Camping - A Tutorial

I saw this article and got a good laugh out of it...
On FPS guerrilla tactics or: Stop camping me, you camping camper! - by BonfireAg03

The guy does have some valid points. Many of you who play with me know our strategy pretty much is just to camp every map we play on. As stated in BonfireAg03's article, spawn camping is a no-no. Any other type of camping in Call of Duty 4 is pretty much open. The really funny part is that our opponents rarely grasp onto the simple features provided them in the game to allow them to fight against campers.

Someone camping a specific location - Usually this is realized when someone gets killed and then goes back to that spot only to be killed by the same person in the exact same place. In Call of Duty 4, the game designers had such tactics in mind I think when they designed the weapons available to you. With grenades, they added a feature that is in very few other games -- the ability to 'cook' your grenade. This allows you to hold that hand held bomb until its almost ready to go off (or let it go off in your hand if you so choose). Since you know exactly where your opponent is waiting, all you have to do is cook your grenade and throw it in there and have it blow up in their face. Pretty simple and effective strategy to get rid of someone camping a specific location.


Choke Point Camping - This happens when our team decides we want to stop you from coming through a certain area. A lot of maps in the game are divided into smaller areas with 'choke points' between (narrow places that you must go through to pass from area A to area B). If you pick the right choke points, you can effectively cut a map in half and keep one team on each side. Rarely is this form of camping involve sitting in one location, but it can. The point of this style of camping is to keep your opponent from crossing some imaginary line.

One map we really like to do this on is Bog. This is simply done by using snipers to effectively make the open ground a very large death zone. Not surprisingly, our opponents think it then is much safer to run through the building on the side of the map. The problem with this is it forces their team to all pass through one small doorway to get to our side of the map. A very simple way we guard this is to have one person sit pretty far back with a very high powered weapon with tons of ammunition. It's not uncommon for this person to rack up 15-20 kills in one game without ever dying, all because the other team chose to keep running through that choke point without using the tools the game has provided them to combat this.

One of the special grenades at your disposal is a smoke grenade. At first, many gamers dismiss this as practically useless. It doesn't disable your opponent in any way when you throw it at them. It's slow to get its full effect. What's the point, right? Wrong. This is a very useful grenade. Going back to the bog example, if you have two or three of your teammates with these equipped, taking the marine spawn area is quick work. A few key smoke grenades can eliminate both the snipers and the person camping that doorway from seeing your approach. Once within range, a few frag grenades will displace them and send them running, making it easy for your team to pick them off with small arms fire.

Snipe Camping - This is where a sniper likes to find a spot to sit and pick everyone off in their field of view. Some gamers are very proficient at this and require little more than a glance in your direction to aim and pull off the headshot. These snipers are very deadly. Usually done with a sniper rifle, this can be employed using any long range weapon too.

Once again though, the game developers provided you with tools to combat this. When you get shot and you have no clue where your opponent was, it can be very frustrating. In Call of Duty 4 though, the developers gave you something special...a kill cam. This small glimpse at your death is shown from your opponent's perspective, allowing you to know immediately their location. Using the previously mentioned smoke grenades you can get a good run at them without that sniper ever getting so much as a glance at you.


While each of these types of camping can be combated effectively, the most prolific reason our team does so well is the fact that our whole team employs these different styles in a web of cooperation that allows us to utterly dominate our opponents. When someone is camping a specific location, we usually have someone else snipe camping and covering that person's back, keeping opponents from approaching their location. The effectiveness of a whole team employing choke point camping strategy is shown in the many games we achieve deathmatch scores in the range of 750-100. Very rarely do we have games where opponents are within ten kills of us in the end.

If you're another gamer on Xbox Live and you encounter camping, just remember: You can prevent Camping! Camping (not spawn camping) is just one strategy that gamers use and it's really not worth complaining about. When I hear a postgame lobby start to complain that my team camps too much, just after we decimated them, I really have to hold down the laughter. By complaining about it, you've just admitted that we outsmarted you. We came up with and implemented a better strategy than you did. You allowed our simple and effective teamwork to frustrate you to the point you thought that running into our bullets was going to somehow hurt us too.

Camping - Brings out the worst in gamers

How did all of a sudden style of play somehow become taboo amongst video gamers? I'm talking about camping. For those that don't know, camping is a strategy where you identify key locations of a multiplayer game map and defend those locations. I'm not talking about knowing how to exploit glitches in a game that allow you to kill your opponents as soon as they spawn in the game. No, I'm just talking about playing smart. It seems lately that online gamers have grown to view this as poor gamesmanship, and for the life of me I can't figure out why.

Every game or sport has key facets that need to be controlled or managed in order to win. In football it's not uncommon to hear a commentator say that whoever controls the line of scrimmage will win the game. Does this mean that the team that does this is showing poor sportsmanship by camping the line of scrimmage? What about in soccer--is having a goalie poor sportsmanship? Why is he camping the place the other team needs to get to in order to score?

A group of my friends and I have taken it upon ourselves to learn how to camp different maps in the game Call of Duty 4 to near perfection. The same group of players plays together often enough that we all learn each others strengths and weaknesses. We know the maps enough to know what areas need to be controlled. We don't try and exploit the spawn algorithm and kill our opponents where the spawn. What we try and do is pick one half of the map and just control it.

Vacant

In the above image, I've shown a typical layout on one map, Vacant. Our strategy isn't to rush and spawn camp the other team, but it's very simple though. We stay outside of the building while trying to keep our opponents inside. By doing that, we can control where we encounter them--the exits. By doing this we only have to cover a few key points of the map, as shown above. Sure, sometimes the other team will kill a few of us, by most often we kill a lot more of them.

What I really don't get is the distaste many gamers have for this strategy. Maybe it's because they get beaten by it so easily. Instead of whining and complaining that another team beat them by a superior strategy, maybe gamers need to instead focus on ways to counter it. We've played against other teams with similar strategy and still prevailed. I think too many gamers out there know how to play first person shooter (FPS) games one way and one way only. To be a good gamer you need to learn to adapt your strategy to fit your opponents' strategy.

The fundamental tenet of a good camping strategy relies on the premise that you will be more patient than your opponent. In the above example, if our opponent knew we would stay outside the building the whole match, they could just stay inside and force a tie game. In my many hours of using this strategy, I have yet to find an opponent who will do that though. They can't resist the urge to rush out, guns blazing. This usually results in a quick death them respawning back inside the building, ready to do it all over again.

What's Your FPS Strategy?

In a first person shooter (FPS) video game, there are many playing styles favored by different people. Whatever style you choose to play with has its advantages and disadvantages. But all styles come down to two basic strategies, offense and defense. For offense you want to maximize your capabilities and for defense you want to minimize your vulnerabilities.

Run & Gun - This type of player usually favors rapid fire, highly effective weapons, maximizing their offensive capabilities. Not much is used for defense here, except the element of surprise. This type of player likes to spend their game constantly moving, relying on their quick reaction time to dominate any encounter they may face when running around a corner or into a room. For those players with great reflexes this can be a very effective style of play.

Stealth - This type of player favors silent weapons when available. They prefer not just to surprise their opponents, but to overcome them before they even know they've been attacked. This player uses as much defensive capability as possible to remain hidden and undetected. Many games offer this type of player the ability to mask themselves from opponents' detection using camouflage or radar jamming.

Sniper - This type of player prefers the long range encounter. This may be due to exceptional prowess with long range weapons or just because they like a slower paced game. This style of play also makes it very important to remain undetected, not by stealth, but by distance. This type of player can be easily overwhelmed by a 'Run & Gun' player if encountered in close quarters.

Camping - This type of player needs teamwork to be effective. In a FPS game, the matches are on a closed area. There is only so much space to work with. With all the obstacles on a game map, there arises natural choke points--common areas that players come through. This type of player prefers to find those locations and let their prey come to them. Camping doesn't require any specific type of weapon to be effective. You can camp with long, medium, or close range weapons, they all work. But this playing style does have the significant disadvantage of being very predictable. Once a camper is recognized, using longer range or explosive weapons should easily remove them from their campsite.

In my opinion, these are the four basic styles of game play exhibited by all gamers in one form or another. Some players prefer to use one style of play for an entire match, while others like to switch it around depending on their situation. No single playing style is better or worse than another. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages. The key is recognizing what style your opponent is using and what best to counter with.

My FPS Gaming Style

Back when I was in high school I went to a basketball camp at a major university. The coach there made a statement that has stuck with me to this day. He said "I'll tell you the secret to winning every game you ever play in, against any team. Just score one more point than your opponent." That's it. That's all it takes. Sure, the coach was talking more about free throws than anything else, but that motto can be applied to any type of competition where score is kept, including video games.

My preferred style of gameplay, when I'm with the right teammates, is camping. Camping takes advantage of that simple strategy the coach laid out so long ago -- just score one more point than the other team. Almost every game nowadays has a time limit attached to it. There's nothing requiring me to reach the maximum kill limit in a game. I just have to have one more point than my opponents when time expires. When we have a good team that can communicate well, camping works best, especially when our opponents (almost always) fail to recognize that we are camping and don't use a different strategy to counter ours. All too often we find ourselves sitting in front of a doorway that our opponents repeatedly feel they need to run through, dying on our bullets over and over again.

Camping Fundamentals

Many people wonder what it takes to enjoy the outdoors. Here are a few suggestions for making the most of your next camping trip.

Survey the area

Get to know the area you're going to be camping in. Learn the layout of the land. It's helpful to know landmarks and obstacles that can obstruct your view of the lovely scenery. Knowing the area you'll be camping in will make your outdoor adventure all that more enjoyable.

Pitch Your Tent

Pick a good location as you're going to be spending quite a bit of time there. Make sure to pick someplace on high ground, preferably with a view. After all, isn't that why you went camping? Don't pitch your tent too close to someone else's tent. Going camping is about enjoying the outdoors and getting away from other people.

Protect Your Site

There's nothing that ruins a camping trip more than an unwanted guest. Animals (and other annoyances) like to wander into your campsite. One option to keep them out is to put your food storage in a bear bag and raise it into a nearby tree. Personally, I'm much more a fan of just laying down a few claymore mines in your vicinity. Either way, it should keep the pests out and allow you to enjoy your camping experience.

Enjoy the Outdoors

Camping is all about spending time with nature and leaving civilization behind. Whatever you do, don't let civilization follow you. While camping you may witness other people trying to come and take your camping spot from you. Protect your little piece of nature with everything you have. I suggest either a Barret .50 caliber sniper rifle, a silenced M-4 Carbine, or maybe just a good old fashioned standard military issue KA-BAR.