Needless spawnbombing of OTA with NPC headcrabs

[Deleted member 418]

Hi. This is a complaint against @hawke for spawnbombing us with baby headcrab NPCs that not only ignore TBC, but also deal a good bit of damage.

Context:
After OTA was positioned in CP-3 for routine watch duty, rebels formulated a full on attack with an attempt to take over. As a result, OTA responded full force in accordance with our guide to deploy and retaliate with 6 members, following the equipment regulations as outlined. When the first 6 OTA were killed/retreated in a succesful insurgency for the rebels, a 2nd wave team was on stand-by consisting out of me, Asimo, Vadim, Linntrix and Noh and another person that I don't remember the name of.

After the 2nd team deployed, we made our way through the CP-1 sewer access, roamed through the pipe stairwell room and rotated to CP-3 from in front of it. As we saw nobody, we circled around the train station and made our way up towards the slums, where we'd conduct a quick search and capture run to see if we could catch any stragglers.

As we searched a bunch of random civvies that roamed about, we decided to trace our steps backwards and quit the operation by exiting through the sewers back into CP1- and towards the Nexus, in hopes of running into somebody.

As we did that, out of nowhere, @hawke, as proven in logs later by @swagile (who supervised and watched over the whole operation) began spawning baby headcrabs on the roof en-mass without any member of staff being aware of it. Not only did this cause needless damage, those NPCs also ignored TBC, while forcing us into a continued combat lock because once we tried to kill one, the others just kept pouncing us, dealing a decent amount of damage.

If this wasn't enough, he'd also spam them behind the door in the playground leading to the sewer ladder, and about 6 of them in front of the door right before the ladder access.
As we managed to kill them, we wanted to continue our retreat through the sewers, though as we faced EVEN MORE baby headcrabs, we just felt super discouraged and decided to call off our attempt and simply return to the Nexus through surface.

When I asked booile (@swagile) who spawned them, this was his reply:

And when I PM'd hawke asking what this was about, I received no response:

I can totally understand if you want to disable OTA from going through the sewers a second time, or if you disagree/don't like us taking a detour through sewers in the hopes of catching one unlucky rebel off guard who lulled himself into a false sense of security, but there is better way to archieve this than just spamming us with NPCs. Rebels kicked our asses, so this was a final stretch to redeem ourselves by leaving through the sewers.

According to booile, this is also not his first time doing this:

Conclusion:
I want this to be taken care of. We've had too many incidents of staff just bombarding players with redundant waves of NPCs just because they wanted to enforce a certain barrier, irregardless of what it was and to who; it happens to both rebels and combine players equally.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

Tagging those involved by memory: @linntrix @Vadim @Noh @Asimo1234 @swagile @Neonity

 

[Vadim]

Love spamming TBC ignoring enemies
I can confirm this happened

 

[hawke]

No characters died or lost items, neither did any from what I saw go below 90% health even, the baby crabs do a sliver of damage each attack. Not sure why they ignore TBC (that’s shitty and we won’t use them if so).

There was very little rationale behind them being there aside some OTA / CPs like a wave or two of NPCs to deal with when traversing into the sewers (even requesting them to be spawned), others don’t and that’s totally fine. Was completely under the impression the ratio between an AR2/SMG OTA squad was fine with dealing with the baby crabs nesting in the tunnel to the sewers.

My apologies that they ignored TBC and were annoying to deal with.

Thanks for listening to my response talk.

 

[Vadim]

My only complaint is the fact they were spawned in random batches, meaning we had to constantly go in and out of TBC in order to fight them. And the already mentioned fact that they ignored TBC and were chipping away at us while we had to wait everyone else's turns in order for the leading man to kill them.

Going to also state I personally don't think there should be any serious action as a result of this, as it just seems like an honest mistake to me.

 

[SteyrShotgun]

Heyo. I'll be taking a look at this admin abuse case as per usual. In the meantime, if you have anything else you'd like to add to this (or indeed, if anyone else sees this post and wishes to tack on anything) Please do provide any claims and evidence as and where needed. Otherwise, I'll be starting as of this post. Have a good day, let's get this ironed out ASAP.

-S

 

[Deleted member 418]

No characters died or lost items, neither did any from what I saw go below 90% health even, the baby crabs do a sliver of damage each attack. Not sure why they ignore TBC (that’s shitty and we won’t use them if so).

There was very little rationale behind them being there aside some OTA / CPs like a wave or two of NPCs to deal with when traversing into the sewers (even requesting them to be spawned), others don’t and that’s totally fine. Was completely under the impression the ratio between an AR2/SMG OTA squad was fine with dealing with the baby crabs nesting in the tunnel to the sewers.

My apologies that they ignored TBC and were annoying to deal with.

Thanks for listening to my response talk.

Well you talk for yourself then. My armor depleted from 100 to roughly 70-60 pretty quickly, just after 3-4 pounces. If it weren't for someone blowing it off my head, it probably would of gone down even further.

Also, it's a long standing fact that NPCs ignore TBC in most cases due to how the system is coded (you should know this) given you've been in the staff team for a very long time. Also, who requested this? It surely was nobody on our end, because I'm persuaded no OTA would willingly ask for NPCs to be spawned on top of them.

My shadowplay recording doesn't go back for long enough to show what happened, but this certainly felt more than just a wave or two of NPCs, because you spawned them on the playground roof, behind the playground door leading to the underground, then some in front of the door right outside the ladder and a few down said ladder.

While I get myself behind that you did this simply because you felt like it was a harmless addition and to give us something to do (which the thought of is appreciated, don't get me wrong) it was enough to have us call off the rotation and just go back home. It simply (in my opinion) interfered with our actual goal of focusing on the mission.

I know this wasn't as bad as my initial post made it out to be, but this is not the first instance of NPCs being spawned for seemingly no reason just for the sake of existing.

 

[hawke]

Well you talk for yourself then. My armor depleted from 100 to roughly 70-60 pretty quickly, just after 3-4 pounces. If it weren't for someone blowing it off my head, it probably would of gone down even further.

Also, it's a long standing fact that NPCs ignore TBC in most cases due to how the system is coded (you should know this) given you've been in the staff team for a very long time. Also, who requested this? It surely was nobody on our end, because I'm persuaded no OTA would willingly ask for NPCs to be spawned on top of them.

My shadowplay recording doesn't go back for long enough to show what happened, but this certainly felt more than just a wave or two of NPCs, because you spawned them on the playground roof, behind the playground door leading to the underground, then some in front of the door right outside the ladder and a few down said ladder.

While I get myself behind that you did this simply because you felt like it was a harmless addition and to give us something to do (which the thought of is appreciated, don't get me wrong) it was enough to have us call off the rotation and just go back home. It simply (in my opinion) interfered with our actual goal of focusing on the mission.

I know this wasn't as bad as my initial post made it out to be, but this is not the first instance of NPCs being spawned for seemingly no reason just for the sake of existing.

Thank you for acknowledging what happened wasn’t actually as bad as the initial post made it out to be.

I am actually sorry once again it caused an annoyance because believe me, that’s not what I’m setting out to do! And I think ya know due to the amount of time I spend in other facets to make things fun and interesting.

However, that does not mean we shouldn’t take you what you’re saying with a grain of salt, so once again I apologize for the crabs. They were actually only spawned near the trash pile on the locked door to the sewer ladder and the room where the sewer ladder was! The pathing made them circle around the shop to attack.

I hear you lad and I think the needless spawning sometimes is stupid too. It’s a hard balance at times when you get players who DM you a lot asking for some NPCs to shoot and others who dislike them entirely.

I’m probably just going to hang in my hat in all together and not spawn NPCs anymore because I can’t seem to balance it, that’s my error.

 

[Deleted member 418]

Thank you for acknowledging what happened wasn’t actually as bad as the initial post made it out to be.

I am actually sorry once again it caused an annoyance because believe me, that’s not what I’m setting out to do! And I think ya know due to the amount of time I spend in other facets to make things fun and interesting.

However, that does not mean we shouldn’t take you what you’re saying with a grain of salt, so once again I apologize for the crabs. They were actually only spawned near the trash pile on the locked door to the sewer ladder and the room where the sewer ladder was! The pathing made them circle around the shop to attack.

I hear you lad and I think the needless spawning sometimes is stupid too. It’s a hard balance at times when you get players who DM you a lot asking for some NPCs to shoot and others who dislike them entirely.

I’m probably just going to hang in my hat in all together and not spawn NPCs anymore because I can’t seem to balance it, that’s my error.

You're good buddy.

I just wanted to ensure that, regardless of if you're OTA, CP, rebel, or just the random civ walking through Victory Street, doesn't need to fear of having NPCs spawned near or on top of them just because one member of staff felt like it'll contribute anything to the austerity of the moment.

I'm sure handling NPCs is pretty tough given how bad they work in conjunction with the TBC system, so I won't blame you for having tried something and failing it. Mistakes happen. I'm just glad you acknowledge that this was done on the wrong end, I'm sure if you had executed it in a different way at a different time in a different setting, this would of gone smoother than this. Take it as a mean of improving yourself on it.

For the next time, now you know. This is all I'll have to say.