Spawns

I've allready discussed what can result from receiving a poor spawn in relation to weapons and powerups, now I'd like to discuss spawns in general and spawning in Halo 2. A good player in Halo is most likely aware a large percentage of the spawn points on most of the maps within Halo: Combat Evolved. However due to an increase in spawn points and spawn locations mentally visualizing and interpreting spawns changes drastically in Halo 2. This evolution in reality is simply an expected piece of growth. As a project grows and technology increases the sample range will increase and available plots on a graph will grow. The location of the spawns in Halo were in my mind much more linear and measurable. The spawn points in Halo 2 appear to be what I consider much more organic and dynamic in relation to the map. While this growth in and of itself does not create a problem, the spawn programming appears to have created a spawn inconsisitency which adversely effects gaemplay.

There was a time a while ago when I was interested in the head to head matchmaking playlist. This was following the playlist reset after the Elo rating sytem was modified to prevent everyone from topping out at level 22-25. Well in one night of playing I went from a level 14 to a level 26 putting me in the top 25 players at the time. During my course of play there were several occasions in which i spawned and immediately punched my opponent in the back. Most of these games took place on Midship which has enough spawn points to prevent players from being close enough for hand to hand combat on spawn. However several times we both spawned below a base, or directly infront of the base, or both just behind the flag spawn in the base. This is once again a scenario when I had nothing to do with earning a kill. I have also had a similar scenario take place on Lockout. My team spawned at the ramp between top floor BR and the library, and the opposing team all spawned on the ramp behind sniper. Well atleast 3 of them spawned there, I'm not sure where their 4th spawned. I however spawned directly behind them on the ramp to sniper. As they proceeded up the ramp and were confronted with my teammates fire from BR I punched all 3 of them in the back. Of course I yell "triple kill!" into my mic while laughing out loud. Scenarios such as these seem to occur far too often within Halo 2. Sanctuary is also plagued with horrible spawns in every gametype.



Another major problem I have with is the timing of spawns, or oddball spawns in particular. This is a problem which is easily fixable with a playlist update. For some reason the problem I am about to discuss has been left in the game since its inception without anyone making note of the problem. In oddball if player X dies his respawn timer starts counting from 9 seconds. If his teammate player Y dies while player X is dead, he will receive a spawn time that is the exact same as player X's current remaining time. So if player Y dies while player X has 2 seconds left, he will spawn after only 2 seconds, being rewarded for the fact that his teammate was dead. Imagine this scenario: I kill player X then while fighting player Y we both die due to grenades killing us both at the exact same time. I will receive a respawn time of 9 seconds, while player Y receives a respawn time of probably 2 or 3 seconds. By having a teammate dead player Y gains an advantage of 6 seconds, in a gametype which is heavily dependent on time this is a problem. I have experienced the following scenario numerous times in double team. I kill player X face to face and then fight player Y, I do some damage to him but he kills me. Next my teammate kills player Y, he then respawns almost immediately, while I won't respawn for another 6 or 7 seconds. This leaves my teammate to fight both player X & Y by himself (only moments after he killed player Y). If my teammate were to die faster (counter-intuitive, counter-productive) he would be rewarded with a faster spawn. Instead of doing what he should be doing, which is trying to win by staying alive and gaining ball time, he would be rewarded for his quick death. There is no logic for this scenario or for this to take place. With much of the other stuff I discuss I can mentally create scenario's for many of the mechanics of Halo 2 to make sense, but I am unable to make sense of why this occurs. There is no logical or justifiable basis for such a spawn timing system. Nowhere within a competitive game with a ruleset of deaths & spawn time (penalty for dying) does such a principle make sense. Your respawn time is designed to give the team who killed you an advantage, one less player to fight, more availability of weapons and powerups for them while you are dead. This is an advantage they have rightfully earned and which is stolen by giving faster spawns as a reward for having a dead player.

The only gaming scenario where a quick spawn such as this makes sense is in a game which the spawns are based on a rolling timer which runs throughout the game. A couple of games that use this mechanic are Call of Duty & Battlefield. Dependent on the map size and player count there is a running spawn time of anywhere from 8-20 seconds or possibly more which everyone on the map respawn at in waves. Both sides of battle spawn in the same waves regardless of when they died. This is completely fair and allows for re-grouping and formulated attacks, and formulated defense. However this oddball spawn phenomenon is a broken mechanic, one team is spawning in a wave, while an opposing player isn't given the advantage of a spawn wave. This creates an advantage for the team who is dead, which is the opposite of what they earned. If anyone has an explanation for this phenomenon I'd love to hear it.