Spawn killing in FPS games

Changing your perspective on what spawn killing represents

Who should read this?

If you feel like getting spawn camped is a cheap tactic or is unfair, then this guide is for you! Spawn camping is a part of the game and once you set your mindset and get a clear view on what is happening when you are being spawn camped can help you learn how to approach games that feature it and how to use it to your advantage.

Types of spawn mechanics

There are several styles of respawning in games, we'll briefly dive into each one before going into depth about Static Respawn games.

• Dynamic
  
  • Halo has is the best example of a Dynamic respawn system. In this system, there are complex rules to where players are respawned into the map. They are hard to manipulate and only the highest-levels of play, between well-coordinated teams, see spawn camping. Spawn camping/spawn manipulation is considered to be a very advanced strategy.
• Predictable
  
  • This system has predictable rules that can easily be manipulated by casual players to force the enemy to respawn. Using Call of Duty's Domination game mode (3 flags to capture on the map) as the example. A common strategy is to not take the enemy's last flag. While doing so gives your team way more points, the enemy is able to respawn anywhere instead of behind the last flag that they own. By taking the last flag, the enemy is able to come from any direction instead of just from directly behind the flag. Spawn manipulation is expected, but spawn camping is rare.
• Self-made
  
  • This system is where players can choose and/or place their own respawn points. This means that the player can choose a Static spawn and the risks associated with it (that we'll detail later) or attempt to spawn on someone who isn't in combat. This requires some teamwork, but is one of the most intuitive spawn systems. For examples, Battlefield and Battlefront feature "buddy" respawning and Squad features player-made respawn points for either the entire team or for the squad that you are in. Spawn camping or spawn destroying is part of the core gameplay, players feel that if they get spawn camped that it is their fault since they had the option to spawn somewhere else instead.
• Static one-shot
  
  • Static one-shot spawns are your typical Siege, CSGO, and Battleroyal spawns. In these games you only have one life in a round, so spawn camping and such are not an issue. However, they typically offer some sort of high-risk/high-reward early-game movement. For instance, taking a risky path that can get you killed early in exchange for a strong position or item. Here, we only really have early kills as a result of an aggressive early movement from either side or lack of game knowledge, so it's typically the player's fault for being killed.
• Static
  
  • Static respawns are when respawn points don't change over the course of the game. Typically each team has a "base" and that base can be invaded or harassed by the enemy team. This is where spawn camping gets a bad name and this is what this guide is seeking to address. On top of the current candy Siege event on the Streets map, the classic Rainbow 6 games such as Rouge Spear and Vegas are examples of static respawn games. This is where players feel like the game is unfair if they are being camped, and we'll dive into more in the next sections.

Spawn camping is a bomb

The easiest way to view Team Death Match Static Respawn games is to view spawn camping as the objective. While playing your only focus should be "how can we spawn camp the enemy and prevent them from doing it to us?" You can equate spawn camping to having the attackers plant the bomb. Your team is in a bad situation and your team needs to work together to break it before the enemy scores too many points (or the "bomb" explodes).

Because of this, most teams view maps as a set of objectives. Using the Halloween event map, Streets, as an example. Basically the map has 2 "bases", 2 "towers", 2 "three-story building", and the central "bunker". Your team's job is to push into each of these mini-objectives and take it over to get better angles on the map. Slowly walking forward and defending counter pushes to finally make it to your opponent's spawn (this is assuming Team Death Match, so we'll revisit this later when we consider that we're playing Kill Confirmed with light King of the Hill instead of straight Team Death Match). Obviously, games are way more chaotic than this, but this is what is happening as you move through the map.

Spawn camping in Sugar Fright

The Sugar Fright event is Kill Confirmed (Team Death Match, except you need to walk over the body of dead players to score points before an enemy can walk over the body to prevent you from scoring). It also features respawning candy in the central bunker, turning this into a light King of the Hill style game.

Because of this, the goal of the game isn't to just straight get kills like normal Team Death Match is. The goal is to get kills in locations where it is safe to collect the candy or where it is possible to work your way to it before the enemy can collect it. The secondary objective is to hold the central bunker for the free trickle of points. And the last objective is to get kills just to lock down the map to make the above two goals easier to complete.

Notice that when you are being spawn camped, they can only score points if they run through your spawn to collect the points and manage to do so without dying. It doesn't matter if you die 5 times, it only matters if they can collect after they kill you.

When spawn camping, your primary objective is to slow the enemy team down so that your team can move into better positions on the larger map and secure the bunker before letting the enemy team out to make kills in areas that are easier and safer to collect points for.

This is where spawn harassment comes into play. Rather than doing a true spawn camp lockdown, a harassment is just when you peak, take a few shots and move, toss a flash or frag randomly, sprint around, anything to make the other team feel pressure and force them to take their time to clear corners before moving out. A single attacker can harass spawn and slow how quickly the other team moves out to let their team capture more of the map.

Breaking spawn camping (defusing the bomb)

Getting spawn camped sucks. But it's way better than dying to a run-out in Bomb and sitting around for 4 minutes waiting for your turn to try again. You only need to wait 5 seconds. So even if you die 4 times in a row, it's only 20 seconds of waiting. On top of that, most of your deaths to spawn camping won't give the enemy team points because of how risky it is for them to collect the candy.

The easiest way to break spawn camping is to slow down. Make sure you use your frag and flash after every death to clear corners as you move/to delay the attacker/harasser. The attackers only have their frags and flashes that they come with/recharge but your team gets them back every time they die, so use them early!

Communicate with your team when you die, see someone die, or know/hear where they are so that you can move against them. Stay grouped together and wait for your team mates to respawn before moving against a suspected spawn camper position.

In order to spawn camp, the attacker needs to expose themselves to a lot of angles just to get a look into spawn. As soon as your team moves out, it becomes way more risky for them to stay and continue camping.

Ideas to make spawn camping less useful

Add the option to choose between a slower recharging incendiary grenade (much like Capitao's crossbow) or the faster recharging frag grenade. And the choice between slower recharging smoke grenades and faster recharging flashbangs.

The incendiary and smoke give players who push out of spawn more ways to clear buildings/cover angles to make it safer to move out and contest "map objectives"/buildings. While they can make spawn camping worse, the effects ware off way faster than the attackers can reapply them. Meaning the defenders can "bunker down"/wait it out before moving out.

To help address this more, each base should have some of Jegar's Automatic Defense Systems placed around the doors and windows and be indestructible.

To force casual players to group up, they could add a group respawn mechanic -- which makes it way harder and more risky for spawn campers to take candy from bodies in spawn (they have to win a 2 or 3 v 1 fight instead of a 1v1 to get candy).

Finally, and the most extreme, we could add a ping so that if an attacker kills someone shortly after they respawn (after spawn shield wares off) while they are still in the base (not at a window or outside), their attacker's location is revealed.

Closing thoughts

The best way to think about it is that spawn camping is an objective. If you are able to spawn camp, then you are winning and it's on the other team to slow it down and work their way out of it to limit how many points you can score from it.

If you have questions, corrections, and so on, please leave a comment on the guide so we can correct it!

This is definitely a hot topic, so please be civil/constructive in the discussions/comments!

[Stinky Dinky]

I would read this butttt, I like losing. So sorry.

[__reth__]

Thanks!

[I Have Bees In My Ears]

This was actually incredibly interesting

[Subskull]

holy shit that was in depth.