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)

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.

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 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.

I definitely think there’s a trade off because a map with no “safe” spaces become too hectic.

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!

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).

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.

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

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

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.

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 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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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...

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

When a master of glitching phases into a wall, you're in trouble.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

To prevent camping, you can also add limited ammo. Forcing players to go out of their camping spot and find ammunition

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.

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

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.

Adding small barriers and things that don’t provide much cover like trashcans, street lamps, or signs work they give a realistic feel to the game without clustering the map or giving to many places to hide

Camp protection is also a huge thing in cod, trophy systems, and anti tactical grenade perks allow people to ignore projectiles and view obstruction. The Ninja perk was also relegated to a limited buff making it harder to approach enemies.

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

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.

I really like how your putting your all into this game

A good way to prevent campers is to add some sort of grenade that you just have to throw into camping spots then everyone has to leave or to add some sort of movement mechanic that lets you get the drop on enemies without camping because that means that campers will do that instead of camping and people who stay in one place will be really easy to kill

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.

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.

Garbaj: Don't Use This Strat In My Game. Everyone: **uses it**

Dont forget objectives. If my objective is to protect a thing, I'm setting up a tent.

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.

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.

the middle of the map is a definite god spot because you can always hide from one angle with the corners

Make sure to make some spots you can hold that DO give you an advantage. The top part of the central tower thing looks like a great spot for that. Whenever i play tdm in cod i always try to hold a high traffic spot down. Doesnt mean i sit in a corner, it just means i run around a building/area and check the entrances for people approaching. Usually they have their guard down when just running into a building, so theyre easy kills for me, easily avoidable deaths for them. In cod bo3 on the fringe map theres the barn that i really love. Four entrances, one through a window with a platform, one through a window without a platform and one through a lower door. The last one is pretty useless since its in the open without a platform. You can hold that spot down, but you can also get in and wipe the barn if youre skilled enough. Snipers also hang out there and 3/4 entrances lead right behind them

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.

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.

if you can launch yourself and get in range before the camper reacts is still the most satisfying feeling

a quick replay of how you got killed will usually help players figure out where a camper is and try to get to them when they respawn.

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.

In addition to TTK and Map design, i think the "pacing" of the game plays a role on camping and how players may perceive it. Im either for and against camping. I guess others would call it the game's realism, i think an important question to ask here is Are we incentivizing getting into skill based, "fair" face-to-face fights? or are we incentivizing avoiding such "fair" fights and promoting fighting with an unfair advantage (that IS NOT hacks, cheats, or exploits)? When it comes to chaotic, high speed games like Arena shooters (especially arena shooters), CoD, and Battlefield to an extent, where you can run and gun and spray weapons in full auto, I tend to be against camping. Your character can move fast, carry multiple heavy weapons, and can effectively use them at full auto. It feels like it's an incentive to go out and charge in gung ho, Im not above camping in these game but I feel like Im not really getting the full experience of the game if I just stick to camping. Being killed by a camper in these games can feel like being cheated out of a fight, or even infuriating. But in slower paced, tactical/milsim games like Squad, Project Reality, ARMA, I tend to camp more because your character moves slower, the TTK becomes insanely shorter, the effects of suppressing fire being really harsh, it feels like it's incentivizing you to take it slow, hide behind cover, and avoid staying in the open, and avoid fair, face to face fights(shoot them when they're not looking at you, hide in annoying spots, use suppressing fire, etc...), aka to go camp. Being killed by a camper in these games still feels annoying but it feels like "I shouldve expected to get shot when i got out of cover without popping smoke or having someone watch my back" PS im trash at both the faster and slower paced games so make of that what you will.

Not sure where I remember seeing this but there are fundamental map layouts used by many online shooters, as for the more detailed parts of the map like cover to push up to, rooms and what this video seems more aimed towards trial and error may be the best way to figure it out, referencing other games too. One thing you may be able to use is the grenade to try to figure out sightline angles if they leave shrapnel holes where they hit, kinda nit-picky but there’s an idea. Good luck!

Natural Instinct to Camp? Oldschool Unreal Tournament Players: I don't have such weaknesses.

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.

Got to love how actual real-life combat tactics become cheap and annoying to play against in gaming

A good middle ground for ttk is making headshots a significant boost in damage over body's. So even if someone camps if they don't have good aim you can still turn the fight around. Your ttk will be quick because everyone's bound to get a headshot or two but not too quick to be unreachable (unless they don't miss that is)

Resource location. It's a huge factor in quake. Quake maps that have camping spots have resources for the weapon youd use from that spot, or things like fast respawn upgrades

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

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

A game I adored because camping was basically impossible was the Blacklight series. (Both Tango Down and Retribution) In those games, players had access to HRV, which was basically an in-game wallhack that disabled your ability to retaliate while using. (And came at severe drawbacks if hit during, for example, with emps) Like you said, surprise is a big factor for camping so mechanics that prevent players from keeping the surprise will weaken their camping spot. An easy example people often overlook is Killcams; Being revealed by a killcam when camping is deadly for your strategy unless you can somehow protect yourself from any flanking as the main thing that keeps a camping spot strong is either unbalanced cover advantage or for your opponents not to know where you are exactly.

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.

love how this guy showing us his thought process on making a game....love ur vids bro

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.

My favorite thing about Garbaj is the fact that none of his work is Garbaj

It depends also on objectives, if there is a mission to win the game/round (besides tdm) camping besides being a defensive objective won't exist unless to players holding other aggressive players

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 :)

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!

Every few years a good indie dev rediscovers early valve game design

Hitscan heavily emphasizes sitting still and not moving

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 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.

There's another interesting method used in Planetside 2 for example. And it boils down to networking. As a standard fps game where aiming and hitting is done client-side, if someone expects a camper in a spot, the camper is at clear disadvantage. From the moment enemy peeks a corner he has the combined latency time before the camper starts reacting on his screen. So if a camper sits idly, he'll get peppered with headshots in no time and, due to rather low TTK, most often dies, often just in that short window of latency. Of course he can has time to shoot on his screen but he's facing a quickly moving target at that point making going even for mutual kill a bit of a struggle. Of course this whole anti-camping strategy depends greatly on the ability to know where to look for campers. This is achieved firstly by map design. But unlike your suggestion it's less about making positions undefended but more of making them obvious. If you know there's a short wall in that long corridor, you know you're probably gonna find enemy there. Moreover, the radar system in PS2, registering on minimap when shooting and others make it often easy to find camping players because you simply know when they are. And then you can use your advantage to kill them while they're still just standing on your screen. I'd like to also point out a bit of a flaw with your research method. You mostly look at games that do it badly and try to figure out how to solve it. Please, remember about games on the other side of spectrum. Ones that are essentially free of camping. There you can find clear solutions, without having to invent them yourself. Overally cool video with some good insight. It was enjoyable to watch. :)

I do field design at an outdoor lasertag facility. Years of experience moving bunkers around to try to reduce camping and spawn sniping. My best advice, sometimes less is more. Giving players a big empty lane to combat a spawn sniper is often times better than putting walls / obstructions to try to block the snipers POV.

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.

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.

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 think an interesting way to prevent camping is to add a special mechanic with a meter and an ai enemy that is invincible to all player and can kill players very fast but cant find the players. Its can only find players with higher meters which build up when stationary and not interacting with anything. It doesn't just solve camping but also solves the afk problem too.

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.

I like high TTK because it allows for more balancing options and therefore more weapon variety.

i would say that having multiple accesses to said spot would be good for instance @ 3:24 having a cover over head and only needing to look in 1 general area will give you more reaction time than another player who is going to be looking for targets out in the open and not in the corner as Tiaana de Bod says "As some other people have pointed out, movement has a lot to do with this." which is indeed true but make sure to have more of a centralized locations with just enough cover and still plenty of space get shot from will have the players either take cover or to run away. when someone engages you from a camping spot it would stand to see that they would have the drop on them but a better player will simply outplay or use a tactic that would help them if caught off guard its a balance between helpful cover and camping too much cover can lead to camping and not enough wont be used at all.

A good way to prevent camping imo is area denial or obscuring sight lines, like the incendiary and smoke grenades

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

i think a fun way to prevent it is by having a very dynamic movement system, for example in titan fall 2 if someone is camping in a house you could just jump over the house, or even get right in their face, add that to the fact that its much harder to hit players and you have a shorter timeframe to do so because of the fast speed and camping is barely a viable strat there

The reason why MW has camping too is not just map design and TTK, but also equipment and perk unlocks. Claymores and Trip Mines are unlocked like level 1 whereas in previous titles they were very late. Perks that also combat campers are unlocked last as well which makes battling against them challenging without the unlock. Also factor in footstep volume and some of the maps being quite large with spawns and you have a game where no one can be arsed to run anywhere

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.

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.

Good inspiration may be to look at map design from more old school arena shooters. That current map looks like one for the most part.

sniper main in basically all games with low ttk (i play only low ttk(one shot => dead)) i think its also a part of experience needed => low xp means that the person is a bit more scared and trys to naturally to preserve his life. i love playing cat and mouse against low xp player, running around in the middle of the map and trying to snipe them out their camp-spots. also low xp will camp more if the gamemode is "tokenbased" so you die equals your team loses a point. first team with no points loses. when i started gaming if got overwhelmed really fast and tried to hide so i can calm down a bit and start slow. caming is boring as we all know, but it will take some time until the lowxp player get the idea and fun of hell and chaos. so maybe its a good idea not to put 100 player in a 1x1m map XD. i hope you could understand my unsorted thoughts and my bad english :D keep up love the work you are doing