Here's the problem with "backdooring" in Incursion

Battleborn Battleborn General Discussion
#1

Alright, so I’ve heard a lot of people talking about whether “back dooring” is an intentional part of the game or not, and, personally, I don’t really care, it’s an exploit at this point, and here’s why:

Okay so here you go, one bb dropping the sentry and doing damage…

Now, you’ll notice I’m not using my ult, that’s because this is at level 1.

You may also note that the sentry is staring right at me and not attempting to fire. The thumper didn’t either, the spot is glitched.

And you’ll notice that the enemy team isn’t coming… That’s because I jumped up, hit it once, gave them time to check on it and then jumped back up,negating the “sentry under fire” announcement the second time.

This was also a team of four 100s and a 48.
And i was solo with randoms.
And for those curious, I sat there and got the sentry down to 84 points before a member of the other team on respawn ran by, saw me, and chased me off.

Now I’m going to go take a shower, I feel dirty.

#First:
Yes, I agree, rushing a sentry down should be a viable option. IMO it should require something to tank the damage from the sentry, either minions or a tank, etc., ANYTHING to tank the damage while you assault it, and it’s a legitimate strategy. (this is how rushing any objective has worked in any MOBA I’ve ever played) It actually requires teamwork in order to drop the objective.

However, currently, that doesn’t have to happen, any ranged character can pick a spot, sit, deal damage to the sentry, and not be fired upon, and while we can argue whether that’s intended or should be implemented, the fact that it takes advantage of a buggy UI is the real problem with dealing with it currently.

#Second:
The audio announcement that it’s under fire is busted. It falsely makes announcements, while when it’s actually under fire it does not make the announcement reliably, if at all.

Like this:

“Sentry under fire.” TWO flashes on the indicator, it MUST be a backdoor attack! So I rush back to check on my sentry, but it’s fine. No damage at all. Maybe a stray bullet, sure, but why even announce something so trivial? It does nothing but make me leave the front lines, and it conditions me to ignore her calls in the future, because they “might” be wrong.

#Third:
The visual indicator that it’s under fire is also a problem, while it’s easier to see AFTER your shields have dropped on the sentry (it turns into a big exclamation point) up until the point that it has taken physical damage and you have lost points, the only visual queue it gives is a feint flashing around the sentry icon on the top of your page, which can be practically impossible to see due to how visually “busy” the UI is in this game.

Here, I step out of combat for a second, and notice a Benedict icon on my radar up at the back ledge, this prompts me to run back to check on my sentry. :

That’s assuming that it even flashes at all, because sometimes, it doesn’t:

The announcement is broken, and cannot be relied on to let you know what’s going on. Factor in that the map indicator is out of range when you reach the other side of the map and the only way to know if someone is back dooring your sentry is to either stand there watching for it, or to constantly position check everyone else in the game.

Aside from that, it’s just NOT FUN.
THIS is the garbage my games of incursion are devolving into:

Here’s another prime example: After a good match, we lose after a strong push to even up the sentry score. 30 kills to 10, complete map control, but we lose. If you watch this clip, you can clearly see TWO flashes on the sentry icon at the top of the page and absolutely no audio announcement during our final push on the sentry… I mean, is this supposed to be enough to let me know that there’s a sentry under fire? Most of their team is dead, but one character, sitting behind a rock “wins” them the game.

Me chasing down back-door players who can’t even get a minion CLOSE to my last sentry, but they’re able to kill it anyway, without taking damage from the sentry itself. In this clip, there had NEVER been a single minion into my front sentry area, they’d been shoved into the enemy’s base the entire game, but I’m still losing, because my team can’t win the push race fast enough while OM and Marquis just keep sprinting across map to cheese it down.
Even though I’m slaughtering them, even though they can’t kill or beat me as I’m over leveled from winning fights, they don’t have to fight me, they just ignore me and sprint across the map.

When I run back and kill them, they respawn before I can get back across the map to help my team on the front lines, they effectively pull me off of the front lines, and they get back to the front lines with a numbers advantage before I can return. The respawn timers aren’t long enough to punish them from running that far from base and dying.

#Fix it

Personally, I think the clear solution is to simply make the sentry immune to damage unless anything from the opposing team is within a reasonable distance from it. Be it a minion, or an enemy, as long as ANYTHING is dealing with the sentry’s damage, then it’s fair game. It makes last second rushes still viable, but at least the rushers will have to soak up the damage to pull it off.

Of course whether that’s the route to take or not is debatable. I certainly agree that long-range damage needs to be viable against it no matter what, so I don’t agree that minions should be required, but I do believe one long range character sitting in a corner just clicking a button, under no circumstances, should “win” a multiplayer game.

But honestly, none of that may matter if your team could actually be notified when there’s an issue… seriously, FIX THE ANNOUNCEMENTS AND THE INDICATOR so we can at least tell when it’s under fire.

10 Likes
GBX, this is not optional, fix backdooring in Incursion
Fix the Incursion last sentry cheese
There needs to be great penalties for diving
GBX, this is not optional, fix backdooring in Incursion
#2

Sorry, I feel backdooring makes Incursion much more dynamic. Otherwise’ it’s just a boring lane pusher.

6 Likes
#3

Well, thank you for your well thought out, and might I add, informative addition to this discussion addressing the issues we’re discussing in-depth while bringing to light invaluable reasoning to reinforce your point of view.

#4

the sentry needs to be able to fire on any enemies if they are able to fire on the sentry. Having better announcements that the sentry is taking damage would also be nice. Maybe something like “Sentry shield at 50%”

5 Likes
#5

The sentry will target you on the sniper perch across the map. Hiding behind things and peaking out to shoot is just sort of how FPS is done.

I think what the sentry needs is a few fighters to watch their backfield. They could give them each their own set of unique powers, weapons, and personalities with clever things to say when they do stuff… oh.

1 Like
#6

Sorry, I didn’t realize this counted toward my final grade.

Your idea is not my idea of fun.

Hope that helped cleared up any confusion my previous reply may have caused.

2 Likes
#7

I have no problem with backdooring, I think a team should have to keep an eye on it and make adjustments on the fly, adds to the gameplay for me.

However, I seriously agree with you on that

  1. The UI indicator that the sentry is underfire is pretty much invisible
  2. The Sound que is bugged and will sound at nothing and it also needs to be much louder and noticeable. I cannot often times hear my sentry being shot at backdoor because its just quietly grunting. It should Immediately indicate itself being shot at.

and if the sentry does take a random 1 bullet then it shouldn’t just announce. it should be based off how much damage is done to the shield before it announces it. Say the shield has 100 health, if it gets hit from 100 to 99 it wont announce. but if its 100 to 95, then yea, alarm away.

4 Likes
#8

Immunity to damage without minions present was something I’ve also suggested in the past.

It would be embarrassingly easy to implement as well.

Instead what we get will be a mere half measure and will not stop exploiters.

At this point you need benedict and marquis to win against a decent team in overgrowth and that won’t change much after Tuesday

2 Likes
#9

Which backdoor are you talking about? There’s three lanes. It’s players fault for forgetting this.

I actually prefer the tunnel since you can bunker up easy there.

2 Likes
#10

That’s the only part that needs fixing imo. I think backdooring with Benedict/Mellka/whoever-else-can-get-up-that-cliff-face is a legitimate tactic, and actually adds more dynamic to the gameplay. I’ve never had an enemy player lay down much damage before being chased off either by another BB or the turret that has a clear line at that backdoor area. I’ve jumped up there a few times playing as Mellka and it’s just a diversion tactic. Pull an enemy player off their front line so my team can push mid. I don’t know what else to say… If other people like yourself are having a lot of trouble with this then maybe my experiences are the minority and I’m just plain wrong here. Either that, or there should be more focus on minimap awareness and enemy team heroes’ abilities. But definitely fix the announcements and indicators on the sentry. That **** is bugged af

5 Likes
#11

I Think I agree to what you’re saying. It is quite a legitimate tactic. Thank goodness they’re fixing the stairs where Marquis can headglitch to shoot at the sentry. I was playing Thorn and I kept sniping the Marquis when he was obviously cheesing it. He decided to go down the stairs to head glitch. I CAN’T SEE HIS HEAD AT ALL! With Thorn you can zoom and see a far target yet I can’t see even Marquis’ hat! He still manage to bring our sentry’s shield down… That sucks.

What I’m curious is, you can actually go up on the bunker’s entrance and still cheese it, tho you’ll still be obvious it’s still quite annoying

#12

I play as an anti-sniper (or more specifically anti-Marcheese) on Incursion/Overgrowth for this very reason with either Mellka using spike or WF using ACOG sight. It is some stone cold bull****.

2 Likes
#13

I feel that if you are in a position that the sentry can damage you, and you can be ran off or trapped/ambushed/killed by the other team there is no problem. Anybody being able to snipe the sentry from across the map, with very little danger, and in the middle of your own teams base, is an exploit that needs to, and is, be patched. If someone is in a vulnerable position and can damage the sentry, I see little problem with it. Although I do agree that the indicator at the top of the screen should be more noticeable. Maybe have a actual shield bar covering the health bar.
Say when the shield is halfway depleted it shows half the bar blue, and the other half red, and as it gets closer to being drained it becomes more red, until it becomes a whole red bar when shield is fully drained. That would be very noticeable. Hope they implement something like that.
Although kleeses ability to solo a sentry can be very annoying if he goes up the cliff, and no one notices, he is easy to run off when you notice it. An enemy marquis cheesing can be difficult to deal with, especially if the other team has lots of CC’s, and is protecting him.

#14

No, there’s one lane. A “lane” in a MOBA has minions in it.

You could make the argument that the Thrall area is a jungle area, but name a MOBA in which there’s a Jungle that you can’t see that your enemies have entered…

Or, name a MOBA where objectives can be taken without minions or someone tanking the damage…

1 Like
#15

I think the shield over the health bar is a great idea, actually. It would be much easier to notice than the current system is, at least before it takes damage.

3 Likes
#16

Backdooring is annoying but legit. Marquis stair sniping is just poor map design.

1 Like
#17

I’ve played well over 200 matches, and it is becoming an issue at this point. It used to just be a diversionary tactic, now it seems to be becoming more of an overall strategy. I’m having entire teams just try to stall until 5 and then rush right by the team with flankers using their ults instead of even trying to hold lane.

It’s not that big of a deal on the first sentry, were it not for the lack of an announcement, but if I’m a melee character, like Boldur, for instance, I can’t begin to compete with the amount of damage dumped by an OM ult and ISIC hopping up with him.

Of course, this may all be a moot point, if the interface actually notified you when your objectives were under attack properly, but the point is, they’re leaving their sentry undefended, but I still can’t begin to dump as much damage, even with the minion wave, and forget it if we’re on opposite sides of the map, once I’m in the “last push” area of the map, where the minions throttle directly into the mouth of the sentry, I have to push extremely hard to get minions into damage distance, dropping turrets and dealing with enemies, while those two can drop shields in seconds with ults and start getting damage… damage that keeps ticking if at least two front liners don’t run. So, you either lose your DPS on the line, or you lose your defenders keeping the DPS alive.

When the enemy team recalls, now whoever is left on their side of the map is now facing an entire team, while either their damage or their defenders are across map now.

The respawn rate isn’t even long enough to account for it, if you kill the back-door attackers, by the time you run back to support your teammates, the back-door individuals have already respawned anyway.

It devolves from a team-fight based push and pull into just sprinting around the map.

1 Like
#18

My idea that you’d actually have to beat the enemy players in order to kill the sentry is not your idea of fun?

But your idea of fun is standing by a wall and clicking a button to shoot an NPC and then claiming “victory” over a team of real players?

Yeah, your idea of fun is not my idea of a PVP match.

4 Likes
#19

There are not three lanes… there is one lane, and two “jungle” type areas… except one has no use and is impossible to see if enemies enter it from their base.

The bunker is a much different type of flank, you can visually be seen entering it, you’re not reliant on either baby-sitting it, or hoping that the UI actually notifies you.

#20

And I can see your point, personally I don’t like it, the game-mode feels like a MOBA to me and MOBAs always require tanking the damage to take an objective, which is what makes the minions in the lane actually valuable.

Thank you though for actually reading the comments, I definitely think flanking should be viable, even if it’s left as it is, as long as the game actually notifies you when the main objective is under fire. It’s really buggy right now.

I completely agree, I think the notification requirement needs to be changed to a percentage instead of just the stray bullet it seems to be decided by currently.

Lol, and SOOO Many people disagree with me and say the visual indicator is fine, lol, I just don’t understand it. I seriously can’t see that thing at all while any fighting is going on!

1 Like