Camping

Camping is the act of voluntarily keeping out of firefights by staying in one place while shooting from a distance or sneaking out from behind a corner to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting player passing by. It is also useful to stay at their spawn while the newly spawned player hasn't had time to gather new weapons or so. Campers usually bring along powerful weapons such as the Sniper Rifle, Spartan Laser, Mauler, Rocket Launcher, Energy Sword and Shotgun. It is also common when usually a player racks around with a light vehicle such as the Chopper, Ghost, Warthog etc. But a weapon such as the Oddball is not possible to camp with (Except for against players who don't pay much attention) because the player with the oddball is marked with a Waypoint. Although camping is a legal and legitimate strategy, most players complain that it takes away from the inherent fun of the game. It is often stated that it is a "noob" strategy, as it allegedly takes little "skill" and is a cowardice way to play. This is not necessarily true, but it is the general consensus of the gaming world that camping is to be frowned upon.

Strategy and Counter-Strategy

Corner Camping

Many campers rely largely on close-quarters ambushes, or "corner rushing", to take down their enemies. Popular places to corner-camp are usually sharp blind corners where a camper may hide with a powerful short-range weapon (such as the Gravity Hammer, Energy Sword or Shotgun) and cut down anybody who turns the corner. Once a corner-camper's location has been determined, however, it is generally quite easy to take him out. The usual strategy for these situations is to throw a grenade into his hiding spot to kill him or at least flush him out. With the advent of Halo 3's Mauler, which spawned rapidly and commonly on numerous multiplayer maps, corner-camping became a severe balance issue, so much so that Bungie decreased the number of Maulers in multiplayer.

Target Camping

In objective games such as Assault, King of the Hill and Capture the Flag, it is relatively common practice for a player to hide out of sight near the objective and target anybody who comes nearby to claim or defend the objective. Unlike most other forms of camping, this is not generally frowned upon and is indeed rather commonplace. Nonetheless, like all forms of camping, it is potentially a somewhat unsporting strategy.

Weapon camping is a form of target camping especially prevalent on smaller maps, in which a player hides near a powerful weapon, killing anyone who arrives to take it. This became a major focus of the Halo 3 multiplayer map Snowbound; players would hide near the shotgun spawn and slaughter all the myriad enemies who attempted to claim it. This became more important than anything else on the map, so much so that Bungie removed the shotgun from Snowbound and replaced it with a Beam Rifle. This has also taken place on the map The Pit, where the Energy Sword spawn is to the side of the map. The small room where the Plasma Sword spawns is ideal for camping, since the door in is bordered by two treacherous corners where players are commonly found attempting assassinations or noob-combo kills with the nearby spawning Mauler.

Spawn Camping

Spawn camping is the ritual and practice of locating a series of respawn points throughout a specific map and monopolizing them with a powerful weapon, killing and demolishing anybody who spawns there while they are still ill-prepared and ill-equipped for a fight with terrible default weapons. This became unfortunately common in Halo 2's Matchmaking, especially on smaller, symmetrical maps such as Midship and Sanctuary. In Halo 3, the issue of spawn camping was addressed specifically by multiplayer designers, who engineered a complex algorithm to govern respawns. This algorithm not only assured that respawns would take place in a helpful manner, but also reduced the likelihood of respawning at a location with enemies nearby. Although spawn camping remains an issue to some extent, it is far less common.

Another type of spawn camping is to drive a vehicle rapidly around your enemy's base. Although this tactic will allow many players to escape their spawn points unharmed, it will also grant the player a considerable number of kills as they simply run over newly spawned foes. This is not generally considered a serious form of camping, as it relies on motion and has a considerable level of risk involved.

Spawn camping may also refer to camping at the spawn locations of weapons, equipment, etc. in order to have a monopoly on the item.

Lift Camping

Lift camping is the practice of ambushing and killing players who are in uncontrollable motion. It takes its name from the Gravity Lift. Players in a gravity lift are unable to control their movement in any way, making them easily predictable targets for campers. On the multiplayer map Lockout, for example, the gravity lift launched players clearly into the open with a loud, recognizable noise in full view of the sniper spawn, turning them into easy prey. This has also become commonplace on the Halo 3 map Construct, where players will camp at the top of the gravity lifts with the energy sword or flamethrower and lay waste to those ascending through the lift. Whenever a lift makes a sound when someone is coming up, a Plasma Grenade can be thrown on the landing sport, and if timed right, will kill the player upon landing. The lift camping strategy can largely be undermined by throwing a grenade or power drainer into a gravity lift before you enter it, although this is admittedly not always practical. The best counter is often just to take a different route up and flank the camper, as they are often unsuspecting of attacks from the side or back. Such campers often utilize close-range weapons, an effective strategy in Lockout.

TeleCamping

Named because of its use of the teleporter, it is usually, but not always, done in an open map with cliffs or walls big enough for a vehicle in. The basics is to get a turret in a place where it has a view of the end of a teleporter and is protected from any open fields of fire, such as classic sniping spots and bases. The player then gets in the turret (usually the back of a Warthog or Spectre) and waits for an enemy to go through. As soon as the enemy enters, the gunner tears the foot soldier to shreds. Another strategy, which is good if there are snipers about, is to drive a vehicle, such as a warthog or ghost, to the teleporter, and stay in the driver seat. Then, the player runs over the enemies instead of shooting them. One place this is very popular is Blood Gulch in Halo PC, this is because the space is wide open, but the teleporters are fairly concealed. The player, probably on blue team, takes a Rocket Warthog and proceeds to wait by the red team teleporter. The player usually gets out of the 'hog and crouches behind it so enemy snipers do not read it as 'enemy' (this also turns off the headlights). When a red team player teleports into the shadowy area their base takes them, the player jumps into the rocket turret, blasts the enemy with one shot, and crouches back behind again.

Trivia

• In Red vs Blue, a red soldier gets killed by a blue camping soldier. The red soldier screams hateful vulgarities at the blue for camping as he dies. The blue soldier runs away yelling, "It's a legitimate strategy!"
• Many people will camp if they have the Energy Sword due to its fairly poor range.