Villain "camping" has gone too far
By
26plus6equals1,
Posted on: 2005-11-27 20:26 in Everything about PvP
lol. I want in the villain camping and the hero camping thread. I did both this morning. Devs say they will fix it. Until that day. be careful.
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Just wanted everyone to know that we are planning changes to reduce hospital camping. I'm not going to say it will never happen, but we should be able to cut it way down.
I don't have an ETA at this point (holiday season and all).
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This is just my opinion and when I state my opinion, this is only for the zone Siren's Call.
Siren's Call is where you obtain bounties and earn a greater reward if you collect your bountie by defeating the most wanted on your list. Hospital camping would not be as bad as it is today if only people would stop staying in the hospital because it prevents heroes and or villains from collecting their bounty on you thus driving them to try and get in the hospital to defeat you.
Many heroes and villains stay in these safe zones for a very long period of time and I am assuming it is for the timed badges for the zone. If something was done about the timed badges then maybe this wouldnt be going on as bad as it is now.
Thats just my opnion. Im sure it will continue even after a fix but I would bet no where near what it is now.
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Just wanted everyone to know that we are planning changes to reduce hospital camping. I'm not going to say it will never happen, but we should be able to cut it way down.
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Excellent idea.
And I assume that you will also take steps to prevent villains in Siren's Call from standing next to Mama Drone for hours at a time? While you're at it, how about making a change so that once the villains rez in their hospital they have a set amount of time to exit the now-secured building or else be forcefilly ejected?
The only time I ever invaded the villain hospital in Siren's was to get at a bounty who kept on running back inside at the first hint of danger. Once there, I quickly learned how to camp it. Without the cowardly actions of one villain player refusing to actually FIGHT in a PvP zone, I'd have never learned how to camp.
This does go both ways you know. 
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how about making a change so that once the villains rez in their hospital they have a set amount of time to exit the now-secured building or else be forcefilly ejected?
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Forcefully Ejected? I'm imagining a cannon that shoots them in a random arc into the zone. That would be Hi-Larious! 
"Without LAN play? How the **** do you release a PC game without LAN?" ~Hitler
CHAMPION FTW!
50s - Cutlass, Fyrechic, D'Mal, Knightfox, DessertFox, Capt Davy Jones, Cutlass II
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I'm done attempting to explain that villains are villains. We don't need heroic morals or excuses for committing evil. We are evil.
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What you are describing, Rasta, is a child with a handgun. Not a villain. No self-respecting villain would employ tactics or agents which would draw attention to themselves, or their organization. They're smarter than that. A loose cannon would simply be "ghosted". No muss, no fuss. Play a villain, that's what these games are about. Just think about what makes a villain a villain.
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The problem is going in the other direction as well. The other day in Bloody Bay a stalker attacked me in the Hero Base in Bloody Bay, didn't kill me, got zapped by a drone. He did this 4 times killing me on the forth attempt
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I'm really not trying to be snarky, I am curious why you let him attack you four times in the hospital. There's some things that don't make sense about that and if you couldn't see the stalker or fight back, there was a bug.
With all the drones in the hospital you should be able to see through stealth+hide with no problem. If you couldn't, make sure you bug it.
Also, if there was something preventing you from leaving the hospital (I don't know what, but I'm assuming there was if the guy was able to rez and run back to get another shot 4 times before you could make it out of the zone) you need to bug that. Nothing should keep you trapped in the hospital.
If you were using the hospital as a "safe area" then that's another matter. The only "safe area" is out of the PvP zone. That's why they moved the contact outside the PvP zone and put the warning in red text.
I personally don't gank in the hospital, but I've been ganked in the hospital. I don't fault anyone because I know going into the zone that it's a PvP free-for-all. That leads to some creative gameplay and I actually like to see how people get around the various challenges.
And I don't lose anything when they do it... no debt, no material. Maybe it's just that I don't mind getting killed in the PvP zone that I haven't thought about this much.
But back to the main point, if something was keeping you from seeing, targeting or leaving, make sure you bug it.
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The siren's call bounty will never get this, because dying means you are invalidated as a bounty target. The bases remain raidable from the perspective of people who are hunting for such a target, and yet - most importantly - someone who does want to leave the zone can just stroll out past the campers, probably with time to wave, and get to the helicopter without any problems.
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Without problems?
Think again. This morning / last night (in the wee hours), I got one-shotted, despite having PFF up, while standing by the Warzone Operative (actualy, while actually TALKING to him). In a direct line between the Hospital, and the Helicopter. Precisely 75 feet FROM said helicopter, along said direct line.
Camper's name was "Simian Smart", if it matters. On Infinity.
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I said this would happen.
Once they removed drone debt, there was no longer any reason for anyone to fear camping the enemy spawn. Used to be only level 50s would consistantly risk hospital camping but now everyone does it.
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True, but when you had both hero and villain TP foeing each other in front of drones for an easy/greify kill..... I think if they put it back there'd be hell to pay. I remeber my warshade getting max debt because of this tactic. The stalker i was fighting couldn't take me out so just said...run away...port hahahah dead lobster
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The easy solution for "TP-Drone debt" was, and should still be, STAY THE BLOODY HELL AWAY FROM THE ENEMY BASE!!! If you're not CLOSE enough to get teleported to a drone, you won't get teleported to a drone!
Killing an opponent within the hospital should reset your reputation to zero. There's nothing notable about killing a weakened opponent over and over.
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I personally don't gank in the hospital, but I've been ganked in the hospital. I don't fault anyone because I know going into the zone that it's a PvP free-for-all. That leads to some creative gameplay and I actually like to see how people get around the various challenges.
And I don't lose anything when they do it... no debt, no material. Maybe it's just that I don't mind getting killed in the PvP zone that I haven't thought about this much.
But back to the main point, if something was keeping you from seeing, targeting or leaving, make sure you bug it.
[/ QUOTE ]You will say this until the day comes when you are ganked, and find that you cannot leave the zone. Many players get stuck in a gankcrew who tp foe and never let their targets live long enough to exit the zone. When they "Go to hospital" they rez amoung the ganksters or where the ganksters can see and tp foe them back to gank them repeatedly. For some, the only way out of this, is to log out and wait and attempt a login in hopes the ganksters have left.
At that point, it is no longer fair game play, its greifing. It is interrupting someone's ability to play the game.
"The one thing that can stop a full team of MasterMinds dead in its tracks... a doorway!" --Frogfather
Merely entering the opposing hospital (under your own power) should forcibly log you out, AND lock you out of logging back onto that account for at least 15 minutes.
No, not entering the hospital ... make that, just getting wihtin 100 yards of it (under your own power, still) ...!
On Triumph the PvP zones have become empty lately. Unless you go looking for someone it is fairly easy to avoid people.
Advantages of being on the least crowded server I guess. 
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You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
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I personally don't gank in the hospital, but I've been ganked in the hospital. I don't fault anyone because I know going into the zone that it's a PvP free-for-all. That leads to some creative gameplay and I actually like to see how people get around the various challenges.
And I don't lose anything when they do it... no debt, no material. Maybe it's just that I don't mind getting killed in the PvP zone that I haven't thought about this much.
But back to the main point, if something was keeping you from seeing, targeting or leaving, make sure you bug it.
[/ QUOTE ]You will say this until the day comes when you are ganked, and find that you cannot leave the zone. Many players get stuck in a gankcrew who tp foe and never let their targets live long enough to exit the zone. When they "Go to hospital" they rez amoung the ganksters or where the ganksters can see and tp foe them back to gank them repeatedly. For some, the only way out of this, is to log out and wait and attempt a login in hopes the ganksters have left.
At that point, it is no longer fair game play, its greifing. It is interrupting someone's ability to play the game.
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Take it easy. I'm not talking about gankerbands. I'm talking about a single person who has figured out the bot range and line of sight and hits you once.
What you described has happened to me (and from "heroes" in a prominent RP group on my server no less). And you're right, those groups are griefers. No doubt. But those aren't the people I'm thinking of when I say what I said.
I like creative gameplay, not gankerbands. Those crews take another solution because no matter the workaround, they will find a way to chain-gank someone. It needs to be categorized as griefing and dealt with by customer service.
On the flip side, one of the reasons I dislike the idea of a safe zone in a PvP zone is the bounty system. I spend a decent amount of time in Siren's and quite frequently the person with the bounty is sitting in the hospital. That guy deserves to get hit in the hospital.
Basically, I'm not defending ganksquads but I'd like to see an appropriate response, not Fort Knox spring up at the gate so someone can attack and retreat at lightspeed.
The best option I've heard so far is to make the hospital a non-entry place and make sure the gate out is right next to it.
The problem does go both ways. I believe in this case I'll lead off with a few examples from my own experiences on Virtue, which is a server that does not generally have severe problems with griefers and the like.
The other day in Bloody Bay, there were a number of villains camping the helicopter and hero contacts, and TP Foeing heroes away from the contacts into a death squad of Masterminds. Rather difficult to escape from, as they were doing hover-teleports into the water - My poor Defender was a victim of this several times while speaking to contacts, until we organized the heroes and went after them in force.
In Siren's Call, I've observed a late-night problem with the bounty system - If you are the only one of your side in the zone, you automatically become *everyone's* bounty. And once you're killed, it resets the bounty...back to you. I observed this happening to a poor villain (while I was playing my hero), and watched the 9 or so heroes in the zone who weren't on my team continually squash this poor person. (My team backed off entirely once we realized they were the only one in the zone, it's simply not fun nor fair to have that happening on either side.)
Conversely, if your bounty in Siren's Call happens to decide to hide out in the hospital, you can't get a new bounty unless they leave the zone. I realize that not everyone is as principled as I am, but I refuse to go into the other side's hospital area in search of my prey. (Open areas that aren't next to the contact or the hospital are fair game, however.) Siren's Call can get somewhat frustrating when your bounty target doesn't change and can't be reached except by tactics I consider griefing.
It is possible for a Scrapper using *only* Invisibility from the power pool to go into the villain hospital in Bloody Bay, camp *under* the villain contact, and teleport foe villains down to them. There is a blind spot caused by the catwalks and railings where the drones cannot reach. Any reasonably intelligent player who knows how line of sight and terrain work can do this - I've done it. (The hiding out under the villain contact, NOT the teleporting foe. I wanted to see what the contacts said to heroes. And while I would not do it, I'm more than familiar enough with TP Foe to know how it works - My Scrapper's used it widely for 36 levels, and a built-up inspiration-fueled Impale followed by Ripper will kill a squishy in very, very short order.)
All of these things are problems. Given my own experiences, I would suggest the following as solutions:
First, treat the hospital, contacts, and zone exit, and a route in between them, as true safe zones, where PVP is flagged off by entering them, just as in Warburg. Given that when a villain enters a hero supergroup base, PVP is flagged off there, it is likely possible to do this. Personally, given that some of the hospitals are some distance from the zone exit and contact, I think it would be rather entertaining to have a marked "safe route" where if you stray off that route, you open yourself to attack.
I would *not* actually recommend that the entire base be made a true safe zone - only hospitals, exit, and contacts. It's quite fun to bring the fight to the other side and have epic battles at the gate, and the open layout of the bases, while problematic when dealing with griefers, makes it very easy to escape such localized battles, especially in Bloody Bay. I'd really hate to lose the ability to do that, but there needs to be that open space to allow people who aren't interested in such fights to leave the base itself.
My suggestion would be problematic in Siren's Call. What I'd recommend in that case is that if someone is in the PVP-off zone for more than, say, 10 minutes, that they are automatically removed from being eligible as someone's bounty just as if they had left the zone, until they have reentered the danger areas.
I'm uncertain if coding exists to prevent someone from being the bounty for every single person of the other side in Siren's Call, and I don't know if there is a good, workable solution for that. I think that's going to wind up being a hazard of the zone itself. Possibly a flag that prevents you from being eligible for bounty until you've been in the zone for 5 minutes...
I am perhaps fortunate to play on Virtue, where it appears that behavior of this kind is minimal.
@SithRose and @Sith Rose
Permanent resident of Virtue
"Mommy, I need Cthulhu. He keeps the bad dreams away."
I have also experienced being pvpd after being rezzed in our own villain base in Siren's Call. Some of those heroes think that theyre so cool by exploiting the weak base defense, and then ganking you with their buddies in the villain base hospital, or even the zone entrance site. Villain bases need better defense.
Here is a copy of the PM I sent to CuppaJo last week about this issue...
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Who do I need to contact?
Sent to: CuppaJo
Cuppa,
Hey. I'm a little upset at some things that were able to happen in PvP today and I wanted to know which Dev I needed to PM about it. I'm not sure which Devs are in charge of which areas (specifically PvP stuff) and I want to know who's ear to bend.
Mainly, the problem is with drones. Police bots and Arachnos bots equally. I logged into CoH with my lvl 41 Elec/Elec blaster (Capt. Conduit) which I had left in the hospital in Siren's Call. I decided to do a little PvP so I walked him out of the hospital and was proptly teleported into a group of villains and instantly killed. I resurrected in the hospital and ran outside and flew as fast as I could, as high as I could. I managed to get away and hunt a couple of Brutes and Masterminds before I was teleported again into the same group of villains as before.
I'd decided I had had enough and that it was time to leave the zone. Unfortunately, the villains had other plans. Again, immediately after exiting the hospital, I was teleported and ganged up on. I went back to the hospital and stood in the lobby next to the police drone. A stalker entered the lobby and exited without the drone even noticing him. Then he re-entered and I blasted him, droping his stealth, causing the drone to zap him back to his base. However, that didn't matter, I was instantly teleported OUTSIDE of the hospital and ganged up on again. He had just run into the hospital to acquire me as a target so his team could get me with TP foe.
This should not be allowed to happen on either side (hero or villain). I know that the drones add a perception bonus to see stealthed and invisible enemies, but the drones themselves cannot see them. Why not make the drones see invisible and receive the bonuses that they give to players.
Also, I think that drones should provide extremely high resistance to things such as teleport foe so that a player can NOT be teleported out of his base. Its supposed to be a safe zone after all. Right now, there is absolutely nothing safe about it.
I think doing these 2 things would go a long way in eliminating the amount of griefing that is currently going on. I do not know how things work in Bloody Bay or Warburg, as I mainly do my PvP in Siren's Call, but I think these changes (or something similar) should be made across the board. This morning was absolutely ridiculous and things like that should not happen, even if you are in a PvP zone. When you can't even leave, there is a major problem.
Thanks in advance, CuppaJo, for your time and attention. You guys are doing a great job overall handling the community and I applaud your efforts.
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Here is her response...
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Thanks for the PM -
I will pass your PM on as even more ideas for addressing this issue. I got the issue brought to the devs attn earlier this week as "not fixed" and asked them to keep working on resolving this griefing issue.
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Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks there is a problem.
Capt. Conduit - lvl 50 Elec/Elec/Elec Blast
Demonik - Fire/Axe Tank
Arctic Pyre - Fire/Ice Blast
Candi Stryper - Emp/Eng Def
Ehrlicht - Ill/Rad Cont
xx Raptor xx - Claws/Regen Scrap
Chemotherapist - Rad/Rad Def
Evangelique - Peacebringer
Freedom
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Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks there is a problem.
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There have been how many threads now about this, and you just now notice that?
Both villains and heroes have been complaining vigorously about people camping the spawn points since the game went live.
@Mindshadow
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At that point, it is no longer fair game play, its greifing. It is interrupting someone's ability to play the game.
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Which is a violation of the Rules of Conduct:
"1. While playing City of Heroes , you must respect the rights of others and their rights to play and enjoy the game. To this end, you may not defraud, harass, threaten, or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players."
Griefing and Ganking cause distress.
I have experienced a few episodes of this on Infinity. Mostly at the hands of Annointed Brotherhood and their spinoff SGs.
I love to PvP. I can be quite good at it. But there is no chance for a team of 5 Villains versus 15-20 heroes running around the Villain Base with impunity. In the hospital. Behind the copter (no drone there? c'mon!). Up on the crane tracks.
This really is a flawed design, and needs to be addressed immediately. I got a pm back from States and he says, "On it."
We'll see.
I don't mind going down in PvP fair and square, but gankers, campers, are cheaters. Should be punished. I think the rep to zero thing has merit, couple that with a counter that = 10 reductions of rep to zero = banned.
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I don't mind going down in PvP fair and square, but gankers, campers, are cheaters. Should be punished. I think the rep to zero thing has merit, couple that with a counter that = 10 reductions of rep to zero = banned.
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The problem with making accusations of griefing in PvP is that pretty much by definition, you're supposed to be beating down the other side. How is anyone supposed to make the judgement of what specific tactical instance is appropriate? I mean, if you teleport foe someone from the other side into your hospital, does he just have to suck up the beating you're planning without fighting back, because otherwise he'll be flagged as having fought in a hospital and risk banning?
Then we get back into the endless cycle of "but you're too close to the base", "but you're hiding in it", etc.
Anyone who's played PvP here in any serious capacity can suggest dozens of ways to restructure the spawn points to virtually eliminate camping. That's the solution, not constant GM supervision.
@Mindshadow
Good point.
The whole 25 second clock restart seems to be the easiest and simplest fix. And has been mentioned numerous times.
Time to implement that bad boy.
I'm just frustrated and want punishments doled out for the griefers.
The other nite when the cheating Annointed Boobhood showed up to grief, it was in response to some of them getting owned. So the called in the cavalry. To what? To take us down, which they could have, in open fair play? Nope, to grief at the hospital.
Those type of players, however it can be determined, should be punished. It is harassment and in violation of the terms of agreement they agreed to upon purchasing this game.
I think we should post a dev in all these zones for a bit, hehe.
Wouldn't that be kewl if Statesman or Blood Widow just popped up at level 50 in a level 38 zone, and started meeting out justice to the griefers.
I will never grief.
I will kick your butt fair and square or get mine kicked in the process. Hollow victories are just that: hollow.
I wouldn't mind a recount timer going down so long as it stops doing that WHOOOP WHOOOOP WHOOOP WHOOPP
Because WHOOOOPP when WHOOP it WHOOOOOPPPP it does WHOOOOPPPP WHOOOPPP that I WHOOOP WHOOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP.
get the gist?
My fave as a hero in Sirens call is getting TPed OUT of the hospital.
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My fave as a hero in Sirens call is getting TPed OUT of the hospital.
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This may sound stupid, but shouldn't Teleport Foe be a LOS?
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My fave as a hero in Sirens call is getting TPed OUT of the hospital.
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This may sound stupid, but shouldn't Teleport Foe be a LOS?
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It should, but apparently if the TPer (huh huh) has a lock on me as i enter the hospital, the lock doesn't break.
Yeah i heard about stalkers int he hospital, and then i saw a patch that added 15 drones to the hospital int he hero zone making that not possible after it happened.
Mostly the camping comes fromt he hero players, because quite frankily the villain bases need some work.....alot of work.
Like the removal of the boxes that where deliberatly placed that last patch at the same time the drones where put in in the villain base.