79 replies to this topic

[Sergeant Random]

I once started a game with this on team chat:

[Redacted]

Lol. Condescenscion tempered with a bit of self-humiliation didn't really work. It was too late as most of my team was being focus fired in narrow ground. They were clogging one of the entrances to the crater of Terra Therma.

But seriously, a concise chat right after finding cover can add just the right amount of luck to fighting with blue team.

"Ecm atlas and 2 lances at d5" just might be the nudge needed for a group to pull together and make 2 kills in a row for advantage.

Besides, PUGing simulates working in a rag-tag militia group. Not usually recommended for the most OC of control-freaks and micro-managers. (Still, all of them d!cks like me. Human, I mean.)

I meant "ducks" ... Dust off your LB-X, we are going duck hunting...

[Sergeant Random]

On a less satirical note, in game stats does give a player some sense of achievement and pride. Hence rewarding the avoidance of the "risk" of PUG play. Maybe your stats and ELO could be calculated from the most recent interval of games? Say your last 50 games? This way, your recent performance may be observed to improve as opposed to when you were first experimenting with the mech's control scheme. PUG play keeps the servers busy, keeps the game alive. If it's really that bad, it should be rewarded somehow. (Which, when you look at the proposed difference between PUG and custom matches - custom matches not rewarding xp - well someone seems to have thought of it already)

[xMintaka]

Not ALL pugs deserve a bad rep.

But most do. Most solo players are terrified that their 100ton walking death machine will get scratched. It gets even worse as the weight decreases. Cowardice (in a video game...wtf) is not the way to win games, as we all know.

[Sergeant Random]

Yeah - armor is supposed to get scratched. To make it less of a negative experience, watch your team and radar for when the blue wolf pack is pouncing at a favorable moment. (Admittedly easy to say but hard in practice).

If we open our awareness that MWO is more than point-and-shoot, we might find an appreciation for its little nuances. I like the claustrophobic feel of cockpits, the paranoid feel of watching radar and sensor contacts while piloting an LRM mech, and the mixed feeling of helplessness and hope when you make suggestions using chat.

War is like that. Things go wrong, and you gotta make do. Life is like that too. (Of course we still try to do our best to stack the odds in our favor)

[Tim East]

Sergeant Random, on 22 May 2014 - 05:13 PM, said:

I like the claustrophobic feel of cockpits, the paranoid feel of watching radar and sensor contacts while piloting an LRM mech, and the mixed feeling of helplessness and hope when you make suggestions using chat.

I like sticking to the back of an LRM boating Atlas that his teammates more or less abandoned to destruction by a troll SRM commando build.
Also watching him sluggishly spin around in a slow circle failing to find you all the while. I like that too.

Way I figure it, for every bad PUG worth complaining about, there's a good one just around the corner waiting to happen. Or from a more cynical point of view, sometimes the bad PUG is on the other team. It's all fun and games.

[Flaming oblivion]

If I hadn't had so much experience with pugs that makes me think my teams going to run away if I help them , The squirrels will stand still in the open firing at a atlas, Or the team will commit crimes against intelligence trying to hold a pug zapper still refusing to try something else when halve the teams been picked off . They think there this guy -when in reality there this guy

[TVMA Doc]

Geeks On Hugs, on 16 May 2014 - 07:47 PM, said:

From my experience PUGs are actually better company-wide team players than 4 man pre-mades. If the whole company decides on a strategy PUGs are more likely to go along with it but often a premade will insist on doing it's own thing (not always of course but often enough and a few will even be {Richard Cameron}* about it). Those games are almost invariably lost because teamwork rules the day and one lance totally working against the goals of the company is a disaster. PUGs are capable of teamwork, it just requires someone to take leadership. Really it's just a bit of organization. When I take command via the battlegrid my team wins at least over 75% of the time. Not that I am a great commander in the slightest - absolutely anyone can do it - it's simply that we work together...usually not more complex than initially grouping up.

When I hear people railing against the PUGs I silently note that invariably we made no effort to coordinate with them so who can blame them for just rolling through? We need to beef up tools to make coordination and teamwork more natural - the battlegrid, command console, build in VOIP, etc.

*OMG the editor changed my reference to the male appendage in plural to "{Richard Cameron} LOL what is that a reference to? I don't get the reference?

Aside from the ability to pre-select mechs that might be really complementary to one another, the main reason that pre-mades have an advantage is communications. Pre-mades most often are using VOIP and an coordinate much better.
The game sorely needs in-game voice coms. Typing is too slow, especially when you're too busy to type because you're getting hammered.

[LastPaladin]

Belorion, on 18 May 2014 - 08:06 AM, said:

Your premise doesn't make sense. If anyone should be directing the strat for the drop it should be the 4 man, so at that point shouldn't the pugs be going along with what the 4 man is doing?

In my experience, a lot of premades don't bother to let the rest of team know what their plan is, and don't respond to in game chat when the team is making plans of their own. So, what, we are just supposed to guess they are a premade, then follow them in hopes that they know what they are doing?

[TVMA Doc]

Flaming oblivion, on 23 May 2014 - 09:49 AM, said:

If I hadn't had so much experience with pugs that makes me think my teams going to run away if I help them , The squirrels will stand still in the open firing at a atlas, Or the team will commit crimes against intelligence trying to hold a pug zapper still refusing to try something else when halve the teams been picked off . They think there this guy -when in reality there this guy

True, but as a player who has played 100% of games as a PUG, I can say that I've met with more success than threads like this would suggest should be possible. Of course the win/loss is about even because the matchmaker tries to achieve that. My K:D is about 3:1 and my teams of PUGs have had about as much success against premade drops on the other team as they've had trouble when in possession of a premade.

As I mentioned a premade isn't guaranteed victory and a PUG team isn't guaranteed defeat. There is a huge advantage to the team with the coms because there can be instant reactions to enemy movements, but there are a lot of decent players playing as PUGs and some pretty pitiful premades .

[LastPaladin]

Sergeant Random, on 22 May 2014 - 05:13 PM, said:

...mixed feeling of helplessness and hope when you make suggestions using chat.

Haha, that is fun. I have found better success if I don't actually make suggestions, but just ask questions, like:

"Should we really be splitting up like this?"

or

"Why are you charging Kappa alone when there are two enemy lances headed there?"

People seem to respond better because I'm not "telling them what to do", just asking questions.

[Wrathful-Khan]

I've had some great PuG drops. How good is it when you get into a match and some guy (or guys) coordinates perfectly with you and nobody has said a word? Simpatico. I love that. At the end of the match I feel like saying "Special shout out to the spider dude 07"

Had some awful group drops as well where we were a shambles and nobody said a word so what was the point of having comms?

The game is what it is, and that's adapting to situations as they occur.

[Sergeant Random]

Topic too serious? Try "duck mechs" in the forum's search box for a little break.

[Void Angel]

Much of the mythology surrounding Pugs and premades comes from two sources; focus fire, and self-fulfilling prophecies:

Whenever someone makes a catastrophic mistake, has a run of bad luck, or just gets outplayed, the balance of power often shifts drastically - because focus fire has an exponential effect. For instance, when Captain Clueless and a friend run off squirrel-chasing and get rofflepwned by the enemy team's main force, it makes a bigger difference in the next engagement than the ~17% of the team you just lost might suggest. Once a team gets clearly ahead this process tends to snowball, particularly if both teams are doing a generally good job of focusing priority targets. So, having a 5v12 match is really kind of average - but once people hear that the matchmaker is "terrible," bias confirmation sets in, and such matches are viewed as "proof," when in reality they're what you expect from this kind of gameplay.

Now, a good premade will try to work with the group, but a foolish premade will try to work around them - or just "use them as a distraction." The problem with this is that it sets up a self-fulfilling prophecy: if the PuGs do well enough in the lopsided fight which the premade has handed them, the premade swoops in and thinks their skill and tactics saved the day. If the PuGs fold and the premade gets hunted down like dogs, they think it was the PuG's fault - and the times that the PuGs beat the enemy by themselves are just the exception that proves the rule.

Feeding into both of these processes is the positive feedback loop of the current metagame. Rewards for shooting someone with long-range weapons are instant - rewards for taking risks and accepting fire to get into close-range or flank engagements are delayed, and depend in part on your team's support. So players gravitate toward long-range combat and leave flankers/brawlers unsupported, which encourages the flanker/brawlers to say, "screw that!" and go long-range instead - and the gift goes on.

None of this should be construed to mean that I think the matchmaker is perfect, or that there are no lopsided matches, problems matching high-Elo players, etc. I'm simply offering an explanation here as to why people feel like they do about PuGs and premades.

[StillRadioactive]

Void Angel's point about the metagame is entirely consistent with all me experience in other games where you customize what you bring. I played competitive Magic: the Gathering for years, and it's the same thing there.

The tier 1 decks are tier 1 because they're expected to be tier 1. You can come up with something completely off the wall that will stomp 3/4 of the tier 1 decks every time, and people are very slow to react to it because "it's not what wins."

Metagames are always like that. Meta is even short for metastatic gaming... you know, metastatic... as in the way cancer spreads throughout the body. Chew on that for a minute.

Break the meta. Beat the meta. Move on before the meta catches up to what you run.

[Void Angel]

The Thomas Theorem in action is always part of any social environment, so a lot of how peoples' view of "the right way" to play is based on shared concepts. As far back as Everquest, I was told things by experienced players that were patently untrue, such as that all the Al'kabor spells were useless - or that my Shadow Knight "had" to be five levels higher to tank where he'd been grouping for the last two hours. "Mana Tide Saves Raids," but I digress. The point is that part of the metagame is always that a lot of people believe in it - usually because they see high-level players using it.

There is always an empirical advantage to the meta decks, however, just like there's an empirical advantage to meta builds here - in MWO, that's primarily the effect of pinpoint damage and called shots on time-to-kill. High-punch weapons are simply stronger than other ways to play in MWO, and will continue to be so until their advantages are either curbed or offset by buffing other types of weaponry. Of course, once that happens, the top-level players who generally set the meta will adapt - because they're always experimenting anyway - and players will shift again. The trick to making a balanced game is to make the differences in build types as close as possible; an ongoing process in all games that are not played on a board.

All that being said, I wholeheartedly agree with Radioactive that people should always try to push the boundaries of what they think they know about games. Study the game; put some effort into it - you'll gain a lot more satisfaction in return. If you treat any MMO as a sort of interactive television - as mere "entertainment" and not a hobby - you're not going to live up to your potential as a player.

[Flaming oblivion]

Had a game last night on terra derpa ,man I bet the enemy team was pissed more so there premade , 2 of our lances decided to go to the zapper to die horrible deaths , our PuG! lance was talking in lance chat we really didn't want to go to the zapper so decided to take the long walk to the enemy base, We encountered no resistance, By the time we got there the score was 6-5 to us, we took out the turrets and proceeded to cap , 1 enemy mech made it back but he was to late, we didn't do much in the way of dmg kills assists but the game was ours.

[Sergeant Random]

Don't tank aggro from hostiles as much as you would on other MMOs.

You will be disappointed. How much dps can an Atlas center torso take in 10 seconds? I have driven an Atlas into ambushes many times to have a rough idea.

Think not only of build vs build but of lance vs lance. An LRM30 will maim a ppctart given a spotter and time. A PPCtart will maim an lrmboat given a distraction and time too.

The challenge with PUGing is finding situational solutions on the fly under time pressure and hostile fire. It is both frustrating and rewarding. Practice, forethought and preparation helps.

Don't blame it all on the PUGs. Theyre not supposed to be members of a well organized military with standardized training.

Remember Murphy's Law: "If something can go wrong, it will."

GL HF.

[wanderer]

PUGs will have a bad name because of one, irreversible flaw- they are randoms.

Meta is strong because it minimizes random. Likewise, having a premade (or a 12-man) is a randomness-reducing process. VOIP reduces randomness by preventing people from simply drifting off unknowing and focusing them on targets. (Seriously, calling targets alone will improve your games considerably).

A PUG generally succeeds when it does in spite of itself, simply because randomness lined up into enough like-minded players as to have a "battle plan" that they all feel peachy about doing together. It is playing slots, not chess.

[Sergeant Random]

The stress of dropping into the unknown bugs all of us.

[Belorion]

LastPaladin, on 23 May 2014 - 10:17 AM, said:

In my experience, a lot of premades don't bother to let the rest of team know what their plan is, and don't respond to in game chat when the team is making plans of their own. So, what, we are just supposed to guess they are a premade, then follow them in hopes that they know what they are doing?

Usually pug strategy comes down to "lets blob over there" which isn't really a strategy. Often premades will wait for the PuGs to engage, then try to flank to the right or left to split the concentration of the enemy force. This usually works to great effect unless there is a premade on the other side.