Commander Camping Changes

Mew

Member
Howdy.

I wanted to make a thread about this just to understand how the community feels about the recent changes and a couple other things.

1) Did you think commander camping was problematic? Why?

2) Do you think the change made to address it is good? If yes, why? If no, why and what would you have done instead?

I plan on making a video soon discussing my opinions on the matter, but I wanted to hear some anti-commander camping takes to understand y'all's side better. Thanks!
 

Rudy

New Member
1) Did you think commander camping was problematic? Why?
I actually think commander camping allows a rather large subset of the player to play MCI the way they want to. There are many people who like to hide and camp, but I think the majority of players want to tank. Coupled with the fact that infected are so strong, I think there are few problems with people commander camping. Additionally, I don't think players should be prevented from commander camping if they want to.
2) Do you think the change made to address it is good? If yes, why? If no, why and what would you have done instead?
I think the change is unnecessary and harms the player base who just wants to tank. By forcing players to play as infected, it takes the incentive away from wanting to tank, and thus wanting to play the game. Every time I log on and have to play MZ for 50% of the rounds because of my rank and cookie count, it makes the game much less enjoyable for me.
 

baseballaholic

New Member
1) I believe commander camping is problematic because it ruins the gameplay for infected. There are many instances in which there could be 5-7+ commanders on tanking together with the rest of the humans hiding behind the commanders. As an infected your entire gameplay is just throwing yourself at the commanders just hoping to get a kill. This is especially bad for the new players who die early because they don't know what to do and spend the rest of the game being slaughtered by the commanders. Commander camping discourages new players from staying on our server and generally just ruins gameplay.
2) I think the change made is a step in the right direction, but I don't know if it will have a large enough effect. It is a slight encouragement for some to not commander camp, but at the same time I don't think it will push anyone to prestige. Currently I don't have any ideas on what can be done instead.
 

BritishBear

Active Member
Already spoken to you about this so you personally know my opinions on this, but for the sake of the thread and other feedback, i will post here too.

I have no issue with camping as a commander in general, if people want to boost their stats or just don't want to prestige, i don't see why they should be specifically punished. Yes, it's problematic when there is a large handful of commanders in the game, as to how you can tackle this, I don't have a lot of creative ideas. Literally all I have is either a zombie damage increase (to commanders only) or a commander damage decrease when a certain percent of the server are ranked as commander, not the best idea but it's all I have. However i feel the recent change with the mothers zombies percentage increase, in the long run will only make it worse. If people want to camp commander to do the prestige trick or increase their stats, they will, regardless of whether they be a mother zombie more or not, thus meaning, it will take them a lot longer to muster up the cookies/improve their stats that they've set themselves to achieve = more games of them as commanders.

Though not mentioned here in this thread, my issue itself actually revolves around the prestige trick. It's been a long issue of mine ever since Super Gaming(and yes you could call me a hypocrite because i did this back in the day). My issue? I don't believe you should be able to camp at commander, to then buy chests, prestige, and get cookies to skip the first few ranks. Literally in any other game where you can prestige, you cannot do this, you're usually forced to prestige in the lobby. Don't get me wrong I'm not suggesting forcing people to prestige only in the lobby (though that would be great), I am suggesting the removal of the 1000 cookies in the same game as when they prestige. You could argue that it's fair because everyone can do the trick, but I feel it defeats the entire point of having 20 ranks. Like why have them if you can just skip them?
 
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Agent40

Active Member
1) Did you think commander camping was problematic? Why?
Ok so this is a weird one but Yes and No, From an objective stand point, commander camping is problematic while at the same time being not. The reason this is the case is due to the 2 different types of gameplays that commander's effect, Infected and Survivors. For infected, Commanders become a problem because they're designed to tank but at the same time, that's what mother zombies are for, to combat commanders. So in turn the reason It's a yes and a no is because it's problematic to infected while being beneficial to survivors but even then this is NOT a problem. This is literally how the game was designed and I think people are forgetting that. Commanders are meant to help out the other survivors, It's not meant to be a solo game and they're meant to be problematic for infected because they're meant to create a new challenge that's harder than anything else in the game. From a subjective stand point though, No, I do not believe commanders have ever been an issue even for Infected.

2) Do you think the change made to address it is good? If yes, why? If no, why and what would you have done instead?
Ok so I have a lot to say about this especially because the new changes for me are at the point where they aren't either good or bad. From a subjective stand point, these changes are kind of disgusting as a whole as it completely takes away from one aspect of the game. It removes/attempts to remove an entire play style and I thought that it was a widely agreed opinion that stopping players from playing how they want, is a bad thing. The implementation of (let's call it) "Commander tax" was honestly a terrible idea for the server in the long run. Although It's become a huge meme and calling out people who are commander camping at such an early point in the game's lifetime is acceptable, I personally don't think this change was implemented with the intent of looking into the future. This "Commander tax" in my opinion seems to be a temporary solution for early game work and even then, It takes an entire play style away from the game and discourages the players from actually playing how they want. Now the reason I say this feels like a temporary solution that wasn't looking forward at all is due to the fact that it really doesn't. What happens when the server gets to the point that 2.0 was at? When everyone had all the perks they wanted and stopped prestiging because of this. When people get to this point, those players with either do 3 things. Be forced to prestige, stay as a commander and cause even more issues BECAUSE of the changes, or quit. Now I don't know about you guys but those last two options seem like the most likely (No one likes being made to do something and discouraged because of their actions especially when there isn't a problem with them).

Now I don't really need to go into quitting honestly because we all know what that entails but staying as a commander with these changes isn't a good idea and this is why I don't think the implementation of "Commander tax" was thought out at all (Sorry staff). So starting off lets talk about mother zombie. Mother zombie was designed to be overpowered. It was designed to destroy commanders and not think about the lower ranks at all. If commander camping ruins the "experience of the infected" then forcing those commander campers to be mother zombie at a heightened chance (Jack said every second round at max) is going to ruin the survivors hope of even winning due to the fact that the people who are going to stay commander/have all the perks they want, are going to be the ones who play a lot and are good at the game. I'm going to use @Duder as a prime example right now as we laughed about this yesterday but commander camping has now become a way of literally destroying survivors, especially for those with zPower (this point is partially invalid when zPower is changed). Mother zombie isn't something that people shouldn't literally be able to control as It's the most powerful kit in the game by a huge margin. Using "Commander tax" as a "solution" to commander camping is an absolutely dumbfounding idea in my opinion. Keep in mind as well that when I say mother zombie is overpowered, I mean it. 6-8 hits from a stone sword (depending on crit) and 5-6 hits from a iron sword (depending on crit) (48% damage reduction mz vs 60% damage reduction BASE commander) as well as that 4.25 attack damage. This is honestly why I don't believe the implementation of "Commander tax" was ever a good idea, It stops people from playing how they want to play and allows people to completely abuse the most overpowered class in the game. Also did I ever mention that commander camping isn't a problem late game? It has and always will only be an issue for early to mid game (and even mid game It's a stretch (only because most people are still in early game while a few are at mid game)).

Now If I wanted to talk about what would I have done instead, I wouldn't have done anything. The community shunning people has done enough for the most part, but as of right now there isn't a huge problem with commander camping. The only times it can either be seen as a problem is when someone is purposefully tanking with the objective to get a diamond sword (yea somehow this is a problem for the community even though It's the objective of the game) or when someone just refuses to prestige (which all honestly isn't even a big deal in the long run). If anything, players should be encouraged to prestige more instead but that doesn't mean "give out more rewards", but for now, as the game is still in it's early life, this is a meh idea for a less so problematic issue. If anything I believe that the implementation of "Commander tax" should cap out once you reach a certain prestige meaning, once players reach a high enough prestiged, they shouldn't be forced to prestige anymore than they already have. Another thing I want to add briefly is mother zombies going afk, It seems to be happening more and more and when this tax finally sinks in, I personally believe it COULD become an even bigger issue.

Anyway, I'm kinda done with typing now so If I ever have anything else to add, I'll drop it down before and sorry for the long read.
 
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Rockin

Member
I feel the only issue is the AFK infected that don't even attempt to kill the commanders.
One thing I'd like to point out is bypassing commander tankers can be very difficult on certain maps. On PM, we had vampire, enderman and shock that could easily bypass them and get to the leathers. I mean, fuck shock, but now that vampire can't fly and enderman was nerfed to dirt, it's become much more difficult for infected to target weaker players, which is the main strategy of spreading the infection.
 

Mew

Member
One thing I'd like to point out is bypassing commander tankers can be very difficult on certain maps. On PM, we had vampire, enderman and shock that could easily bypass them and get to the leathers. I mean, fuck shock, but now that vampire can't fly and enderman was nerfed to dirt, it's become much more difficult for infected to target weaker players, which is the main strategy of spreading the infection.
i got told shock was fine all the time and that i was just bad for thinking it was op :^O

on this topic: add vamp flight back and I riot even harder than I am about this. that shit is BROKEN. buff endy tho
 

Nitmare

Active Member
One thing I'd like to point out is bypassing commander tankers can be very difficult on certain maps. On PM, we had vampire, enderman and shock that could easily bypass them and get to the leathers. I mean, fuck shock, but now that vampire can't fly and enderman was nerfed to dirt, it's become much more difficult for infected to target weaker players, which is the main strategy of spreading the infection.
I agree that a lot of the map designs suck.
Most maps are only playable while tanking, they removed all the spots possible for leathers to hide or stay safe. Everything now is just based off the amount of commanders and their skill at the game.
 

Mew

Member
I agree that a lot of the map designs suck.
Most maps are only playable while tanking, they removed all the spots possible for leathers to hide or stay safe. Everything now is just based off the amount of commanders and their skill at the game.
yeah, there have been a LOT of map changes from what I can tell to unnecessarily nerf good camping spots because... the jump is hard? lol I know I just called for that Chateau spot to get nerfed but that's more for consistency's sake. but you have spots like the the Lockdown jump (the fence post one) and Summit's old main spot get just gutted and made unviable for no real reason.
 

Rockin

Member
I agree that a lot of the map designs suck.
Most maps are only playable while tanking, they removed all the spots possible for leathers to hide or stay safe. Everything now is just based off the amount of commanders and their skill at the game.
yeah, there have been a LOT of map changes from what I can tell to unnecessarily nerf good camping spots because... the jump is hard? lol I know I just called for that Chateau spot to get nerfed but that's more for consistency's sake. but you have spots like the the Lockdown jump (the fence post one) and Summit's old main spot get just gutted and made unviable for no real reason.
Personally I've never liked the idea of camping spots intentionally set up by builders. As someone who camps every game, I prefer to independently find good spots and avoid zombies. That's what makes it challenging and fun for me. And if our maps don't actually have op parkour spots, if mother zombies can actually reach the leathers, then where is the problem with commander camping? The counter to commanders is to first kill off the weak and swarm them. I don't mind if we do have parkour spots that aren't too crazy, but I believe we should have classes that can bypass the commanders as well.
 

Mew

Member
Personally I've never liked the idea of camping spots intentionally set up by builders. As someone who camps every game, I prefer to independently find good spots and avoid zombies. That's what makes it challenging and fun for me. And if our maps don't actually have op parkour spots, if mother zombies can actually reach the leathers, then where is the problem with commander camping? The counter to commanders is to first kill off the weak and swarm them. I don't mind if we do have parkour spots that aren't too crazy, but I believe we should have classes that can bypass the commanders as well.
this is just a mesh of thoughts thrown out that, together, should give my opinion on your take here:

Enderman, Skeleton, and Vampire nerfs have made it much more difficult to get to leathers. Enderman doesn't do nearly as much damage now because of the weapon nerf + Anger passive removal, Skeleton no longer has Infinity to continuously attack spots from a distance, and Vampire lacks flight + the old health on hit that, frankly, let it smack Commanders if you were good. Like yeah, you can constantly attack a Commander repeatedly until they die with classes that don't just bypass their existence, but it's less reliable. It's why I want Skeleton to have Infinity back. It's why I want Enderman buffed in some way (better weapon probably the most logical decision).

Maps are fine to have designated camping spots. There's really nothing objective for or against this, but I think having clear spots to sit in at lower ranks makes the game more friendly to new users. And yeah, you can argue that the lack of strong camping spots on many maps makes it easier to get to the leathers -> easier to kill off Commanders, but I also think this indirectly makes the game harder for lower ranks to get into.

I'll probably sum up my thoughts soon, but for now a tl;dr: commander camping has never been an issue and only somewhat manifests itself as problematic when you get lots of coordinated, high-ranked players online at once. I think this is only a problem because of how weak the lower donor rank Infected classes are in comparison to Mother Zombie (which SHOULD be good) and kits like Blaze, Werewolf, Baby Zombie, and Slime. I think buffing classes like Skeleton and Enderman would have been a better nerf because it indirectly messes with commanders by allowing easier access to lower ranks.
 

Rod337

New Member
This is a bold assumption and there will definitely be exceptions but I've always been under the impression that people who camp as commanders are generally just awful at pvp. I'm speaking from personal experience, when I played the game I would camp as commander and my highest ss was 7. It genuinely wouldn't take more than 4 zombies to overwhelm me. If this is true for most people who camp, I'd call it a non-issue.
 

Mew

Member
This is a bold assumption and there will definitely be exceptions but I've always been under the impression that people who camp as commanders are generally just awful at pvp. I'm speaking from personal experience, when I played the game I would camp as commander and my highest ss was 7. It genuinely wouldn't take more than 4 zombies to overwhelm me. If this is true for most people who camp, I'd call it a non-issue.
I tend to disagree with the sentiment you pose in the first sentence; when I think back to my time on Super-Gaming, once I had all my prestige perks I simply stopped prestiging. By that point, I didn't feel a need to go through the ranks over again; I didn't care to compete for the title of "highest-ranked player".

From what I can tell, the general sentiment against commander camping is due to really specific situations that can arise as a result of many commanders being online at once. I challenge this take though by saying this never has an issue to do with commander campers in specific; rather, it's due to unfortunate circumstance. At certain times, there just will be more commanders online than usual, and that has nothing to do with people camping at commander really. If someone wants to challenge this take of mine by all means go for it, but this is what I've gathered so far.
 

maxben34

Owner
Audio wasn't working so I'm going to explain over text:

There's two main reasons for this change:

1. We want to make sure that new players have a good experience on the server. With many commanders alive, new players are more likely to die sooner and then spend the entirety of the game as an infected dying to powerful commanders. This isn't a fun experience for new players and will not help the server grow. We can't afford to overlook the new player experience if we want to grow the server.

2. We want the game to be more balanced. Having tons of commanders in a game isn't good for game balance. Our goal is for infected to have a 50% win rate and for there to only be 1-10 humans alive when humans win (when there's a full server). To achieve both of these goals, we can't have tons of commanders on the server. This change will help to encourage players to prestige, which in turn should reduce the number of commanders that are on the server at a given time.

Not all changes we make can be beloved by the community. The community in its current state is full of active, dedicated players that have been with us for years. In order to grow, we need to be concerned about the needs of our dedicated player base but also the needs of those that are yet to play the server.

We understand that many people liked to commander camp. We're aware that this change makes it much more difficult to actually be able to do that. Overall, we think this is a net positive thing for the game and we're not entirely making commander camping impossible. Instead, commander camping can only be an effective "strategy" for the first 20,000 cookies or so collected as a commander, before the pain of being a mother zombie often starts to be felt.

We appreciate the feedback in regards to this change and while it may have hurt a play style that some players really enjoyed, it, along with other changes that we'll be making shortly, will help to make sure that new players can actually enjoy the game.
 

Rockin

Member
Audio wasn't working so I'm going to explain over text:

There's two main reasons for this change:

1. We want to make sure that new players have a good experience on the server. With many commanders alive, new players are more likely to die sooner and then spend the entirety of the game as an infected dying to powerful commanders. This isn't a fun experience for new players and will not help the server grow. We can't afford to overlook the new player experience if we want to grow the server.

2. We want the game to be more balanced. Having tons of commanders in a game isn't good for game balance. Our goal is for infected to have a 50% win rate and for there to only be 1-10 humans alive when humans win (when there's a full server). To achieve both of these goals, we can't have tons of commanders on the server. This change will help to encourage players to prestige, which in turn should reduce the number of commanders that are on the server at a given time.

Not all changes we make can be beloved by the community. The community in its current state is full of active, dedicated players that have been with us for years. In order to grow, we need to be concerned about the needs of our dedicated player base but also the needs of those that are yet to play the server.

We understand that many people liked to commander camp. We're aware that this change makes it much more difficult to actually be able to do that. Overall, we think this is a net positive thing for the game and we're not entirely making commander camping impossible. Instead, commander camping can only be an effective "strategy" for the first 20,000 cookies or so collected as a commander, before the pain of being a mother zombie often starts to be felt.

We appreciate the feedback in regards to this change and while it may have hurt a play style that some players really enjoyed, it, along with other changes that we'll be making shortly, will help to make sure that new players can actually enjoy the game.
Imo you have very little control over whether new players will stay or leave. MCInfected is a very unique asymmetrical game, if players join and don't understand this, if they join and expect a perfectly fair pvp fight, they'll leave. Can't change that. But if players join and understand the concept of the gamemode and actually appreciate it, they'll stay. I started playing when I was 13 and I was instantly hooked, it just depends on that person, not whether they see the game as balanced or not. I mean, it IS an asymmetrical game, you cannot change that, you can't change how new players will experience the game.
 
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