Firstly, I would like to acknowledge that you are wholly correct that categorically ignoring capping from the start of the game is a poor strategy and should be discouraged and even derided.
I have, however, numerously found myself teamed up with players who make the opposite error. On many, many occasions I have been in games where we have a team member (who usually died towards the beginning of the game) writing “CAP IDIOTS,” over and over, and generally whining, even though a cap victory is provably secured.
For instance, I was recently in a game in which:
- Our team held two points and the enemy held three.
- There were three enemy mechs remaining (two were targeted and so vastly separated that the thought that they could survive long enough to link up intensely strained the imagination) and five friendly mechs.
- Our team had over 650 resource points and they had around 500 (I did have the exact figures at the time but did not bother to commit them to memory).
- Both of our points were fully buffered
- Nullifying a fully buffered point takes around a minute solo, and friendlies were positioned to interfere with any capture attempts on our two points.
- In one minute, we would have gained more than the 100 resource points necessary for us to win and the enemy team would have gained only 180 of the 250 resource points they needed.
Despite these conditions, a person on our team became frantically agitated and insisted that our mechs discontinue all combat in order to attempt to cap, as he believed that that was our only chance at victory. When I pointed out that this was entirely unnecessary and that he was simply mistaken he became very upset and suggested I should not play conquest if I did not want to capture points. We ultimately did not capture any additional points and, I'm sure much to this person's surprise, we attained a resource victory regardless.
It actually would not have been poor strategy in this case to capture more points, as we never located their last guy. Had we captured more points like he suggested, while unnecessary to victory, we would have won slightly faster. Of course, we would have won even faster if we had located and destroyed the final enemy mech. Sometimes the decision to cap or not to cap is simply not important, and there is no reason to become over-excited.
I do not mean to suggest that you need to perform these calculations to make informed tactical decisions during a conquest match (although it certainly couldn't hurt -unless you struggle with arithmetic and would find it distracting-), but there are cases were capping is objectively unnecessary and I find it irritating when I have people on my team suggest otherwise in such events (which happens to me frequently).
It is also worth noting that there are situations in which a resource victory is provably impossible and your team's only chance at victory is killing all enemy mechs.
In cases where a resource victory is necessarily impossible, the people saying “CAP CAP CAP!” may actually convince some of their more credulous friends to attempt to cap instead of focusing on destroying the enemy mechs, which could turn a possible annihilation victory into a certain resource loss.
Also, one can easily conceive of situations in which focusing on killing the enemy team over capping would improve the likelihood of victory, even if one cannot rigorously prove as much. For instance, imagine a situation where all enemy mech locations are known, they are all seriously damaged, your team has a strong mech advantage, and it appears that the enemy can be quickly killed all while the scores are low enough that capping is not an immediate concern. I think everyone understands that there are situations in which a focus on destroying enemy mechs is a more efficacious strategy than an emphasis on capping.
Capping is a vitally important part of conquest and any team that neglects capping or does not somehow work this mechanic into their strategy is at an extreme disadvantage. However, sometimes going for caps over kills is disadvantageous to the team and can sometimes exclude the possibility of victory. Being excessively focused on capping can have effects just as catastrophic as pretending conquest is skirmish.
TL;DR: If your team is ignoring caps from the beginning you will be seriously disadvantaged, however sometimes conquest games evolve in such a way that capping may ultimately become
demonstrably irrelevant,
demonstrably disadvantageous, or
arguably disadvantageous. You (OP, as well as any other readers) almost certainly already know this, but I think it is important to say because I have seen many people who misunderstand the way conquest works and believe that capping is the only thing that matters.
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