100 replies to this topic

[Errant Audio]

good thread all! Very constructive, civilized answers from nearly everyone.

Thanks!

[Thorqemada]

I allways go for the weak spots of a Mech - i recently had a match i killed 2 Mechs with 78 damage and another match i killed 3 Mechs with 113 damage bcs they had weak spots (both matches were wins).

To kill a Mech you need between ~35 and ~100 damage depending on the enemy Mech construction and hit location (in extreme cases you can kill an undamaged Mech with less than 30 damage - a fully armored Head is destroyed with 33 damage (18 Armor + 15 Internal Structure)).

PS:Occasionally i have matches the Team barely has an average of 200 damage per Mech - that happens when all Players know to shot weak spots - on the other Hand i have matches that average around 500 damage - overwhelming brute force firepower brought the win = both ways work!

Edited by Thorqemada, 30 August 2014 - 12:48 AM.

[Turist0AT]

Who needs damage?

Spoiler

There is a difference between damage and spread damage.

Edited by Turist0AT, 29 August 2014 - 11:45 PM.

[n r g]

Haji1096, on 29 August 2014 - 10:17 PM, said:

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.

Yeah, it always kills me deep inside when a good player is on the enemy team and I call for my team to please focus him.

Then the ecm spider or jenner is running in our base and I see 4-5 mechs chasing it. 'DOH

[Nightmare1]

I've been around a while, so my damage counts are higher and my expectations from fellow pilots (Both Unit pilots and pugs) are a bit higher. My personal belief, is that you need to do 200+ in a Light, 400+ in a Medium, 600+ in a Heavy, and 800+ in an Assault Mech to justify your presence on the battlefield. Granted, I often fall short of that myself. Just last night, I got cockpitted by a Gauss Daishi in one of the coolest, freak, knee-jerk shots I've ever seen. My score that round was a mere 26 or so. Nothing to be proud of, but those things happen.

For newer pilots, this game can be challenging and, sometimes, punishing. I would say that new pilots should feel good scoring between 100 and 200 damage, especially in Light Mechs. If that's where you're scoring after only a short time, you shouldn't worry. Higher damage will come with time.

Now, all that to say, I have scored 700+ in a Commando before, and I know pilots who have scored 1000+ in Light Mechs (including the Jenner). However, both myself and those other pilots are seasoned and quite good in this game. Don't go comparing your scores to ours and then feel inadequate - you're doing fine for your experience level. I would not compare my own scores to those of the hard-core, competitive crowd because I know mine wouldn't stack up to theirs either. It's all about skill and where you're at in learning the game. Those better scores will come as your skills improve.

[Nightmare1]

Thorqemada, on 29 August 2014 - 10:30 PM, said:

I allways go for the weak spots of a Mech - i recently had a match i killed 2 Mechs with 78 damage and another match i killed 3 Mechs with 113 damage bcs they had weak spots (both matches were wins).

To kill a Mech you need between ~35 and ~100 damage depending on the enemy Mech construction and hit location (in extreme cases you can kill an undamaged Mech with less than 30 damage - a fully armored Head is destroyed with 33 damage (18 Armor + 15 Internal Structure)).

PS:Occasionally i have matches the Team barely has an average of 200 damage per Mech - that happens when all Players know to shot weak spots - on the other Hand i have matches that average around 500 damage - overwhelming brute force firepower brought the win = both ways work!

Good points! My HBKs frequently only score between 300 and 600 damage (on the lower end usually) because they are brawling crunch builds. I work in close, focus on the weak part of a Mech, and then drive a couple AC/20 rounds into it to finish it. Mechs like that are a high damage moment, low overall damage score, high kill build. When comparing your damage scores to others, it's important to keep in mind not only your own level of expertise, but also what you are piloting. Some Mechs just put up more damage than others due to how their pilots construct them.

Case in point, I know a pilot who consistently got 1000+ damage every round. He was a lousy gunner and pilot though! He just ran ERLLs on a Stalker and then chain fired them, dragging them back and forth across enemy Mechs. Because he always sat in the back, and fired over everyone's heads, he was able to score high damage counts. However, his poor piloting and gunnery usually prevented him from scoring any kills or dealing any substantial, localized damage. In that case, he wasn't a particularly helpful teammate because he was pretty much just charring all the paint off every Mech along with some of the armor from each component. High damage scores, in that scenario, were unhelpful.

[JigglyMoobs]

Damage expectation is obviously very different depending on what mech class you are piloting, as everyone have said. However, the strategy for getting high damage is also very different depending on what you are piloting.

If you are in a light:

1: don't even bother shooting fully healthy mechs.
2: Scan the battlefield with your sensor for mechs that have stripped components, then make sure to only shoot those components.
3: Try to remain concealed, behind cover, or out of effective range and on the move at all other times.
4: Hunt larger mechs, not mediums and lights.
5: Stay close enough to your team that you can run back to them for help if another light chases you. Fighting another light on your own is a waste of your armor and life because you usually have zero advantages over them (unless you are in a light hunter build). Your best bet is to train them in a nice bee line for a medium on your team.
6: Always take a strike, but be patient and drop it on a large group. As a light you are in a very good position to drop well placed strikes. Each one can net you a couple hundred damage points alone, and if you crit components you wil get even more.
7. Never ever ever stop moving. Ever. Even if the coast looks perfectly clear and you cannot see another mech anymore, don't stop moving.

If you play this style well, you should be able to get very respectable damage and help your team with kills on dangerous mechs that your larger buddies can't get to.

For all other classes there are too many different builds and strategies. I would say this:

Build your mech to use a specific strategy really really well. Do not try to build a "well-balanced" mech. As the old saying goes: jack of all trades, master of none. Cannot be more true in this game.

PS - if you are a Timby, you don't have "good" damage unless you break 1000.

Edited by JigglyMoobs, 30 August 2014 - 07:54 PM.

[JC Daxion]

Nightmare1, on 30 August 2014 - 11:23 AM, said:

My personal belief, is that you need to do 200+ in a Light, 400+ in a Medium, 600+ in a Heavy, and 800+ in an Assault Mech to justify your presence on the battlefield.

I have had matches that the entire team did not even add up to 1600-1800 damage..(i would post some screenies, but almost off of um are on my old computer which is not working at the moment.. till i can find my windows disk to run a repair ) that thinking in what you posted is why people are so obsessed with damage..

I watched another guy the other night, after the team just left 2 assaults stuck trying to catch up to the group even after they pointed out they were pinned down and could use some cover fire to get to the rest of the group.. (the other team was running a flank maneuver, and had the flats covered right from the get go.)

the two assaults got cut down, as the rest of the team ran off as they tried to catch up and get to cover.. on caustic. (instead of staying put for the min, and giving cover fire which would of let them catch up, they bolted up to theta and left um to die...(not even playing conquest!) I watched one guy basically play solo, and get 600 damage, the others were playing solo too, but that was the person i was sitting with.. Then at the end yelled at the team saying he wished how he could play with people as good as him.

Communication, and team work, is 100x better than 600 damage in a medium, or 1000 in an assault. Ill have to remind myself to take pictures of solid rolls.. to show what i am talking about.. Sure a medium with 600 and an assault with 1000 can lead to a win.. But so can 12 mechs with 200 damage which = 2400 and i've been on solid rolls, with less than that..

Edited by JC Daxion, 30 August 2014 - 12:41 PM.

[JigglyMoobs]

JC Daxion, on 30 August 2014 - 12:20 PM, said:

I watched one guy basically play solo, and get 600 damage, barely pressed R to target....

I agree with the rest of your post but it's a myth that good players always press R to target. It depends on what you are trying to do and what you are equipped with.

Some situations where you always want to press R:
A: are trying to lock a mech for the LRM boats
B: you see a bunch of enemy mechs and want to alert the team (press R multiple times to show them the number of mechs)
C: you have enough time to get the target info for a well placed shot. To make sure this is the case I actually like to stack 2 separate targeting enhancements, eg: TC with BAP, TC with Targeting info module.
D: you've found an ecm mech and want team to help chase it down.

Some situations where you might not want to press R:
A: you have a gauss - er ppc loadout and are taking momentary shots while moving from cover to cover.
B: you are an SRM build and need to shoot SRMs at close range while going from cover to cover
C: you are in a close range brawl situation where you need to constantly torso twist and break lock
D: you are facing multiple enemies and the targeting system doesn't choose the right one

In all of the above situations you never look at the enemy long enough to lock on to the right guy and have the targeting info pop up on your screen. In this case you need to concentrate on SHOOT AND GET OUT OF DODGE. Pressing R is a distraction. You just have to make a snap decision about what component you need to shoot, so you should have a mental list of priority targets and vulnerabilities on each mech type.

[JC Daxion]

I removed that part, just because it wasn't the main issue, and didn't want to nit pick... But you are right... But then again, When you have a mech sited for 1+ min and not even bother? sure in a heated battle of twisting.. but even if you have 5 secs to target just to blip the screen, it is worth doing most of the time. you got 4 fingers, and only need two to move at any given time.. You can even remap, so you always have 3 fingers on move keys, and then use your pinky for Alpha strikes, target, and a 4th group.. this game is hardly keyboard intense.

often it has Zero to do with targeting a location, and everything to do with helping your team know where other mechs are..when you don't have voice this is vital

Edited by JC Daxion, 30 August 2014 - 12:47 PM.

[Barkem Squirrel]

I was running around in my Oxide this morning and for some funny reason I finally ran out of missiles. (I carry 720 with 4 LRM 5's). That may be to the map, caustic valley, so I could get locks.

The first thing I did was start to cap theta, but before finishing, I ran over to the one corner and used a UAV to show 8 mechs and two with ECM so I stayed where I was to let my BAP counter the other ECM and the UAV the other. Note I have not shot yet, but I was getting spotting assists and ECM assists like mad. We had 5 other mechs with some IS LRMs. So now I have to run around to the north end of the caldera and caught an Orion going for the cap point behind the refinery. So he died to my chain fire LRMs and a few from other people. Now I go to Kappa and start capping, but some mechs are between me and theta, so as long as they are targeted I will fire indirect. One more goes down. So for now they only have the cap point where I started out and many mechs between the lake and caldera, an LRM boaters heaven or best targeting situation. I am just flinging LRM 5's in chain fire, watching who has AMS, to fire all 20 at once at. So I run out and just have an arty strike and here comes this sneaking direwolf and thunderbolt both backing up to me. So I drop an arty just behind them. Component destruction galore and some more spotting assists. I did just over 600 damage with 2 kills and 7 assists.

That is the best so far with an Oxide. Most of my XP and C-bills were from UAV, spotting and ECM assists. Sure I did damage, but I was the pain in their rear spotting for everyone. Damage and kills in this match were secondary to everything else I did, but it sure felt good.

Edited by Barkem Squirrel, 30 August 2014 - 01:02 PM.

[Tim East]

I can usually pull around 300, often 400, and some rare times almost 500 in my Locust, assuming I don't get one shotted by something early on. I kind of consider any time I can down an enemy from full health to be a good trade. Especially when it's a Timber Wolf. Damage isn't everything, since I frequently get lower numbers now than I used to since I took to XL hunting. So many people run XL, it's madness. Especially given how STs have less armor than CT. So easy to just creep on a Jager and be like, "Sup? How much back armor you got, buddy? <17? Sucks to be you."

Edited by Tim East, 30 August 2014 - 01:22 PM.

[JigglyMoobs]

Another myth going around these forums is high damage + low kills = you are doing something wrong.

Really?

First, you can easily get into the thousand damage range from secondary ammo explosions due to component destruction, especially now that clan mechs need to carry all of their ammo in their arms and side torsos and people are placing greater emphasis on de-legging.

Secondly, for a long range pin point heavy fire power mech, one of the best things you can do for your team is to strip armor off of vital enemy components. This immediately changes their behavior and makes them less threatening to your team as they've lost the armor necessary for a frontal offensive assault on your team.

After you've done this the next important thing is component destruction. For example, if you take one ST off a Direwolf, often times you've just halved his damage output. Same thing if you take out the AC/20 torso on a brawling atlas, or the ears off a missile boat Timby. Once you've done this the dangerous enemy mech is now no more threatening than an enemy medium. If you are still in good shape, the best thing you can do is often (ie not always) to move on to defang other targets.

In the later part of the match when most of the enemy are much more damaged you might be better off just going for the killing blow, but at the beginning, especially in a massed fight type situation, you can be better off not killing.

So I've had thousand damage games where I've killed half the other team, and other thousand damage games where I've killed one or two other people, but I in each one of those cases I've made a massive dent in the enemy team's offensive power, no exceptions.

This doesn't happen in organized team matches because you can get so much focused firepower that any single mech can be killed within seconds. As soon as you are on the solo queue however, things are very different.

Edited by JigglyMoobs, 30 August 2014 - 01:23 PM.

[Nightmare1]

JC Daxion, on 30 August 2014 - 12:20 PM, said:

I have had matches that the entire team did not even add up to 1600-1800 damage..(i would post some screenies, but almost off of um are on my old computer which is not working at the moment.. till i can find my windows disk to run a repair ) that thinking in what you posted is why people are so obsessed with damage..

I watched another guy the other night, after the team just left 2 assaults stuck trying to catch up to the group even after they pointed out they were pinned down and could use some cover fire to get to the rest of the group.. (the other team was running a flank maneuver, and had the flats covered right from the get go.)

the two assaults got cut down, as the rest of the team ran off as they tried to catch up and get to cover.. on caustic. (instead of staying put for the min, and giving cover fire which would of let them catch up, they bolted up to theta and left um to die...(not even playing conquest!) I watched one guy basically play solo, and get 600 damage, the others were playing solo too, but that was the person i was sitting with.. Then at the end yelled at the team saying he wished how he could play with people as good as him.

Communication, and team work, is 100x better than 600 damage in a medium, or 1000 in an assault. Ill have to remind myself to take pictures of solid rolls.. to show what i am talking about.. Sure a medium with 600 and an assault with 1000 can lead to a win.. But so can 12 mechs with 200 damage which = 2400 and i've been on solid rolls, with less than that..

I was replying to the OP's question regarding damage scores; not attempting to provide any sort of qualitative analysis of what makes a "good game" or a "good team." If you read the rest of my post, you would have realized that.

I recommend that you work on your grammar before attempting to offer a rebuttal to someone. It's hard to take a person seriously when they don't take the time to articulate their argument properly.

In the end, yes, communication and teamwork will beat a disorganized mob. However, that's not the topic of this thread. The OP asked whether the damage scores he had been hearing about were fact or fiction. I simply was offering a quantitative analysis of my own perception of damage scores for my skill level, illustrating that damage scores are chiefly relative to your piloting abilities. Sure, teamwork and communication matter. However, in the bare nuts and bolts of this thread, we are looking at raw damage scores.

Otherwise, such analyses would necessarily include lag, desyncs, Mech stats, weapon stats, maps, elo, matchmaker, etc. I feel that is outside the scope of this thread though.

[JigglyMoobs]

JigglyMoobs, on 30 August 2014 - 01:20 PM, said:

Another myth going around these forums is high damage + low kills = you are doing something wrong.

Really?

Here's one example, over 1000 damage, only 3 kills, but lots of enemy crippled and wounded walking around.

[mogs01gt]

I only care about kills assists and wins. If Im positive in both, Im doing decent.

[Tesunie]

Enlil09, on 27 August 2014 - 11:53 AM, said:

So, is all this hype about good pilots easily scoring around 500 damage every match just that, hype? Is the 150 to 350 range far more the average? That's what I think I saw in the video stream.

I'm not just asking this to be trolley either. My low scores were a serious discouragement to me early on. It really ate on me. Now I'm thinking I was just putting way too much pressure on myself.

In know I'm late to the party here, and I have basically nothing more to say than what has already been mentioned (you got a lot of good posts on the first page). Here is my take on things:

Damage is a decent score to look at, depending upon the role you take upon the battlefield. However, like all the stats that are recorded in the game, no one (or even all) stat says anything on their own. I prefer to crunch my numbers down to average damage per match, and break it down farther to damage per match per ton I brought onto the field. The average "good" number here tends to be 5 damage per match per ton. (Example: If you are in a 30 ton mech, I would expect average damage per match to be around 150 damage. Some matches will reach this goal. Others might not. But, at the end of the 'day', I'd expect somewhere around 150 damage a match. In an 85 ton mech? I kinda expect to (personally at least) preform 425 damage a match to be preforming as "effectively" as I do in a 30 ton mech dealing 150 damage a match. However, efficiency/effectively and fun/good are not always equal.)

Now, there are exceptions to the rules, as there always are. If I'm in an NARC Raven, I probably expect to deal less damage, but as long as I'm supporting my team by NARCing targets for my LRM friends, then it's all good. I may end up with a match damage score of under 100 even, but if may very well have still been the instrument of my teams success. There are also times were you might have just ran around, distracting people from shooting at more lethal members of your team. You may crash and burn dealing 50 damage, but managed to buy that assault enough time to kill a couple of enemies on his own.

Another thing I always look at is fun level. I don't care if someone did 20 damage, if they are helping the team and having fun.


To answer questions directly:
- Pilots who claim to deal 500 damage a match as being a showing of "good" piloting is hype. Most of the people who claim this often don't truly have a 500 damage average score with their mechs. They just recall having a lot of "high scoring matches" and figure they have to be up there on their average damage. Even then, if they did actually have 500+ average damage scores per match, that still might not mean they are a "good" player. Some people are great warriors, but make for poor/lousy teammates. So, one again, damage can be a nice indicator, but not an end all stat.

- 150-350 damage is probably considered average, with 200 being considered "contributing" to the match. Personally, as stated before, you can be dealing less damage and still be a big contributor to the match depending upon what you did. Personally, I aim for a mech to preform in an "average" function. What I mean is, I don't want a mech they might preform 1000+ damage one match, and then 120 damage for 3 matches, and then a 300 damage match for another match. I like my mechs to preform a little more consistent than that. I have come to expect many of my mechs to typically preform 200-300 damage, with a few good matches and a few bad matches thrown in. I don't like it when I see a mech preforming "wonderfully" one match, and then preforming in the opposite extent the next match or two. I like consistency here, and I want to expect a certain level of performance. (This is why I often times don't like "boats". A heavy focus is one thing, but I don't like to boat to one extreme or another. Boats tend to get too varied of preformances.) I see it as, so what if I can get an average high damage. If it's caused by a few high spikes that counters many poor matches, the mech needs to be tweaked. (This is hard to describe in writing...)

- Sounds like you were beating yourself up for no good reason. Then again, it gave you a good strive to improve yourself, which isn't bad either. I'd gauge yourself on how much fun the game is. If striving to improve your damage/kills/performance is fun for you, then by all means. Just a warning (again), damage isn't the end all. Neither is kills. It's your effectiveness within the team and doing what your team needs done at the time that matters most! (I've been known to rush the enemy in my LRM based mechs before. Why? Because my team needed me to if we were to win, so I did what needed to be done for the team.)

- To be honest, I find experience gained per match (excluding bonuses of course) to probably be a much better indicator of a match performance. However, always expect to have a poor match from time to time. We all do. Even the most veteran of players may have an off match/day. Don't worry about it and move on!



In the end, have fun. It's a game after all. Work with your team. Don't worry when you lose, as it's all good anyway.
(I think I've rambled enough here... )

[DodgerH2O]

A bit off-topic, but I couldn't let this stand:

JigglyMoobs, on 30 August 2014 - 12:33 PM, said:

I agree with the rest of your post but it's a myth that good players always press R to target. It depends on what you are trying to do and what you are equipped with.

(Deleted stuff)

In all of the above situations you never look at the enemy long enough to lock on to the right guy and have the targeting info pop up on your screen. In this case you need to concentrate on SHOOT AND GET OUT OF DODGE. Pressing R is a distraction.

If pressing R distracts you, you're doing it wrong. A single split-second flicker of a mech location on my minimap is better than nothing. If you don't do it for yourself, do it for your teammates. The only times I can reasonably suggest not pressing R is if your last Targeted mech is a priority and you really need to know when it shows up in your LOS again. EVERY other time you should press it, whether or not you're going to get loadout info. Your team will work better knowing about that enemy rather than staying ignorant.

[Cerberias]

Centre core an atlas is 180 damage, if your team combined is pulling a lot of damage to win the game, chances are you need to work on accuracy.. Or your stats are being padded by quite useless airstrikes/artys. Damage isn't everything but it is a good representation of how often someone is actually engaged in the fight.

LRM's effectively damage is likely 30-40% of the damage total - another reason why nobody good takes lrms.

There are many non-recorded boons to your team, such as how often the enemy shoots at you and misses/does low damage, how often you make them turn away from their primary etc..

[Haji1096]

E N E R G Y, on 30 August 2014 - 11:07 AM, said:

Yeah, it always kills me deep inside when a good player is on the enemy team and I call for my team to please focus him.

Then the ecm spider or jenner is running in our base and I see 4-5 mechs chasing it. 'DOH

Part of the problem is intrinsic....a good player make himself a hard target and is patient. When I see an elite player I try not to change my play style at all. I attempt to figure out what type of build he/she is using and mentally keep track of the general area where that mech is. If I'm in a light mech, and designated elite player has a critical torso, I may attempt to sacrifice myself to get him/her out of the game. Of course, if its a group of high tier players it gets exponentially more difficult because targets go down so fast.