Livewyr, on 12 May 2013 - 12:46 PM, said:
There was a state of mind bred by the first 4 maps and their alternates: The Blob mentality.
The whole team sticks together and moves as a single blob, focuses targets and attempts to take out the other team faster.
If anyone caps, they're automatically a noob/loser/*******/jerk/*****/moron/etc...
This is blob mentality- or what I personally call; The "Assault Racket."
Assault mechs are undeniably the best at slaughtering mechs face to face, and now even in long range combat with the release of the Highlander.
So, what is the weakness of the Assault mech? Being the slowest on the battlefield.. that makes them vulnerable to being outmaneuvered. Now, as an assault mech, players know they can't go fast AND have ridiculous firepower so in order to negate their maneuverability disadvantage, they've made it socially unacceptable to outmaneuver them: "I've come here to blow up robots, not cap!" or "CapWarrior: Online" are common (un)clever epithets regarding capping.
This mentality has led to the crippling of the medium and light classes, it wasn't felt harshly until recently when the HSR removal of lag-shield made medium/light brawling non-viable.
The advantage of the medium and light chassis has been their maneuverability, which has been effectively outlawed by the Assault racket.
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So what needs to happen?
Start maneuvering.
I see a consistent battlefield routine in Alpine where the northeastern team moves a little ways away from their base to the closest ridge, sets up a firing line, and sits waiting for the other team, who dutifully runs right to them, intent on meeting in straightforward combat. Except the combat isn't straight forward, they get picked apart while maneuvering the open terrain to get to the enemy. You can see on the heat-map that there is where the majority of the deaths are.
Solution: Have some patience and don't engage them on their protective ridge. Stay back, flank to another side, send a jumpjet light mech to their base just to tap it and retreat up the hill just to create concern in two directions. Do not engage them when they have protective hill and you have open terrain. You will get picked apart, PPCs, Guass, LLasers, etc.. you will get picked apart.
Don't play into the Assault Racket. Cap them, force them to move. If they wish to bring the biggest load of weapons they can, make them pay for it, you're already paying a handicap in fighting by being completely outmatched in firepower, make them pay a handicap of being completely outmaneuvered.
In the Desert, same thing: Out maneuver them.
If anyone calls you something because you aren't fighting straight up, tell them to F-off and figure out how fights are really won.
I can tell you now, I will be capping bases until people figure it out. It could be considered trolling, but to that; I say the Assault Racket is trolling and therefore it's fair.
-Livewyr
(minor grammar edits)
I am so sorry for your situation, and would like to encourage you that all is not lost. Remedial education, particularly in mathematics and logical thought, is available at an institution of higher learning near you!
In fact, allow me to start you on your journey into a wider world by explaining to you the actual reason that teams stick together: It's effective! See, if you split up your team into "maneuver groups," you split your firepower in most cases. Then, when your team runs into a team that's actually moving
as a team (less their scouts, of course,) they blast you down and take significantly less damage than you did. This is because of a phenomenon called "focus fire." It gets a little complicated to explain, but basically if four identical 'mechs fought two other identical 'mechs, the smaller team would lose both their 'mechs, and the bigger team might not lose
any! The faster you can kill an enemy, the less damage they can do to you before they die. That means it's really tough to win a fight if half your team is off "maneuvering" somewhere. This is also why detailing a force to guard your base is not a viable tactic.
Of course, tactics is a fun and complicated discipline, as you're sure to find out as you continue your education! You actually had some good ideas about going around the enemy when people are camping somewhere in cover with a kill zone in front of them. It may be surprising, but did you know that most every map has a way to get around places like that without being shot at? Most times, you can even get close enough to use brawling weapons on those pesky sniper 'Mechs! Simply running to their base and trying to cap it is usually bad, though. Not only do you deny your team the benefit of your recon and combat support, but you also can get hammered pretty hard when their fast 'mechs come back to base in order to stomp on you. It's much better to start capping in order to pull some of their team out of position, and then leave their base before you can be destroyed!
There's lots more to be learned before you become a qualified MechWarrior, but I'm sure you'll make it, with long study hours and lots of hard work! Let's review what we've learned so far!
- You are not qualified to hold forth on the metagame - the practice of grouping up is common because it is necessitated by the dynamics of force-on-force actions. You seem ignorant of the mechanical reasons for the current PuG tactical methodology, and have made up your own fairy tale explanation out of whole cloth.
- There is no conspiracy on the part of mean Assault and Heavy pilots to browbeat you into playing to their strengths. The reason that nearly every pilot in the game screams at you when you play CapWarrior is that it's not any fun to play like that, not because they're mean nerd-jocks trying to make your brave, smart tactics "socially unacceptable."
- On that note, using CapWarrior tactics on the large maps is just short of bug abuse, and you should feel bad for doing it. There is no effective way for a PuG team to ensure that they have all of the approaches covered without dispersing their combat power to an untenable degree. Particularly on Tourmaline, but to some degree on both maps, playing CapWarrior to passive-aggressively punish people because you don't know how to pilot your light simply makes use of a cap timer that is currently too short for the map size.
I hope that this educational brochure has been helpful to you, and that we'll see you again once you've attained a basic level of competence! See you on the battlefield!