I’d like to give you a perspective some of you may not have considered.

In regard to SK on servers,the ppl who say let the admin on at the time use their own discretion,the problem with this line of thinking is if there is no admin on at the time,clan meds (you know,the ones with the coloured names!)go to war on the spawn & I can guarantee when you are trying to achieve an objective to complete a map (ie. not playing a med yourself) being bottlenecked in your spawn by 2-5 meds working in unison against a seriously underskilled opposition cannot be resolved without the use of ATB based on K/D ratio that makes team adjustments more than just a couple of times per map.

Your biggest problem in that regard,is you alienate & discourage low lvl (ie.low xp) & unskilled players & ppl who just don’t know either the objectives or the whole map in general,who get jacked off & leave the server,either temporarily thereby lowering No’s on the server or leaving permanantly with a negative view about ever playing again on a clan server.

Then you get attitudes from ppl saying things like “getting SK’d makes you a better player” ,no it makes you pissed off & resentful.
Dueling experience & having more skilled players actually explain what to do in the case of new maps for example or how to better use a character class makes you a better player.

There are a few legitimate cases where I can see SK being acceptable
1. A covert ops in disguise in the spawn using a knife only (high element of risk & requires genuine skill ,ie not an infinate supply of health packs & revives).
2. AFK players I deem to be a genuine target as unbalanced teams can seriously impact the overall outcome of any map.
3. Snipers or mortars shooting from inside the spawn are certainly legitimate targets.
4. Field ops resupplying mortars or targeting arty from the safety of a spawn point are fair game.
5. Transitional spawns ie.capture the forward spawn,flag etc.
6. Passing through a fixed spawn either to reach / bring back or escort someone carrying a map objective is fair enough,but intentionally stopping & waiting for them to spawn for the sake of easy kills should be an automatic warning,the criteria should be passing through,not camping.
7. Oasis being the best example I can think of here,the loss of a transitional spawn changing to a fixed spawn (dyno-ing the wall) ie.a gun battle raging for 1 or 2 mins after the fall of the spawn till all the original defenders are dead,then you should be required to back off to an acceptable distance.

Things that could/should be implemented to reduce SK’s
1. As on Silent Clan Servers, meds cannot heal themselves (I can hear you all flaming me over that one!),not so appealing when you have to play with similar limitations as the other classes! (it won’t stop co-ordinated camping by 2 or more meds but it will reduce bottlenecks on maps).
2. Halve the No. of HP’s that can be revived in a fixed opposition spawn or do not allow revive’s at all if you are in a fixed opposition spawn.(that should stop meds rushing into spawn’s & slaughtering noobs).
3. Ban snipers / panzers / mg’s being allowed to shoot into fixed spawns.

I should make this as clear as possible,I personally have no problem with mortars / panzers /arty / airstrikes or mines in front of spawns as long as there is some distance between where your aim is & the spawn exits.
If there is no room to evade,circumnavigate or no alternate route out of spawn to allow access to the rest of the map to defend or complete the map then I would classify that the same as entering the opposition spawn.

I play on a clan server to play against ppl who are better than me so I’ll learn something & improve my skills,if I wanted to own ppl with less skill than me for the sake of good stats I would choose an easy server or take up SK’ing , it’s not that I can’t or even that I couldn’t learn how to , it is far more importantly “I choose not to”!

SK’ing is the same as shooting fish in a barrel , it does not show a lack of skill , it shows a lack of character.

Win.
The thing is death, there are going to be two types of people, those who rage hard when they get sk’d to the wall and those who think “how can I get out of this”. Unfortunately with the player base we have left, it is more of the former that we have on the server.
A lot of what i0nwr1t3r said I agree with in full. I would see that as a good way to introduce sk into the game since it allows players to go for obj without being able to camp mercilessly.

Cheers

There are a few legitimate cases where I can see SK being acceptable

Lets take a look, and see if there are places we can move forward with this then, or clarify some points.

1. A covert ops in disguise in the spawn using a knife only (high element of risk & requires genuine skill ,ie not an infinate supply of health packs & revives).

I’d be fine with that – IF – they are on their own. No field ops can say “I was just taking them ammo” and no med can say “I was just reviving them”.

2. AFK players I deem to be a genuine target as unbalanced teams can seriously impact the overall outcome of any map.

That’d be OK with me – IF – you are a covert ops as above, and only if each time you kill them you state globally that they are AFK, given that you’re wanting to make the teams more balanced and all. 🙂

3. Snipers or mortars shooting from inside the spawn are certainly legitimate targets.
4. Field ops resupplying mortars or targeting arty from the safety of a spawn point are fair game.
5. Transitional spawns ie.capture the forward spawn,flag etc.

The current rules already allow those 3 things. Capturable spawns aren’t included in the SK rules, only fixed spawns. The SK rule works both ways currently – you can’t camp an oppositions spawn, or camp in your own spawn.

6. Passing through a fixed spawn either to reach / bring back or escort someone carrying a map objective is fair enough,but intentionally stopping & waiting for them to spawn for the sake of easy kills should be an automatic warning,the criteria should be passing through,not camping.

As long as players are truthful about that, sure. 🙂

7. Oasis being the best example I can think of here,the loss of a transitional spawn changing to a fixed spawn (dyno-ing the wall) ie.a gun battle raging for 1 or 2 mins after the fall of the spawn till all the original defenders are dead,then you should be required to back off to an acceptable distance.

That’s already the rule too.

Its understandable that pub servers are for public play and certain methods destroy the gameplay for the majority of the lover level classes. So I will take the time and use an example right now of a certain player of lower caliber…

M@ilda (aka matilda) as we know enjoys using panzer and those who have played along side him before know he is not the greatest smg player nor has quick reflexes BUT what I have noticed over the time playing along side him is that he has gotten A LOT BETTER. Both in using panzer and general gameplay. Now i’m preety sure he had his fair share of getting SK over the ages and as frustrating it must have been i am certain that he learned alot about ET and how to get past this. Wether he got shot up my a medic near a choke point or SK, he took that in and tried to learn from it AND im sure he knows some ways to circumvent getting SK by now…which he can use in other situations.

SK is disallowed harshly because lower level players cannot “handle it”. Like it was said before, they will get shot up either way by the better player and when they get better and enemy tries to SK them…they will know what to do to a greater extend.

You start dissalowing certain methods of gameplay to taylor suit a certain level of gameplay and you force to split the community and quite frankly make the game dull. If you ever get to the point where rules of a server are enforced so that the only players are noobs…sooner or later those noobs will get better and move on…then you will be left with no-one or noobs-converted-to-pros will SK and the same issue will arise.

Rather than harshly enforce a rule by which it deters a certain gameplay method due to say lower level players using a server, be lenient but also make sure that excessive disregard to rules which destroy gameplay for the MAJORITY are applied. This way everyone is happy to a greater extend and people are allowed to use any method and play how they want.

It does come down to the individual and how they act on the server. Sure each person wants to have fun but being respectfull of other players is also important since you are not the only one that is trying to have fun regardless of the gameplay level youre at. I understand that SK is frustraintg thats why i dont do it excessively But it is neccesary sometimes to do it or its done by chance since the enemy is forced back to their own spawn.

I dont know i feel like im going over the same points over and over lol. I dont mind if SK rules are applied and I understand why people get frustrated BUT at the same time its a valid method, although cheeky, whereby the enemy tries to stop the offedning team from proceeding.

M@ilda (aka matilda) as we know enjoys using panzer and those who have played along side him before know he is not the greatest smg player nor has quick reflexes BUT what I have noticed over the time playing along side him is that he has gotten A LOT BETTER. Both in using panzer and general gameplay. Now i’m preety sure he had his fair share of getting SK over the ages and as frustrating it must have been i am certain that he learned alot about ET and how to get past this. Wether he got shot up my a medic near a choke point or SK, he took that in and tried to learn from it AND im sure he knows some ways to circumvent getting SK by now…which he can use in other situations.

sry,I don’t know how to use the quote function properly,I’ve on been a member on this forum for a week.

I may not have made this clear before , in principal I have no problem with SK by general players , the problem I have is with multiple’s of meds doing it (endless revivals & constantly upping depleted HP lvl’s).
Back to Matilda,it’s rare that you can revive a panzer victim without reassembling the pieces,so I don’t see that as a relevant argument but the learning curve that your talking about I wholly agree with but there are locations on particular maps where you you cannot opt for an alternative spawn.

Panzer vs med,no issue ,but I’ve yet to see a panzer objective required to complete a map.
Given a choice of spawn being bombarded by mortars / arty /panzers vs multiple’s of meds , I will take arty / mortars / panzers any day of week , by their very nature they use consumables & therefore are subject to limitations on No. of allowed airstrikes at any given time & mortars / panzers are subject to reload time’s & accuracy / ammo supply issues & can in some cases be waited out before leaving the spawn exit, these limitations do not apply to sustained SK by packs of meds achieving a self sustained guerrilla campaign against invariably lower lvl players than themselves & having an infinite supply of ammo from their victims in most cases or being backed up by a field ops.

Running through arty/mortars/panzers even if they are co-ordinated does not usually wipe out an entire team whereas I have seen & been on the receiving end of whole teams wiped out by packs of meds on many an occasion.
Someone quoted earlier that on BBA server they were SK’d for 1/2 an hour or so before teams were shuffled & I bet they were shuffling based on K/D ratio per map or measured in real time & most servers do not tolerate whole teams being one class except with panzer or sniper battles,in my experience on this & your old server where it is subject to a vote to balance teams , it fails nearly everytime & unless high lvl players have mates on both teams they do not move to opposition to help balance out the skill lvl of the teams voluntarily in most cases.

Lack of team cohesion was also cited earlier as the fault of the victims who were being SK’d , that kind of statement is an extremely biased view , how many of you use ventrillo or I think it’s called xFire?
PPL new to FPS games or certain servers tend not to have heard of these programs / know how to configure them or know the IP address & is it port settings? & passwords to get in ,let alone (as in my case) have a headset to actually run it & real time voice co-ordination offers a significant advantage over players who do not have it or lack the capability to run it.

As an example , I didn’t know which keyboard shortcut allowed you to talk internally to your fireteam instead of spamming your own side until OZ-Bronco explained it to me yesterday , my point is when your new at something you tend to work alone , then in teams before you even become aware of clans / alliances , then forums , which is where I think most of you would have done most of your learning!
So I see flaming ppl for their ignorance as neither intelligent or constructive unless they are being intentionally offensive to other players or actively Team Bleeding with intent etc.

But enough ranting about SK , the new maps I notice , when your ingame & you press “G” objectives are not showing up on the map .ie when your an engineer no engineering objectives are displayed & I tend to be wandering round aimlessly trying to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to be doing let alone which direction that is if you spawn at a different time to most of your team.

A point of clarification though what does “QQ” & “smg” mean?

Cheers!

sry,I don’t know how to use the quote function properly,I’ve on been a member on this forum for a week.

OK, press quote in the post, edit out what you don’t want and make sure you have —–>quote=”i0nwr1t3r” the quote /quote<—–
at the beginning and end of the said quote. I left out the [brackets] just to show you. I hope that helps.
(you can always preview your post before you submit it to see if its alright)

what does “QQ” & “smg” mean?

“QQ” = Crying “smg” = Sub Machine Gun

Hi i0nwr1t3r, it’s good to see another regular using the forums.

I may not have made this clear before , in principal I have no problem with SK by general players , the problem I have is with multiple’s of meds doing it (endless revivals & constantly upping depleted HP lvl’s).
Back to Matilda,it’s rare that you can revive a panzer victim without reassembling the pieces,so I don’t see that as a relevant argument but the learning curve that your talking about I wholly agree with but there are locations on particular maps where you you cannot opt for an alternative spawn.

What Death is trying to explain (i think) is that matilda used to be a low-skilled panzer use, that basically only stuck to heavy weapons. Now matilda can easily hold his own against medium-upper tier players as a SMG class – he has learned to do this by playing over a long period of time and learning strategies on certain maps. This example is universal to majority of ET players – not just matilda.

Given a choice of spawn being bombarded by mortars / arty /panzers vs multiple’s of meds , I will take arty / mortars / panzers any day of week , by their very nature they use consumables & therefore are subject to limitations on No. of allowed airstrikes at any given time & mortars / panzers are subject to reload time’s & accuracy / ammo supply issues & can in some cases be waited out before leaving the spawn exit, these limitations do not apply to sustained SK by packs of meds achieving a self sustained guerrilla campaign against invariably lower lvl players than themselves & having an infinite supply of ammo from their victims in most cases or being backed up by a field ops.

Incorrect. OZ server has increased charge which means LIMITLESS mortar, and depending on # of Field ops in a team – LIMITLESS artillery fire. I don’t understand how you’d rather get killed when someone doesn’t even have to look at you compared to someone actually having to aim at you.

Spawn mortar + arty get called out by players far quicker than anything else because they are extremely game breaking and cheap.

Lack of team cohesion was also cited earlier as the fault of the victims who were being SK’d , that kind of statement is an extremely biased view , how many of you use ventrillo or I think it’s called xFire?
PPL new to FPS games or certain servers tend not to have heard of these programs / know how to configure them or know the IP address & is it port settings? & passwords to get in ,let alone (as in my case) have a headset to actually run it & real time voice co-ordination offers a significant advantage over players who do not have it or lack the capability to run it.

Ventrillo is a program for voice communication. I’d say NO-ONE goes on vent and strategizes on public servers…I do understand what you are talking about with meds packing teammates and spawn killing but that happens in any circumstance – meds will pack people that are getting shot at, spawn killing or not. I don’t choose to specifically pack joker/mess/ulti/etc etc etc at spawn, they’re just there at the time and I want to increase our teams/our own survival while inflicting as much damage on the opposition as possible.

I didn’t know which keyboard shortcut allowed you to talk internally to your fireteam instead of spamming your own side until OZ-Bronco explained it to me yesterday , my point is when your new at something you tend to work alone , then in teams before you even become aware of clans / alliances , then forums , which is where I think most of you would have done most of your learning!

Don’t be afraid to ask in-game for help, many people will be willing to take the time to help out. If you wanted to, you could ask me.

Keith’s post raises a very good point…

I have witnessed, to no end of my amusement, that, hypocritically, the players that are usually the quickest to cry “SK” when being dominated by better players, are the first to spawn kill, or at least attempt to, when those players are not present.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Given a choice of spawn being bombarded by mortars / arty /panzers vs multiple’s of meds , I will take arty / mortars / panzers any day of week , by their very nature they use consumables & therefore are subject to limitations on No. of allowed airstrikes at any given time & mortars / panzers are subject to reload time’s & accuracy / ammo supply issues & can in some cases be waited out before leaving the spawn exit, these limitations do not apply to sustained SK by packs of meds achieving a self sustained guerrilla campaign against invariably lower lvl players than themselves & having an infinite supply of ammo from their victims in most cases or being backed up by a field ops.

Incorrect. OZ server has increased charge which means LIMITLESS mortar, and depending on # of Field ops in a team – LIMITLESS artillery fire. I don’t understand how you’d rather get killed when someone doesn’t even have to look at you compared to someone actually having to aim at you.

Spawn arty and mortar are fairly easy to predict where the next explosion will be once it has started. Typically, the arty doesn’t chase you around your spawn, you just run around the side of it. Thus, in that way, it is far easier to avoid. A medic with SMG though will both run around himself, dodging your fire, and shoot at you while you run around, significantly increasing your chances of getting hit and killed.

Also, everyone has flak jacket now. Mortars will hit you, but the majority of the time, they aren’t close enough to kill you, so you can run to the side and get a medic to heal you.

I think i0nwr1t3 was getting at the mentality of it – with mortar/arty it is less personal and more random accident, where as with a med team camping, they’re deliberately picking off the most skilled players one by one – they try to kill soldiers and medics before covies and engies.

I think most people that are below average with SMG skill (myself and most guys with less than 8 months ET experience) prefer explosive sk, as it gives them more of a chance to live than SMG SK does.

You said you’d rather get killed when they’re looking at you – I’d rather fight an enemy that isn’t looking at me at all.

Hi i0nwr1t3r, it’s good to see another regular using the forums.

I may not have made this clear before , in principal I have no problem with SK by general players , the problem I have is with multiple’s of meds doing it (endless revivals & constantly upping depleted HP lvl’s).
Back to Matilda,it’s rare that you can revive a panzer victim without reassembling the pieces,so I don’t see that as a relevant argument but the learning curve that your talking about I wholly agree with but there are locations on particular maps where you you cannot opt for an alternative spawn.

What Death is trying to explain (i think) is that matilda used to be a low-skilled panzer use, that basically only stuck to heavy weapons. Now matilda can easily hold his own against medium-upper tier players as a SMG class – he has learned to do this by playing over a long period of time and learning strategies on certain maps. This example is universal to majority of ET players – not just matilda.

Exactly what blusky wrote. The reason why i chose M@ilda was because him and I share the same common weapon and weve been playing ET for quite some time. You can say hes my pupil (with panzer) but overall hes learned alot over the past year or so. Like blusky said…it applies to majority of ET players and with time they will learn.

One thing I have noticed yesterday was regardless of the SK rule, the weaker side was getting owned at a choke point…so wether this choke point is at the spawn or somewhere else then the only way out of it is team work or shuffle. In effect the same result happens but with SK atleast the side getting owned has invulnerability.

Getting owned at a choke point is fine. Generally there is more than one way to go in a map so if one way gets choked you can try and sneak around the other.
A good majority of maps are like that and we try to have maps that allow people to move around a little bit to minimise the choking.
Spawn is different, there are more maps with only one spawn and hence if you get camped, you have no chance. If there are two spawns then it is ok since you can spawn elsewhere and hope the team isn’t raping you so hard you get owned at both.
But, speaking in general terms, there are more maps with one spawn than there are maps with one chokepoint, hence why SK is detrimental in some aspects.

Cheers