9 replies to this topic

[Kjudoon]

Due to issues caused by a small group offended by this advice and its source, it was easier to remove the whole thread and I'll try again.

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A few days ago, I was fortunate enough to lose in Conquest with a few new players. I mean brand squeaky new with the new mech smell.

We lost because, well, we didn't out cap them, and we certainly didn't out fight them. Lost due to kills. But before I died only 7 minutes into the match as the last survivor, we were down 600+ to 200. No matter what, survival or not, we lost on cap and had no hope of winning even with 7 more guys back on the field. The lazors just got their first.

One of the guys stated he didn't realize that capping was important in conquest when someone got mad that nobody was capping (except for me) and they were just camping in the middle. So, I figure, this will help you new guys on doing better on Conquest. This comes from a lot of experience, and they are not perfect, but keep these in the back of your head and at least your matches will be closer, if not more victorious. Your individual performance may look like crap, but hey... wins are more important in the end.


Guidelines for New Players on Conquest.

1. Cap first, fight second: You should not be trying to engage in the brawl till you have a MINIMUM of 3 cap points, and preferably 4 secured. Why? Because by the time your brawl is over, the other team that did get the 3-4 will be so far ahead on points you will be frantically chasing the caps to try and stop them. This leads to bad strategic and tactical positions. The enemy knows where you are going to be and you will always be on the defensive. Get your caps, then make them fight defensive and frantic.

2. No Cap is worth dying over: That's right. If 6-10 mechs are wanting Theta, let them HAVE theta. You go get the other 4 caps because they aren't defending them. The only map this does not work on is Alpine Peaks, which then you get 3 and fight over the two stupid close cap points as hard as you can. PGI screwed the pooch with this map on conquest from what was once a beautiful conquest mode. Whine poisoning for the derp later, we have skirmish taking place in 4 sectors of a 64 sector map. What a waste. That said, do not sit and fight for a single cap point.

3. If you bring a big slow mech, pick a cap point and defend it: Seems like a contrary statement after the second guideline, right? Not quite. As a big slow Dire Whale wheezing and winging across the battlefield as everyone runs away, pick a defendable cap point (probably not theta) cap it, and hold it. On a few maps, you might make it to 2 or 3, but generally speaking, you will do your team more help by making sure nobody else gets that cap point and only wander as far as you can turn around and nail the little blighter who trys to take your bone away from you.

4. If you are a fast mech you DO NOT STOP CAPPING: That's right, never. You should be going cap to cap to cap. If you get to a point and the enemy is there and you have numerical advantage, OR think you can handle that single locust with your Firestarter, do it. You should be hit and run on anything else. Once you have all 5 cap points, then go and hunt down the other team's cappers. It is a dynamic and very fun way to play the game. This can be the rule of thumb for any mech faster than 95kph. So yes, get your quickdraw a rolling.

5. If you see an enemy deathball get away from it: They're leaving the rest of the map undefended. There are very few maps that this is not a good thing, and those are being redone much bigger, so once Frozen City, Caustic Valley and Alpine Peaks (Conquest mode) are fixed just stay away from deathballs. String them out, and kite them back to your team one by one if you must.

6. When on a cap do not stand still: You are sniper bait. Always be moving, even if you rock back and forth like a mental patient in a straight jacket. Just keep moving because that little movement can prevent a 60dmg alpha from instagimp you.

7. You do not always have to cap all the way: If you are behind, do not just assume you have to sit there and waste time capping it full. Once it turns blue, count to 5 and take off for the next point. No matter what, you have slowed/stopped the enemy cap and helped yourself to a few more points. I will also add, sometimes just turning it gold (neutral) is a strategic advantage for stopping the enemy which is sometimes even more important.

For an example:



For those who were constructive and posted positive things and likes, sorry. The thread had become rabid and needed to be put down.

[KodiakGW]

I'm going to have to disagree with you on point #1. Capping over killing really depends on the map. Small maps like Frozen City and Canyon need to be kill, then cap. I've seen capping crews lose the battle even though they were up to 650+ when they lost all their cap points back. This is because they let the majority of their team die from a team that stuck together. Then it is easy for 8-10 mechs to split up and take all the points.

Maps like Alpine and Terra Therma it is easy to out cap when you have lost the majority of your team. I've done it. But, rewards were crap.

[Voivode]

I think you misrepresent conquest. Despite it's negative reputation for having "cheesy" cap wins it is the most dynamic game mode in the game. Capping and killing are equally important and any victory will have a component of each in it.

If your team can't kill enough enemies in the fighting phase or at least hold the enemy in the fight long enough then you are unlikely to reach 750 points. If you concentrate too much on the fight and don't roll through the enemy rapidly enough or take too many losses, a couple of lights can evade you while the enemy reaches it's cap win.

Not that your points are incorrect on the whole, but they lack the nuance conquest requires.

1) Only do this if you are a light or an exceptionally fast medium. Everyone else should concentrate on killing the enemy (but the "main force" should all fight the enemy near a cap point)

2) Almost always true, though sometimes it's worth dying to delay an enemy decap/cap if points are close at the end of a match.

3) Like I said in point #1, do this but don't split up the "main force" to do this. Everyone who isn't light concentrate on the enemy/holding one point. Lights and fast mediums do the rest of the capping.

4) Primary concentration should be capping, but don't underestimate the value of a light flank attack to distract an enemy force at just the right moment. It's good as a light to help your team a little in the fight to make sure you aren't stuck in a 2 v 8 at the end and can't find an unguarded cap point.

5) Great advice for light pilots. This is certainly how you light.

6) Not being sniper bait is always good. Using the cap point as cover works but so does constant movement.

7) Lots of nuance in that one. The only way to get the feel on when to full cap and when to partial cap is to play a bunch of conquest matches. *shrugs*

[The Great Unwashed]

Tip 7 is very useful because of the game's lousy explanation of how things work in the game (on sort of anything). I also capped to full until learned you get full points no matter to what extent you own the cap point. Early-game capping can harvest a lot of points and you can do a flanking cap and join your team.

I do disagree on point #1. Killing the enemy team is a win condition and playing towards that win condition is a viable strategy. I agree with Kodiak that it really depends on the map. Finding the last light on Tourmaline when you're behind on points is most interesting; not so much on small maps.

Edited by The Great Unwashed, 01 September 2015 - 06:09 AM.

[Kjudoon]

The reason behind point 1 is strategic. It is not advice to avoid all combat, but rather to make sure you dictate the course of battle throughout the entire game. If you are always making sure you have 3 or more cap points, you can fight on your terms the entire game. The smaller the map means it is LESS important but it does not ever become unimportant.

What I see happen more often than not is a team that engages in the brawl, begins to lose 1-2 mechs, but then doesn't have the sense to retreat/scatter/fall back to better position to slow the enemy down. They get stomped leaving the few guys who were capping alone and in those cases, it is a nearly guaranteed loss if you lose 8 to 10 mechs and you only made it to 400 points. Then the other team just splits up into pairs and trios and guards all the caps, quickly reacting to your position and counterattacking you ultimately killing you off, or if you do not go challenge for a cap, they winning by cap with all 5 points.

[Kaeb Odellas]

I cannot disagree more on points 1 and 5.

Kills should always, always, always come first, with caps a distant second. Sure, your first move should be to cap your natural point at the start of the match on the more linear maps, but after that, kills should be your main focus almost 100%.

If your team splits up at the beginning to go cap, especially on maps like Canyon or Tourmaline, but the enemy team decided to deathball to the center. You might get the 3-2 initial cap advantage, but at a cost of up to a third of your team if they ran into the slow lance.

Even if you just have a 3-man light lance split off to cap points uncontested, the rest of your team would still be fighting at a 9-12 disadvantage, which is huge considering how quickly a light lance can throw a formation into disarray and how quickly fights can snowball. A 4-1 or 5-0 cap advantage is worthless if you're now fighting 4v12 or 4v9 and still need 350 resource points win. And it's not always possible to cleanly disengage from a fight, so blaming the brawlers for losing when you're out capping is wrong-headed.

Philosophically, it's also results in a pretty crappy round for your team as a whole, even if you win. Most of your team will be dead, having fought an uphill battle with probably little in the way of end-of-match rewards. You might survive, and you might even feel pretty good about winning the game, but the rest of your team might be sore about you and your lance unnecessarily leaving them to die.


Here's about the only times you should be capping

1. Start of match, and you have a natural point to cap.
2. Start of match, and you're deathballing with your team towards the center cap if you don't have a natural.
3. Main fight hasn't started yet, and you're quick enough to escape danger or return to the fight when necessary.
4. Near the end of the match, after having attained overwhelming numerical superiority while location of the last enemy mechs are unknown or too far away.
5. No weapons or ammo, or too heavily damaged to meaningfully affect the outcome of a fight.
6. You've lost the main fight and are going for caps as a Hail Mary.

There's probably more, but I can't be bothered to think of them at the moment.

[Jayce Haebdun]

Kaek Odellas has listed the real points. Conquest is NOT Skirmish, for sure. There are alternative win conditions. But myself, I LOVE when the enemy team decides to split up and cap. Means an easy match.

Do I ever drop in a Conquest where we lose on points even though we were up on kills?

Twice. Ever. Yeah, just kill them. If you blow up the enemy, the enemy can not cap.

[A sebaceous cyst]

The problem with capping for both Conquest and Assault are that if you concentrate on the primary objective and do nothing but cap or cap and fight very little will result in an extremely low match score/reward victory (or defeat if the other team out caps you)...just how low? Well the last game I played where our team just went for caps and only 1 enemy mech was destroyed no one on the team had a match score above 50 (in the new PSR system that is like a 10ish match score in the old ELO system) and my cbill earning were 28000 with 500ish exps. While this might be considered a "flawless" victory as all 12 mechs on our side were alive at the end and we completed the primary objective we as a team would have earned more rewards and individual match score would have been higher if we ignored caps (again the game modes primary objectives), just brawled and lost. And this is the issue, winning a game by fulfilling the primary objective should not "pay" less than a "non-capping" loss and when PGI sets the benchmark for match scores at 150 for events then a "base cap" or "750 resources collected" win should give a min match score of 150 since that is a win by completing the game modes primary objective. The way these game modes are currently set up you can only get decent rewards and achieve the min match score for events by ignoring primary objectives and just fight each other (or play every game like its a skirmish game).

[Kjudoon]

Jayce Haebdun, on 01 September 2015 - 10:06 PM, said:

Kaek Odellas has listed the real points. Conquest is NOT Skirmish, for sure. There are alternative win conditions. But myself, I LOVE when the enemy team decides to split up and cap. Means an easy match.

Do I ever drop in a Conquest where we lose on points even though we were up on kills?

Twice. Ever. Yeah, just kill them. If you blow up the enemy, the enemy can not cap.

Kaeb has listed his opinion as well as the OP is mine and you've given yours. He has some good points to consider, but I still consider them subserviant to my guidelines. Some of it is very good for when your team has lost the initial deathball scrum and you somehow survived.

As for the quality of the match... well, fun is how you perceive it now isn't it? I know there are many who don't consider this fun. If not, they really should reconsider selecting this mode, because it really doesn't get you matches any faster to have modes you're just going to just deathball on anyway and troll other people. I get why Kaeb says he disagrees with points 1 and 5. If people do this, it irritates the crud out of those deathballers because if they're fast, now they gotta hunt them down and brawlers don't like to hunt or deal with sneaky mech pilots. They want boxing ring level tactics. If this isn't what you're mech is designed to do, you should not under any circumstances be giving it to them. If you can't get away, make sure you dictate the conditions in which you meet the enemy. They're doing it to you. Flip that table. If you are going to fight, fight smart. Sun Tzu is not a tanning salon.

As for my confirmational bias about conquest.... The amount of times my team has won when it deathballs to Theta? Maybe half a dozen... dozen tops... out of hundreds of matches. How many times do my teams win when we are behind on caps? About the same. All the rest... 3 cap points or more.

Do all my wins come from caps? Nope. Those won on kills are won because the other deathball had to split up and desperately try to cap the remaining 4 points when they realized they just can't sit at Theta and expect to win when the enemy won't join you. that's when they got eaten alive by our slower lances who were smart and guarded a cap en masse, waiting for them to come, and then our lights came in behind for the feeding frenzy as we dictated the field of battle.

THAT is the reason why "Cap First, Fight Second" You own a tactical advantage that is difficult to overcome if you aren't being careless (that should be obvious in any game mode... don't be careless).

Of course, your PSR Tier may vary. For new players, playing smart like the OP is very important to learn and good habits in the long run come of it that are transferrable to the rest of the game. Once you get good at the game, and get on an organized team, then things might be different.

Caveat!

Group queue, with it's inability to balance correctly teams thanks to PSR averaging, all bets are off. You're better off just playing skirmish mode because that's what groups on both teams are going to do on you and leave you hanging as they run their own gameplan. Trust me, I've seen it so many times. This mode is garbage in the group queue with tryhards treating every mode like skirmish and the rest of their team not in their TS like extras in a movie, and they will only advise you only on how to play skirmish or be their bait. Again, seen it so often. So if you want more than that, I'd advise, stay out of the group queue, and go for the intended primary conditions of any mode: aka, anything other but kills outside of Skirmish.

BTW, you will notice in the video I posted, that was in the group queue We won because we capped out after losing the initial contact (didn't get the cap point and losing some serious firepower without substantially slowing them down), AND then splitting up the enemy team, forcing them into 1v1,2 or 3 fights because they had to react to the cap, and not dictate battle anymore with a ball. After 4 caps, the lights came back into it to mop up with the remaining firepower we had in game when the enemy was too focused on killing them rather than watching the caps, with the lone exception it seemed, of that firestarter at the end.

If you old hands don't like this advice to new players, go ahead and start your own thread on how you really play skirmish and let the new players make up their own minds.

Edited by Kjudoon, 01 September 2015 - 11:51 PM.

[Starcrash]

About #1: if your team loses on points because everyone is too busy trying to track down the last Spider/ PB/ Raven, you've done it wrong. You don't have to cap to win, but if you don't keep an eye on it you're more likely to lose.