82 replies to this topic

[Sephlock]

Yeah I just had this happen to me- I was capping and the entire enemy team turned to get me. Meanwhile my entire team was...

... Uh...

...?

Please give us some sort of replay function so we can at least watch (via a top down interface, like what you see when you hit B, but with an omniscient view) and see what the hell our teammates did during a round.

[FunkyFritter]

As a light pilot, a pet peeve of mine is people who expect me to defend the base alone against 2+ opposing lights. Heavier mechs should help defend whenever doing so doesn't get our front line killed.

[Cur]

MuKen, on 10 April 2013 - 03:21 PM, said:

1) They sent a lot or even all of their team straight to your base - The "lights rtb, everyone else stay" strategy just lost you the match. Congratulations. On the other hand, if everyone returns, the lights can stall the cap long enough for everyone else to get there. If their whole team is there, this is your ONLY chance to win. If it's just half of them, you probably secured the victory yourself when you wipe out that half with your whole team

Congratulations, YOU just lost the game by having your entire team return to base. Most lights dont cap the base early in to win, they cap it to split up your forces.

If your entire team turns around and heads back it's going to be seen, then the enemy is just going to push forward together and get you in the back, the light mech that was capping base stays there untill a defender comes then he buggers off to a safe distance.

Yes you've stopped the cap, but you've also just lost a few teammates and some badly damaged from getting shot in the back. Now you've also pulled back toyour base you have diddly squat all cover, and the enemy has been advancing the whole time.

Cookie?

[Fernsie]

It's good to see a debate about tactics on the General Discussion Forum instead of the usual "Blah blah blah is OP, nerf it now!!!"

[Sephlock]

Cur, on 10 April 2013 - 06:47 PM, said:

Congratulations, YOU just lost the game by having your entire team return to base. Most lights dont cap the base early in to win, they cap it to split up your forces.

Although in PUG games what usually happens is the entire enemy team turns around and fries the capper, while his ***** teammates just ... do I don't even know what... then the enemies will leisurely turn back to the main line and proceed to roflstomp the capper's team.

Quote

If your entire team turns around and heads back it's going to be seen, then the enemy is just going to push forward together and get you in the back, the light mech that was capping base stays there untill a defender comes then he buggers off to a safe distance.

No, that's what SHOULD happen. That's not what puggers do. They just hang back and twiddle their thumbs while the capper gets curbstomped, then lose when the enemies finally come to them.

Also, if you're in a light and you're being chased by a light, you're going to die. Generally one light is not THAT much faster than another... and getting shot repeatedly as you run means that when you do eventually turn to fight, you're at that much of a disadvantage.

I guess if a heavier defender shows up it can be a different story, though.

FunkyFritter, on 10 April 2013 - 06:46 PM, said:

As a light pilot, a pet peeve of mine is people who expect me to defend the base alone against 2+ opposing lights. Heavier mechs should help defend whenever doing so doesn't get our front line killed.

You just need to stand on the cap spot and prevent them from capping long enough for the entire rest of your team to crowd around their cap spot .

For the greater good!

[mekabuser]

OP, I , as a dedicated base defender agree with you.. Of course it is highly situational as you said, but many times it is a GOOD idea for most everyone, if not all to fall back.. Especially if there isnt any kind of brawl going on.. As others have pointed out it is a VERY good idea to protect your back as you retreat... The idea of having everyone fall back is in the event its NOT more than two at your base , even two assaults and two heavies that remain on the front line will be outnumbered..

Its better to envision the rtb as a fighting retreat.. if necessary.. All you are doing is essentially withdrawing to your base which is infact a good place to fight from . You are dictating the terms of the fight, AND eliminating the threat at your base..

In summation, there really are TOO many variables for when you should all withdraw to base, but, I can tell you from first hand experience by my orders, it is the RIGHT decision sometimes.

Its really one of the cooler moves you can pull off. Two guys trying to cap, everyone returns, and then you roll out en masse from the base after killing the cappers and slam into the enemy formation with a numerical advantage and the taste of blood.
It usually winds up being a bad time to be the enemy.

[MuKen]

I don't get why everybody is talking as if a safe retreat is the most impossible thing in the world to do. Moving from behind safe cover to another safe cover further back is incredibly easy in 99% of long range fire situations. This is especially true if you haven't even made contact with an enemy yet. These are the express conditions I am discussing and laid out in the OP, I said right upfront that you would not do this if engaged in close combat.

If you are incapable of accomplishing such a maneuver without "exposing your back" to the enemy, then frankly you have no awareness of the lines of fire at all.

People are either simply not reading the OP at all and just reacting to the thread title, or have no ability to see the lines of sight on a battlefield.

I see the situation all the time where we're out looking for the enemy and there's NOBODY IN SIGHT, and we get the base cap message and somebody orders the team to split up. Then hey, it turns out the reason we haven't seen anybody is because they rushed on an alternate path and are pretty much all on base and about to completely destroy the 2 lights you sent back and get an easy win. Why are we ordering the team to split, when there's nobody here to leave mechs to fight?

Edited by MuKen, 10 April 2013 - 07:42 PM.

[Deathlike]

Not all positions are easy to move out from... particularly from Alpine. Long term exposure in the open is the death of most mechs.

[Sephlock]

Deathlike, on 10 April 2013 - 08:07 PM, said:

Not all positions are easy to move out from... particularly from Alpine. Long term exposure in the open is the death of most mechs.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

when does this game get live action videos??
1:33 is that a coolant truck? O.o

get out of the hangar!!
LRMs are OP O.o

and what kind of mech is that guy in? Some weird *** IS Vulture variant?



yeah I know, I troll, I troll roflmao

Edited by Mechwarrior Buddah, 10 April 2013 - 08:45 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Please,please,PLEASE try your "easy safe" withdrawal on virtually ANY map in 8v8. I beg you. I need the easy targets to pad my stats. Cuz each time ANY of your mechs shifts cover, its gonna eat a dozen PPC, half a dozen gauss and large lasers and at least half a hundred lrms. By the time your force returns to base, our spider will be back at our base sipping Martinis and our heavies will be mopping up the 3-4 of you that actually survived that long.

[KinLuu]

The point of an early capture is to go and try if the enemy team is stupid enough to RTB in force.
The rest of the team then advances and picks of those that stayed, and those that were to slow to follow.

Tatics. The OP does not know them yet.

[Sephlock]

KinLuu, on 10 April 2013 - 08:52 PM, said:

The point of an early capture is to go and try if the enemy team is stupid enough to RTB in force.
The rest of the team then advances and picks of those that stayed, and those that were to slow to follow.

Tatics. The OP does not know them yet.

Neither do most puggers, apparently.

[MuKen]

Right, so when you are exchanging fire across the water in river city, to fall back from behind the buildings will get you shot to pieces? There are tons of maps and locations where your path back isn't a deathtrap.

Edited by MuKen, 10 April 2013 - 10:29 PM.

[Funkadelic Mayhem]

You lost me at generalization.
we lights are not your monkeys!
if your not in a fast SHUT YOUR MOUTH!

Edited by Funkadelic Mayhem, 10 April 2013 - 09:53 PM.

[TB Freelancer]

Honestly....

....I skimmed over mostlly a bunch of garbage answers and maybe one or two solid ones but....


...when our base is being capped and I hear a guy say lights RTB here's my typical response...

"I'm in a position to go back, but they can have the damned base if you expect me to go there without backup." Its as simple as that. Particularly on the smaller maps.

For all the whining I see about base capping, just about every 'good' player I see tends to completely ignore that part of the game and play pure deathmatch. I can't count the times I've been stuck on teams full of fools who get half way across the map by the slower (going upper on River City for example) route with absolutely no sign of the enemy and yet they keep pushing forward. In that situation, if it turns into a base race, its already lost. The only hope for victory in that situation is to turn back, defend and...well do exactly what they wanted....

...deathmatch.

Instead most people prefer to be passive aggressive, allow themselves to be outmaneuvered then cry about it.

[p00k]

TB Freelancer, on 10 April 2013 - 09:49 PM, said:

"I'm in a position to go back, but they can have the damned base if you expect me to go there without backup." Its as simple as that. Particularly on the smaller maps.

so what you're saying is you can't 1v1 an enemy light? perhaps piloting lights isn't your thing then. especially considering lights capping enemy bases usually bug out before either dealing or sustaining fatal damage

yes yes it's not always just 1 guy capping your base. but you don't know that until someone gets back to the base to see. who better to see than...the light mech?

TB Freelancer, on 10 April 2013 - 09:49 PM, said:

For all the whining I see about base capping, just about every 'good' player I see tends to completely ignore that part of the game and play pure deathmatch. I can't count the times I've been stuck on teams full of fools who get half way across the map by the slower (going upper on River City for example) route with absolutely no sign of the enemy and yet they keep pushing forward. In that situation, if it turns into a base race, its already lost. The only hope for victory in that situation is to turn back, defend and...well do exactly what they wanted....

actually, not knowing where the enemy is, pushing halfway across the map, who's to say the enemy team is closer to your base than you are to theirs? contrary to your claim, pushing forward may be the correct choice depending on where the enemy is, making them have to defend their base, not the other way around

or they might go to the enemy cap in the hopes that the friendly light mech will stall the enemy cap long enough for them to win the cap race. but of course that involves the light pilot to sacrifice his kdr in favor of his w/l, and you're clearly not a light pilot willing to do that.

Edited by p00k, 10 April 2013 - 10:50 PM.

[Hayashi]

p00k, on 10 April 2013 - 04:03 PM, said:

central to OP's stance is the claim that your initial position held no tactical value. to which i ask, why were you there in the first place? perhaps you weren't in a valuable position, but in theory you should've been on your way to one if you weren't, right? so pulling back means surrendering a tactically valuable position, or surrendering the chance at taking a tactically valuable position

QFT.

Usually this command is issued when the line is facing a choke point - especially the Frozen City and Caustic Valley ridges. At that positions Assaults and Heavies can focus fire on anyone crossing the ridge (which is why usually an ECM spider jetting over them signals the ridge rush, since it throws off their concentration).

If your position is not worth holding and your whole team is there, then you've already lost the match before any fighting even begins. A team that cannot find and use good terrain positioning when they have the first 4 minutes to do so is rarely, if ever, one that can use cover effectively in the middle of combat.

Cur, on 10 April 2013 - 06:47 PM, said:

Congratulations, YOU just lost the game by having your entire team return to base. Most lights dont cap the base early in to win, they cap it to split up your forces. If your entire team turns around and heads back it's going to be seen, then the enemy is just going to push forward together and get you in the back, the light mech that was capping base stays there untill a defender comes then he buggers off to a safe distance. Yes you've stopped the cap, but you've also just lost a few teammates and some badly damaged from getting shot in the back. Now you've also pulled back toyour base you have diddly squat all cover, and the enemy has been advancing the whole time. Cookie?

Finally someone who understands the reason for a ninja light cap.

The number of people that complain over chat that capping is bad for C-Bills, is something only noobs do etc is quite disturbing, but at least when they do, we know we've won even before the fighting starts...

The usual tactic is to ninja cap, disappear off in the opposite direction about 15-20 seconds before we estimate their light defenders will return, then turn 90 degrees twice to join our main force from behind. Especially in river city.

They're left with 2-3 good pilots fighting against stacked odds of 6-7 (usually one or two PuGs is wandering off in some completely random direction), 3-4 mechs running away from us with their back turned, and 2 light/fast centurion defenders combing the base area for us, not knowing we're already with our main force.

Edited by Hayashi, 10 April 2013 - 11:09 PM.

[meteorol]

"Lights back to base" makes perfect sense on most maps and in most situations.

1) If your base is capped 30 secs into the games, there are probably only light mechs on it.

2) You can make a pretty accurate guess about how many mechs are on the base ( 4 mech cap is alot faster than 1 man)
-> 8 mechs moving back to the base is utterly useless if only 1 lightmech is there.

3) on most maps it takes ages to get back to the base if you are piloting an atlas.

4) all mechs pushing back to the base will split your force. Mediums running back at 80+ kph, while assaults are about 50 kph fast. The assaults will be seperated after a few seceonds. This one is guaranteed. In pug matches NOONE will wait for the turtle assaults.

5) MANY 4 man premades make use of fact 4). I have seen it on my team, i have been on the recieving end of it (in my atlas).
1 or 2 scout mechs attack the base, most mechs of the defending team turn around, chaos all over the place, assaults getting seperated. Attacking team is making his push, overwhelming the defending team (most of them showing them their backside) within a few seconds.

Result: Even if you turn back while not being in a brawl, you will recieve a HORRIBLE bash for it.

As other have stated before me, the whole team turning back will lead to defead. Simple reason is that those light pilots don't want to cap the base. They want the whole enemy team to turn around and going down in chaos.

So, the ones who say: "Stay together and focus fire; Only lights back to base" are not contradicting themselves. They are the ones who are smart enough to see the reason behind a early cap.


For me there is nothing more heartcrushing than seeing 80% of my team turning around 3 secs after the "base is under attack" message. 10 seconds later i see 6 enemy mechs pushing down the hill guns blazing.
2 of those guys who turned around dying within the first 5 seconds of the push because they got hit in the back.
I give a mental salut to this one heavy mech which was smart enough not to turn around and run back like a chicken with its head cut off.

Then i'm going down in a glorious battle, 2 vs 6, making them pay for every inch they move forward.
But it's not enough.

Edited by meteorol, 10 April 2013 - 11:44 PM.

[Grey Black]

MuKen, on 10 April 2013 - 03:21 PM, said:

90% of the time we get a stealth capper, this is what I see in team chat, regardless of what we are currently up to. This seems like really stupid strategy to me, and I don't understand why everyone does this. If you haven't made contact yet, or if you're just exchanging fire at long range (basically if you're not in a brawl) then EVERYBODY should return to base, unless your close enough to their base to cap it first. It's really annoying because the people who say this are usually the same people who say "stay together and focus fire" right at the start of the match. Why would you then contradict that with your very next teamchat?

The random position on the map you happen to be at has zero value, there's no reason to leave a contingent to hold that position. If you return to base, it's just as good a place as any to fight, and you can take advantage of the fact that the OTHER team just split themselves up, instead of getting split up yourselves. Wipe out the capper(s) and enjoy your numerical advantage for the rest of the fight.

Let's analyze this. There's two possibilities when you get the "base under attack" message:

1) They sent a lot or even all of their team straight to your base - The "lights rtb, everyone else stay" strategy just lost you the match. Congratulations. On the other hand, if everyone returns, the lights can stall the cap long enough for everyone else to get there. If their whole team is there, this is your ONLY chance to win. If it's just half of them, you probably secured the victory yourself when you wipe out that half with your whole team

2) There's only 1 or 2 light cappers - Ok, everybody returned to base and chased them off. You maybe even killed one of them before they got away. Nothing is lost, there is no important value in "holding the line" at whatever random location you happened to be at when you got the message. At worst, you are still even with the other team, at best you have a slight advantage now.

The only reason to not have everyone return is if you will sustain heavy losses from withdrawing (you're in a brawl), or you're close enough to their base to cap it first.

Quoted the OP to respond as directly as possible to the points raised. Also, as a certain Steiner likes to remind us, I'd like to preface this message with, "Information is ammunition."

Now, the most effective way to respond to a base cap is to send back exactly as much firepower as is necessary to deal with the threat. Therefore, if only one capper is there, then sending one or two lights back to respond is the best response, preferably determined by chat and role assignment of scout/striker. Sending a scout with limited backup gives the information that there is only one ninja that we needn't worry about with the entire team, as sending everyone back will simply be the cause of no small amount of chaos on your side. As has been previously stated, not all mech move the same speed, meaning that a full retreat, however tactical, will likely result i a few possibilities which, when combined, cause some cute permutations:

1) only one capper exists and all mechs retreat at full speed. This splits the team as no one stuck together and lets the enemy pick you off from behind one by one, which is a worst case scenario seen in pugs far too often.

2) multiple cappers and all mechs retreat at full speed. This is actually the reverse to the above. Rather than being picked off one at time from behind, each mech is focused down as it returns and is picked off one by one.

3) one capper and all mechs retreat together. In this scenario, all mechs return to the base at relatively the same speed, which is usually about 50kph, because Atlai. Well, in this scenario, the cap could be finished by the time everyone gets back, but is dependant on map size. However, because of those slow speeds, it also leaves your team out of position to respond tactically and forces an extremely defensive response and cedes the terms of combat to your enemy. In other words, bad.

4) multiple cappers and all respond same speed. Bad because you were likely out of position to respond, taking time to get back to base, and now they're capping too quickly for your team to respond in time. This will likely result in a base cap and, even if it doesn't, the same comments about position and terms of combat from 3 applies still. Again, bad.

Best response? Tell the scouts to find out what's capping, delay them, and relay the message to the rest of the team. By this, I mean their job. A shorthand way to express this sentiment is, "Lights rtb", as lights are usually the scouts. Therefore, I hereby conclude, by analysis, that the posted theorem lacks tactical insight, and should not be taken into consideration except in extreme circumstances.

QED