losing. The ones who want to blame the internet or the game or the other player or the sun in their eyes or literally any other reason. Those people can't handle the thought of losing so you hear them over and over complain about the same thing. To those people I say, "No it is not their fault you want to run out into the open full speed ahead and they don't let you. Maybe instead of complaining, prove that you are good at this game by learning strategies to win. Go methodically forward if you want to advance. Not sure if you know this or not but this is a war game and anybody I have seen run out in the open going Gung ho has died right away." If there is no glitches or spamming explosives nonstop (mw2 days) then all is fair.
(BTW I haven't played cod or and shooter games in over 5 years. I was actually extremely good. I wasn't one to camp ever but it never bothered me. I guess it didn't feel like real life to me like it does to other people.
Also I do know not everyone who complains about campers is that over the top about it, it was more just an example. What I do know 100% is any hate or negative for campers comes from the frustration of dying without them standing much of a chance in any combat situation because they probably are actually pretty good at the game and are used to it being the other way around since they know in an open battlefield one one that they might have the upper hand due to skill. But skill is only the half of it and players don't want to believe it. The point in war is to win. In a tdm, running in makes you more likely to be killed. Now when the goal is not just to get kills but also try not to get killed so the other team doesn't get more points, you need a game plan. A strategy. That strategy could be anything that gives you an advantage. Flashbangs before turning corners, advancing slow, staying back, flanking, etc.
@@lance00000000000000 Bro just wrote a book and a half
@@jarofsake2356 Yeah, happens some times. It's funny how people can't fathom someone writing more than a sentence or two but would watch a 30 min long rant at the same time
@@lance00000000000000 Mhm i actually read it and it had some valid points
Hey i just found your channel. Your ideas of upgrading weapons during a game is super, and your map design shown here is really new, that's good stuff that i didn't met in any game. What seem odd would be how small it looks now.. i don't know how many players you want to put in here to fight, and for how long, but it might be a good idea to increase map capacity with a low number of players. Can u imagine having to spawn there? Camping or not it's too small. But this architecture is so nice
I think this map is just a practise room where guns can be tested so the point isn't to have this be a playable map but rather a dev room. I think rooms like this which are just a random set of geometry to test and demonstrate different things are common in shooter game development.
Honestly a great perspective on camping in video games, and with a lot of good info. Although I may go about the solution in a different way. Rather than preventing camping I would say styles of play. Titan Fall comes to mind with the movement. While camping was viable in the game, the rewards for learning the movement far out weighed the benefits of camping.
love how this guy showing us his thought process on making a game....love ur vids bro
loving this trend of game makers, especially first timers showing their development and though processes on yt. game maker toolkit's also doing (though he primarily makes game easy)
thanks, I'm glad so many people have been tuning in and giving feedback. It really helps to keep me motivated
Got to love how actual real-life combat tactics become cheap and annoying to play against in gaming
well in real life you kinda really really want to not die, meanwhile in games killing the enemy is supposed to take precedence, so...
@@nobodyinparticular968 What if it's permadeath? That sometimes impacts it.
Hunt Showdown has that but people usually call you a camper if you don't run across an open field into their sniper scope and vice versa.
@@NgaMarsters theres a very fine line between valid saltiness and invalid saltiness
@@nobodyinparticular968 Could you explain please? Because I keep getting confused between the two 😐 Don't play much online FPs these days.
@@NgaMarsters for some reason salty is slang for angry, i was implying that sometimes players are mad at others for reasons that seem logically invalid, meanwhile at other times its perfectly understandable to be angry
if, say for example, your team couldnt advance because there was some dude sitting in a corner leeching all the fun out of the game, id be pretty angry at them too, meanwhile being angry just because theyre not literally walking into your line of fire is a bit questionable
but the difference is not that big between the two, oftentimes it's hard to tell which you're looking at
My favorite thing about Garbaj is the fact that none of his work is Garbaj
From what I've experienced, a faster ttk usually results in a better ability to eliminate campers if you're playing closed circuit maps (with fps shooters, that is). Usually, most shooter style games have some form of explosive or bullet penetration that mitigates the difficulty.
However the problem is that campers can abuse that TTK, using element of surprise or entrenching themselv3s
@Red Line you dying once or twice doesn't count as the other person camping, js
I don't think you understand what camping means
Another factor is lag compensation and how much it favours the aggressor. By the nature of online games, the person moving around the corner sees the camper a split second before the camper sees them (because on their screen they are yet to move around the corner). If the game mechanics allow the attacker to utilize that time window, it can really punish campers.
Another huge factor in camping is visibility. In Modern Warfarre, along with having secluded rooms and buildings you are also hidden in shadows and are very difficult to see. Camping would be significantly harder in any game with player outlines or generally good visibility.
It really depends if you're going to have any kind of class system in your game. Even giving certain weapons or upgrades to weapons can incentivize the player to a camping playstyle. Think the sniper in TF2 or picking up a rail gun in Quake. Ultimately, you want to have a balance if you include these elements so that there isn't too much camping, but that people who are built for it can take advantage of it without becoming very overpowered.
Personally I’m pretty fond of higher TTK games. I want to feel like I’m properly battling someone, which is harder to get when you both will die within two seconds of seeing each other
I can definitely see where you're coming from on that, but I prefer lower TTK just because it's more realistic. IDC if you're wearing armor, you're not taking 10-20 shots from a gun without going down. And similar to that, playing call of duty on regular core mode is a battle like you said, but it incentivises people who run and jump when they shoot, which is harder to counter, and definitely not realistic. If I play call of duty, it's usually hardcore or I'll just play siege or something because I don't want to dump an entire mag into someone to kill them.
I am the opposite. If it’s more then like 4 shots to the body to kill I feel like the game feels fake and people feel like sponges. I love my very very fast and intense gunfights
A big part of why I loved TF2 was that ttk was low if you placed your shots propperly and got aggressive, but the movement most classes have meant that you often would have a few seconds to actually fight
I think of Gundam, where the opponents are nursing their damaged mechs to keep in the fight. Having that as a gameplay element would be highly satisfying.
I like high TTK because it allows for more balancing options and therefore more weapon variety.
I was just thinking about this the other day because I went back to Halo for a spot of nostalgia. I was struck by how powerful the shotgun in that series feels because of how dramatic it is compared to other weapons. The difference between an SMG and a shotgun in a lot of modern military games is often very subtle because they both prefer similar ranges and kill in roughly similar time-frames. But the difference in power between Halo's shotgun and most other weapons is so much more tangible because other weapons take a lot longer to do their job to the point where using the shotgun almost feels like playing a totally different game
Can you guys confirm if Mordern warfare 1 (2007) has a higher ttk than the later MW games? I always felt that guns after MW1 became too powerful and my brothers felt the same way.
I agree, with my reason being I hate Insta Kills in games unless it's a super Ability, like Ultimates in Overwatch and such, so you got to work for the insta kill ability. But games like Rainbow Six Siege and CoD games and such you can Headshot kill anyone no matter what, it doesn't feel appealing to me to reward Sneak attacks or Stealth with Free kills 100%
@@sakumaFR mw1 had lower ttk overall, with the exception of the meta guns m16 with stopping power would kill before the third shot fired. Later games made maps smaller and so smg rushing became the best ttk option
@@drews8900 did you mean higher ttk? or lower is correct?
Blacklight: Retribution had great mechanic to prevent camping. Basically it was just free wallhack everyone could use but it made you vulnerable. Also it sorta makes you less want to use cheats too.
Scrolled down to find this comment. Blacklight made it really hard camping by giving you wallacks. Ironically Ghost in the shell also gave you wallhacks but encouraged camping in other ways that was really nasty, I would camp in one spot as sniper and get 10 kill streaks constantly :D until they nade spammed me.... Strange to see both of these games dead. I guess campers are the driving force of a online fps game XD
To prevent camping, you can also add limited ammo. Forcing players to go out of their camping spot and find ammunition
I've always been a high TTK kinda person. Low TTK feels like it practically gives the initiator a free win rather than an advantage, leading to the game feeling more like hide and seek than the sort of thing I'm looking for from a shooter. Doesn't help that I'm colorblind, putting me at a pretty stark disadvantage, especially in games with more grounded art styles (even in Apex it takes me much longer to see enemies than my friends outside of very close range).
I think the biggest thing you can do to prevent camping is mitigating the players fear of dying.
Camping is not actually the best way to get the most kills. Camping is a good way to get a higher K/D ratio. But if dying is not a big deal then players are encouraged to take more chances and experiment with movement and the other mechanics you have in your game.
I'm old enough that I had experience with paintball before multiplayer first person shooters became refined and it absolutely pushed me towards a camping mentality.
@@maximthemagnificent Right. You are going to camp more in paintball where it hurts to get hit versus if you played with something like nerf.
So have a kill counter but not a death one? Like yeah your kills go up, but who knows how many teams you've died? I don't know or care because I'm here to have fun
@@_qpas_fury_1572 Reduced player info is never a good idea. The whole "only show good stats" approach was attempted in Overwatch, and it's exactly what makes the game so toxic. Everyone knows what they've done right, but none of what they've done wrong, and so most players think they're the second coming of Christ by mid-gold. It also stunts player growth for those interested in improvement, since they have a harder time figuring out what they need to work on. It's worth noting as well that the fear of dying in game isn't purely a scoreboard thing. People feel worse from bad experiences than they feel positive from good ones at a roughly 7:1 ratio, so unless they're hitting 7 kills a death that respawn screen is going to sting more than the headshots can make up for.
I think there's a fine line on what TTK I personally enjoy. I always hated CoD because it took like two bullets, but in Apex, I could empty an entire clip into someone and they wouldn't die. You need to feel like you have a chance to react, and fight back or dodge, but not enough that you can sip tea while you get shot. I think Team Fortress did that rather well, for me. Most weapons, apart from sniper, kill in two shots, at least, a direct hit with a grenade launcher to the scout doesn't instantly kill, and gives you enough time to try and fight the second shot more often than not.
Halo infinite is pain.
I swear it's physically impossible to win a 3 or more v 1 because of the horribly long ttk it has
I significantly prefer higher TTK specifically for this reason. I honestly can't think of a game with low TTK that doesn't have the issue of players being to afraid to do anything and either hold angles to watch chokes while still peeking briefly or hiding in a corner and camping.
To some people pro-players might be an exception but even then compare fights in CSGO to Overwatch or even Quake 1v1s.
Overwatch there's ALWAYS some kind of engagement and/or exchange going on.
In Quake there's always a chase going on with a least a bit of damage being exchanged across the map.
That's not true for CSGO which is a much slower more tactical pace to it. While some people might like that it really goes to show just how much slower paced low TTK games are.
This does not apply at all to games like Titanfall. The movement allows anyone to deal with campers easily.
I'd say a third thing that contributes to camping at least in modern warfare is perks being good at rewarding camping such as ghost being active all the time, eod (and trophy systems) making it harder to flush out campers with a grenade and next to no perks that punish camping
Also how many rooms only have two openings. One door, one window. Put a claymore at the door and look out the window and you have full control of the room. Particularly that accursed store in Picadilly.
In Call of Duty I actually kind of like when there's a guy sitting in an upstairs window with a good sight line mowing everyone down. It makes it kind of like a puzzle I have to solve. I have to use my brain and out think them and that's fun, and really satisfying when I finally take them out. Plus it makes me better at taking out headglitchers lol
I camp a lot in shooters, and I personally love both playing as the camper and playing against the camper. I will admit that camping is not fun in multiplayer games with high player counts in matches. It's a lot more fun when you only have a few people.
My advice for preventing camping is to add indirect fire weapons like grenade launchers. These turn what would be a safe fortress into a coffin. You could also add weapons that penetrate walls. This also has the same effect.
A game that does this well is Dusk. In that game, there are plenty of spots to hide , but you can't stay there for long. You can find a nice place to set up an ambush, but once you e used that spot you have to move. If you don't, the guy you just killed will respawn and shell the room with the riveter before going in. If he doesn't, somebody else will.
Making light and medium covers piercable by intermediate and high-power calibre firearms respectively would be great. It would also have the effect of belt-fed machineguns being viable for the meta of team games because if you really want to clear a building asap, you can spam belt-feds into every light cover to hopefully kill or flush out campers.
Another feature that old BF games have that incentivizes pushing aggressively are breakable and semi-breakable environments. By making the map semi-destructible, camping spots become limited resources that need to be conserved for the remainder of the match. However, it should be noted that semi-destructible environment can take a toll on hardware.
And sources of intel like valorants drones and scans
Hitscan heavily emphasizes sitting still and not moving
Personally, I feel like the best games have a kinda "balance" to camping. There's incentive to do it to some extent. IRL, if given the opportunity most folks prefer ambush tactics. High reward/low risk, so it's definitely worth doing. Where I disagree with most people though is that I like to differentiate between "camping" and "ambushing". "Camping" is using the same hiding spot for several ambushes. All the best games tend to hide the best ambush locations in/near high traffic areas... when you pair this with map designs which allow respawned players to get back into the action without much delay, what ends up happening is that if you sit in the same spot for too long you end up being jumped by 2 or 3 enemies who know where you are (or get hit with a rocket/grenade). In an ideal situation, you'd want to discourage extended camping by increasing the risk as time goes on.
As someone who's played tons of custom maps, especially TF2 maps, a low TTS game, I have a decent idea of what map designs make camping harder;
1. Distance from spawn: Self-explanatory. The longer it takes from spawn in to camp means the more likely it is they get shot dead before they reach it. This also acts as a reward for careful play and a punishment for not paying attention, so long as the spot isn't *too* godly. (This doesn't work in games like CoD due to the variable spawn locations)
2. Cover density: moreso then just restricting the actual distance you can see, it's far more important to have a proper density of wide, high cover. Too little and it's sniper city. Too much and players will take too much time fucking from cover to cover like a maze and also get camped. (For example, I would add a thin wall in the middle of your map's bridge bottom, with the wall bring hollow to allow for walking between the two exits. This means a camper's attention will be split, and they're more likely to muck up or be abushed
For the purposes of preventing camping, low cover pretty much only adds to density and not cover. That doesn't mean "don't use it", but use it wisely. The worst maps I ever played were maps full of too much low cover.
3. Ambush equalibrium: if a spot makes it really easy to ambush players, it should also make it easy *to* be ambushed. If there's a large, open sightline, the camper needs to be forced to stand *in* that sightline to use it, taking on the same amount danger they're putting their opponents in.
My personal favorite example of this in TF2 is the sniper sightline on Pipeline stage 1, where you can get this really high spot with a great view of almost the entire half of the map and lots of great cover from attacks below... But behind you is a proximity door, with a direct line to the spot from both team's spawns that you can't see from said spot. This means that even if you know someone's approaching, you can't do anything about it until they get out of your ideal range and into their's,forcing you to ether engage in close combat or jump off and take massive (but not inherently fatal) fall damage
It's a spot with high risk, high reward, and I think it encourages the right kind of camping, risky camping, without locking you in fully, so you can stop camping if things get rough.
(This is another aspect of camping map design you don't often think about; if a spot's all-or-nothing, you're going to get campers there all the time, because dying occasionally is guaranteed and factored into the risk. But if you give them a real chance to get away, you encourage both an engaging chase and, ironically, them to camp less, since it's so much easier to jump ship then it is to stay and fight, encouraging them to move more while keeping the spots they like to camp in available, but also known, turning the act of camping from a one player clicker game to a back and forth game of chicken with the entire enemy team. That proximity door seriously does so much to help with all this.)
4. Proximity Doors and windows: pretty simple, if the campee sees the camper, even if neither can shoot eachother, it makes the camper less effective while not giving total advantage to the Campee.
And a note on TTK; You can have it *generally* be low without making it *universally* low. Using TF2 as an example again, though sniper's rifle and Spy's knife have the lowest TTK in the game, it's only in their preferred environments; Sniper has to scope in for headshots, and spy has to stab the back for a backstab.
Outside of that, the unscoped Sniper rifle and Knife,'s TTK is pathetic, almost triple most other weapons in the game, amoung the worst in the game, and the time on the sniper's SMG/Kunai or Spy's Revolver isn't great ether, unless you specifically use a weapon that's even worse statistically. (Jarate for sniper, diamondback or ambassador for spy)
Every other class's (sans medic) primary weapons, the one they're going to be using against these two at close range, can kill in 1-2 hits or through 1-2 seconds of sustained fire, punishing camping by the nature of Response TTK for the camper being slow, but not for the campee.
(Varying health is also a great tool for this, but it looks like your game might not have classes, implimenting that will be difficult... Unless base HP is tied to your gun.)
Some modern shooters such as titanfall have used skill based movement systems in order to speed up gameplay and thereby disincentive camping. Through wall running, rocket jumping, b-hopping or some other system, they all help eliminate camping due to peakers advantage and the difficulty to hit a moving target.
Skill based movement systems also have the added benefit of both making games have higher skill ceilings and just being really cool.
maybe consider adding a kill confirmation system where players have to walk over to where the enemy died and collect their dog tags to actually be awarded the kill. This would force them out of any camping spot and force them to move around the map.
That actually founds fun not gonna lie.
That sounds like a good gamemode idea. Not a core feature but sounds intersting
@@unknownwill4th549 I mean they're literally describing Kill Confirmed which has been a CoD staple for years now
I think one of the main things is what game mode you're playing in. It's way easier and and more effective to camp in team death match than it is in an objective based game mode
I actually prefer high ttk. I like it when i feel like i have a chance in any fight rather than, "he shot/saw me first i die"
One thing could be echolocation, basically have people firing place a blimp on the minimap temporarily showing their location, the bigger the caliber (eg. sniper) the more visible the dot/the longer it stays, this would encourage movement and not staying in one place
I've always liked a high ttk with small maps for a more arcadey feel and it also allowing for more chaotic things to happen in free for all situations. It also allows one hit kill weapons to feel way more rewarding once you get them. Halo does these and it's always a good time in my opinion
Honestly im a very big fan of a high TTK especially in a game where movement plays a huge roll, as if you get caught off guard by a camper, you have time to react, and campers will be less encouraged to camp as they know they can take a good bit of health. i think a good mix between level desgin and a high TTK is probably the best rout to go. Thats just my opinion though..
I appreciate holding an advantageous "zone" constantly moving and checking different entre points, I find it really cheap when someone holds a single angle and shoots you across a long section of the map because you could not even see them behind their camping spot.
First still utilizes a good amount of map knowledge, the 2nd just exploits a single pre-scoped and not as contestable sightline.
I think battlefield has a workaround for campers in buildings: they are destructable.
So say for instance there is a squad of campers on the top floor of a house, you could blow it the F up and leave them with essentially no cover
Lots of people are talking about movement being a good way to discourage camping in games like overwatch or Titanfall. But I think valorant does a good job to combat camping despite being a tactical shooter by allowing certain abilities to get information of where players are. This combined with the ability to wallbang does a good job to combat camping as there is a solid way to combat it and it becomes more of a tactical mechanic rather than just abusing maps
overwatch and titanfall literally do the same thing lol, hanzo has an ability that allows you to see enemies through walls, as does widowmaker, and perhaps another one i forgot, and titanfall 2 has the sonic knife, which is an ability you can choose, and does basically the same thing as hanzo's ability. its pretty cool imo
@@blindsloth364 ye I know, was just trying to gives some examples for a more slow paced style of gameplay
Not only this but audio too; everything being so incredibly easy to hear, especially footsteps, allows people the freedom to sit in one spot while they hear their enemy’s every move without they themselves being heard. That’s why the only thing that prevents campers from camping is dead silence, where they actually get a chance to run around and search for a kill without the enemies knowing where they are (via auditory cues). So, honestly, even though it provides another element of depth to your game Garbaj, I highly recommend you to keep it very subtle, and not be a main element of combat/intel.
Or make campers make noise as well
Like in Phantom Forces. I can literally hear the campers sitting in 1 spot as even moving their mouse makes a sound
Judging by that "bug" that allows mantling to "boost jump" around the map, your game's visibly going to be a Movement Shooter. That means camping is already going to be hyper weak by itself regardless of map design, and yet, you're choosing to make it even weaker because you don't find it fun. Never limit player strategies like that, players should be able to adapt their strategies around the battlefield.
I've seen too many games where people complain about "camping", "running", or using the niche non-broken shit to play with their own strats. I personally think leaving the door open for other strategies can make for a more involved combat, and possibly attract a bigger playerbase.
Limiting player's strategies is a tool to be used like any other. Every Developer knows that when given the chance players will attempt to optimise the fun out of a game, it's the dev's job to reduce the likelihood of that happening by making the most optimal strategy the most fun one. Games almost always are designed to lean players towards a certain playstyle while still being open ended.
@@jackawaka Fair enough, I'm just hoping that "still being open ended" part continues applying for this game specificly
There are also mechincs that pins enemy players, taking away the informational disposition granted by camping. Things like destiny 2 radar, black light retribution visor and Seer scan all achieve this in various ways.
Man, I miss Blacklight retribution. Building your own guns was so fun
I'd recommend making most obstacles able to be shot through, so they can only hide
valorant death match used to highlight everyone's locations regulary on the minimap. You could also add some track abilities , or other methonds to displace campers. I'd say don't just rely on level design if you REALLY want to avoid this issue, make some new mechanics to prevent it
Hey Garbaj, just wondering, when can we expect an early access or beta for this game that you are working on?
I think also encouraging movement helps. In games like doom your cross-hairs don't become more accurate when you stand still, so moving around isn't discouraged. In Titanfall, there is practically no delay between when you moving and pulling your gun out to the fire, so there is a lot less disadvantage to being being jumped
Also don't make lmgs
When you release the game do you think you will let the community make maps for the game as well? It''s my favorite part of cs go.
I really like Hunt Showdown, which has a really low ttk(every gun can oneshot a player if the conditions are met) but it's limited by the weapon , because it's set in 1895 , they usually have low fire rate or something like that. It does encourage camping but it focuses on sound (like a single step crouch walking at the wrong time can reveal you are camping) and there are consumables you can use to flush them out of cover or such. It has a big map , and setting up an ambush when you hear someone trigger a sound trap in the next building, then killing them feels really satisfying
I really like low TTK games with solid movement, and anti - camper map design, which is exactly what it seems your game will become. Very exited for more news on development!
When a master of glitching phases into a wall, you're in trouble.
It would have to fit the game's genre but I might add a shield (sized maybe 1/3 of your health) that charges slowly when moving (not in circles) and decays if you stay in one area too long. This penalizes camping and encourages exploration and movement.
you could also make a mechanic where people are trianglating your position, so the longer you stay the same stop the more accurate the tracking is so you're visible on the map
And to fix people just moving back and forth he could make zones that if stayed in could do as you said
or ad a label in lobby or whatever that this dude is camper. Camping is easy to detecty. Little movent high kill ration
@@no_social_skill1369 a big circle around yourself in mini map if you dont get outside it in 10 seconds you get exposed
@@uiae but yeah probably something like that
If some one is getting high kills in one area and has little movement other that of crouching maybe you could implement a feature that tell people on a mini map where they are
a big thing for map design is opportunity and flank. If theres a choke point to camp then you add in abilities to go around. then the decision is risk the higher chance of getting sniped by a camper but taking a more direct route. or take a slower round about way through the map.
so any spot where someone can camp a high traffic spot what you do is add in ways to get to them that they cant defend from their camp. so if someone is trying to camp they are still at high risk and have to be alert. But of course if they are busy watching from behind its easy to fit through the point they were trying to camp anyways.
This method allows the rushers and campers to have to make risk assessment choices based around what choices they think the other is going to make.
you can never truely get rid of camping outside of having certain mechanics that you may or may not want in your game. while also having the issue of balancing no camping spots with no cover spots. if there is cover then someone will camp there and if there is no cover that can dimminish a lot of the game.
So after doing all you can to eliminate all campable spots. any spot remaining that could become a camp spot you just make ways to avoid it so that the person camping gets less reward for holding that position while also increasing the risk of someone sneaking around them.
This is super important for a counterstrike style game but many games with fast mobile movement options have other options because if you can dash and jump and grapple around the map like crazy it becomes very hard to hold a point as the other players can easily avoid it or at least get to you so quickly.
I think the main way to solve camping in any game though is incentivize not camping. where lives and kills are very important obviously this becomes hard since being safe lowers deaths. But in a more objective based game or with findable loot or some sort then the mobile players become more dominant as waiting and camping loses those rewards in exchange for safety. This is how doom handles combat. They wanted players to go in and do the melee finishers so they made those very powerful and the only way to get more ammo. incentivized melee vs long range kiting.
Players want to win and camping has always been a safe way to win so anytime you can increase the chance to win to the mobile side or at least increase the fun and mechanics for mobile players the reason to camp dimminishes and combine that with as you said removing campable spots its becomes unlikely anyone will camp and those that do wont ruin the game as they are at a disadvantage and there is counterplay.
Since corners are often prone to camping, round maps might be interesting also since it looks like yours are pretty small.