18 replies to this topic

[jper4]

been noticing this a lot lately. when the match starts i usually try to hang near the back of the group (brawler set up so no point in rushing to find something to hide behind for the first three minutes of the lrm snipefest) to keep an eye out for the light insta cappers. if i don;t see any i'll watch the flanks while people are moving in another direction or keep a lock on that light that was on tagret for 2 seconds and had 150 lrms fired at it before vanishing .0001 seconds after the lrms are launched. so when it pops up again on the other side of the map i can see if its base rushing.

i'll watch the tunnels in frozen and forest, 3 line on caustic, base on alpine and not wander too far away on tourmaline to make sure nothing sneaks behind, check upper in river city, canyon if no contact in the first 1:30 i announce they probably went the other way and rtb to stop the cap. what does it get me? dead fast.

i let the team know i see something heading to base and go to stop them- die alone (90% chance)- also fond of the dual ecm atlases taking the frozen tunnel to cap and i show up in a blackjack to stop the cap...

i keep an eye on cap points on conquest- if i go capping- die alone, our side kills them all in three minutes while i'm capping or both-, if i don;t go capping-lose to cap when other side has 1 mech left- i give a heads up when they hit 400...

go capping myself- other team will have 2 or 3 mechs rtb to kill me (70% chance)

let the team know about the tunnel rushers in forest- die alone (80% chance)

go help a friendly i notice fighting 1v1 off from the main fight- firendly either kills the enemy just as i get there and by the time i get back to the main fight it's over and i fire 1 shot the whole match. or enemy has 2 friends show up (chance of this being under ecm is about 50%) to finish off the friendly, then all three of them attack me. die alone as my attempt to turn the numbers to our advanatge blows up in my face.

warn the team the last mech (after dying to it trying to cap myself) is probably running 3 line to cap(caustic)- our mechs wander away from our base to go find it- it gets to base via 3 line, they show up 1 by 1 and all die.

warn the team about a light or three trying to flank us and try to provide cover, get swarmed die alone- cause there's a hunchless hunchy to be killed by the other five guys dammit. lights go and cap we lose.

see a lrm boat pounding away at our position where 4 mechs are taking over. i decide to flank the lrm boat. run the gauntlet of the enemy getting their attention and making them chase, get a few shots off at lrm boat focing it to move and then i die (cause their team is defending the lrm boat). as the five-ish enemy mechs are focusing on me, rest of team hasn't budged from cover as i find while spectating even though i saw them all turn to watch me before i made my move, we lose. granted this one is me being impatient besides trying to get the lrm boat but still.

there are rare occasions when others join in but i'm starting to think i should just stay in the blob, ignore any cap disavantages, base capture messages and just blithely keep firing away at whatever's in front of me and let someone else worry about the fact we're about to lose. i'll probably die a lot less than i do trying pay attention to the big picture.

yes i'm just venting so feel free to ignore this.

[Finn McShae]

You got it. If you're not on a TS drop or with a group who actually uses tactics. Just blob up and go, I also occasionally try to do things that would be useful in a team setting, they rarely work with no team support. Perils of PUGs and all that.

[Junkman7mgte]

I'd blame some of it on .... the text doesn't stay up long enough. I know, myself, if I'm in combat, I don't look at what's being typed.

[GRiPSViGiL]

Seems to me PUGing is nothing but annihilation and sticking together is the only way to go.

[Cherry Darling]

As a solo player, I HATE that there's no voice comms in this game...and for some reason I keep getting matched against players in premade groups.

Why the hell does the game put solo players against grouped players? That's completely ********. Are there not enough players to have separate solo and group queues?

All I know is, every match I've been in for the last week or so has pretty much ended in a 8:0 wipe.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Finn McShae, on 18 July 2013 - 06:02 PM, said:

You got it. If you're not on a TS drop or with a group who actually uses tactics. Just blob up and go, I also occasionally try to do things that would be useful in a team setting, they rarely work with no team support. Perils of PUGs and all that.

Yeah it is sometimes very hard to play. I would say 30% or more of my deaths are due to expecting my team to rush, push or move to flank and then after I commit, realize they retreated, pulled or went to the opposite flank thus leaving me exposed.

Still you don't always have to stay with the team. I often allow my team to distract the enemy while I work around the flanks or get to an area where I can strike from an unexpected angle. Sometimes it gets me into trouble but more often than not the enemy doesn't know what hits them. Still you don't want to stray far unless you have a very fast mech.

Junkman7mgte, on 18 July 2013 - 06:57 PM, said:

I'd blame some of it on .... the text doesn't stay up long enough. I know, myself, if I'm in combat, I don't look at what's being typed.

Yeah this is an issue. Alot of times by the time I can focus on the text, it has disappeared and I end up missing what is said.

[Trev Firestorm]

Most pugs are terrible at situation awareness, trying to play smart but by yourself is harsh, but don't worry when your blob team gets picked apart by the rare team that actually plays smart it must be a premade group of exploiters .

Every so often as a solo player you'll run into like minded players so congrats on being an exception to the rule, hang in there.

[Jam the Bam]

Welcome to YouMustBePsychicWarriorOnline.

I know the feeling, I was left facing 3 enemy mechs today when the atlas by my side decided he didn't like this bit of map and wanted to go elsewhere and just ran off. Abandoning your team mates is always a good tactic. Not.

[Booran]

a simple context voice command would be nice, yes. Like the battlefield spot-button..

[Hauser]

Jammerben87, on 19 July 2013 - 12:36 AM, said:

Welcome to YouMustBePsychicWarriorOnline.

It's spelled Seismic.

[Zerberoff]

Peoples would play far better, if they wouldnt drop out of the Match right after they died and look at other peoples how they use there Mechs... this is pretty much adressed to all the new players i see Charging the enemy with 2 Small Laser + 2 LRM20 at 150m (I was telling him he cant use LRMs below 180m but before i could hit "enter" he died and quit the match)

That surely doesnt mean anyone should flame around or blame the rest of the team!

[Alymbic]

I just get tired of the times where you look away for a moment and then 3/4 of your teams dead....

[DaZur]

Being a 100% PUG'er...

I now find "keeping my teammates alive long enough to contribute" to be a full time job.

As a result, I've dropped my self-promoting -1X that I use to pad my KDR and have switched to my -3D which does not have the front-loaded stopping power of the -1X but has a higher DPS which allows me to support my team better by keeping pressure on multiple targets, giving my team a chance to engage successfully.

It's a trade off... Yes, I'm dying more but my team is conversely winning more.

@OP: While I appreciate your premise, you playing the support role as you outlined... Your teams are obviously missing your fire-power upon initial contact.

[Lugh]

Alymbic, on 19 July 2013 - 04:39 AM, said:

I just get tired of the times where you look away for a moment and then 3/4 of your teams dead....

That's the minimum armor trial mechs evaporating in a fine paste to the optimized Too Much Time On My Hands Warriors that many of us are.

[oldradagast]

I could deal with lack of voice comes if the text was good:

1) The color is often terrible vs. the sky color.
2) It doesn't stay up long enough and there's no way to read past messages
3) There are no hotkeys to map common text orders to a single button press.

[Lugh]

Common Sense isn't.

Battlefield awareness and situational awareness also does not exist in the vast unwashed masses of video game players.

[jper4]

DaZur, on 19 July 2013 - 05:11 AM, said:

Being a 100% PUG'er...

I now find "keeping my teammates alive long enough to contribute" to be a full time job.

As a result, I've dropped my self-promoting -1X that I use to pad my KDR and have switched to my -3D which does not have the front-loaded stopping power of the -1X but has a higher DPS which allows me to support my team better by keeping pressure on multiple targets, giving my team a chance to engage successfully.

It's a trade off... Yes, I'm dying more but my team is conversely winning more.

@OP: While I appreciate your premise, you playing the support role as you outlined... Your teams are obviously missing your fire-power upon initial contact.

i'm not sure about them missing my firepower at initial contact. that is usually at long range via sniping and lrms. as a medium brawler (usually- i do have jagers-non ac40- i play fairly often) my being in the initial stage of the firefight is just going to get me killed off fast. i find that out when i try to do some scouting for the lrm boats on our side.

i will stay with the blob (especially those ecm atlases) til i see where the fight is at, but at the back of the group since i'm probably faster than the rest and if i need to fall back to base i'd have the advantage of proximity and speed to get there quickest.

usually i wait until the intial contact is made, rotate through the enemy contacts to see what's most vulnerable and try to assist whoever is fighting that to get one piece off the board as soon as possible. or staying back trying to defend our lrm boats from the lights who start swarming them- depending on what happens first. so i figure while i'm waiting for that stage to kick in, other than being an ams platform paying attention to our flank/rear is what i figure to be the best use of my time until the fight moves into range.

and as for the chat, yeah i wish it would stay up longer or that we could get a scroll bar for it. especially at the end of the match when someone types something but you can;t read it because it's been spammed out of view by everyone disconnecting.

i don;t actually see a lot of people dropping out during the match, either it's the guy who died first or second who i guess wants to jump in another mech instead of sitting through the unknown length of time wait for the match to end. or the person who just died and needs to declare to the world that had not the rest of his team been the worst n00bs to have ever set foot in the mech academy nevermind who they bribed to graduate because a player as great as they are could not have been killed otherwise. then immediately disconnects to avoid anyone refuting their comments.

[Nutlink]

oldradagast, on 19 July 2013 - 05:40 AM, said:

I could deal with lack of voice comes if the text was good:

1) The color is often terrible vs. the sky color.
2) It doesn't stay up long enough and there's no way to read past messages
3) There are no hotkeys to map common text orders to a single button press.

At the very LEAST I'd love to see color coded names for the kills so I can tell if my team is dropping like flies or doing all the killing, especially when I'm further away from the group or in the lead and getting hit by ECM. The lance box in the top left helps a bit, but sometimes full lances split and it's still a choir.

[Stelar 7]

Chat could be much better. In game voice coms would be better still, but in the mean time you seem to want to be a team player, sign up for a merc corp or a house unit.