163 replies to this topic

[Congzilla]

Spheroid, on 13 March 2013 - 10:53 AM, said:

That is really not what Battletech was ever about. Where in the boardgame would you have two equally valuable targets on the same mapsheet?

One side defended a target and the other was the attacker. The planetary militia would defending some high value target against attack or they themselves would chase a lance back to a dropship to destroy it before it lifted offworld. If you were playing an open mapsheet it was merely an abstraction of two forces intercepting each other before coming to a populated area.

You must play some boring Battletech games. Using the Chaos Campaign rules you could both frequently have the same objective.

[Jasen]

Yokaiko, on 13 March 2013 - 10:56 AM, said:

Defense is pretty much a false economy in most pug games. Even if you leave a couple mechs back, your front line is now fighting short so the defense end just gets to deal with being WAY outnumbered.

......and trying to get pugs to actually stop and SIT somewhere is like herding cats, hence all of the "LRM IS OVERPOWERED!!11!!!!" post.

When EVERY damn map in the game has numerous places where LRM can't get to you and you pull them in.

.....nope to much patience NOT FUN.....but then WHY AM I LOSING!

I'm not going to go too far into why this statement is circa 2010 and MW4ish, but I promise you... Defense wins games. In basically every objective based game on the planet since the internet, defense is the key.

You probably would fare better in twitch based deathmatch shooters - they sound to be more your "speed".

[Yokaiko]

Jasen, on 13 March 2013 - 11:14 AM, said:

I'm not going to go too far into why this statement is circa 2010 and MW4ish, but I promise you... Defense wins games. In basically every objective based game on the planet since the internet, defense is the key.

You probably would fare better in twitch based deathmatch shooters - they sound to be more your "speed".

I'm aware of that, I figured the !!11!!11!!!!!! would infer sarcasm.

What I meant is that outside of 8 mans, defense usually isn't possible. Try to set up a good arch camp, if the enemy isn't there is 15 seconds two guys are in the water, two more (usually one with LRM) is up the cave and another is running around the the road taking sniper fire.

I quit even trying at this point.

[Spheroid]

Congzilla, on 13 March 2013 - 11:07 AM, said:

You must play some boring Battletech games. Using the Chaos Campaign rules you could both frequently have the same objective.

Feel free to cite the Era Report or Historical Turning Point product where such objectives are common, because I am viewing them as I type this.

Edited by Spheroid, 13 March 2013 - 11:20 AM.

[Jasen]

Yokaiko, on 13 March 2013 - 11:16 AM, said:

I'm aware of that, I figured the !!11!!11!!!!!! would infer sarcasm.

What I meant is that outside of 8 mans, defense usually isn't possible. Try to set up a good arch camp, if the enemy isn't there is 15 seconds two guys are in the water, two more (usually one with LRM) is up the cave and another is running around the the road taking sniper fire.

I quit even trying at this point.

Then I am sorry, I missed the sarcasm. Glad we agree =D

[Particle Man]

Spheroid, on 13 March 2013 - 10:53 AM, said:

That is really not what Battletech was ever about.

well there's your problem. you arent playing Battletech, you're playing Mechwarrior Online.
defend your base.

[Spheroid]

Particle Man, on 13 March 2013 - 11:28 AM, said:

well there's your problem. you arent playing Battletech, you're playing Mechwarrior Online.
defend your base.

I can play both. Host a MegaMek server and I can destroy you anytime in the next four hours.

[ItsAPotato]

A lot of people routinely miss the point of this and many other OP's on the subject

The point is not that he is losing. The point is that capping is neither fun, nor rewarding, even to the person doing the capping. As such, why do it?

I have a hard time believing that there are this many people out there who simply get their jollies from seeing "WINAR!" at the end, regardless of the fact that it is promptly followed by a "C-Bills earned: 0" (yes, this implies that I believe most turbo cappers are simply too stupid to realize that they are shooting themselves in the foot).

[Ph30nix]

Cap rushing on assault is just a stupid thing to allow, i have some examples below but the big reason why

THE ONLY WAY TO 100% defend IS TO NOT LEAVE YOUR BASE
personaly i dont feel like joining assault games where both teams are too scared to leave base and if it gets bad enough thats what would start happening. So i dont have a problem with capping LATER in a match, but capping before any fighting is done just has potential to ruin the match. Yes as a strategy it sounds great, but its not worth it to have a game ruined.

here are the usual scenerios that play out when someone rush caps

small group rush capping turns into:
whole team goes back to defend which they can only do if they havnt already engaged enemy or else they will get beat on all the way back, if they can go back depending how far away they are chance they wont make it in time.

fastest go back to defend can go either way if vs = size opponents,

team splits up is just bad all around because ONE of the groups is going to be horribly outnumbered

Now if whole TEAM goes for a rush cap
small group going back to save would just get slaughtered

if entire team trys to go back first they need to hope to make it back before its capped (with 8 people on it the base will cap fast) the first ones there will be focus fired and wasted leaving "defenders" outnumbered. which they will have a hard time fighting entire enemy team thats in a defenseable position anyways.

or can hope to rush to enemies base and cap theirs first(which is almost a gauranteed loss unless you get to theirs at same time as they get to yours)

so as i said above if caprushing becomes too big a problem people will just refuse to leave base, and games will just start ending in draws. WOO HOO the fun we shall have.

[Bilbo]

Ph30nix, on 13 March 2013 - 11:45 AM, said:

Cap rushing on assault is just a stupid thing to allow, i have some examples below but the big reason why

THE ONLY WAY TO 100% defend IS TO NOT LEAVE YOUR BASE
personaly i dont feel like joining assault games where both teams are too scared to leave base and if it gets bad enough thats what would start happening. So i dont have a problem with capping LATER in a match, but capping before any fighting is done just has potential to ruin the match. Yes as a strategy it sounds great, but its not worth it to have a game ruined.

here are the usual scenerios that play out when someone rush caps

small group rush capping turns into:
whole team goes back to defend which they can only do if they havnt already engaged enemy or else they will get beat on all the way back, if they can go back depending how far away they are chance they wont make it in time.

fastest go back to defend can go either way if vs = size opponents,

team splits up is just bad all around because ONE of the groups is going to be horribly outnumbered

Now if whole TEAM goes for a rush cap
small group going back to save would just get slaughtered

if entire team trys to go back first they need to hope to make it back before its capped (with 8 people on it the base will cap fast) the first ones there will be focus fired and wasted leaving "defenders" outnumbered. which they will have a hard time fighting entire enemy team thats in a defenseable position anyways.

or can hope to rush to enemies base and cap theirs first(which is almost a gauranteed loss unless you get to theirs at same time as they get to yours)

so as i said above if caprushing becomes too big a problem people will just refuse to leave base, and games will just start ending in draws. WOO HOO the fun we shall have.

Your problem is not the number of people who capped or returned to defend. Your problem IS that you allowed any number of opposing mechs to get there unnoticed and unmolested.

[Perfecto Oviedo]

ItsAPotato, on 13 March 2013 - 11:43 AM, said:

A lot of people routinely miss the point of this and many other OP's on the subject

The point is not that he is losing. The point is that capping is neither fun, nor rewarding, even to the person doing the capping. As such, why do it?

I have a hard time believing that there are this many people out there who simply get their jollies from seeing "WINAR!" at the end, regardless of the fact that it is promptly followed by a "C-Bills earned: 0" (yes, this implies that I believe most turbo cappers are simply too stupid to realize that they are shooting themselves in the foot).

Played a game recently, Alpine peaks, we were in a bad position, snipers have us pinned down, but we noticed that they pinned us in between them and their base (i,e, they left their base wide open). Myself and a few lancemates started to cap. Made the last second decision to stop capping right at the end, watched the enemy present themselves one by one, and we creamed them.

The point is, we could have easily not stopped (1 second or less is all it would have taken), but if the enemy left the objective wide open for us, why not take it? That's strategic gameplay for you. The fun in the game mode is to defend your base while trying to take out the other team/get to their base. We were well within our rights to cap-out, especially if the situation went south and we couldn't win by brute force. Wasn't our fault THEY opened the front door for us.

It's one avenue to win, and sometimes, yes, winning is fun.

Effectively defend your base, and cap-rushing won't be a problem. I don't think things are quite as dramatic as Ph30nix portrays them to be.

EDIT: Not from personal experience, but I would guess that in a real combat engagement, you would want to exploit any vulnerability to win by the quickest and cleanest means. Now, this would make more sense in MWO if the RnR costs were still in the game, and yes, I realize this isn't real combat it's big-stompy-robots online pew-pew-'em-up, but if I can exploit a vulnerability and win, that's your problem, not mine.

Edited by Perfecto Oviedo, 13 March 2013 - 12:03 PM.

[Yokaiko]

Bilbo, on 13 March 2013 - 11:59 AM, said:

Your problem is not the number of people who capped or returned to defend. Your problem IS that you allowed any number of opposing mechs to get there unnoticed and unmolested.

Yes well I've noticed a disturbing trend where the average game tends to be 3 atlases, 2 stalkers, a couple random phracts and cats....and that is it.

3 times in a ROW today I was the fastest mech on my team with a 93kph hunchback.

[ItsAPotato]

Perfecto Oviedo, on 13 March 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

Played a game recently, Alpine peaks, we were in a bad position, snipers have us pinned down, but we noticed that they pinned us in between them and their base (i,e, they left their base wide open). Myself and a few lancemates started to cap. Made the last second decision to stop capping right at the end, watched the enemy present themselves one by one, and we creamed them.

The point is, we could have easily not stopped (1 second or less is all it would have taken), but if the enemy left the objective wide open for us, why not take it? That's strategic gameplay for you. The fun in the game mode is to defend your base while trying to take out the other team/get to their base. We were well within our rights to cap-out, especially if the situation went south and we couldn't win by brute force. Wasn't our fault THEY opened the front door for us.

It's one avenue to win, and sometimes, yes, winning is fun.

Effectively defend your base, and cap-rushing won't be a problem. I don't think things are quite as dramatic as Ph30nix portrays them to be.

This is a perfectly valid scenario, but this is not the turbo capping to which the OP is referring. I will commonly go to cap an undefended base if the enemy has set themselves up in a highly defensible position and refuses to move (granted, I will still try to poke at them first, but I don't expect anyone to willingly run into an obvious meat grinder).

[ItsAPotato]

Bilbo, on 13 March 2013 - 11:59 AM, said:

Your problem is not the number of people who capped or returned to defend. Your problem IS that you allowed any number of opposing mechs to get there unnoticed and unmolested.

On most maps, you cannot move more than 200-300m from your base and still maintain a defensive line on all approaches. I guess we should all sit within 200m of the base, then? ...which is what ph30nix already mentioned

Edited by ItsAPotato, 13 March 2013 - 12:08 PM.

[Bilbo]

Yokaiko, on 13 March 2013 - 12:01 PM, said:

Yes well I've noticed a disturbing trend where the average game tends to be 3 atlases, 2 stalkers, a couple random phracts and cats....and that is it.

3 times in a ROW today I was the fastest mech on my team with a 93kph hunchback.

Though nice to have, a lack of scouts is not necessarily a problem. There are usually only a couple avenues of attack and it's not generally too difficult to get eyes on those routes unless your team is using the blob to the middle/left/right strategy.

[Thorn Hallis]

ItsAPotato, on 13 March 2013 - 11:43 AM, said:

The point is not that he is losing. The point is that capping is neither fun, nor rewarding, even to the person doing the capping. As such, why do it?

It's a win.

[Yokaiko]

ItsAPotato, on 13 March 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

On most maps, you cannot move more than 200-300m from your base and still maintain a defensive line on all approaches. I guess we should all sit within 200m of the base, then? ...which is what ph30nix already mentioned

Totally not the case, there are defensive positions on every map....alpine included that allow a decent return time...

......if your entire team isn't atlases and stalkers....which is almost always the case.

[Jasen]

Bilbo, on 13 March 2013 - 11:59 AM, said:

Your problem is not the number of people who capped or returned to defend. Your problem IS that you allowed any number of opposing mechs to get there unnoticed and unmolested.

Exactly. I find it funny that they think the problem is capping...

[Yokaiko]

Bilbo, on 13 March 2013 - 12:08 PM, said:

Though nice to have, a lack of scouts is not necessarily a problem. There are usually only a couple avenues of attack and it's not generally too difficult to get eyes on those routes unless your team is using the blob to the middle/left/right strategy.

Its a problem when their LRM and long range mechs beat you to the highground.

You real choices are fall back and try to bait them into the base (and hope they aren't smart enough to run over the mountain in the middle)

........or

Watch your team get picked off by LRM one by one beacuse they are trying to get up the side of a 500m tall mountain that they can't shoot up.

[Bilbo]

Yokaiko, on 13 March 2013 - 12:18 PM, said:

Its a problem when their LRM and long range mechs beat you to the highground.

You real choices are fall back and try to bait them into the base (and hope they aren't smart enough to run over the mountain in the middle)

........or

Watch your team get picked off by LRM one by one beacuse they are trying to get up the side of a 500m tall mountain that they can't shoot up.

If they are there and shooting at you and you have no way to suppress them, why are you assaulting the hill. Bypass it.