27 replies to this topic

[The Unstoppable Puggernaut]

So, almost everyday I play I hear people whine about the nascar issue (mostly after they have died), once in a while someone comes up with an idea to do something different.

I wanted to create this thread to explain why I believe people nascar, I can understand the frustration but it actually plays a very important role in the game...
From a survival perspective.

Think about Darwin's theory on evolution. The slowest/weakest get picked off first.
Typically this could be assaults left behind (doesn't mean they're weak but a pack of lions would almost always go for the easiest kill, regardless of what it is), players who are lost (new to the game or accidentally took the wrong turn), or afk's/disconnects (annoying when they are on your team).

But why do players nascar and head anticlockwise?
http://lateralaction...brain-or-right/

FYI, I see the lady spinning clockwise.

It'd be interesting to see how people see the lady spinning.

And also see this on why people follow each other:


I like to see people break out of the norm and set up flanks/traps etc but just be warned, if you cannot convince your whole team to do it, the numbers will stack up against you !

Happy gaming all.

[Wintersdark]

Why people NASCAR: it's an effective default strategy in pugs with no communication. Default strategies are important, they lead to piggies being on the same page before the match starts. Certainly, sometimes choosing to NASCAR is a bad idea, but ultimately everyone doing the same thing is usually better than everyone doing different stuff and scattering around.

Whenever a reasonably solid default strategy for a map arises, more and more people gravitate to it. See also: the days of moron mountain on Alpine. Rushing the center on Terra Therma.

It's not even about them being the best strategies, just the ones everyone is used to using.

But whatever you do, if you want to be successful in pug play, understand that suggesting wholly different plans has a high chance of half your team doing one thin and the other half doing something else, as the OP alluded to above. If that happens, you lose.

[InspectorG]

Main Tactical choices(lol) in Puglandia:

1. Go to center and fight

2. NASCAR

3. Chase a Light, any light, around the map

4. Camp Mechswell, sitting in a bad spot afraid to move while the enemy grows a set and surrounds you. But you get free popcorn with lots of salt.

5. Rabbit Run - Its Track Season and there is no track! On your marks. Get set. *CAP*!!! Erbody runs off in different directions. This is actually very fun if the enemy team does the same.

6. Someone takes command and you roll the enemy by virtue of more coordination.

7. Somebody takes command, and the enemy team ALSO has a commander calling shots. Best Puglanida can offer right here.

[InspectorG]

Main Tactical choices for Game Modes in Puglandia:

Conquest:

1. Go to center and brawl. Yay we killed 11 enemies!!!! OOOPppsss we didnt cap anything and our survivors are too slow to cap on big maps.

2. Everyone runs off to camp and individuals run into the enemy murderball and get killed off as they run too and fro. Might pull a win if the enemy doesnt cap and its a big map but usually they look for the lone survivor who broadcasts his/her location by capping/nulling even if points are sufficiently ahead. Better to hide but that takes an IQ requirement that is not in reah of most.

3. Most brawl and 1 or 2 fast mechs cap if needed or fight if up 3 caps. Again, see IQ requirement.


Domination:

1. Run to center and fight...duh.

2. Run to center then NASCAR around edge of cap area.

3. Dont run to center to cap and let enemy win via cap. Easiest option.

[762 NATO]

The funny thing is, the comp teams that I have seen don't NASCAR. They do swarm attacks or work in small groups of 3 or less. Could write a TLDR on what I learned watching the tourney videos. Thanks for putting those out! They call targets and focus them down, but is still a lot of run to the reds and CT only shots with PPFLD. Little to no dakka, no LuRMs, very little laser boating. Just steady shooting that is very very focused. Was in group queue last night and I guess it was EmPs training night. All of their damage was averaged around 350. Many smoking corpses. Happened 4-5 times that I was on the same team or the red team. I have had the pleasure of dropping with 228 on occasion and results are similar. Matches over in 3-5 minutes. Lots of fun or anguish.

Cheers!

[Mercworks]

I think a whole lot of it has to do with most people being right handed, and therefore make asymmetrical right side builds. Sure, there are a few people who use left side builds, but that's mostly because the chasis and design forces it. By NASCARing around the map in a counter-clockwise motion, you can side-peak with your weapons and/or shield with your left side.

[Cato Phoenix]

I think it's reinforced by people being weenies. The second fire starts coming in from the left (the anti nascar) the situation worsens, as pilots try to get out of the fire (by going further right) than turning, posting up, and shooting back. Think thats why anyone who starts engaging on the left flank quickly finds themselves alone, even if they weren't abandoned by all the mechs zooming off in the first place.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Some of the best, closest, most intense games happen when one team goes "nope!" and just turns around to meet the push.

On the other hand, a team that's caught up in the spirit of "drive fast, turn left" is nearly impossible to stop. If you call it and don't get an immediate positive response, you've got no choice but to go along with the herd because anything else is suicidal. At that point, anything else you can do- popping a UAV to show folks the enemy is catching up, for instance- just reinforces the NASCAR. People see all that red appear and trip all over each other trying to escape... nobody wants to be the wall the push wave breaks on.

On the other other hand, when your team has the faster NASCAR, it's less likely to stall out than other types of pushes. Dunno whether it's fear of the reds catching up, or desire to grab the kill on the reds' tail end 'Mech, or just plain inertia, but a NASCAR push usually follows through rather than having its lead units suddenly decide to let someone else go first.

A sufficiently crazy psychology major could probably write a passable thesis on push-and-circle behavior in MWO.

[762 NATO]

According to metamechs.com (need a link here, but nope) the reason for the anti clockwise motion is because early on most mechs kept the heaviest guns in the right side like the CTF, HBK, ON1, VTR. People protect the right side by going right and taking the fire on the left. Blame FASA for being right handed.

Cheers!

P.S. ever notice you aim for the right side first on most mechs like Atlases even though the really scary side is the one with 4SRM6as?

[Wintersdark]

762 NATO, on 24 September 2016 - 09:42 AM, said:

The funny thing is, the comp teams that I have seen don't NASCAR. They do swarm attacks or work in small groups of 3 or less. Could write a TLDR on what I learned watching the tourney videos. Thanks for putting those out! They call targets and focus them down, but is still a lot of run to the reds and CT only shots with PPFLD. Little to no dakka, no LuRMs, very little laser boating. Just steady shooting that is very very focused. Was in group queue last night and I guess it was EmPs training night. All of their damage was averaged around 350. Many smoking corpses. Happened 4-5 times that I was on the same team or the red team. I have had the pleasure of dropping with 228 on occasion and results are similar. Matches over in 3-5 minutes. Lots of fun or anguish.

Cheers!

Read my post above.

The reason pugs NASCAR is because it's a good default strategy. The default strategy concept doesn't apply to organized teams, because they can adapt on the fly, communicate effectively - they can decide before a match how to play, and they can change plans mid match.

None of that is possible in a pug match, people need to be on the same page before the match starts, and they need to do so without communication. Thus, default strategies.

Default strategies form organically, sort of genetically, with strategies that are successful being repeated and unsuccessful ones discarded. But the funny thing is, this doesn't mean the BEST strategy(or even a particularly good one) becomes the default, really, any strategy that gets a good early lead tends to stay there because as soon as sufficient numbers of people try it, the very act of them working together leads to more victories which cements that strategy as the default.

Anyways, yeah. It's not about NASCAR being good, it's about it being good enough, and easy for people to pick up and implement without needing to talk. Even if you have no idea what's going on, just running with your teammates is enough.

And as this is a pug vs. pug match, you end up with:

You NASCAR, they scatter: you win
You NASCAR, they NASCAR: you win roughly 50/50
You NASCAR, they do something else: you win roughly 50/50, depending on what they do and how well they do it.

Thus, by following a given strategy, basically any strategy (replace "NASCAR" above with any strategy in each place it appears) you'll win more than you lose, simply because you beat the teams that are unorganized.

You're not winning because the strategy is good, you're winning because your team is all doing the same thing, working together, while the other team is not. Even if everything else is a wash, this puts you significantly ahead overall, and reinforced the default strategy.

[Wintersdark]

762 NATO, on 26 September 2016 - 07:05 PM, said:

According to metamechs.com (need a link here, but nope) the reason for the anti clockwise motion is because early on most mechs kept the heaviest guns in the right side like the CTF, HBK, ON1, VTR. People protect the right side by going right and taking the fire on the left. Blame FASA for being right handed.

While the concept is possible, the dating isn't. NASCAR wasn't a thing at all until after Clan's dropped, so early IS mech's layouts aren't really relevant. None of those mechs were common in serious play after, and before Clans we were firmly in the poptart meta, which didn't care much at all about NASCAR or which direction you approached from. I think it's more likely that people just go right by default because the majority are right handed. But it certainly could have seen the earliest start of it because of right handed sword and board mechs.

Quote

P.S. ever notice you aim for the right side first on most mechs like Atlases even though the really scary side is the one with 4SRM6as?

4xSRM6 = 48 damage, spread over most of your mech, with a hard 270m range cap. AC20 = 20 PPFLD that punches right where the AS7 pilot wants it, and still doing noteworthy damage to around ~350m. there's a reason you take the AC20 out first. It's more dangerous. A single AC20 shell to a component with 19 armor remaining can destroy three separate weapons in that one hit, after all, and do up to 29 total damage to that component.

[762 NATO]

wasn't arguing. But thank you! I wasnt around for the clan drop. This was why I included GMans theory. And I will still think of the left side of the atlas as scary. That side is like 2 piloting skill rolls to avoid fall damage and wasting the next turn standing.

Oh, and I was just noting a neat observation about organized comp vs pugs. No offense intended.

Cheers!

Edited by 762 NATO, 26 September 2016 - 09:17 PM.

[General Solo]

Search MWO Comic 101

Edit: Got some good info on nascar

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 26 September 2016 - 11:43 PM.

[MacClearly]

This has got to be one of the most frustrating drawbacks to playing this game. It's disturbing to hear people actually defending it as an actual legitimate strategy. It's not a strategy, it's unadulterated stupidity at its finest.

That this kind of abject stupidity has become so irritatingly common, is just another indication of how bad of shape the game is in, and how many skilled players are leaving in droves.

[Miles McQuiston]

This tendency to circle right is built upon the concept that there is no terrain the enemy is defending and no terrain the friendly team is defending. Not even in assault mode is this true. Hence if you haven't picked a location that offers your team cover while denying the enemy cover than circling behind your enemy and picking off targets makes the most sense. NASCAR from the onset also denies the enemy team sufficient time to setup any hasty defensive firing line. NASCAR ultimately is the preferred strategy because there is no game mode that makes it a worse strategy. NASCAR also forces the enemy to react to your movement instead of you trying to react to theirs. Each time the enemy takes cover you can envelop their position.

Why is the Kodiak vastly superior to the Dire Wolf.... Because it can run fast enough to make its firepower relative to the offensive fight. The Dire Wolf will never out maneuver the enemy so it is constantly fighting from either a defensive position or from a distant turret like position in order to keep the enemy in front of it. The Kodiak can get to the flank and chase enemy assaults and heavies all the while packing pound for pound more firepower.

Moving faster than your enemy and forcing them to fight on your terms will always win battles. NASCAR exists because terrain supports it. As they say always be flanking and NASCAR is a constant flank. It typically goes right in my opinion because most people are right handed and most mechs favor the right side in terms of usable hard points(ballistic and energy).

If you don't want to NASCAR do not go to the center of the map. The enemy can't NASCAR around you if you deny them a path.

[Fastwind]

The Unstoppable Puggernaut, on 23 September 2016 - 07:54 AM, said:

So, almost everyday I play I hear people whine about the nascar issue (mostly after they have died), once in a while someone comes up with an idea to do something different.

I wanted to create this thread to explain why I believe people nascar, I can understand the frustration but it actually plays a very important role in the game...
From a survival perspective.

Think about Darwin's theory on evolution. The slowest/weakest get picked off first.
Typically this could be assaults left behind (doesn't mean they're weak but a pack of lions would almost always go for the easiest kill, regardless of what it is), players who are lost (new to the game or accidentally took the wrong turn), or afk's/disconnects (annoying when they are on your team).

But why do players nascar and head anticlockwise?
http://lateralaction...brain-or-right/

FYI, I see the lady spinning clockwise.

It'd be interesting to see how people see the lady spinning.

And also see this on why people follow each other:


I like to see people break out of the norm and set up flanks/traps etc but just be warned, if you cannot convince your whole team to do it, the numbers will stack up against you !

Happy gaming all.

There is only 1 reason why you HAVE TO MOVE and FIGHT COUNTERCLOCKWISE and it has nothing to do with the all above
MOST MECHBUILDS (something like 50%) are right side heavy means they have most of their pinpoint accurate firepower in the right arm/torso
LEAST MECHBUILDS (something like 10%) are left side heavy
^^this means you move counterclockwise so your most firepower gets around the corner first,so you don't have to expose your entire mech to shot the enemy making you a smaller target why you can still bring all your firepower to effect
and while retreating behind cover again you can torso twist shield with your left unimportant torso
also the numbers game 50% wins over 10%
40% MECHBUILDS are balanced but should still move counterclockwise otherwise they still have a to big disadvantage against right side heavy mechs
^^ this is BASIC MECHWARRIOR KNOWLEDGE
you don't use it you should stay in the ACADEMY

[Void Angel]

That whole "my autocannon is on my right side, so I'll only flank right" thing is silly. It only matters if you're insisting on camping and hiding every time you might be shot at - in which case, why are you moving at all? Just camp in place and hide at them until they die if that's your mentality. If you're moving in an attempt to flank, you should be willing to share armor with your team, meaning you leave cover when it's appropriate - and fight. Also, knowing what proportion of meta builds are right-side heavy on their guns is hardly "BASIC MECHWARRIOR KNOWLEDGE." Get over yourself.

Personally, I despise the term "nascar" as well, because it oversimplifies a temporary tactical situation into full-blown tactic. This kind of lazy short-hand thinking then gets set into people's heads, and leads to all sorts of stupidity - complaining that people are moving; demanding that the team camp some indefensible position because "nascar is stupid;" or assuming that the condition of chasing the enemy team's tail (basically flipping a coin to see who's got the most slow 'mechs) is just what you do. Once you realize that the enemy is trying that (rather common) simultaneous flank, you should react to that information by setting up to receive them around a defensible corner, or circle back the other way - if you can surprise their fast-movers (the ones in front) before their heavies can reach them, there's often a decisive win available right there. Or, you can use outlying terrain features in many maps to break off to your left and surprise their column when it comes marching past... there's lots of things you can do, but often the people who seem the most vocal about "nascar-ing" know none of them.

Edited by Void Angel, 29 September 2016 - 12:36 PM.

[Void Angel]

PS: I see the lady spinning clockwise, but if I look away and focus on visualizing her, I can change the direction that she spins.

[Cold Darkness]

Fastwind, on 29 September 2016 - 12:24 PM, said:

^^ this is BASIC MECHWARRIOR KNOWLEDGE
you don't use it you should stay in the ACADEMY

if you have that kind of knowledge, you should be piloting left heavy builds and go clockwise to denie your oponents their advantage, while keeping your own.

[Fastwind]

Void Angel, on 29 September 2016 - 12:35 PM, said:

That whole "my autocannon is on my right side, so I'll only flank right" thing is silly. It only matters if you're insisting on camping and hiding every time you might be shot at - in which case, why are you moving at all? Just camp in place and hide at them until they die if that's your mentality. If you're moving in an attempt to flank, you should be willing to share armor with your team, meaning you leave cover when it's appropriate - and fight. Also, knowing what proportion of meta builds are right-side heavy on their guns is hardly "BASIC MECHWARRIOR KNOWLEDGE." Get over yourself.

Personally, I despise the term "nascar" as well, because it oversimplifies a temporary tactical situation into full-blown tactic. This kind of lazy short-hand thinking then gets set into people's heads, and leads to all sorts of stupidity - complaining that people are moving; demanding that the team camp some indefensible position because "nascar is stupid;" or assuming that the condition of chasing the enemy team's tail (basically flipping a coin to see who's got the most slow 'mechs) is just what you do. Once you realize that the enemy is trying that (rather common) simultaneous flank, you should react to that information by setting up to receive them around a defensible corner, or circle back the other way - if you can surprise their fast-movers (the ones in front) before their heavies can reach them, there's often a decisive win available right there. Or, you can use outlying terrain features in many maps to break off to your left and surprise their column when it comes marching past... there's lots of things you can do, but often the people who seem the most vocal about "nascar-ing" know none of them.

add me to your friends list when you have prem time we find 2 more people for a lobby match and i show you that CCW is the only way
science might show you i'm right