Team Camping vs. Solo Training (A strategy debate)

[ETEl2NAL407]

Don't be mislead by the topic...This isn't a debate about game modes or whether you play with teamates or without, but a debate about play styles within a team match.

When I first began playing Zombies, it was Kino. In the Kino spawn room there are four windows. So, it seems fitting to have four players guard their respective windows and offer aid to other players that are being overrun, if they can. As most of us know, this tactic will only work for so many rounds, as players will begin to get more and more overrun.

I used a tactic, before I really knew about training/kiting/looping where we'd advance through the level as a team into each new room and continue to camp until we began to get more and more overun. In Kino, we'd usually camp the spawn room first (obviously), then skip through to the MP40 room and have two players camp the stairwell, one at the window above by the shotgun who could offer aid to the stairwell campers and/or the guy down by the machine gun trap who would camp those two windows. Next we'd make our way to the stage and camp there, having two watch the dressing room, one watch the window by those double doors, and one watch the window in the back by the claymores. We'd usually end up camping here for a great many rounds, especially if the box spawned here. Player positions could be swapped in between rounds for a democratic share of points, as it's obvious the players watching the path behind would gain many more points than those watching the windows in the new section.

Most maps give us opportunities such as this, to slowly and methodically work through each section and camp/guard the Zombie spawn points. It takes teamwork and ammunition, but is a pretty solid strategy for high rounds and safer, since your whole team moves as a unit. Of course, the problem is finding the spots in the various maps that accommodate this style of play and certain maps may prove too difficult.

On the other hand, we have the more readily accepted strategy of training/looping/kiting/hoarding. This is something that is done as an individual. I suppose, given a large enough area, two players could loop simultaneously, but I rarely see that work. So, you're training on your own and your teamates also are training in their respective areas. Players accomplish what tasks they can as they have an opportunity, whether it be to replenish their ammo, advance the EE, acquire new guns, etc.. This strategy works fine for me and for other skilled players, but if there's a weak link on the team, it can spell disaster.

For example, you're doing fine, but as the rounds progress, a teamate on the other side of the map goes down and no one can reach him in time, so he dies. Next round, he'll respawn next to someone else and disrupt their rhythm either by messing up their loop route or by requring their assistance to protect them as they reacquire perks/guns. Regardless of how quickly said person can get set up again, there's going to be some disruption and that may start a chain of events that lead to a game over.

The question up for debate is, Which strategy do you think is better and why?

[MysteryMachineX]

Running a circle is the better strategy for one reason only. Camping is terminal. If you are choosing to camp, you are choosing to do a strategy that strains your resources more and more every Round. Running a circle can go for as long as your skill does. You don't die due to lack of resources. You die due to a mistake. The only argument for camping is in the early rounds or for fun.

[Caddyman]

Running a circle is the better strategy for one reason only. Camping is terminal. If you are choosing to camp, you are choosing to do a strategy that strains your resources more and more every Round. Running a circle can go for as long as your skill does. You don't die due to lack of resources. You die due to a mistake. The only argument for camping is in the early rounds or for fun.

i totally agree. not much to debate really. you can't really camp 4 players past 50 or so and survive. die rise gets tough for my friends and i around round 30 or so.

on top of this, depending on your camp spot, you may not have a place to retreat to if you are overrun.

[ETEl2NAL407]

I see the reasoning there and I agree. I want this to be somewhat of a debate, so I'll play devil's advocate here and go back to the Kino stage as an example. I have three decent guns close by, M16, MP5, and MP40, so Ammo is not an issue. Claymores are also there and can be stockpiled, so it's not a big question of resources, but firepower. Eventually those guns will be ineffective against the hordes, even with the concentration of four players.

At some point power will have to be turned on, so PaP at the very least can be opened, but by this time we may be at round 20-30, so it's a great start and the entire team should, theoretically, still be up with their guns and a good deal of points. The whole team can grab Jugg, teleport, PaP, and then go back to camping, Maybe the spawn at this point? One watches the stage and that window by the trap, two watch the window up top and the doors leading the the Mule Kick room, and the fourth watches the two windows against the broad wall and tries to pick off the Nova crawlers. Perhaps there's a better camping spot at this point?

I think there is more to debate here because moving as a team ensures that players are revived, so firepower is maintained, and aid is not far away when you desperately need it.

Of course, I usually adopt a mix of these tactics where I try to camp as long as possible as a team, but when the team starts to get overwhelmed and the camping spot overrun, I'll begin looping on my own and abandon the camp strategy to try and save the game.

[jokrAzrael]

To answer your question I hate shooting windows. And any strategy that takes up too much time doing just that. I understand simply trying to pound out rounds, but it makes me just horribly unhappy. And I will not do it for long. Which has started more than a few online arguments.

1. Most Randoms who want to shoot windows or camp in a corner could not run a train if they had the hat and a conductor's license. It's not a comment that is meant to be derogatory but rather descriptive. If WE do not hold down this area like this I'M going to die soon. PLEASE (you jackbutt) do as we are telling you to do.

2. As one of the comments above said, it is a terminal idea. We will need to split up somewhat if we are to go long. And unless you Go Bag is packed, hopefully as a team, then we are going to die too soon.

3. Don't get me wrong. Being unwilling to run the Buddha room too long or use the Squilk gun very often, I have not yet found out how long I can run Die Rise. But so far blasting away on the roof has been about the most fun so far. Often just a ton of fun.

[Edward Richtofen]

Personally, I would say you should use both strategies.

Camping as a team will make the rounds progress quicker. In co-op games length of rounds is extremely important especially if you want to hit high rounds.

To maximize effieciency, you should camp as a team until around 30 or so depending on the camping spot.

This allows you to knock out the first 30 rounds quite quickly. A lot quicker than if everyone split up and trained seperately.

After this point there is a variety of strategies you can use. You should use the quickest strategy that you are comfortable with.

Usually, on a 2 player game, me and my partner will train in the same area. This is because it is a lot faster than spliting the zombies between 2 spawn zones. This may be more dangerous than some players want.

You can use the color ranking to your advantage as well. This is easy, just have higher ranked colors train, find nice corners for the lower ranked colors to camp. Again this speeds up the rounds, as it means the zombies are spawning from fewer zones.

I consider spliting into 4 spawn zones a last resort strategy. Rounds become far longer than necessary very very quickly.

That's my take.

[XxJason LivesxX]

Like people have said above it get's very difficult in the mid/high 30's but 60% of zombie players will never get past 30 anyway. (Don't have a fit guys I mean the average players on Xboxl or Psn not people who look up strategy vids or belong to a zombie forum.)

So, it really depends on what your preference is.

If it's about breaking a certain number on the leaderboards or high, high rounds then eventually you're going to have to kite.

If you just want kill zombies fast with your friends and are happy with rounds in the 30's Camping is the way to go.

In case you didn't know Jason Voorhees loves to Camp...

[Chopper]

There's been a lot of good responses, covering most of what I'm going to say but I couldn't resist.

Camp as long as you can, and then kite.

It's faster to camp until you can't do it anymore. TBH, in a 4 player game my limit for how long I want to play pretty much matches when you can't camp anymore.

With the right team, I can imagine that you can get to round 40 now on Die Rise, what with the headshot perk, DT2 and the liquid gun.

That's probably longer than I would want to play however.

[XxJason LivesxX]

TBH, in a 4 player game my limit for how long I want to play pretty much matches when you can't camp anymore.

1000000 Brains for that

[jinro]

i think team camping is essential in early rounds to getting an equal start...

for a couple reasons...

- its safer, everyone's watching a spawn point.

- its smarter, kill's and point's can be moderated from player to player by switching camping spots. opposed to one guy getting all the kills cause he had the best camping spot. (ex. johnny can only buy jugg, cause tom and dick made him watch the window with less zombies..)

once round 20 hits, running/looping/training your own zombies is vital...

for a couple reasons....

- its safer for all player's, once the spawn speed picks up it gets to crazy to rely on a friend to have your back all the time.

- you can make time, by kiting and killing more efficiently..

lets face it, if you cant handle kiting on your own at round 30... then your not ready to be at round 30..

i like playing solo and 2p only. in my experience , it get's to crazy when you got more than 2 people playing..

[InfestLithium]

At some given point, you won't be able to camp or train regardless if you play by team or solo in a match. The strategies defined in this topic can tell a lot about a player. For instance, a person who team camps has great coordination skills and can communicate to a certain level, but may not be skilled enough to fend off for themselves if the situation gets sticky. A player who trains by themselves knows what they are going to do for the rest of the match and can survive with ease since no one should get in their paths. In the event of emergency, however, the said player may not be revived if down and risks starting all over if they slip up for even one little instance.

None of these strategies are bad whatsoever - the style depends on the kind of slayer you are. While I can camp with a team well enough to hit semi-high rounds, I'm usually forced to solo train when things go down the drain yet I'm skilled enough to handle myself very well. If you study both styles of slaying, then you can get the advantage of being experienced in each strategy so you'll have a good game.

[MysteryMachineX]

At some given point, you won't be able to camp or train regardless if you play by team or solo in a match. The strategies defined in this topic can tell a lot about a player. For instance, a person who team camps has great coordination skills and can communicate to a certain level, but may not be skilled enough to fend off for themselves if the situation gets sticky. A player who trains by themselves knows what they are going to do for the rest of the match and can survive with ease since no one should get in their paths. In the event of emergency, however, the said player may not be revived if down and risks starting all over if they slip up for even one little instance.

None of these strategies are bad whatsoever - the style depends on the kind of slayer you are. While I can camp with a team well enough to hit semi-high rounds, I'm usually forced to solo train when things go down the drain yet I'm skilled enough to handle myself very well. If you study both styles of slaying, then you can get the advantage of being experienced in each strategy so you'll have a good game.

I highly disagree.

Running circles is better than camping. If one person goes down when running circles then...... that's one person down. The rest of the team survives. When camping, it is quite often that the whole team falls like dominos.

Camping is good and all, but like I said earlier, it is terminal. If you stick to camping out of stubbornness to not run circles, you will die. I understand people making a conscious decision to employ the worse tactic for the sake of thrills. However, they must understand that that is exactly what they are doing.

[Caddyman]

There are 2 sides to that coin.

For the record I much prefer training solo, everyone at their own spot.

Last night is a good example of how camping can work well. All 4 on die rise roof under dragon, 1 person is running a mini train by the sweatshop stairs as the other 3 are picking off the train. Should he have went down we could have easily taken the zombs out and revived him, granted it wasn't a crazy high round. IDK if you would call that training, camping, or a hybrid, but it works, and if someone goes down you are all there for the cover/revive.

Regardless of that, in a very high round camping 4 players and it is getting hectic, you are right, if 1 person goes down and you lose that gunner, and you have no way out, the game is almost always over.

I am a proponent of solo training in multi-player after the initial camp/stack points/get setup rounds.

NO TRAIN NO GAIN

[MysteryMachineX]

Yes, Caddyman, that is a quite useful mid-ground. It is like a hybrid. Basically the one person running in circles alleviates the strain on the campers. It basically buys them more time. This kind of strategy can be effective. In fact, there is a certain way to use this strategy to make it not terminal. If you have three players watching a window like in Nacht der Untoten or Ascension, they could all watch that window indefinitely (provided skill) while the fourth player runs a circle nearby. It is a useful tactic when there's only one good place to run and when you want all players to be together.

[83457]

I like both, but kiting wins in the long run (i remember being that weirdo who ran zombies in circles in waw, now it is the norm).

Hybrids can work. Skill level and map knowledge are key.

The buddha room could have campers and runners. Say a 2 man game where one runs and one sets up on the walk above. Campers can drop and run, get back up and camp.

On map knowledge: knowing where you can camp early or in an emergency has saved many of the zombie games that I have been in: last zombie dies while everyone is in an unfamiliar spot, I say do this, watch that, and it saves the game.

Camping until death is a thrill, not a great strategy.

[XxJason LivesxX]

I understand people making a conscious decision to employ the worse tactic for the sake of thrills. However, they must understand that that is exactly what they are doing.

At least it's a "thrilling" tactic and not a boring AI exploit.

Mix, you do not have to have the last say on every topic, many have come on here and expressed their feelings on camping and kiting respectively without being arrogant about it.

There is value in camping and stating its the "worst" available strategy, is very subjective. It's the perfect strategy for anybody who just wants to kill zombies quickly with friends. For somebody who seeks leaderboard glory and youtube accolades, not so much.

But that doesn't make it any less desirable for the rest of us.

There can be opinions that differ from yours, neither is any more "correct" than the other.

Mix I like you, but I have seen a change in your forum presence recently, and I think it could be off-putting to those who haven't "known" you long like we have.

####Back on Topic####

The Hybrid strategy of one player running a train close by the other 3 camping used to be called the human glitch in the BO1 days.

Not saying there's anything wrong with that, I've done it myself in the higher rounds, just a funny little factoid.

[Chopper]

There really doesn't need to be a debate on what is best here.

What's best is either what is most fun for you, or what is most efficient.

Camping until you can no longer camp is clearly the best choice for a good team, as it's the fastest. The only way that it's ever game over is when you just aren't good enough I'm afraid. By that I mean you clearly know when the rounds are getting tougher and tougher, and you either need a bailout camping spot (closed door behind you) or monkeys and a backup plan.

The next quickest is the hybrid, 1/2/3 camp by someone running a train.

Then it's individual proximity kiting, where once trains are made, they are combined and a single hoard is killed.

Then it's individual kiting, individual killing.

What you prefer is irrelevant to the original point in the topic, the above is the fastest order in which you can play the game.

[ETEl2NAL407]

I understand why so many replies claim there is no debate to this strategy. Clearly, camping is just too difficult in higher rounds and Training must be adopted in order to survive, but that's only true in a perfect online community.

If, say, all of us we're on our own BO server, I'm sure we'd definitely use a hybrid strategy. Camp early to rake in points fast, then set up and hold down our respective train spots, but we're not that lucky. We have a whole universe of newbs and varied skill sets to play with.

This is the main reason I find that camping becomes enjoyable. Given the randoms you play with have, at the least, a mic, an attempt can be made to direct their play towards a camping strategy. In the back of your mind, you may know that this game is not destined for high rounds, but if you can keep these random players alive long enough by a good camping strategy, they may not just quit out, feeling like they suck at Zombies. They may actually get intrigued by the game and when they do finally bleed out, they're more likely to spectate you running your train, thus learn how the game mechanics work.

It's how I learned. Watching other skilled players train. I emulated what they were doing and eventually got the hang of it.

On the flip side, if you decide to just train from the get-go, randoms may feel disconnected and when their skills fail them, they'll have no more reason to continue playing. It's because of this, that I think camping is the way to go when playing with randoms.

[Edward Richtofen]

I highly disagree.

Running circles is better than camping. If one person goes down when running circles then...... that's one person down. The rest of the team survives. When camping, it is quite often that the whole team falls like dominos.

Camping is good and all, but like I said earlier, it is terminal. If you stick to camping out of stubbornness to not run circles, you will die. I understand people making a conscious decision to employ the worse tactic for the sake of thrills. However, they must understand that that is exactly what they are doing.

Camping is a tool, kiting is a tool. One is not generically better than the other. Their are situations in which one is better than the other for both cases.

Kiting gets all the glory because it is the end game strategy. Camping is just as important in my opinion as it can literally shave hours off a high round game. High round games are more about stamina at a certain point then anything else and that is why camping is an excellent way of keeping round times short early on.

Chopper's last post is pretty much spot on. There's no need to debate between camping and kiting. They are tools. Some camping strategies are better than others. Some kiting strategies are better than others.

[jokrAzrael]

I understand why so many replies claim there is no debate to this strategy. Clearly, camping is just too difficult in higher rounds and Training must be adopted in order to survive, but that's only true in a perfect online community.

If, say, all of us we're on our own BO server, I'm sure we'd definitely use a hybrid strategy. Camp early to rake in points fast, then set up and hold down our respective train spots, but we're not that lucky. We have a whole universe of newbs and varied skill sets to play with.

This is the main reason I find that camping becomes enjoyable. Given the randoms you play with have, at the least, a mic, an attempt can be made to direct their play towards a camping strategy. In the back of your mind, you may know that this game is not destined for high rounds, but if you can keep these random players alive long enough by a good camping strategy, they may not just quit out, feeling like they suck at Zombies. They may actually get intrigued by the game and when they do finally bleed out, they're more likely to spectate you running your train, thus learn how the game mechanics work.

It's how I learned. Watching other skilled players train. I emulated what they were doing and eventually got the hang of it.

On the flip side, if you decide to just train from the get-go, randoms may feel disconnected and when their skills fail them, they'll have no more reason to continue playing. It's because of this, that I think camping is the way to go when playing with randoms.

Really good point. This thread has made me relook how to setup a game with Randoms. When does someone leave to run an area separately? It may be the most important question for the reasons stated above.

[Caddyman]

best answer would be that if you are the "director" of the game, as in, you are experienced and your randoms maybe not, plan to camp a spot where there is a escape route.

remington room for example. you are camping, things are going swell, a random goes down, you get overrun, bounce out via elevator and survive, then put your "get the randoms back in the game after a down/death" plan into action.

another good camp spot with emergency escape is the sweatshops. go down, and camp next to the long room with table in center over toward the lonely elevator. leave the doors closed so you have a window behind and an open hall in front. you can camp there for a while. if it gets bad open that door and book it.

depending on the yours and your randoms experience and skill, stop camping point could be round 12, or could be round 40. my friends and i have camped various places plenty of times, you get a feeling where "man, that last round was rough in that spot, we should leave now"

[ETEl2NAL407]

Absolutely have an escape route.

You can probably determine early on just where your camping spot should be by taking into consideration the skillset of your randoms, i.e. if they go down prior to round 3, you may want an area with lots of room and tons of easy escape routes like the roof, but if they seem to hold their own fairly well, give the buddha room a try.

What I like to do is more or less sit back and coach in the early rounds. I'm not too concerned with getting setup because I know once the rounds get tougher, I'll probably have to start training and I'm secure I'll get my points. I like to let the randoms get most of the kills early on and just kinda coach them on tips, strategies, and step in if things get tough. This also gives me a good basis as to where they are as players by what knowledge they share vs. hearing them have some "Ah-ha!" moments.

They usually enjoy the game much more by being able to get involved like this and feel more confident that an experienced player has their back and isn't just running away early on and leaving them to their own devices. So, I play support early on, engage the player to discover their skill set, direct a good strategy to give them the best possbile starting point, then I start thinking about my individual survival. This keeps my games interesting, challenging, and also helps lesser skilled players learn and newer players become involved.

[83457]

You're a good person E407,

Fun is the most important strategy.

If I play with low-skill/knowledge players, I know the game won't get far, so I concentrate on making it a fun learning experience. If one can achieve that, you will develop great teammates.

They will even most likely be biased towards playing the way you prefer, at least initially, making teammates that trust you and vice versa.