Is 'Backdooring' cheating?

Battleborn Battleborn Competitive Multiplayer Discussion
#62

it is a mistake, but it certainly shouldn’t cost you the game without so much as a reliable warning, and NOTHING Your enemy can do to win the game should be without risk. MOBAs are all about decision making, there isn’t much decision making involved in “sit by wall, hold trigger until victory.”

I’ve lost maybe two games out of the 200-ish I’ve played because someone did this… each time it’s a momentary lapse of attention, and a very small amount of damage done… but it’s enough. The problem is, it’s not fun. It’s not fun to win that way or to lose that way. It’s BAD for gameplay, it’s bad for new players, it’s bad for the game in general.

The only people who enjoy it are the types that prefer to win with as little effort as possible, have no pride in achieving anything and aren’t here to have fun, but to ruin someone else’s fun.

#63

It announces it with a quiet little “your sentry is under attack” from NOVA, it also flashes at the same time. The problem is both are very easily overlooked and should be more prominent, AND the sentry will do BOTH while not actually under attack.

I mean, maybe it’s some stray bullet going across map to activate it when this happens, but it’s literally not enough damage to be able to even see that the shields are down at all, and it will go haywire. It’s not reliable.

This results in the first few times it happens you rushing over and looking for the enemy damaging it… then, you start to assume that if you’re pushed up into the enemy’s base it’s probably just a fluke. That’s a failing game-mechanic that does not accurately portray the state of the game.

#64

All I know is, is that until sentry sniping is fixed, I’m done with Incursion. That crap happening once is enough to make me not want to play for the rest of the day. Nothing worse than pushing minions and whittling down a sentry, only to still be losing to a team stuck in its base. And it’s not like I can just stroll in leisurely and kill him either. Yeah, try shutting him down as Attikus or Boldur. Hope you can come up with a better strat during respawn.

As for back dooring, if the sentry or turrets can’t hit you, and the most you have to do is hold auto attack, then yes, it is an exploit. There is no real risk once you set up camp. 1 character shouldn’t be doing what a team + minions attempts to do.

1 Like
#65

Ugh, sure, I’ll explain it nice and clear. Yes, while he can spec into a double jump, he still can’t sit behind a wall auto-attacking the sentry down; can he? He still can’t do what I’m talking about.

#66

Why is that such a hard concept for some people to understand? They act like the designers intended them to win with that junk or something.

#67

It’s another lane in my opinion. The fact of the matter is more then 5 characters in game can do it so both teams have the option. I believe it to be fair and a viable option.

#68

Another thing no one has mentioned, these strategies as is put certain characters leagues above other’s in usefulness. So many Battleborn have to push the center lane and fight things out, while certain, already strong characters, can just sneak to a sentry and hurt it without risk once camp is set up. Whiskey now just looks that much worse lol

#69

My issue with seeing it as a lane is that nothing of importance is in those lanes, so no one thinks about them. If I’m playing El Dragon, what’s more likely, me Splashing minions and keeping enemy Battleborn at bay, or hanging in a lane that holds 0 significance to my character.

And hey, maybe that’s the point, and why it’s called a backdoor, but there’s even less risk involved when you take into consideration those same 5+ characters are the only ones going to consider it a viable. Pushing a center lane hard as Benedict runs the risk of a Gal stunning/silencing you out of the air or a Whiskey hitting you with a slow sticky, but these other “lanes?” Most hard hitting power houses won’t bother unless there is a thrall, so worst case scenario, run back to center and continue to be useful there.

#70

no he… actually he can but that relies on late game and having lots of cooldown item and spamming his crossblades and the smash move and there are helix that cools one another from the double thrall spot, but not as fast as ISICS FREAKEN ULTIMATE!!!

#71

I asked my wife if ‘backdooring’ is cheating and she said yes.

3 Likes
#72

It’s not a map issue. Overgrowth has the other tunnel that they can go through as anyone and back door. echelon has 2 of them. If you don’t defend you won’t win its that simple. The UI has an indicator that a sentry is under attack look for the exclamation point

#73

Yet cheating or glitchng by definition would give an unfair advantage, but since it requires no cheating or game manipulation by definition it’s fair game even if it lacks the spirit of the game. Same thing could be said about camping in other games ya know?

#74

Nah, I see what you mean. I don’t think it’s cheating, just not at all well planned (Though the sentry and turrets not firing on you is a bit exploitative IMO). As I said, it’s just a bit too easy for a select number of characters to do it, yet any character that has no choice but to hold the middle lane pushes and fights for every inch of progress, where even retreat can he punishable by death.

My complaint is with that. The uneven advantage it gives to certain characters above others. Doesn’t help that characters that can do it are already pretty damn strong. Meanwhile, Attikus is in the game. I love him to death, but jeez it’s a challenge.

#75

I have never failed to notice the alarm that my sentry is under attack despite several Backdooring attempts upon me. The “!” signal over the score bar is very obvious and I don’t know how people miss it.

2 Likes
#76

Attikus can make the jump too though

#77

Not like he can do anything afterwards to make use of it. What, he’s gonna go punch the sentry? That would mean he’d be exposed to sentry fire and turrets, unlike OM or Benedict. Really he’s illustrative of my point. Yeah, he can use the lane, but he 1) Puts his escape on very lengthy cooldown, and 2) Has a huge risk associated with the potential reward of sentry damage. But no, he’d be killed in seconds, just like against most melee pre lvl 3. I bring him up because if it is intended for certain characters to back door, those without the viable option look that much weaker of a pick.

#78

Jumping up on the third lane no, hitting the sentry from your own area yes. The fact that you either have to do the same thing or go on a suicide run to stop it is a legitimate problem. I’ve never actually tried to be the same character as somebody else, but I’m assuming you have to be unique characters on your own team so somebody who doesn’t exploit taking Marquis from your team which is really the only way to even things out if the other team is doing it creates a void, that said if you could actually shoot Marquis from the ledge in which he shoots the sentry safely right now I’d be willing to re-assess things from that point given at least a few characters could viably drive him off from their own ledge.

#79

Alright, first off, the little exclamation point doesn’t show up until your sentry is actually taking HEALTH damage.
When the shields are being hit, it’s just a little “flash” on the screen.

I want you to watch my screen… watch it. If I hadn’t heard “sentry under fire” how on earth, with ALL of the other crap exploding on my screen, would I have known that it was “under fire?”

But then look, I run back to check it, and there isn’t even a TINY sliver of shield off of it… nobody around it…

WHAT GOOD IS THIS ANNOUNCEMENT?

It does nothing but pull me off of the front lines to check it, but there is NO way to know the difference between someone back-dooring it and this faulty notification (or, what, maybe a stray bullet?)

This happens ALL the time, sometimes multiple times per game, and if someone IS back-dooring, and I don’t see the little “flash” on my sentry at the top of the screen, or hear the announcement because I’m in the middle of chaos, then they can get hits in and gain the lead for freeeeee.

#80

Here’s another problem with it, IMO, this Marquis turned our final push into a back-door counter-fest.

I was Boldur, and their team could literally do NOTHING against me,

You’ll notice my first sentry is gone, and my second sentry is almost gone, this is from the Marquis and OM repeatedly running through our lines and sniping/air-striking them from safety positions. The ONLY reason the sentry is still standing is because, instead of pushing my lane to victory, like I’d been doing the entire game, I had to keep running back to stop them from just shooting my sentry down. If I was dead, they’d get free damage in until I could respawn.

At NO point in this game were the enemy minions anywhere NEAR my final sentry, and they could just fire on it without taking any damage.

Because our team didn’t have enough ranged damage, we couldn’t rush the sentry down as fast, so while we won every engagement in the middle, while we pushed the minions (theoretically an important part of the game-mode) and by every measurable metric, we won this game… we wound up losing it because Marquis and OM can hide and shoot it.

The sentry simply needs to have a distance ring around it, and if no one is within that ring, then it shouldn’t be able to take damage. If someone is within that ring, then it can take damage from all sources. Simple fix to all of this crap.

No game should turn into this wild-goose chase garbage.

#81

not a cheat, is an exploit. had a 2 day long argument with my bro over this before