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Lone Wolf Playstyle - Underpowered, Or Useless As Intended?


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#1 Xandralkus

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Posted 19 May 2013 - 03:53 PM

I find it curious that there is an option for 'lone wolf' in one's house/mercenary affiliation, but actually playing a lone wolf in any form results in one of three outcomes:

1: You die horribly as soon as you attempt to flank things or do damage.
2: You limit your exposure to enemy fire, fight smart, and you are the last one standing when the rest of your team dies. You then die horribly, or if lady luck smiles upon you, you lose to cappers.
3: You end up with a team competent enough that they steamroll the enemy while you end up at the bottom of the scoreboard. You were never really necessary to begin with, and the same thing would have happened if you logged out.

'Lone Wolf' is underpowered. I happen to enjoy solo competitive PvP, and I treat my teammates as nothing more than mechs to not shoot. I do not want them stealing my kills and damaging my targets. I do not want them watching my back, or doing complex metagame cookie-cutter map-specific combat maneuvers. I would be orders of magnitude happier if all my teammates disperse through the map, in order to quietly and anonymously duel with the enemy.

Lone wolf is a useless metagame playstyle. Try playing Mechwarrior Online with no teammates within 400 meters, and no teammates within your line of sight, for the entire match. It is not fun or engaging in any way. The cockpits are pretty to look at for the first few minutes, and the weapon visuals are nice, but there is no part of combat I enjoy in the slightest.

Do we demand that the devs fix it, or is the Lone Wolf gameplay experience supposed to utterly and completely suck?

#2 FerretGR

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Posted 19 May 2013 - 04:00 PM

This is not my lonewolf experience, and I do lots of solo playing. My lonewolf experience does not suck. I keep up with all of my teams in terms of damage output and kills and whatnot, and I find the teams I play with fairly competent. I've been able to organize flanking moves in PUG games and whatnot. Sounds like the problem is with you and your lack of a team-player mentality. The secret: when you're lone-wolfing, you're still part of a team.

#3 Wintersdark

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Posted 19 May 2013 - 04:36 PM

What? You can roll lone Wolf and cooperate with a team. You don't have to - nor should you - run off alone all Rambo like.

e played nearly exclusively Lone Wolf since the start of open beta. I have none of the problems you mention, and do very well.

#4 Mazzyplz

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Posted 19 May 2013 - 04:40 PM

do a flank move.

or do you mean go completely off on your own? that's intended to get you killed and fast.
this game is like a team sport. not golf or karate

#5 trollocaustic

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Posted 19 May 2013 - 05:12 PM

View PostXandralkus, on 19 May 2013 - 03:53 PM, said:

I want more lone wolf.

Here you go
Posted Image
More seriously though, this is a strategic game, not a twitch game (well unless your a light). It takes skill (Unless your ballistic) and strategy (Read: ECM) to win.

#6 Zerberus

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Posted 20 May 2013 - 03:07 AM

So the basic complaint is that running off like rambo in a Teamplay based game is not producing optimal resiults?

Sounds like the entire system is working as intended, to me.... ;)

#7 Soy

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Posted 20 May 2013 - 03:10 AM

Don't worry OP, you'll get better, just keep training.

#8 Mild Monkey

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Posted 20 May 2013 - 03:26 AM

Not my experience at all. I am a PUG and a unit member. When PUGging, I mostly end up in the upper field, both damage and kill-wise. Why and how? Because I do not treat my team mates as "mechs not to shoot at". Even when there is NO communication going on(normal with PUGs), you ca still see what needs doing from general patterns of movement and pressure.
You can play the game in any manner you want but if you don't act as a drop member, you will be dropped soon and hard. I am not one to lecture you though, just sharing my own experiece. Oh, by the way, I'm dropping in medium mechs. If I try some sick shtick, I get killed and my team loses the match.

#9 Deathlike

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Posted 20 May 2013 - 06:25 AM

Teamwork is OP. Please use it.

#10 Kommisar

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Posted 20 May 2013 - 06:28 AM

Remember, this isn't some single player game where you, the hero, get to go roll up a horde of "Coded-Enough-to-Move-and-Shoot" AI bots. You are rolling out onto the field against live human pilots that can think, adjust, and use common sense. Oh, and they also want to win.

Occasionally, yes, someone can take a lone mech into a situation where they are outnumbered and pull off the win. But those are the celebrated exceptions! The matches that you remember because you beat the odds.

Most of the time, if you find yourself outnumbered, you're toast. Game working as designed.

Lone Wolf, in this game, means you'll fight for any team. But as a part of their team.

Kommi's Laws of Combat (Supplemental to Murphy's)
Rule No. 2 - You are not the Highlander. Or Batman. Or even Channing Tatum. Plan and fight accordingly.

#11 Syllogy

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Posted 20 May 2013 - 06:42 AM

Teamwork will always trump Lonewolf.

It's a fact of life.

#12 DaZur

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Posted 20 May 2013 - 07:41 AM

Four glorious words define this users Lone Wolf experience: "Garbage in... Garbage out".

Sorry OP but if you think so little of your worth or the worth of a your team (PUG or PM) your personal experiences will mirror the quality of your efforts.

In short... There are three types of people in the world: People who make things happen, people who wait for things to happen and people who wonder what happened... Don't be 2 or 3.

Edited by DaZur, 20 May 2013 - 07:41 AM.


#13 Kraven Kor

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Posted 20 May 2013 - 08:35 AM

No offense, OP, but you are playing the wrong game.

If you do not want to play as a member of a team, and do not want the other people on your team to work as a team with you, as indicated by your own comments, then you simply are playing the wrong game.

This game is a teamwork-based FPS, and will likely remain so, or that is my sincere hope.

#14 Syllogy

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Posted 20 May 2013 - 08:41 AM

Lonewolves can roflstomp the enemy when they drop solo. I dropped alone on River City once, without anyone on my team. I killed every single enemy mech I could find, and still had lots of armor left by the time it was all said and done.

I don't know about you, but I always win when I play Training Grounds. :D

#15 Shatterpoint

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Posted 20 May 2013 - 02:55 PM

I usually lone wolf it and yeah it'll often go as you described...comes with the territory so to speak.

The way I look at it the lone wolf is like the arcadians in 300

ARCADIANS (Lone wolf nubs), NOW!
They shout and curse, stabbing(pew pewing) wildly, more brawlers than warriors.
They make a wondrous mess of things, brave amateurs..they do their part.


It's great if you have a group of skilled pilots backup you up but they're often a predictable known quantity where as lone wolves thrown into the fight (skilled ones with decent mechs in particular) will thrash their way through an enemy team..at worst they're fodder to take some heat off the skilled players letting them get in the right shots at the right time. At best they're a brutal tornado dropping mechs left and right.

#16 General Taskeen

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Posted 20 May 2013 - 06:10 PM

If you're looking for the Lone Wolf experience, join the the actual Lone Wolves here: http://ronin-kensei.enjin.com/

We play solo, or in group lances, and give players pointers if they want it. A completely casual, supportive, and accepting group as were the real Lone Wolves of canon.

Edited by General Taskeen, 20 May 2013 - 06:10 PM.


#17 Lokust Davion

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Posted 20 May 2013 - 06:21 PM

I still feel that this game should force you to choose a faction similar to the way planetside 2 forces you to choose one of three. Lone wolves are just fillers and detract from the faction vs faction experience. Besides, most people are only lone wolves here because they don't know how to choose a faction, not because they don't want to.

#18 Taemien

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Posted 20 May 2013 - 06:59 PM

Lone Wolves is just a selection not to commit to a faction. It doesn't mean solo play specifically.

How Community Warfare will work is enemy factions will fight each other. For example, In the queue, House Davion and House Kurita queue up and the fight will be between the Draconis Combine and Federated Suns. What will happen is the match maker will fill in a 12v12 game with lances. It will throw Davion groups on the FS side, and Kurita groups on the DC side. Solo players from those houses will fill in the gaps. If there isn't any house solo players, it will take from the Mercs allied with the faction, then lone wolves.

I'd imagine lone wolves if enough are in the queue will be able to fight each other and the results will be the same as it is now. For those in a game with opposing houses, they're success will count for the faction they were fighting with.

In addition I don't think Kurita players will be allowed to group with Davion. Though due to the alliance, Davion and Steiner might be able to group together (and could be matched in like mercs are). Not sure how all that will work.

But the point is, the Lonewolf, 'non-faction' will be filler for the front wars between the great houses. If you're a casual player and don't care about a faction or its bonuses, lone wolf is the way to go. If you're a little more serious and wish to make a difference in the grand scheme of things in CW, you need to join one of the Houses. Even if you're a solo player you can still contribute.

#19 Lokust Davion

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Posted 20 May 2013 - 10:24 PM

View PostTaemien, on 20 May 2013 - 06:59 PM, said:

Lone Wolves is just a selection not to commit to a faction. It doesn't mean solo play specifically.

How Community Warfare will work is enemy factions will fight each other. For example, In the queue, House Davion and House Kurita queue up and the fight will be between the Draconis Combine and Federated Suns. What will happen is the match maker will fill in a 12v12 game with lances. It will throw Davion groups on the FS side, and Kurita groups on the DC side. Solo players from those houses will fill in the gaps. If there isn't any house solo players, it will take from the Mercs allied with the faction, then lone wolves.

I'd imagine lone wolves if enough are in the queue will be able to fight each other and the results will be the same as it is now. For those in a game with opposing houses, they're success will count for the faction they were fighting with.

In addition I don't think Kurita players will be allowed to group with Davion. Though due to the alliance, Davion and Steiner might be able to group together (and could be matched in like mercs are). Not sure how all that will work.

But the point is, the Lonewolf, 'non-faction' will be filler for the front wars between the great houses. If you're a casual player and don't care about a faction or its bonuses, lone wolf is the way to go. If you're a little more serious and wish to make a difference in the grand scheme of things in CW, you need to join one of the Houses. Even if you're a solo player you can still contribute.


id rather have a steiner fill in for a davion team than this "filler" lonewolf. we need to get rid of fillers.

#20 buttmonkey

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Posted 21 May 2013 - 02:51 AM

i think loan wolf is kind of like a wild card. your an extra so your correct in saying that but that means you bring what you want to the fight! you have your own role and load out etc. but you are still part of the team, make what you bring to the fight count.

going off solo is almost suicidal in this game you should never go off alone allways take a wing man. if you like to run off alone on maps i suggest using a light, the chances are you can team up with other like minded lone wolves, or the light on the team you joined to wreak havok :D plus you have a greater chance of slipping away if you encouter a more powerful foe than you can handle.





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