50 replies to this topic

[Woozle]

Zakie Chan, on 30 May 2013 - 09:39 AM, said:

LOL this thread again...

12 ppcs to core an atlas. That's 2 alphas. Those players are the smart ones. Unlike the goons I see stand still in the open trying to out snipe another mech, only to it and the rest of the enemy team rain lrms and pop tart. Usually 20 seconds is how long it lasts

You miss the point - you cannot win by hiding in cover. You cannot be both defensive and offensive. By staying in one place you cede initiative to your enemy, who will advance and crush you.

"Place your army in deadly peril, and it will survive; plunge it into desperate straits, and it will come off in safety. For it is precisely when a force has fallen into harm's way that is capable of striking a blow for victory."
- Sun Tzu: The Art of War

[Rabid Dutchman]

Woozle, on 30 May 2013 - 10:08 AM, said:

You miss the point - you cannot win by hiding in cover. You cannot be both defensive and offensive. By staying in one place you cede initiative to your enemy, who will advance and crush you.

"Place your army in deadly peril, and it will survive; plunge it into desperate straits, and it will come off in safety. For it is precisely when a force has fallen into harm's way that is capable of striking a blow for victory."
- Sun Tzu: The Art of War

YES! Thank you Woozle! Somebody gets what I'm saying!

[Sir Wulfrick]

Rabid Dutchman, on 28 May 2013 - 11:45 AM, said:

In the last five games I've played (all with different PUGs), I've noticed an emerging trend among Assault Mech pilots: A rather frustrating tendency to find a large piece of cover and cower behind it.

Please don't misinterpret what I'm saying. I am not saying that Assault Mechs should never take cover. Assault Mechs should take cover, all Mechs should because it is a smart tactic. What they should not do is cower behind cover, only to step out occasionally to observe the battle without firing a shot.

Assault Pilots: You are piloting an 80+ ton Mech, loaded with an ungodly amount of weapons and armor. Part of your job is to push forward and, yes, take some hits. By all means play smart within your weight class, but actually play your weight class. If you spend the match bunched up together behind cover, terrified of getting mean looks, then you are not pulling your weight and your team will suffer because of it. Please adjust your tactics or weight class accordingly.

Again: Not complaining about Assault Mechs that utilize cover, just the ones that won't do anything but stay in cover.

Before I wade on, I'm an Atlas pilot. Only ever an Atlas pilot since way back in closed beta, and back to around 1987 before that. The good old AS7 and me go WAY back. I agree with what you're saying here. Before the onset of the worst parts of PoptartSniper Online I was very disapointed if my trusty old AS7-D failed to to 700-800 points of damage with at least a few kills.

I can't speak about the other assault chassis as I've never piloted them. The Atlas is however uniquely disadvantaged in the current meta for a number of reasons:

1. Even with indecently large engines it's so slow that disengagement from a fight is impossible. Having the wisdom to know when and where to engage is a rare skill that successful Assault pilots and in particular Atlas pilots must learn... Or die frequently.

2. Low-slung arms mean that it's necessary to expose a large part of the Atlas prior to being able to fire the arm mounted weapons. This is partially offset by the right torso ballistic mounts but the AS7 does suffer when compared against the Jagermech and numerous others with shoulder-mounted hard points.

3. As others have pointed out, firepower>speed>armour in the current MWO. Those who believe that an AS7 is a walking wall of impenetrable armour - think again. Being exposed, particulalrly in the current climate of JumpSniper Online, is asking for a very quick death.

4. Burst and high-alpha meta. The AS7 is deficient in hard points for an assault mech, and it's additional armour in no way compensates for the lack of available weapon mounts.

So while, for example, I'd certainly expect everymember of my team to bring their try-hard trousers to every match, the current meta game really is not friendly for the old Atlas - to the point where I've been taking a break for the past 2 weeks. It got to the point where I was getting so disgusted by the constant JumpSniper Online that I just wasn;t having fun any more. If and, I hope, when the meta changes again my AS7-D and I will be wading back in to the fray.

Edited by Sir Wulfrick, 30 May 2013 - 10:40 AM.

[Rabid Dutchman]

Sir Wulfrick, on 30 May 2013 - 10:39 AM, said:

2. Low-slung arms mean that it's necessary to expose a large part of the Atlas prior to being able to fire the arm mounted weapons. This is partially offset by the right torso ballistic mounts but the AS7 does suffer when compared against the Jagermech and numerous others with shoulder-mounted hard points.

I pilot a Cataphract. I feel your pain

[Edson Drake]

This current meta is indeed annoying and I really don't want to be in the shoes of the dev charged with the job to solve that.

If you get lucky and somehow get in a game where your mates actually listen to what you say, focus fire on the poptarts. If there are multiple poptarts, i.e., Blackjacks, Cataphracts and Highlanders, focus on the BJs first, then Phracts, and finally Landers. The problem is getting a responsive team though.

[Spheroid]

Yes I have noticed this as well. Especially on Forest or Frozen. Even though I am in a slow Blackjack somehow I end up on the front lines first. This should never be case. Giving up movement gives up initiative, the ability to flank, etc. At first I thought maybe I had moved into a lower ELO bracket but if others are seeing this it must be a skill wide problem spreading through the meta. People just don't seem to want the kills as much anymore. The assaults are becoming cowards and there is less moving in groups recently.

[Dremnon]

Spheroid, on 30 May 2013 - 11:04 AM, said:

People just don't seem to want the kills as much anymore. The assaults are becoming cowards and there is less moving in groups recently.

People still want the kills, they just want them from a place where they don't take any damage. The assaults are not becoming cowards as you're stating, they're probably just tired of running out trying to initiate a fight and seeing that nobody is following, and therefore adjusting their play style to match what the bulk of the community is doing. Personally, I'd rather have a coward assault staying with the team providing damage than a hero assault wearing his red cape, charging into 8 other snipers on the other team, getting blown apart before he makes it close, and then getting yelled at by this team for playing like a moron.

Other factors that I believe have contributed to the current assault game play is the fact that LRM's are doing relatively low damage, so snipers have little fear of taking ranged damage from them. The trickle down you see from this is that those mechs that can equip LRMS to some capacity (i.e. Stalkers, Atlas, Catapults) are changing their loadouts to ER PPC's, PPC's or ER Lasers, etc. Also, the current SRM damage has reduced the effectiveness of getting up to someone to hit them with those, making classic builds you would see for an Atlas D-DC with the 3xSRM6 become less viable as well. I know that any build I had with SRM's or LRM's have been replaced with SSRM's because of the above reasons.

It isn't limited to just assaults either, I see more variants (Jager comes to mind) the would rather take Gauss then AC20's for the same reason. It's gotten to the point that unless you're in a light (excluding ER PPC snipers) where you need to take ML's for viable dps, every build is incorporating long range damage.

At the end of the day, you can't blame one class for conforming and changing play style to what the rest of the team and community is doing.

[Zakie Chan]

Woozle, on 30 May 2013 - 10:08 AM, said:

You miss the point - you cannot win by hiding in cover. You cannot be both defensive and offensive. By staying in one place you cede initiative to your enemy, who will advance and crush you.

"Place your army in deadly peril, and it will survive; plunge it into desperate straits, and it will come off in safety. For it is precisely when a force has fallen into harm's way that is capable of striking a blow for victory."
- Sun Tzu: The Art of War

You miss what I was getting at. Hiding behind cover is the better alternative to standing in the open.

With the current maps we have there are few to little attack paths to get on your enemy. Most covered routes are narrow chokes, where enemy numbers and concave make the majority of those pushes DOA. As far as charging into across the open to jump down the throat of the long range builds.. Sure they may not be ideal brawlers but most sniper setups fair well in close combat, with JJ helping greatly to spread damage along with torso twist.

Aggressive pushes can work, but for most games an individuals stats will outweigh his contribution to team effort and push dwindles to a breeze.

By staying in cover you let the other team make the weak push and kill them off 1 or 2 at a time and once theyre 3 mechs down its pretty much in the bag. The misconception of defense not working is that the same individualist players get bored and get themselves over exposed and picked off.

Long and short of it is coordination is the biggest factor. Have a bunch of randoms that are along the same thought process to the game strategy and whatever you do will be successful. An assault peeking in and out the side of cover is not the end of the world if the pilot is smart and doesnt take dumb risks and absorb useless damage. If you really want your assaults to push instead of cower, give them incentive. Have a light rush cap enemy base, run the edge of their flank something to get them turned so friendlies can engage without getting instagibbed.

Communication is key, since most players are solo and only have text chat, dont expect anyone to be a hero and push the enemy, no matter what tonnage mech they are in.

[Johnny Reb]

Xie Belvoule, on 29 May 2013 - 01:03 AM, said:

Umm, where have you been for the past month, under a rock? Everyone and their cat is a high alpha sniper build now.



When the only difference between a heavy and an assault is whether it takes 3 or 4 shots to kill you, your damn right people are keeping their heads down and staying in cover.

Some of us want to play differently! Can I snipe sure, do I like it! No!

[Trufast]

Woozle, on 30 May 2013 - 10:08 AM, said:

You miss the point - you cannot win by hiding in cover. You cannot be both defensive and offensive. By staying in one place you cede initiative to your enemy, who will advance and crush you.

"Place your army in deadly peril, and it will survive; plunge it into desperate straits, and it will come off in safety. For it is precisely when a force has fallen into harm's way that is capable of striking a blow for victory."
- Sun Tzu: The Art of War

The two are not exclusive to each other. Usually you need to use cover and get into a good position to launch an offensive. Sometimes you picked the wrong hill to set up behind, and you just have to hunker down and wait for your chance. To respond with another Sun Tzu quote; "he who knows when he can fight and when he can not, will be victorious"

Of course, there are those people that just move 200m from base and turtle on their own. back to the topic, we will probably see more brawling assaults again when they add cockpit shake to the jumpsnipers. Right now they can snipe with very little risk of being sniped back at long ranges. When they add the shake, highlanders and and cataphracts will have to expose themselves as much as an atlas to snipe.

[Ghogiel]

If you see me pugging tucked in nicely somewhere ... it's probably because I am waiting.

And I'll stay there until I decide to move, even if PUGs on my team are dropping like flies. This game tests patience in more than one way lol.