82 replies to this topic

[Noobzorz]

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

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.

(Pssst. . . these guys aren't "good players" at all.)

[MWHawke]

MuKen, on 10 April 2013 - 07:29 PM, said:

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?

Read your own OP. You even said it in this post. "long range fire situations". Does this mean NOBODY IN SIGHT??!?

Better yet.. your suggestion to move from cover to cover for Assaults. Congrats, you have just asked your slowest units to go.. gosh.. EVEN SLOWER!!! You have just effectively killed your team.

You are defending a poor position through your posts just as you have suggested a massively poor tactic in your gameplay.

[Stargoat]

You know, maybe people say lights/fast movers should go back because, you know, it makes sense?

Sometimes it makes sense to do a full retreat, though. River city, perhaps. You team goes high, enemy rushes low. From there you have two options; rush their base or fall back to defend.

As an often times light pilots, we hit the cap specifically TO force or encourage a retreat in the enemy team, as it means the assaults and heavy hitters can advance.

Additionally, you don't need to be fighting or even have lost 'mechs to be in a bad state, position is very much an important aspect of the game, and if you're so happy to give up an advantageous spot at the drop of a hat, you should maybe rethink your tactics.

[Deathlike]

Sephlock, on 10 April 2013 - 08:19 PM, said:

A decade ago, I would've cared.

[Appogee]

Many false assumptions in the OP, sorry.

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

if you're just exchanging fire at long range (basically if you're not in a brawl) then EVERYBODY should return to base

And get shot in the back as the enemy advances, while you have your back to them, leaving the cover you had...? Bad idea.

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

If you return to base, it's just as good a place as any to fight,

Not necessarily. There may or may not be cover. Alpine for example is a map where people in the base are basically fish in a barrel for snipers in the surrounding hills.

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

and you can take advantage of the fact that the OTHER team just split themselves up, instead of getting split up yourselves.

Mechs move at different speeds. Your team is not going to arrive back at base all at once. They are going to be spread out. Just like you said they shouldn't be.

In conclusion:

Having lights go back to base makes a LOT of sense in many situations. For example, if it's a heavy snipefest up front, you can be reasonably confident the capper is just a light. If it happens early in the match, then you can be certain it's a fast light mech, etc.

Edited by Appogee, 11 April 2013 - 09:05 AM.

[Dnarvel]

A light going back tot he base can inform the rest of the team what is back there. Why would you bring the whole team back for a badly damaged Light mech? Your own lights can rush back.. see what is there and call for other backup if needed. If EVERYONE decided to go back, the as stated the slow assaults would be leaving their back armor open to incoming fire, and going from cover to cover might not work if the mech is very slow.

Light mechs are not killers, they are hunters and roamers taking shots of opportunity. As a Light Pilot it is my job to scout, spot the enemy, give appropriate information and respond to areas when my teammates need me. IF My base starts getting capped I am going to RTB for many reasons
1) To try and stop the enemy cap
2) To find out how many enemies, what types of mechs, and how badly damaged they are.
3) Keep my team informed so the battle-line guys can make appropriate decisions in their part of the fight.

If you are in a fast light and don't want to RTB because you are afraid of getting killed, you are doing it wrong and it is time to move up to a heavier weight class.

[Lugh]

MuKen, on 10 April 2013 - 03:44 PM, said:

Re: all of you. Read the OP instead of just imagining the last time you saw these words and thinking "hey, it WAS a good idea to stay that time". I posted about a very specific set of circumstances. If you're not even in contact yet or are firing at long range, you are not going to take heavy damage from withdrawing.

Secondly, at what point did I say you had to turn around and run away like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off? There are many safe ways to rtb. Your slower mechs should still be returning slowly in a safe and coordinated fashion until its confirmed that the base is ok. It doesn't have to be their max speed, but they DO need to be on their way back in case they are needed.

"Ceding ground" costs you nothing, and even thinking in such terms reflects an inflated sense of the value of territory in a game that isn't about territory.

You are SOOO right, there are clearly no good positions on each map with Narrow Defiles and points that can be used to funnel in opponents to you 1 at a time for a good old fashioned horse whipping.
/sarcasm off.
Ceding ground cedes all those positions to the enemy. Every sector you don't have eyes in is a sector that is a danger to you and your team, Every sector that you don't descend on and set up a killing field on, is a danger to you and your team.

[MuKen]

Grey Black, on 11 April 2013 - 12:32 AM, said:

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.

Resulting in a chance of outright losing the game? Dealing with a threat isn't a set bar, it's not that you send this much you succeed you send less you fail. Everything is a chance. You want significantly more firepower than the cappers, because a fight where one side has victory at stake and the other one doesn't isn't good for you.

Quote

meaning that a full retreat, however tactical, will likely result i a few possibilities which, when combined, cause some cute permutations:

As has been stated multiple times, you don't have to make a "full retreat". The lights go back to stall, everyone else withdraws together and with whatever speed as cover and avoiding fire permits. They don't have to be going as fast as possible, but there DOES need to be backup on the way until the lights confirm that it is not necessary.

MWHawke, on 11 April 2013 - 06:29 AM, said:

Read your own OP. You even said it in this post. "long range fire situations". Does this mean NOBODY IN SIGHT??!?

So you were asked to read the OP, then scanned it to find something out of context? Nice. I said explicitly there were TWO DIFFERENT conditions, and in this sentence I was discussing one of them. Pointing out my other condition does nothing except to show that you didn't read the OP in full.

Appogee, on 11 April 2013 - 09:03 AM, said:

And get shot in the back as the enemy advances, while you have your back to them, leaving the cover you had...? Bad idea.

Not necessarily. There may or may not be cover. Alpine for example is a map where people in the base are basically fish in a barrel for snipers in the surrounding hills.

Like a lot of this thread, this is typifying the "i can only do all or nothing" attitude that doesn't serve anything. You can slowly withdraw without exposing your back to fire, your return does not have to be an all-out ditch cover and turn your backs at full throttle retreat.

Similarly, you can return to base without sitting IN THE SQUARE. Those hills that surround the alpine base? That's an excellent spot for YOU to be in, where you can fire outwards and still help deal with cappers.

Return doesn't mean turn around and run in the open like a chicken with its head cut off. Similarly, rtb does not mean you have to be ON the base. Not everything has to be done to an extreme.

---

If anybody said anything I missed that wasn't the same general sentiment as stuff I responded to, please point me to it.

Edited by MuKen, 11 April 2013 - 03:39 PM.

[Victor Morson]

It's because good units often will send a single light into your base for the sole purpose of making everyone get out of position and turn around, then hit them hard in the rear.

It's a hard tactic to ignore because you're gambling either way.

[MWHawke]

MuKen, on 10 April 2013 - 07:29 PM, said:

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?

MuKen, on 11 April 2013 - 03:10 PM, said:

[/size]


So you were asked to read the OP, then scanned it to find something out of context? Nice. I said explicitly there were TWO DIFFERENT conditions, and in this sentence I was discussing one of them. Pointing out my other condition does nothing except to show that you didn't read the OP in full.

Here, I have even enlarged the CONDITION you are talking about. You know, just in case you didn't understand what you wrote.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Blackadder, on 10 April 2013 - 03:31 PM, said:

regardless of map as soon as smart opposing players see you withdrawing they will advance. Given that mechs all have varying speeds, its quite easy to pick off the slow mechs that are trying to RTB. Additionally, in most cases slower mechs will never get to the base in time. If your in a light and not wiling to RTB when stealth cappers are around, your not filling your role as a light mech.

This is a good point. Stealth cappers are trying to get you to turn around and RTB knowing someone is going screw that up (especially in PUG matches) and not notice, or be too slow to get caught up or something....it's all about getting one or two in isolation and gobbling them up, thereby starting the inevitable attrition spiral these matches are so well known for.

Also, don't discount the value of certain pieces of terrain/high ground. Sometimes you're on a piece of turf it actually helps you to hold.

Really, it's situational. I wouldn't get so wrapped up about it if I was the OP.

[MuKen]

MWHawke, on 11 April 2013 - 03:23 PM, said:

Here, I have even enlarged the CONDITION you are talking about. You know, just in case you didn't understand what you wrote.

Except that NO, that was not the condition I was talking about. There are TWO parts in that post, which are separate and refer to TWO conditions in my OP. That's why they are DIFFERENT PARAGRAPHS. YOU are referring to a specific paragraph that I wrote, where I AM REFERRING TO MY OTHER CONDITION, and trying to cross them up to make a contradiction where there is none.

You started this discussion by referring my post later on where I was talking about a situation where "nobody is in sight", and are acting like that is not consistent with my OP. My OP I laid out TWO situations, one of which is what that paragraph is referring to.

As I said, you would know this if you had read the OP in full.

Edited by MuKen, 11 April 2013 - 03:57 PM.

[MWHawke]

MuKen, on 11 April 2013 - 03:46 PM, said:

Except that NO, that was not the condition I was talking about. There are TWO parts in that post, which are separate and refer to TWO conditions in my OP. That's why they are DIFFERENT PARAGRAPHS. YOU are referring to a specific paragraph that I wrote, where I AM REFERRING TO MY OTHER CONDITION, and trying to cross them up to make a contradiction where there is none.

You started this discussion by referring my post later on where I was talking about a situation where "nobody is in sight", and are acting like that is not consistent with my OP. My OP I laid out TWO situations, one of which is what that paragraph is referring to.

As I said, you would know this if you had read the OP in full.

So, meaning you admit that your argument is flawed since now, you are defending ONE condition when you raised TWO conditions?

Can you be clear what you are talking about? Because in normal situations, when someone raises TWO conditions and makes an overall statement, it means it applies to BOTH conditions.

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

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.

So this general statement applies only to ONE of your conditions? So, which of your conditions is wrong?

[MuKen]

MWHawke, on 11 April 2013 - 04:11 PM, said:

So, meaning you admit that your argument is flawed since now, you are defending ONE condition when you raised TWO conditions?

Wow, so you're not reading any of my posts now, not just the OP, huh?

As I JUST SAID, it was a TWO PART post referring to the TWO CONDITIONS.

Quote

Can you be clear what you are talking about? Because in normal situations, when someone raises TWO conditions and makes an overall statement, it means it applies to BOTH conditions.

I prefaced that paragraph with a sentence that makes it extremely obvious to anyone with a 3rd grade reading comprehension which condition I was talking about. Right here:

"I see the situation all the time where we're out looking for the enemy and there's NOBODY IN SIGHT"

If that doesn't make it clear which condition I am talking about, then I don't know how to possibly communicate with you.

Quote

So this general statement applies only to ONE of your conditions? So, which of your conditions is wrong?

No, that one refers to both of them. That one isn't the paragraph we are talking about, the one YOU picked to say disagrees with my OP. So you are now trying to change which sentence you say contradicts my OP, because the first one you picked obviously did not work out.

Edited by MuKen, 11 April 2013 - 04:22 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Boy. You know what this question needs?

A POLL.

all who would follow MuKen and his tactical brilliance as a drop commander?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.*crickets*

Ok. All who would listen to pretty much ANYONE else as Drop Commander?
Yup. About what i expected.

Got bad news for you. We DID read your OP. It was myopic, limited, and generally wrong. All you attempts to "amend" what "you really" said have been equally bad.
*server overloads and crashes from traffic*

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 11 April 2013 - 10:08 PM.

[MuKen]

Bishop Steiner, on 11 April 2013 - 04:55 PM, said:

...

Was going to just cut and respond to the parts that were actual arguments, but there were none.

Responding to points I've made? nope
Making new points to support your case? nope
Providing new backing for points you've made before? nope

To an intelligent reader, your post says nothing except that you have no case.

Edited by MuKen, 11 April 2013 - 06:00 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

MuKen, on 11 April 2013 - 05:57 PM, said:

[/size]

Was going to just cut and respond to the parts that were actual arguments, but there were none.

Responding to points I've made? nope
Making new points to support your case? nope
Providing new backing for points you've made before? nope

To an intelligent reader, your post says nothing except that you have no case.

"Or the initiative. Once you are forced to become reactionary, you have likely already lost. The team that dictates where and when they fight, will almost always be victorious. The common tactic is to send one or two fast mechs to cap, specifically because it leave the opposing force in disarray. Sending back 1 or 2 light units is al.ost always the correct answer, as 9 out of 10 times the enemy scout retreats the moment contact is made. If a heavier enemy presence is already there (common on frozen city and river city), you will probably already be capped before your heavy elements return, and your lighter elements destroyed by mass fire.

Always better to actually send your lights out as screens on the far flanks to begin with to intercept such attacks before they occur.

-------------------------------------

Dang Skippy. At the very least post a spy that can SEE the tunnel entrance, and some one who can react to Jenner highway. You can actually do both within view of the bulk of your force at the spine of the drop ship. Good Intel pets you see them coming and gave a surprise waiting. Poor dumb centy didn't realize he'd been spied, popped out the tunnel and caught about 4 gauss and dozen ppcs for his trouble, lol.

-------------------------------------

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. "


Your feeble case was destroyed by me and at least 20 other posters hours ago. the only thing left is to laugh at you. And let you wallow in your own stubbornness..

[MuKen]

Lol, you cite yourself in two posts where you wrote right at the top (but conveniently left out here) that you were addressing OTHER people, and then a post whose content has been replied to and you never followed up on.

"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."

As OP I am talking to many people, if you can't follow the conversation well enough to determine when something I am saying is responding to a point that a group of people that includes yourself have made, then don't talk to OPs.

You have since then not responded to the discussion (one that I've been continuing with many others) and when you finally did come back, you post a long post whose only point is to insult me personally and as I pointed out provides ZERO new arguments. This is the hallmark of a poster who has no useful things to say.

Edited by MuKen, 11 April 2013 - 11:34 PM.

[Grey Black]

MuKen, on 11 April 2013 - 03:10 PM, said:

[/size]

Resulting in a chance of outright losing the game? Dealing with a threat isn't a set bar, it's not that you send this much you succeed you send less you fail. Everything is a chance. You want significantly more firepower than the cappers, because a fight where one side has victory at stake and the other one doesn't isn't good for you.

... is this not exactly what I said? Respond with the correct amount of force, let the scouts do their job and relay that information to us, and THEN bring more back? Problem is, it seems you are simply assuming that the "correct amount" is ALWAYS 100% of the team firepower when all you need is, perhaps, 33% while the other 67% is needed elsewhere.

MuKen said:

As has been stated multiple times, you don't have to make a "full retreat". The lights go back to stall, everyone else withdraws together and with whatever speed as cover and avoiding fire permits. They don't have to be going as fast as possible, but there DOES need to be backup on the way until the lights confirm that it is not necessary.

MuKen said:

The only reason not to have everyone return
...

Hmmm.... contradiction much?

Now, I'm not saying we SHOULDN'T do a full withdrawl (if you don't like the word "retreat") to the base if that much firepower is needed. However, I outlined in my post what the various permutations are already. Can you please respond to those variations of response? I'm not against having backup on the way if necessary, but there has to prove to be an imminent threat in order to respond with everyone.

EDIT: Simply because I forgot how I had put this in my original post, I wish to simply state one last thing:

Grey Black said:

[color=#959595]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.[/color]

[color=#959595]QED[/color][color=#959595]

[/color]

Edited by Grey Black, 13 April 2013 - 05:56 AM.

[Dirkdaring]

OP:

So you want everyone to turn around and RTB. Excellent idea, please do this vs my team. We love seeing the backs of slow assaults.