100 replies to this topic

[Rogue Jedi]

I have said similar before in other threads, but my opinion is that there is no single way to evaluate your performance based on numbers.

there are a variety of roles in this game here are a few examples:


a scout or spotter may average low damage but can be vital in achieving victory,

a harasser, constantly keeping the enemy off balance may average 300+ damage but is most valuable for keeping the enemy distracted,

a front line brawler may get high damage and rip Mechs apart up close but is useless at range and will also take a lot of punishment when in the brawl so may have a bad kill death ratio but a good average damage,

a sniper may get low damage but a lot of kills (if a good shot) and is towards the back of the group so will not be killed early giving him/her a good kill death ratio,

[Arcainite]

Also, if they ever get around to salvage from the territory control battles, those low damage clean kills will be worth a lot more than if you blew up every piece of the enemy mech.

[Big Tin Man]

Here's how I like to think about it:

5 damage per ton -- ok, doing your share in pugville
10 damage per ton -- great game
10+ damage per ton -- that mech punches above it's weight class (i.e. nova, ember), or you're spamming consumables

It scales pretty darn nicely unless you're playing a specific role (spotter) or conquest (why?)

[n r g]

Rogue Jedi, on 27 August 2014 - 03:18 PM, said:

I have said similar before in other threads, but my opinion is that there is no single way to evaluate your performance based on numbers.

there are a variety of roles in this game here are a few examples:


a scout or spotter may average low damage but can be vital in achieving victory,

a harasser, constantly keeping the enemy off balance may average 300+ damage but is most valuable for keeping the enemy distracted,

a front line brawler may get high damage and rip Mechs apart up close but is useless at range and will also take a lot of punishment when in the brawl so may have a bad kill death ratio but a good average damage,

a sniper may get low damage but a lot of kills (if a good shot) and is towards the back of the group so will not be killed early giving him/her a good kill death ratio,

disagree, the way you define it is from your (odd) perspective. I have no idea what your gaming background is, for how many years, or for how many games, let alone esports.

Not sure where you defined 'sniping' as low damage, or a "scout" a vital for achieving.

Someone doing 700+ , in whatever the HELL they are in is "vital for achieving victory".

[Big Tin Man]

[redacted]

It's a rough guide with a lot of exceptions. Plenty of people get high damage scores in embers from ammo explosions (love seeing four component destroyed messages pop up when I'm running away), or a commando dropping a well placed arty strike getting 300 damage (15 dmg/ton op!).

Pre-clans I had plenty of matches where I would kill 5 fresh mechs in my ilya and only do 4-500 damage. I ran dual gauss and hole punched XL shoulders before it was cool.

Edited by Egomane, 27 August 2014 - 10:28 PM.
responding to removed content

[Rogue Jedi]

E N E R G Y, on 27 August 2014 - 03:27 PM, said:

disagree, the way you define it is from your (odd) perspective. I have no idea what your gaming background is, for how many years, or for how many games, let alone esports.

Not sure where you defined 'sniping' as low damage, or a "scout" a vital for achieving.

Someone doing 700+ , in whatever the HELL they are in is "vital for achieving victory".

you are correct in that usually if someone does 700+ damage they have made a valuable contribution to your team, however in 12-0 stomps I have seen people with 500+ damage with no kills and 1 assist, this certainly did not hurt the team but is it a vitally important contribution?

for sniping I should have said comparatively low damage, my mistake, there are some people who are great at killing a Mech at long range with minimal damage, e.g. with head shots (33 damage per kill), targeting open components or taking out the back.

if the enemy distracts you with a few Mechs then sends the rest of the team to flank, if the flank hits while you are focused on a few enemies they will likely win, but a good scout can give you warning so the flank fails,
have you ever had a game where your team proceeds one way then half the enemy go to your base and win through capturing the base? a competent scout can give you sufficient warning to stop this, or possibly hold off the capture long enough for your team to get back.
how are these not vital contributions? there are many other situations where a scout can be of serious help.

you are of course entitled to disagree, and for the record I have little competitive gaming experience, however this does not mean I am wrong, and again I sincerely believe that damage and kills are not the whole story as to your performance in a match and that those who are obsessed with those figures are not always very helpful to the team.

[Sonarch]

JC Daxion, on 27 August 2014 - 01:38 PM, said:

Dude i think sunday or monday.. i was in a match some guy in a commando killed me and had just 600 damage and a bunch of kills in a 1D, he cleaned up the rest of our team.. I wonder if that was you

I think the map was terra, and i was in a wolverine.. and It got behind me, and ran around like a little bug.. i think i only glimpsed it a few times.. I was so pissed! who ever was piloting it, to beable to get behind a 120 degree twist 103+ KPH wolvie,, was a darn good pilot.

Wasn't me. I did it at Wednesday on River City during the day. There was a time when I thought that only useful Commando was 2D with an ECM. I also pilot a 40 alpha damage Firestarter, but the thing is, a SRM (no streaks) commando will still have a higher number of kills because a laser boat Firestarter will splash damage all over the place most of the time and worry about cooling while the roles of successful commando warfare will always be SRMs and hitting targets at point blank range thereby dumping all damage into a critical component. It seems risky, but really, shooting SRMs over 200 meters is usually wasteful. It usually devolves into making a risque attempt at point blank with an outright goal of killing or crippling a target. The thing is, if, sometimes by luck, he doesn't see you coming, there usually aren't any risks envolved. I was amazed when I drove by an Anansi, shot him point black, ended up behind his back while he looked at all the wrong places to determine from where the shot came. I expected lights to have a better battlefield orientation. I guess a commando high risk approach is quite unorthodox, because most people are accustomed to look in the direction from where they recieved damage while the commando is probably already on the opposite side...

Edited by Sonarch, 28 August 2014 - 01:07 AM.

[Lily from animove]

Rogue Jedi, on 28 August 2014 - 12:57 AM, said:

you are correct in that usually if someone does 700+ damage they have made a valuable contribution to your team, however in 12-0 stomps I have seen people with 500+ damage with no kills and 1 assist, this certainly did not hurt the team but is it a vitally important contribution?

for sniping I should have said comparatively low damage, my mistake, there are some people who are great at killing a Mech at long range with minimal damage, e.g. with head shots (33 damage per kill), targeting open components or taking out the back.

if the enemy distracts you with a few Mechs then sends the rest of the team to flank, if the flank hits while you are focused on a few enemies they will likely win, but a good scout can give you warning so the flank fails,
have you ever had a game where your team proceeds one way then half the enemy go to your base and win through capturing the base? a competent scout can give you sufficient warning to stop this, or possibly hold off the capture long enough for your team to get back.
how are these not vital contributions? there are many other situations where a scout can be of serious help.

you are of course entitled to disagree, and for the record I have little competitive gaming experience, however this does not mean I am wrong, and again I sincerely believe that damage and kills are not the whole story as to your performance in a match and that those who are obsessed with those figures are not always very helpful to the team.

contribution depends on what you did. When you core 3 people from 100% armor to deep red center core and a random funny clown comes by and "steals" the kill. Who was more important? It's a team game, important is that you try to do something to help the team winning. spreading hundrets of damage all over the Direwolf while he shreds two people is hardly helpful. But when another guy just opens his back and cores him out with 1/3rd of that damage that is a lot more efficient.

[Tahribator]

Rogue Jedi, on 28 August 2014 - 12:57 AM, said:

you are correct in that usually if someone does 700+ damage they have made a valuable contribution to your team, however in 12-0 stomps I have seen people with 500+ damage with no kills and 1 assist, this certainly did not hurt the team but is it a vitally important contribution?

for sniping I should have said comparatively low damage, my mistake, there are some people who are great at killing a Mech at long range with minimal damage, e.g. with head shots (33 damage per kill), targeting open components or taking out the back.

if the enemy distracts you with a few Mechs then sends the rest of the team to flank, if the flank hits while you are focused on a few enemies they will likely win, but a good scout can give you warning so the flank fails,
have you ever had a game where your team proceeds one way then half the enemy go to your base and win through capturing the base? a competent scout can give you sufficient warning to stop this, or possibly hold off the capture long enough for your team to get back.
how are these not vital contributions? there are many other situations where a scout can be of serious help.

you are of course entitled to disagree, and for the record I have little competitive gaming experience, however this does not mean I am wrong, and again I sincerely believe that damage and kills are not the whole story as to your performance in a match and that those who are obsessed with those figures are not always very helpful to the team.

Damage is definitely a "vitally important contribution". Even if you don't kill something, you're wearing enemy 'Mechs down and opening components up here and there for your snipers, brawlers and lights. The worst nightmare of a brawler is getting into a brawl and seeing that every single of the enemy 'Mechs are fresh.

After all, all it comes down to kills in this game and the damage is the gateway to kills. Lights can get away with less damage because they can actually be used in other helpful roles(scouting, NARC/UAV, capping, trolling and such), but everything above lights has only one purpose: to kill.

[Mr D One]

It all depends really.

If your a narcing light, run in, plant the beacon, do a 100 damage and then the LRM boat gets 1000 plus from the way LRM's spread on the target.

Who is of more value?

They are the same value. One cannot be without the other.

The champion team that works as one will beat a team of champion players.

Edited by Dar1ng One, 28 August 2014 - 02:22 AM.

[FlipOver]

To me this Damage number count is one the wrong things in this game.

It needed to be split into categories:
- (Long Range Missile Boats + Scouts/Spotters) OR Long Range Support Fire -> These should always do more damage than the remaining players for the simple fact they can re-position if spotted and can fire without being fired at too much to bother them.

- Snipers -> These should be second best in the damage department. I say this because a good sniper shouldn't be able to put a lot of damage to put down an enemy. They should be accurate enough to hit the same spot over and over and with that reduce damage numbers count but increase damage to the enemy. On the other hand, a sniper usually has the privilege to be out of reach for most enemies to be bothered while there is a fight going on. So they can use this to increase the damage numbers count by firing at multiple enemies to disorient them and place good damage on their armor.

- Brawlers -> These should be third best, as brawlers usually take a lot of damage from both the 2 listed above and other brawlers.

- Scouts/Spotters -> These should be the low part of the damage number count. Their work isn't to inflict damage as much as providing ways for the team to inflict damage to the enemy.

But even this wouldn't cover the guys who go around capping on Conquest, or the guys who are bait to make the enemy turn their backs to the main teams force, and so on...

So don't think of this game as a matter of damage inflicted, I've seen people doing 2 (and 1) digit numbers of damage and being extremely successful for the win of the team. Even a 0 damage may be considered a good player if he managed to trick the enemy to think your team is going one way while they just flank the unsuspecting enemy.

@ PGI: A thought to ponder one: Remove the damage number count or just add more relevant stats to the end credits of each match.

[Libas]

Well here goes my 2 cents

Dmg dealt over a game is not reliable measure.
The goal is to get the enemy mechs destroyed.
So lets take as an example the stormcrow.
The stormcrow have 72 center armor with 36 hps and 52 side armor with 26 hps
So what is the damage you need to take that medium mech down
Lets say the rear armor is 10, for both center and side parts
Aiming the center front you ll need to deal 98 dmg
And for the side fronts you ll need 68*2=136 dmg

Now for the rear , the ct is 46 dmg and the sides is 72 dmg

The minimum to take down the stormcrow is at least 46 dmg

Of course you can always aim for legs, the head etc and then the damage might be lower or higher

So the number of damage dealt is relative. The kills and if you can neutrilize the mech by destroying their weapon systems - mobility, is more important.

Leg a mech and your or your teams job is 90% easier, destory the ac 20 from a mech and in most cases you let it with a few medium lasers, suppress the enemy with lrm and assist the brawlers, tag narc for you lrm boats, in the end you might have 0 killls, maybe low damage but with disabling the enemy you saved the bacon of a team mate and served cookies to the enemy.

Anyway do what is fun for you. Get a playstyle - mech you like and dont mind what the others say as long you have fun and you enjoy the game.

PS Sorry for my english

[Zelumbras]

When i started this game playing Commando exclusively, i usually had very low damage numbers at first and my first 200+ damage game felt like a true achievement. At some point i was getting 200-400 games consistently with the occasional 800+ one thrown in. Some time later, my damage numbers stopped increasing over time and even slowly declined while on the other hand the amount of kills and matches won kept increasing.

What happens over time is that you will get better. You will get better aim, better knowledge of maps and mechs, better heat management and better situational awareness. At some point you will get good enough to not need big damage numbers to destroy an enemy mech since you know where to hit them and how to do it. I've had bad matches in which i needed 300-500 damage to kill a single Atlas/Direwolf with my near stock Nova-Prime (aka the Novassasin) and i have had good ones where i did everything right and killed several mechs including 2 fresh Atlas each with a single shot of 84 damage (hint: few mechs have more than 22 back armor ).

My point is: you will get there eventually and by that time you can decide whether you prefer to inflate your damage numbers by taking every shot you can or using arty/air strikes, try to go for the perfect, clean, low damage kill or take on another role like for example scout, spotter, squirrel, support, brawler, crippler* or whatever you prefer to do. Just remember: have fun and help your team so others can have fun too!


*crippler: fast mech with often high Alpha damage but mediocre heat efficiency or low ammo like some Commando, Jenner or Blackjack builds. Designed to strike fast, disarm/leg enemy mechs and leave them for the slower ones to kill. Aim for side torso and leg sections.

Edited by Vulcan888, 28 August 2014 - 02:59 AM.

[ShadowbaneX]

In the challenge the weekend past I saw that lights were usually in then <10% range so I decided to go with my Spider-5D (ECM, 2 MPLs, 1 SPL, 8 JJs), and it went well. I didn't do great damage, but there was a stretch where I was always doing good damage, but still loosing games. Then there were other games where I did crappy damage, but was scouting, and was able to guide me team to counter the enemy's movements. Or I was able to dart in at a key moment splash some damage and get their assaults and/or heavies distracted, drawing them away from the rest of my team for enough time for them to smash through the lines that had formed.

So, yeah, I might have had a few games where I dealt only 50-150 damage, but as a result, my team won the match. It's not always about damage, especially in lights or mediums. That said, it is fun to put up massive numbers.

[Tarl Cabot]

It is likely that high damage simply indicates that they were able to trigger ammo explosions. If you removed the damage from ammo explosions, how much actual weapon damage was done?

Take the lights that end the drop with high damage, what are their primary targets? The legs where most store the ammo for their weapons.

[Frankenst3in]

This is an unpopular opinion on these boards, but frankly, if you didn't pull at least 300 damage there is a very, very high probability that you were not pulling your weight that match. All these "roles" people keep mentioning that do no damage don't really exist. There is very little need to scout (for very long anyways), because PUG match fights all happen in the same areas on very small maps for the most part. Capping? You shouldn't be capping much more than your first natural point unless your team has already lost the fight. Narcing is maaaaybe the one role I could see low damage not being detrimental, but even then, you should have damage dealing weapons as well. Use them. General rule I follow, basically regardless of weight class, is 300 is bare minimum for being useful, 500 is a decent game, 800 is a good game, 1000+ is gravy.

[ShadowbaneX]

and sometimes you just have a crappy match. I just did like 200 damage in a brawling Highlander because I couldn't get near the fight. Still got 2 kills and we won, so who cares?

[Frankenst3in]

ShadowbaneX, on 29 August 2014 - 08:18 PM, said:

and sometimes you just have a crappy match. I just did like 200 damage in a brawling Highlander because I couldn't get near the fight. Still got 2 kills and we won, so who cares?

Were you responding to me? If so, absolutely, everybody has bad matches. I have bad matches. I am also honest enough with my self to know when I did not pull my weight. That is my main point. I am not saying "do at least 300 every match or you suck", I am saying "if you are trying to evaluate your performance, minimum 300 per match is a good metric to aim for. More is better."

[n r g]

Rogue Jedi, on 28 August 2014 - 12:57 AM, said:

you are correct in that usually if someone does 700+ damage they have made a valuable contribution to your team, however in 12-0 stomps I have seen people with 500+ damage with no kills and 1 assist, this certainly did not hurt the team but is it a vitally important contribution?

for sniping I should have said comparatively low damage, my mistake, there are some people who are great at killing a Mech at long range with minimal damage, e.g. with head shots (33 damage per kill), targeting open components or taking out the back.

if the enemy distracts you with a few Mechs then sends the rest of the team to flank, if the flank hits while you are focused on a few enemies they will likely win, but a good scout can give you warning so the flank fails,
have you ever had a game where your team proceeds one way then half the enemy go to your base and win through capturing the base? a competent scout can give you sufficient warning to stop this, or possibly hold off the capture long enough for your team to get back.
how are these not vital contributions? there are many other situations where a scout can be of serious help.

you are of course entitled to disagree, and for the record I have little competitive gaming experience, however this does not mean I am wrong, and again I sincerely believe that damage and kills are not the whole story as to your performance in a match and that those who are obsessed with those figures are not always very helpful to the team.

You're right, damage is definitely "not the whole story", I can agree with you.

I firmly believe that, just in the means of a general conversation or general guideline - YES, high damage is a great contribution to the team.

You're right though, on the minority of scales there will be times when someone with low damage or no kills (vice versa) opened up the gameplay with an entry frag or something game changing (really good UAV, opening frag, great headshot arty).

The only thing I would emphasize is that will generally be a minority of times, furthermore, competitive games don't apply IMO, since playing with 12 competent players completely changes the rules (you will mostly average 200-500 in competitive drops), whereas pug drops with <12 people allow for more variance in ELO, thus lower skilled teammates and essentially more potential damage/kills for (you).

[Haji1096]

A good match is one where you are applying damage to the most dangerous target in the most efficient way possible for the longest period of time.


Furthermore, if you see a known good pilot (I keep a list in my head) you should attempt to take him/her out of the match as soon as possible. Why ? Because that person can win the game on his/her own. Stop ******* around with a new player in trial mech and go kill the pilot on the other team who has the potential to get 8 kills 1000 damage. Damage on a non-trial mech / veteran player should be rewarded more heavily.