You're exaggerating. Most are placed just fine, just because they're an inconvenience to you does not mean they're bad for the team.
First of, and this may sound a little arrogant, if they get me killed they are bad for the team, because then i cannot defend whatever i wanted to defend in the first place for a whole 30 seconds.
Second, i'm not talking only about the experience that i had with stakes, i've seen so many people get stuck in them and then losing the round because inable to defend the flag area.
That's your opinion. Other people do not share it and it certainly doesn't justify destroying them.
I already said that i do not destroy stakes that seem useful to me, i was just saying how ridiculous this mechanic can be.
Yes, stakes upset balance, that's the whole point, if used correctly they swing the balance in favour of who ever placed them, if they didn't upset balance they would be completely useless.
That's where i'll probably never agree with you. Yes, i might have seen a few times where stakes actually helped the whole team because they were all working together, but like i mentioned before, it happens very rare and most of the times they swing the balance in the other teams favour. And i really don't think i'm just seeing the bad side of them here, because i truly believe from my experience with them that they simply don't have a wide range of good purposes on siege.
Spawning away from enemies is the way it's supposed to work. In practice it doesn't work that way.
Yes it does. Only on the occasion that most of the spawnpoints are close to enemies it might spawn you directly next to one.
I also like how you first say that attackers jumped over the stakes and them use the argument that jumping over them is hard. If those stakes delayed 2 or 3 attackers and then afterwards delayed 1 defender, then they did their job. They were good for the team, even if they were bad for that 1 defender. You're also exaggerating the time it takes to destroy them. It takes me 4 to 5 hits with my throwing lance to destroy 1 stake. Hardly an eternity.
Ha, i knew that would get back to me. I was implying that attackers managed to get there without notice, and yes, might have took them two or more tries. At least that's what i need to get over them (Still faster than destroying them)
Anyway, if they delay a few attackers to get to the flag that's okay, but if then only 1 defender gets delayed and cannot make it to the flag in time and lose it, they still didn't do their job, they fucked their job up pretty badly.
Siege defenders always need to get to flag as fast as possible and especially with the new flag rushing down like the niagara falls and stakes deny that. That's also the reason why destroying them can be and often was in the past, an eternity.
Perfect example happened today with me: I backed away from a bunch of attackers, ran into stakes somebody had placed behind me and died. The attackers then split up: some of them started hacking apart the stakes, others tried to go around them. The first group got beaten pretty badly by the defending ranged players that were safe behind the stakes, the second got owned by the defending melee since they were outnumbered because they split up.
The stakes were bad for me and great for the team.
And you don't think it would have worked just as good when the defense used the natural map-made ways with you being alive and maybe killing one or two more?
Also i don't see how ranged can be safe if melee can just walk around them.
Anyway, you are probably talking to a wall here. I'm not going to change my opinion on the stakes from what i've seen doing them to their own team. Feel free to just ignore my posts from now on.
@Paul: Please don't bring back ladders, even if they can only be used in the first minute. Simply throwing a ladder onto a gate and then opening it for all the attackers always fucked the map-balance up real good. I don't want to go back to the "everybody camp flag from the beginning" siege because there might be a chance that some smart attackers manage to ladder up to the flag within the first minute. =/
For the stakes it seems like a good idea.
@Teeth: Yes, we could. I can think of at least 5 maps right now where ladders would allow us to ninja the flag within a minute.
