44 replies to this topic

[Hayashi]

Thought I'd compile a list of the worst possible strategies on every single map I've seen so far (those with a zero success rate). If your team does any of these, you know you're dead before the fighting begins. Conversely if the enemy does any of these, the game is yours. I've seen enough 'what to do' guides that I thought I'd make a 'what not to do' guide instead.

River City/River City Night

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Starting at the aircraft: if your team reaches Upper City without a single shot fired and you don't see any contacts, you must return to base. If you attempt to cap, the game is already lost, because the lower city path is shorter and you'll never make it in time.

Starting at the boat: if your team charges towards Upper City to find more than 4 contacts already there but choose to fight from below the hill, you've already lost.

Starting at either: if you charge through the centre river, the game is over for your team.

Forest Colony/Forest Colony Snow

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Starting at the hill: if your team charges towards the boat on the water, you've already lost, the cover favours them and disfavours you.

Starting at the low ground: if your team charges through the central road, you've already lost, there is nowhere to take cover.

Starting at either: if your team goes through the tunnel (like, 5+ mechs all go through the tunnel) and seismic sensor shows you 3 mechs at the exit, all of you will die if you leave the tunnel.

Caustic Valley

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Starting at the refinery: If your team goes to the left of the caldera, you will die.

Starting at the hill across the water: if your team goes to the left of the caldera, you will die.

Starting at either: If you charge through the caldera when they're outside the caldera lip, you will die.

Alpine Peaks

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Starting at the city: if your team charges PAST the refinery hill and into the low ground near Epsilon, you will die.

Starting at the low ground base: if your team charges up the mountain right of the refinery hill when the enemy team is on top, you will die.

Starting at either: as a general guide charging through the valley on the south side is suicide.

Bad news here: if you start on the low base you're already more likely to lose as the other team can get to all the good defensive spots before you do. This is one of the maps which is the most biased towards one of the starting spots.

Canyon Network

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If you are in the canyon in a fight you die, if you are at high ground you live. If you are trying to move closer to be in weapons range however you must move through a canyon - if you charge through the high ground you will die. And lastly, if your teammates don't know how to climb the canyon to high ground through the small gulleys provided, the game is over before it began. This is one of the maps that is the least biased to either starting spot.

Frozen City/Frozen City Night

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Both sides: if you charge on the mountain side of the landed aircraft you die. If you charge through the aircraft you die. If you charge through the tunnel you die. If you stand at the other side waiting for the other team to poptart you with Gauss and PPC you die. If you charge through the valley you're capped. The only valid tactic is to move on the lower side of the crashed aircraft. All other tactics involve waiting for the other team to make a tactical mistake from positions that cannot be hit by poptarts and giving them the burning hot death they deserve.

Tourmaline Desert

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If you charge through the stargate you die. If you hole up at the stargate waiting to be poptarted you die. You must move through the crystals on the side - the team that sticks closer together while doing so will win. This is also a map in which your starting position matters least.

Build related

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Long range builds suffer in River City, Short range builds suffer in Alpine peaks. Hot builds suffer in both Caustic and Tourmaline. Ammo-intensive builds suffer in River City and Frozen City. Poor pilots suffer in Canyon Network (the kind who walk into walls). LRM boats suffer in River City. Balanced builds suffer in almost every map. Fast builds suffer in River City. Slow builds suffer in Tourmaline and Alpine.

Signs of impending doom

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The following are signs your team will lose, regardless - or that a player is going to die extremely soon. Firstly, team damage or team killing at the start of the match. Secondly, two high ELO ranked solo players or more on the same side. Thirdly, weapons fire at the start of the match into the air or ground at the start of a match for 'weapons tests'. Fourthly, any instance of walking into each other or into walls before an enemy appears. Fifth, any instance of attempting to shoot through a friendly at an enemy. Sixth, any mech that stands still, especially if it's due to heat shutdown. Seventh, any mech without an alpha build which attempts to snipe. Eighth, any team that shoots a Spider when an Assault mech is shooting at them. Ninth, any player who chases a red CT target into an enemy team. Tenth, any non-light Mech that chases a light mech. Eleventh, any Leeroy Jenkins behaviour in charging the enemy team alone. Twelfth, any Lone Ranger behaviour in taking a route alone without any backup by anything other than a Light. Last, the death of any of high ELO rank player in the early game.

Disclaimer

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It is entirely possible, and common, to win a game even if your team shows themselves to be bad if the enemy shows themselves to be worse. Conversely it is entirely possible to lose to an expert team even if they do tactical mistakes and you do none. But the likelihood of victory is always diminished by tactical mistakes/signs of bad piloting.

Edited by Hayashi, 01 June 2013 - 05:23 AM.

[Catnap]

Sounds mostly very accurate!

I just have to disagree with the Tourmaline stargate charge though. I think it's entirely feasible from ONE of the bases, the one that takes left flank to get to the stargate.

I regularly spearhead it when piloting an atlas, and I'd say it works fine enough. You just can't be in one of those 40kph juggernauts, gotta have ~60kmh to make it to the bottom of the far ridgeline in time before the other team mans the positions on top. Then you just spook them with a little fire, duck down and left before they form up on you. Then complete a left flaking maneuver. You can simply set up a fire position on the left end of the ridge to prevent the enemy from cresting. Or if possible you can move to the rear side of the craggy ridge. There, if you get lucky, you'll get a duckshoot at the enemy mech's backs. Aaand. With your more carefully moving team likely pushing from the front, the enemy will be engaged from multiple directions, and they'll get screwed.

It doesn't of course ALWAYS work. Enemies that push very aggressively against it and engage in a brawl right up front can fight it off. And it of course requires some situational awareness from your whole team.

EDIT:
The key is to NOT get stuck on the front side battle. You just fire off an alpha at someone, possibly add a little something on top. Then immediately move to the left before the enemy starts cresting and shooting at you from above.

EDIT 2:
Here's an illustration of the path:

Edited by Catnap, 01 June 2013 - 06:42 AM.

[zztophat]

This needs to be stickied, I am really tired of my team squatting on the star gate and waiting for someone to rain down death.

And why are you heading in to the water... team? ...team staph.

Edited by zztophat, 01 June 2013 - 06:43 AM.

[Arc Viper]

Totally agree with most of what you wrote. However, if you have a tight group of ecm friends playing frozen city, and they can pull off a well orchestrated tunnel distraction while the other allies engage on the other end, the other team will fall to pieces every time. But for the most part, this strategy will almost always fail in pugs.

[Vimeous]

I agree with much of what you've written. Specific builds or fortunate PUG drops can mitigate some of the strategies that often fail but the odds aren't great.

For example:
On Tourmaline don't charge a team well entrenched on F5, especially if they're LRM boating. During the Assault Tournament holding F5 was perfectly legitimate as even the best opposition needed kills, charged F5 and were cut down by massed missles. The firelanes for LRM boats are huge there.

One of the fastest losses I've ever suffered in Frozen City occured when a pair of extremely fast AWS-9M's ran the tunnel and timed their hit beautifully with a massed push through the plane.


The key is avoid the obvious pitfalls but also exploit enemy complacency if you spot poor positioning.


A great starting point Hayashi.

[mailin]

Hayashi, on 01 June 2013 - 05:17 AM, said:

Signs of impending doom

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The following are signs your team will lose, regardless - or that a player is going to die extremely soon. . . .any team that shoots a Spider when an Assault mech is shooting at them.

YES!! I knew I was invincible! I see this all the time. I understand that Spiders are annoying little pains, but really, that Atlas that's pounding you is the real threat. Most get caught up in the moment and just want to take out that Spider. It's like they forget how hard it can be to hit something that quick and maneuverable.

I think what the OP is stating applies if all else is equal. I have seen instances where things don't happen the way the OP predicts, but they are the exception rather than the norm.

[Hayashi]

To be honest what I wrote is a gross oversimplification. There's a few other complex things to take care of - Canyon Network with its variety of possible routes is one of the best examples of maps that have multiple routes, of which some work when the enemy is in certain positions and which are suicidal otherwise, etc etc. Generally I've given up trying to tell people not to do certain things since people don't really seem to read at all ingame (when you tell someone they'll die to a certain tactic and to move from their position, they don't, and they die 1 minute 30 seconds later...).

But it's not really possible to write a guide that always accounts for all possible enemy formations (or lack thereof), or even certain strategies that may work for certain classes only (for instance, suicidal ridge charging is often actually necessary in Spiders, and they actually don't die in most cases where the pilot knows what he's doing it for... while making the rest of the enemies squirrel). It's a start, but no replacement for playing through it yourself.

If you want to see how placement affects death rate more closely, I highly recommend purchasing the wallhack Seismic Sensor module. It takes mastering only about 2 mechs (6 variants) to earn enough GXP for it.

Edited by Hayashi, 03 June 2013 - 07:54 AM.

[Gigastrike]

Nice guide! I'll have to try some of these out!

[pjfontillas]

Great guide. Would read again.

[Flagrant]

Frozen city tunnel rush from either side is bad now since it's almost guaranteed the other team will have seismic zensor.

[jper4]

actually i've seen more successful frozen city tunnel rushes of late. some on my side some not. i tend to do it myself after a few minutes of staring at the ridgeline hoping someones shows their face because most teams (PUGs) will tunnel rush right away or not at all so if they haven;t shown up by then they won;t be.

so if you wait a few mintues and nothing much is happening aside from lrming and sniping (and it doesn;t mean the entire other side is in the tunnel) i'll let the team know i'm hitting the tunnel. take the long route all the way around and by then the brawlers have moved up to fight my team and it's just the lrm boats hanging in the back. and if things are going real bad by the time i get out their base is right there for a last ditch distraction. yeah i may die more often than not but those lrm boats aren't lrming my team in the meantime.

though i should say i only do this with my faster 90kph+ mediums not my heavies or mid speed (sub 90kph) mediums- they'd take too long.

[Skadi]

You forgot bringing the wrong ammo for your HNB-4SP

[Deathlike]

The thing about rushing is that it can work, but everyone has to commit to it. It doesn't matter if it is Frozen City or Forest Colony. You can still overwhelm teams this way. However, this assumes that they stink at focus fire, which is the only true counter.

[Marmon Rzohr]

Great post and good insight.
I wish more pilots would read this...

or at least start considering team-wide positioning and strategies. It seems to me that often pilots both new and skilled forget to look at the big picture. Because of the perspective of gameplay and the relative complexity of piloting a mech it is easy to get lost in "your battle" eg. a chase, a duel, a sniping target and forget to follow the movements of your team or the enemy team.

Hopefully as this game picks up more players and the metagame evolves so will knowledge of map-wide and team-wide strategies become more common as it becomes more and more necessary to win.

[VagGR]

nice one and mostly true..i think you forgot one thing though: early in the game an enemy light or medium steps on your base and everyone(especially heavies and assaults) turn around like zombies (turning their back to the bulk of the enemy force) to go defend the base...

[VtV Pilot RAID]

TY.. this was alot of fun to read. I heartily concur with most of your assessments.

RAID

[Modo44]

The poptart comments are now outdated. Many places provide reasonably good cover again.

[IraqiWalker]

VagGR, on 24 June 2013 - 03:19 AM, said:

nice one and mostly true..i think you forgot one thing though: early in the game an enemy light or medium steps on your base and everyone(especially heavies and assaults) turn around like zombies (turning their back to the bulk of the enemy force) to go defend the base...

That tactic is so effective that the last 300 drops I did were just using that tactic, only since I drop with a coordinated group (4 man usually) I wait until the enemy team is fully engaged with my team, and then at the critical moment before either team makes the final push I take my light mech and walk into their base. Most of them freak out, break rank and start wondering if someone should stay, who should go, how many are there on the base, if it took them so long maybe it's a heavy or a medium, or maybe a couple of both. During which, my team strolls out in a staggered broad firing line, pushing forward and opening fire non-stop.

The confusion that the enemy team is in almost always prevents them from focusing fire properly, to the point where I sat with a COM-2D behind a cataphract, stripped his back armor completely and ripped his CT into the red before he even realized I was there. Usually the end result of such a maneuver is complete victory. Especially if our assault mechs were in good shape up to the point where I started the cap feint. I may sit out of the fight for about 5 minutes, end up with about 100K in CBills and 500-700 XP at the end of the match after dealing 80 damage and having only a few assists, but taking that one step into the base line won the battle for my team.

Also, Hayashi you forgot another one for River City. Starting at the air base, If your team splits into two groups one going upper and the other staying at base. If the enemy team headed to lower and managed to stay somewhat undetected, you're lost the match. Or at least the 4 mechs at base, since it usually takes the ones in upper long enough time to get back that the defenders are probably dead.

[Fuerchtegott]

What people often don't get, and your not to do guide well explains, mwo is to a huge part like badminton.
Badminton or tennis aren't that much games about hitting a ball, it's about letting an ***** run.
Zombielike heavies and assaults getting tricked by a light are a nice example.

With the build related part I can't agree in total.
Short range builds, most times heavy and therefore exspecially useless, suffer in a far greater way on a map like alpine or terra (we prove we know **** about leveldesign) terma than long range builds suffer in eg. river city.

I appreciated the changes in the way mechs move up hills, but one of the first part in creating a map is defining hot spots for fights and tweaking the time players need to get there, everywhere in the net where mapdesign in general is discussed or great maps like CS_dust are analyzed it's about those speeds and timings.

Metagame will always be broken, since the decisions made look like they are made by people that never spend an actual thought on gamedesign or believe they are so great in it, that they can design so good, common sense in design doesn't apply to them.

Sorry for the little rant, but I think it explains some of the mayor problems the game has.

I have even a good thing to say, the devs told in the last answers basically, that any discussion about balance is useless, since the game is in a far to broken state right now, as that there can be any worthfull statement about balance be made.

Like I said above, what can be said about overpored rangeweapons, when the problem could easy be not the weapon, but the mapdesign, that always favors longrangeweapons above anything else?

[Redbeard the Elder]

I hate it when a noob-heavy group tries to follow my raven. I'm scouting, you're in a trial assault mech. Just find a path and I'll let you know where the bad guys are. No, you can't climb the same hills I can. Stop complaining about it. You look like a moron shuffling against that wall.