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Timidity Is A Great Tactic!


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#41 Raso

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Posted 02 September 2013 - 08:48 AM

View PostRoyalewithcheese, on 02 September 2013 - 08:04 AM, said:

[size=4]

Here's the thing: I'd rather have brawler teammates who decide they want to play smart than brawler teammates who decide they want to be a "champion." The latter (or at least I'm assuming those hunchback pilots who type "push!" in chat and then zerg into enemy fire alone qualify as being part of the latter) has an alarming tendency to disconnect-by-focus-fire.

I guess what I'm saying is that while in theory a coordinated push with a coordinated team on comms has a role, in practice puggies can almost never execute this and instead should try to play smart and conservatively.


If it's not time to push you do not push. If you lack the proper team make up to push you fight some other way. You hit and run, you flank, you feign a cap to distract them, you snipe the point is you have to actually participate in the game. There are numerous ways to strike at the enemy that are daring and cunning and will help you achieve victory.

No one, not is this thread and not in the other, is suggesting face tanking is either the end all strategy or even a good one. No one here has that you should run head long at the enemy's meta-cheese snipers at flank speed in your ASRM6, HBK-4SP screaming "PUSH FOR GLOOOORY!". What people have been trying to say is that if you value your armor's sheen over delivering damage you are a determent to your team. If you reply on your team mates to carry the whole fight for you rather than to make up for the short comings of your mech's intended role you are a waste of tonnage.

None of this is guaranteed to make you win every match. Nothing can guaranteed victory. But if your team is all hunkered down and you're still down by several mechs despite not charging in face first you have 2 options before. Try to inspire your allies to do something about it or keep them company behind the rocks during their last moments. The latter almost certainly guarantees defeat while the former at least gives you a chance.

#42 Royalewithcheese

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Posted 02 September 2013 - 10:59 AM

View PostRaso, on 02 September 2013 - 08:48 AM, said:

No one here has that you should run head long at the enemy's meta-cheese snipers at flank speed in your ASRM6, HBK-4SP screaming "PUSH FOR GLOOOORY!".


Yeah, at least in theory. In practice, that's what most pubs do when threads tell them to be brave :) Correct answer is always to play smart + conservative either way.

#43 Raso

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Posted 02 September 2013 - 12:01 PM

View PostRoyalewithcheese, on 02 September 2013 - 10:59 AM, said:


Yeah, at least in theory. In practice, that's what most pubs do when threads tell them to be brave :) Correct answer is always to play smart + conservative either way.


No amount of tactics can save those people. You best push them out of your mind and pretend they're NPCs or poorly programmed bots and use them accordingly.

If bravery can not inspire bravery in others then at least exploit the foolhardy act of your comrade and let it serve as a distraction.

Edited by Raso, 02 September 2013 - 12:03 PM.


#44 Marmon Rzohr

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Posted 02 September 2013 - 04:11 PM

While you are right in the OP there's a problem if too many people try to do exactly this.

Being brave and asertive does not mean stepping into enemy fire. It does refer to being constructive and getting something done according to your role.

If you're a sniper, pop out and shoot. The enemy is returning heavy fire ? Don't sit there, reposition and fire from another angle. You're a scout and the game is a big standoff ? Run to their cap and sit on it long enough for some of them to come back and split the enemy team up. And so on...

It also means that when your team is advancing, back them up. You're surrounded ? Fight your way out. Friendlies are taking fire from the enemy ? Return fire and save them.

Being brave and being foolhardy are two different things. As are being timid and being patient. Timidity is not good. You have to make things happen. This does not mean charging the enemy blindly. It means doing something helpful without exposing yourself to foolish risk. Even if you're slow and have only brawling weapons in a long range standoff, you can always look at the map, type warnings in chat or simply take command if it seems you're going to lose should this continue.

Finally i would like to add that you shouldn't use your team as cannon fodder, but rather always support them and help direct them as needed. Suggest tactics at the start of the game. Fire on whoever your team is shooting. If your team lives, so do you. Watching someone else get killed pointlessly is a good way to lose, even if you do use their distraction for a few good shots. :)

-If a team member dies and you destroy and enemy mech, you're even in score. If you save a friend by blasting that Jenner shooting at him or direct your team down an advantageous route, you have an advantage. Having the advantage results in more wins and better scores for you as well.

#45 Calaban619

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Posted 02 September 2013 - 06:38 PM

To the OP, and those who endorse or practice this behavior...

This is about the most sociopathic behavior there can be. I weep for the lance that has this player in it.

You can summarize this "tactic" with much fewer words:

"I use my teammates as bait, let them die as cannon fodder, so I can feel better about myself by cleaning up crippled mechs"

It leaves a sour taste in my mouth. And makes me thankful for the mechanic of 'accidental' FRIENDLY FIRE.

because even though it is a game, some game characters should not be permitted to breed.

my $.02

Edited by Calaban619, 02 September 2013 - 06:45 PM.


#46 Tesunie

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Posted 02 September 2013 - 06:59 PM

View PostCalaban619, on 02 September 2013 - 06:38 PM, said:

To the OP, and those who endorse or practice this behavior...

This is about the most sociopathic behavior there can be. I weep for the lance that has this player in it.

You can summarize this "tactic" with much fewer words:

"I use my teammates as bait, let them die as cannon fodder, so I can feel better about myself by cleaning up crippled mechs"

It leaves a sour taste in my mouth. And makes me thankful for the mechanic of 'accidental' FRIENDLY FIRE.

because even though it is a game, some game characters should not be permitted to breed.

my $.02


There is a time and a place for everything. There is a time when running for your life is better than standing and dieing. There is a time to charge into the fray headless of your own safety to grab victory from defeat. There is a time to hold your ground (or slowly give it up) and slowly grind away your foes.

I can give a perfect example of a time where "Timidity is a great tactic". I am in my Cicada 3C, behind enemy lines. Armed with just a Gauss and a Med Laser. I notice the enemy isn't looking at me, so I take a shot, and then hide out of sight. I wait a moment, then poke out and take another shot. After three such shots, my pray finally notices I am there. I run away, using my speed to get away from him. Then, a few minutes later, I'm right back into his rear, pegging shots into another target (or even the same) again.

I'm in my Jenner, pulling advanced recon. I spot an enemy lance, set up for long range attacks. They have not noticed me. I stay behind cover, relaying information to my team. They stand still waiting for a target to shoot. They notice me. I hide for a little longer. Then I notice friendly fire is hitting them. Then I boldly charge in, continuing to distract and be a pest as I dig into their armor and dance between their legs. In the end, me and one other mech take out three to four mechs with our combined fire and my distraction tactics.

In either situation, if I hadn't played timid for at least a short while, I probably would have died and not had nearly the same impact as I ended up having on either game. I wouldn't have caused as much damage as I did, and I wouldn't have assisted or actually killed what mechs I did.

In each tale (which are true, even if I skimped on the details), I was playing timid, at least for a while. There is a time to be timid, and a time to charge in. Knowing when to do either action is the key to victory.

#47 Alistair Winter

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Posted 03 September 2013 - 03:30 AM

View PostMarmon Rzohr, on 02 September 2013 - 04:11 PM, said:

Being brave and being foolhardy are two different things. As are being timid and being patient. Timidity is not good. You have to make things happen. This does not mean charging the enemy blindly. It means doing something helpful without exposing yourself to foolish risk. Even if you're slow and have only brawling weapons in a long range standoff, you can always look at the map, type warnings in chat or simply take command if it seems you're going to lose should this continue.

Basically, you're just throwing a bunch of positive adjectives at me and saying that they are indeed positive, and the opposite for negative adjectives. It's a pointless exercise, especially when I made it quite clear in the first line of the OP (I guess you didn't read that far) that I only used the word "timidity" as a reference to a different thread that was going on. It was a play on words, I didn't mean to start a philosophical debate regarding whether or not a vice is actually a virtue, or if good exists.

So yeah, being a coward is bad. Don't read take everything I say literally :)

View PostMarmon Rzohr, on 02 September 2013 - 04:11 PM, said:

Finally i would like to add that you shouldn't use your team as cannon fodder, but rather always support them and help direct them as needed. Suggest tactics at the start of the game. Fire on whoever your team is shooting. If your team lives, so do you. Watching someone else get killed pointlessly is a good way to lose, even if you do use their distraction for a few good shots. :)
-If a team member dies and you destroy and enemy mech, you're even in score. If you save a friend by blasting that Jenner shooting at him or direct your team down an advantageous route, you have an advantage. Having the advantage results in more wins and better scores for you as well.
  • Whether or not it helps to suggest tactics at the start of the game, I don't really know. It can be both helpful and disruptive, because sometimes half the team ignores the suggestion, while half the other half carries it out. The amount of communication via chat has dropped significantly since I started playing, perhaps because a lot of players feel they understand the game and don't need to cooperate. Which is a bad judgement, but there you go.
  • Fire on whoever your team is shooting, that's exactly what I'm suggesting
  • Letting teammates die pointlessly is bad, I absolutely agree. My point is simply that it PAYS to let someone take damage first and then use that opening to your advantage. It's more beneficial to you, the individual, to wait for that opening. It's better if the enemy takes damage first, but you can still do well if your teammates are the stupid ones walking into enemy fire.

    Now, the hidden message here (hence the comment about playing devil's advocate) is that there's something fundamentally wrong with a game that rewards this kind of behavior. You could counter my argument by saying "Well, the game rewards selfless cooperation and good teamwork even more", but that isn't necessarily true because 1) you can't expect your team to work with you and 2) if a player values his individual accomplishments more than team accomplishments, then you have to judge whether or not he is being rewarded according to his own parameters.

    For you, a team victory is a reward, even if you lose. For a selfish player, a team victory is meaningless, the only thing that matters is the individual reward. And this is one of my biggest gripes with Conquest & Assault mode, and role warfare as it is currently implemented. It doesn't protect selfless players from selfish players. It doesn't reward light mechs for defending base (with C-bills and XP), for example. People who lose the match can often get a bigger reward than the people who won the match, because doing damage, chopping off limbs and killing mechs gives you more C-bills, and engaging in a brawl gives you more XP (savior kills) rather than going off against a single light mech to defend base.
  • If a teammate overextends himself (e.g. as you say, a Jenner gets into a bad position), then he's usually a bad player, though possibly just very unlucky. If he's a bad player, you risk your own life to save someone who may not help your team anyway. If he's a good player, you still risk taking a lot of damage in order to save a damaged mech, which isn't necessarily equal to profit. But this is just wordplay. Both of us agree that it's important to think before you leap. My point in this regard is simply that if you're after kills and bills then it's more profitable to let him die.

View PostCalaban619, on 02 September 2013 - 06:38 PM, said:

To the OP, and those who endorse or practice this behavior...
This is about the most sociopathic behavior there can be. I weep for the lance that has this player in it.

Please read my response to Raso on the previous page, I have a feeling it applies to you.

View PostCalaban619, on 02 September 2013 - 06:38 PM, said:

You can summarize this "tactic" with much fewer words:
"I use my teammates as bait, let them die as cannon fodder, so I can feel better about myself by cleaning up crippled mechs"
It leaves a sour taste in my mouth. And makes me thankful for the mechanic of 'accidental' FRIENDLY FIRE.
because even though it is a game, some game characters should not be permitted to breed.
my $.02

Your response is very typical, though still hard for me to understand. I've encountered the same response in discussions about whether or not light mechs should sacrifice themselves to defend base. Showing no appreciation of irony, you call me a sociopath and then go on to say you're happy you can kill teammates like that. In other words "If you don't play the game the way I want you to, I will ruin the game for you." I can only assume you're not a fan of the Golden Rule, but I urge you to reconsider, because your mentality seems straight out of the Old Testament (the old "Do as I command or I'll kill you" and "Eye for an eye")

With that said, I'll assume that, like Raso, you don't really mean it that way. So I'll just repeat myself for the third (or is it the fourth?) time and say that you shouldn't take everything I wrote literally. I'm not actually encouraging people to be sociopaths, I'm starting a discussion about whether or not the game rewards sociopathic behavior. And in my opinion, it does.

(On a different note, if you're under the impression that the majority of people playing this game are being altruistic when they play, then we have wildly different experiences. And indeed, if you're always 100% altruistic when you play, you're a better man than me. At least in-game :) )

#48 Marmon Rzohr

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Posted 03 September 2013 - 05:08 AM

The point of my post wasn't adress the logic of your arguments (hence the "you're right in the OP" part right at the start of my post). :)

What you are suggesting is undeniably the correct way to go, but sometimes you need to do more in order to win and get moar money/exp/ELO/mechs/cars/rainbows/ponies etc.

I wasn't suggesting you are wrong, i was suggesting an expansion of your advice.

I was trying to adress two other things:
1) Group mentaility
2) Being ballsy as an individual can win games if done correctly

Spoiler


TL;DR: Play to win. To do so, advise and be an example. Follow the OP's advice and be VERY careful and patient, but when the situation is bad, you either wait to lose or try to do something bold. There are many ways to do so. Nealy never does this mean charging head on, but rather flank, distract, reposition advance through cover etc. Make things happen for yourself. You can and should carry your team. Sometimes this means taking bold risks.

Also:
"For you, a team victory is a reward, even if you lose. For a selfish player, a team victory is meaningless, the only thing that matters is the individual reward"

- Winning the the best way to earn better stats, more C-Bills and Exp. If your team dies you usually follow soon. High damage/high kill games in which you win are much more common than those in which you lose. This is because that advantage that allows you to advance and blast away safely is usually because your team is already winning. So it is logical to be as useful as possible to creating this opening and snowballing the match. Also decisive wins make for shorter games. And winning is the only way to advance in ELO. :)


P.S. Example for the LOLz: I was once carried by a pair of brilliant Hunch 4Ps with 9 Flamers each, who charged the enemy snipers. If they hadn't been in such glorious berserker mode and if most of the team hadn't followed behind them and engaged aggresively, we wouldn't have had such a crushing and fast win. (This had to be mentioned for the comic effect :D )

Edited by Marmon Rzohr, 03 September 2013 - 05:16 AM.


#49 Cybertek

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Posted 03 September 2013 - 11:00 AM

Being timid is not a great tactic, in the end you up being the last person alive facing a bunch of mechs if your team got rolled. I would rather be in the middle of it giving punches as well as taking them. As one who loves raining LRMs down with my Catapult A1, I try not to stand back and fire at 1000m but try to stay within 600-800m. My one build which has a kill ratio of 1.74k-1d is all LRM, occassionally I get screwed when teammates decide to go chase that one spider, or not spot targets because they would just rather sit there. But there is a difference in being timid and tactically smart. If you see a teammate get ***** going over an edge DO NOT FOLLOW!!! Chances are they are going to go in full reverse, stay out of their way. The only thing worse than having a timid player on a team is when your one Atlas decides it is better to go tray to cap resources instead of brawling it out, and supporting the team. In the end I don't care if the team wins or looses the XP points are the same.(Maybe that should change). I do like taking my Catapult and bringing LRMs to where the battle is and try to help cause the enemy to start running around like mad to avoid the LRMs while team members pick them apart. In battles I was in where we won I always assisted on 6-8 kills, and might have 1 or 2. Some of the time though I do hold back fire, as there has been a few times where I would get a kill that I personally fealt that should have go to another member due to the difference in damage, so a lof the time I wait till there CT hits red then stop. So someone else gets the kill.

#50 Tesunie

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Posted 03 September 2013 - 11:49 AM

View PostCybertek, on 03 September 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

Being timid is not a great tactic, in the end you up being the last person alive facing a bunch of mechs if your team got rolled. I would rather be in the middle of it giving punches as well as taking them. As one who loves raining LRMs down with my Catapult A1, I try not to stand back and fire at 1000m but try to stay within 600-800m. My one build which has a kill ratio of 1.74k-1d is all LRM, occassionally I get screwed when teammates decide to go chase that one spider, or not spot targets because they would just rather sit there. But there is a difference in being timid and tactically smart. If you see a teammate get ***** going over an edge DO NOT FOLLOW!!! Chances are they are going to go in full reverse, stay out of their way. The only thing worse than having a timid player on a team is when your one Atlas decides it is better to go tray to cap resources instead of brawling it out, and supporting the team. In the end I don't care if the team wins or looses the XP points are the same.(Maybe that should change). I do like taking my Catapult and bringing LRMs to where the battle is and try to help cause the enemy to start running around like mad to avoid the LRMs while team members pick them apart. In battles I was in where we won I always assisted on 6-8 kills, and might have 1 or 2. Some of the time though I do hold back fire, as there has been a few times where I would get a kill that I personally fealt that should have go to another member due to the difference in damage, so a lof the time I wait till there CT hits red then stop. So someone else gets the kill.


First, TEXT BLOCK! Could use some paragraphs here...

We aren't talking about "that" kind of timid. The title was a spoof off the "Timidity is not a Tactic" thread. All that is really being said is that, sometimes, it is best to hang back a little longer, not be the one to rush, and support the team, which not rushing in to try saving someone who is probably going to die even if you do help.

No one mentioned how to use LRMs, or that you should be using them in any specified way. I'm fairly confident that most people posting in this thread would agree that LRMs should be used at more of a mid range.

Most people might say you are being timid by using LRMs in an indirect fire role. I'm not saying that you are, but it can be seen that way. You might also be viewed as timid for not taking a killing shot when you have it, deserve or not. (Though it is admirable of you to hold your fire for someone else to get the kill, but personally, I'd rather you get the kill and keep me from taking damage from a still living opponent. Drop the enemy first, argue about who got the kill or deserved it later.)

A lot of things are about perspective. Who is playing timid or not is mostly perspective. I (and I hope other posters in this thread) agree with what you are saying, but at the same time there is a time to hold back, and a time to rush.

PS: You earn 300 xp for a win, and I believe 75-100 xp for a loss. That's still a difference and is not the same.

#51 Void Angel

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Posted 04 September 2013 - 01:19 AM

A parody thread? Really? I guess I'm flattered. :(

As far as the overall advice, you're partially correct - except for the bit about deliberately letting others take the beating. I can see why the idea has a legitimate attraction; it encourages the enemy focus in on whoever goes first, and allows you (especially if you're not an Assault) to use your firepower unmolested while a hopefully tougher teammate takes the lead. The problem with doing that is that it encourages others to do it when they see you doing it. You'll strand a lot of teammates that way - particularly if you followed them up to the end of cover and then just... kinda stop. You'll end up with a few teammates, who were counting on you being right behind them, getting killed because the other half of the team is clustered around the corner all trying to snipe at once. Just as a random example. :D As well, this kind of advice can easily lead to the kind of disorganized sniper-fests which are often won by the first team to get its act together and advance in a group.

As I said in other places, you never want to be blindly aggressive - recklessness is the courage of the fool, after all. But I'd shy away from telling people to deliberately hang their teammates out to dry, because it's likely to encourage more bad matches than it solves.

Edited by Void Angel, 04 September 2013 - 01:20 AM.


#52 Alistair Winter

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Posted 04 September 2013 - 10:48 PM

View PostMarmon Rzohr, on 03 September 2013 - 05:08 AM, said:

The point of my post wasn't adress the logic of your arguments (hence the "you're right in the OP" part right at the start of my post). ;)

How dare you throw my own condescending remark right back at me, sir!

View PostMarmon Rzohr, on 03 September 2013 - 05:08 AM, said:

1)
You are suggesting that people play safe and look out first for themselves. This is good. More games would be intense and more losses prevented if players took better care of their own Mechs. However, this becomes a problem when several players do this in unison. This is especially problematic if all the better or more experienced players on a team do this (also those are the ones who are likely to read the forums in detail finding this post). If it's one guy in a Highlander using his other assaults as a shield to take potshots at people, that may be good for everyone. However if 5 out of 6 of a teams assault pilots decide to do this at the same time, it can lead to chaos.

I would say that it's very close to the Prisoner's dilemma. The major difference, of course, is that there are more variables. But I think it's similar in that, while the best scenario for everyone is cooperation, the game tends to reward selfish players. And being selfish is quite rational in both cases, although obviously not very admirable.

If all the assault pilots on a team (and by the way, lol at having half the team as assault mechs without further comment) decide to be timid, it's not necessarily a bad thing. It means they will always be passive, never using Sun Tzu's philosophy of exploiting an enemy's weakness. However, it doesn't mean that they will automatically lose, because as soon as the enemy attacks, probably focusing on one or two of them, they should all be using that window of opportunity to defend themselves. Unless the enemy is attacking in a superior position with good timing, there's a chance that the fight will be even or even in their advantage. The timid team should always be in a position to feed off any action going on, which means they should stay close to each other. If they carry this tactic out to perfection, any advantage the enemy team has by seizing the initiative should be minimal.

View PostMarmon Rzohr, on 03 September 2013 - 05:08 AM, said:

Example: Terra Therma. If everyone goes for the center and nobody either goes on a flanking mission or makes a risky push into the middle so more people can fire, you're likely to lose. We all know the situation where several people are trying to maneouver to use each other as cover.
So, when faced by such a situation, often your only chance of securing a win is to play boldly. So, my suggestion is: yes, go first, make something happen, but do so carefully and intelligently, not by taking shots to the face. Distract, flank, cap, follow friendlies into a breach, save your allies if you can. In short: put in effort. The slightest push in the right place can topple the enemy.

As a counter point to that, I'll give you another example:
I was playing on Forest Colony with a friend of mine two nights ago, both of us in heavy mechs. Both teams were spread out, but we had 3 teammates relatively close to us, near the cave. So I suggest a cave rush, and we have 5 guys standing next to the cave entrance, not wanting to be the first guy. I get impatient, so I go first. The cave is empty, but on the other side there's one light mech and one medium mech, and God knows what else.

Our group of 5 mechs all stop, and no one pushes forward. My buddy takes the lead with his triple Ultra Jagermech, and I follow him, guns blazing, so we drive the enemy back. As the two of us exit the cave, there's plenty of room for our 3 teammates to follow. But they are timid, and being smart, it's better for them to see if we run into trouble than to join us in the front. Again, everyone stops.

At this point, I'm getting annoyed that they're still hiding in the cave, while me and my friend are exposed, so I use team chat and tell them to get going. They eventually do, and me and my friend follow them. As it happened, fortune favoured the bold, and our group of 5 heavy mechs inflicted serious damage against the poorly positioned enemy, perhaps being the reason we won the match.

It wasn't really smart though. We just took a chance. We could also have run into a full lance of assault mechs with SRMs and Ultras, and died very quickly. We didn't exploit the enemy's weakness so much as stumble upon it. And the same is often the case in MWO, especially on Terra Therma, because 1) It's hard and dangerous to scout on certain maps and very few fast mechs actually devote themselves to scouting and 2) Even when some people do scout ahead, they can't quickly and reliably communicate their observations to the whole team in a PUG match. So, in effect, a lot of the "bold maneuvers" end up being a calculated guess, and not very Sun Tzu at all.

I'm sure we agree, but I just wanted to clarify this.

View PostMarmon Rzohr, on 03 September 2013 - 05:08 AM, said:

- Winning the the best way to earn better stats, more C-Bills and Exp. If your team dies you usually follow soon. High damage/high kill games in which you win are much more common than those in which you lose. This is because that advantage that allows you to advance and blast away safely is usually because your team is already winning. So it is logical to be as useful as possible to creating this opening and snowballing the match. Also decisive wins make for shorter games. And winning is the only way to advance in ELO. :D

Well, the ELO thing is a rather good argument, if you enjoy playing against skilled opponents. As for profit in winning vs losing, that depends on a number of factors and I think the only way to be certain that you're getting the maximum profit from your strategy (e.g. selfish timidity vs prudent timidity or however you want to label it) is to look at statistics. When you're just forming an opinion without careful study, it's easy to be biased.

Case in point: I made a thread a while back, which was going to be about how I always get the top score on my team, yet I consistently get matched up with noobs and end up with a 1.00 W/L ratio. So I played 20 matches and took 20 screenshots of the results, and it turns out, upon closer study, that I actually won the overwhelming majority of those matches, without remembering it. Only as I was writing the OP, did I realize I was winning a lot more than losing. But I remembered the losses far better than the wins, because I was biased. Similarly, you may remember your glorious victories more than your pyrrhic victories, which would also lead to bias.

Alas, I'm too lazy to gather statistics any more.

View PostMarmon Rzohr, on 03 September 2013 - 05:08 AM, said:

P.S. Example for the LOLz: I was once carried by a pair of brilliant Hunch 4Ps with 9 Flamers each, who charged the enemy snipers. If they hadn't been in such glorious berserker mode and if most of the team hadn't followed behind them and engaged aggresively, we wouldn't have had such a crushing and fast win. (This had to be mentioned for the comic effect :D )

Heh, glorious. Did they survive the match? :P

View PostCybertek, on 03 September 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

Being timid is not a great tactic, in the end you up being the last person alive facing a bunch of mechs if your team got rolled.

No, I already explained this. You should never wait for the match to be almost over, whether you're winning or losing. As soon as the first mechs (enemies or teammates, doesn't matter) take significant damage, you should use that opening to attack. That is the safest, most selfish approach, leading to the most profit, because of how the game works. For better or for worse.

View PostCybertek, on 03 September 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

In the end I don't care if the team wins or looses the XP points are the same.(Maybe that should change).

With the way matchmaking works, it's almost a good thing that it doesn't matter if you win or lose, because while it's hard to get a win if your teammates are a bunch of new and careless players, it's always possible to at least do 400+ damage and get some kills to earn a nice paycheck.

If matchmaking was better, I think a win should definitely pay a lot more than a loss, to ensure that people are cooperating.

View PostTesunie, on 03 September 2013 - 11:49 AM, said:

PS: You earn 300 xp for a win, and I believe 75-100 xp for a loss. That's still a difference and is not the same.

I've already adressed the point about rewards from wins vs losses, but here's something else to consider:

It's weird that the XP bonus is so much greater for winning vs losing, while the C-bill rewards revolve more around personal accomplishments rather than team accomplishments. It seems to me that it should be the other way around.
In most games, if you're given a mission (e.g. destroy this weapons factory) then the most important thing is whether you accomplish it, not how you accomplish it. Especially if you're a mercenary. If you can't do the job, then your employer won't really care how many killshots you got.
Furthermore, I would say that a soldier who has been on the losing side of a battle has probably gained as much experience, if not more, than a soldier who has been part of a quick and easy victory (steam roll). In terms of experience, it's not so much the victory or defeat-aspect that matters.

View PostVoid Angel, on 04 September 2013 - 01:19 AM, said:

The problem with doing that is that it encourages others to do it when they see you doing it.

You're only 1 of 12 players on the team. I don't know about you, but I tend not to notice what everyone on my team is doing, so while my behavior may influence those in immediate proximity, it's not likely to influence the whole team, unless I'm leading everyone through a cave rush. If the team is spread out across several hundred meters, my behaviour is not likely to spread like wildfire. After all, do you abandon your playing style when you see someone else being a bit too cautious? Probably not. Nor do I abandon my playing style when I see someone being a bit too aggressive.

View PostCybertek, on 03 September 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

As I said in other places, you never want to be blindly aggressive - recklessness is the courage of the fool, after all. But I'd shy away from telling people to deliberately hang their teammates out to dry, because it's likely to encourage more bad matches than it solves.

And let's not exaggerate the impact of this thread. There's hundreds of thousands of players, and this thread has probably not been read by even a hundred players :D

#53 Void Angel

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Posted 05 September 2013 - 08:08 AM

Well, people used to tell me and my buddy similar things about our tactics macros for Alterac Valley in World of Warcraft. "You think everyone's gonna listen to that," they'd say. But I didn't need everyone to listen to the macro - I just needed enough of them to listen. If I got enough people all pointed in generally the same direction, the plan would work. Especially if they saw a few people out in front doing The Thing Someone Said to Do. People's social tendencies kick in - and actions speak louder than words.

You're going to see the same sort of phenomenon here, but in reverse. You don't care about the dedicated SniparWarriors who are trudging to their favorite Snipar Spot like so many badly-programmed robots; you care about the people who are close enough to actually act together (if the entire team is scattered, you probably don't want to rush, by the way.) People who are uncertain of what they should do will unconsciously try to determine what the people around them are doing. So if the team is trying to silently decide if it's really a good idea to go around that corner and fight, they're gonna hedge their bets. They'll slow down, trying to see if everyone else is going in or not. In this environment every person has leverage, and once people have collectively decided to use the first guy as live bait, the situation takes on a life of his own - because they're going to repeat their decision-making process for the next guy to go around the corner. You don't have to influence your whole team, you just have to influence enough of the team to matter - for good or ill.

There's another aspect to this as well - I have to take issue with the idea that it's always (or even usually) advantageous for me to wait under cover and let other people get into trouble. It certainly can be the case that someone else's pyre of frustration and betrayal can illuminate the four Atlases that I would have run into had we been together. This can even lead to my getting an easy kill, and we might even win the match (all due to my amazing skills, of course.) But while Good Things might happen, Bad Things are more likely, because with every teammate that dies, our ability to focus fire is diminished, and morale shifts to the enemy - which has an exponential effect on how well we'll be able to win the main engagement when it comes. Certainly the match can flow so that an individual's performance doesn't matter. I've had matches where I killed three people, got assists on two more, did tons of damage, and still lost horribly, because only two other teammates had damage beyond double digits. Not everything is under our control; but this is all the more reason to use the factors we can control to maximize our team's chances -because while the losing team can concievably get more c-bills, nine times out of ten the team that kills more efficiently (thus getting more c-bills) is going to win the match.

Edited by Void Angel, 05 September 2013 - 07:09 PM.


#54 Navy Sixes

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Posted 05 September 2013 - 12:00 PM

View PostCathy, on 01 September 2013 - 10:51 AM, said:

hanging back and lobbing lrms sounds safest and easiest but isn't going to get you much of anything


Aw, Cathy... I've always appreciated your comments. Why'd you have to go and make this into an anti-LRM beef? I've been playing 65-ton LRM30 Cats almost exclusively since I started playing MWO about 3 months ago. I PUG exclusively. I'm starting to get 400+ dmg and at least 6 assists with some consistency (often with at least 1 kill, but in a support role that's not consistent). No epeening, here. You may be doing better than that, brawling in your 100-ton Atlas (I hope so, anyway) but you can't dismiss that as not "much of anything."

View PostCathy, on 01 September 2013 - 10:51 AM, said:

I was an awfull shot for ages, my first kills were in a brawling atlas, right in the opponents face..


I'm glad you found your calling. Don't devolve into ragging on others who's calling lead them elsewhere; you're bigger than that, Cathy. I agree that playing aggressively is the key to success in MWO, but that goes for LRM platforms, same as brawlers. If you couldn't find that fine balance between aggression and tactical awareness that makes a successful LRM-driver, and found you could only excel by stomping around in the heaviest mech in the game, shooting at a range of zero, fine.

Other players with different styles of play could interpret your style of play as lame, too (see what I just did, there ;)) .

#55 Tesunie

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Posted 05 September 2013 - 05:18 PM

View PostAlistair Winter, on 04 September 2013 - 10:48 PM, said:

It's weird that the XP bonus is so much greater for winning vs losing, while the C-bill rewards revolve more around personal accomplishments rather than team accomplishments. It seems to me that it should be the other way around.
In most games, if you're given a mission (e.g. destroy this weapons factory) then the most important thing is whether you accomplish it, not how you accomplish it. Especially if you're a mercenary. If you can't do the job, then your employer won't really care how many killshots you got.
Furthermore, I would say that a soldier who has been on the losing side of a battle has probably gained as much experience, if not more, than a soldier who has been part of a quick and easy victory (steam roll). In terms of experience, it's not so much the victory or defeat-aspect that matters.


I agree here, but I wanted to say that rewards are different between winning and losing, even in just winning or losing. Not to mention you earn salvage c-bills as well when you win. So winning will still gives you more reward in c-bills.

But I can agree with your statement about a defeat should be giving more experience. You learn more from a loss than a win (most times). But... it's a game and most games reward winning and not losing.



Hey! Void Angel! Not so long time no see. We crash into each other again.

#56 Void Angel

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Posted 05 September 2013 - 07:22 PM

O hai, Tesunie!

As far as LRMs go, I feel they're a bit underpowered at the moment. It might just be that the only LRM capable 'mechs I have right now are Atlases (with 10x2 missile tubes on most of them,) but even on that chassis, my results with LRMs have gone very low. I have shot myself dry of five tons of LRM ammo in direct combat and done 400 damage overal - even with heavy beam weapons to back them up. The balance of their advantages (homing missiles, good damage/ton, indirect fire) versus their drawbacks (scattered damage, easy to find cover, multiple countermeasuers, requires LoS or spotting) doesn't feel like it's got enough net utility to choose it over other long-range weapons.

Even after the slight un-nerf following the emergency LRMageddon hotfix, LRMs still feel like I'm throwing wet kittens at people. They look cute, and cause some nasty scratches, but I've got to throw so many of them to cause serious injury that the system isn't very effective in practice.

#57 Raso

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Posted 07 September 2013 - 08:04 AM

View PostVoid Angel, on 05 September 2013 - 08:08 AM, said:

Well, people used to tell me and my buddy similar things about our tactics macros for Alterac Valley in World of Warcraft. "You think everyone's gonna listen to that," they'd say. But I didn't need everyone to listen to the macro - I just needed enough of them to listen. If I got enough people all pointed in generally the same direction, the plan would work. Especially if they saw a few people out in front doing The Thing Someone Said to Do. People's social tendencies kick in - and actions speak louder than words.

You're going to see the same sort of phenomenon here, but in reverse. You don't care about the dedicated SniparWarriors who are trudging to their favorite Snipar Spot like so many badly-programmed robots; you care about the people who are close enough to actually act together (if the entire team is scattered, you probably don't want to rush, by the way.) People who are uncertain of what they should do will unconsciously try to determine what the people around them are doing. So if the team is trying to silently decide if it's really a good idea to go around that corner and fight, they're gonna hedge their bets. They'll slow down, trying to see if everyone else is going in or not. In this environment every person has leverage, and once people have collectively decided to use the first guy as live bait, the situation takes on a life of his own - because they're going to repeat their decision-making process for the next guy to go around the corner. You don't have to influence your whole team, you just have to influence enough of the team to matter - for good or ill.

There's another aspect to this as well - I have to take issue with the idea that it's always (or even usually) advantageous for me to wait under cover and let other people get into trouble. It certainly can be the case that someone else's pyre of frustration and betrayal can illuminate the four Atlases that I would have run into had we been together. This can even lead to my getting an easy kill, and we might even win the match (all due to my amazing skills, of course.) But while Good Things might happen, Bad Things are more likely, because with every teammate that dies, our ability to focus fire is diminished, and morale shifts to the enemy - which has an exponential effect on how well we'll be able to win the main engagement when it comes. Certainly the match can flow so that an individual's performance doesn't matter. I've had matches where I killed three people, got assists on two more, did tons of damage, and still lost horribly, because only two other teammates had damage beyond double digits. Not everything is under our control; but this is all the more reason to use the factors we can control to maximize our team's chances -because while the losing team can concievably get more c-bills, nine times out of ten the team that kills more efficiently (thus getting more c-bills) is going to win the match.


Do you have tactics macros for MWO? I mean, granted we have a whole commander interface but it would be great to have some hot keys to bark out orders!

#58 Void Angel

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Posted 08 September 2013 - 11:57 PM

Nah; if I'm in a serious team environment, we're using some kind of voice coms - and if not, too much communication will often annoy some people in a PUG.

#59 Mystctgr

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Posted 14 September 2013 - 01:36 PM

I have to say i just had the most boring match, 7 mins of standing on one side of a hill while the enemy was on the other side. This is a game right? What are really the issue's with dieing again in it? Being semi-new to this PGI's MWo is there anything bad about dieing? Do you drop in some pilot standing? XP lose? If i am standing for 7 mins with my stick in my hand or dieing and moving on is there any thing that really happens with your death in the game? Do i lose cbills? I do have more then one mech so i just move on and hope to do better in the next drop.

It seems to me when a group charges in and every one locks on to a target you tend to win, when a team stands back in a bottle neck or behind a hill you tend to lose. I do understand roles on the battle field, i believe that an assault mech should be the tip of the spear, but all to often i see the atlas standing back hiding OR trying to do the right thing and his support mechs hiding.

I hope this game play changes i really do i have loved this game for over 30 years and really want this one to work but if i was just coming into this world of battletech after a few games like i just had i would move on to something with a easier learning curve and more excitment.

#60 John Buford

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Posted 14 September 2013 - 03:29 PM

View PostMystctgr, on 14 September 2013 - 01:36 PM, said:

I have to say i just had the most boring match, 7 mins of standing on one side of a hill while the enemy was on the other side. This is a game right? What are really the issue's with dieing again in it? Being semi-new to this PGI's MWo is there anything bad about dieing? Do you drop in some pilot standing? XP lose? If i am standing for 7 mins with my stick in my hand or dieing and moving on is there any thing that really happens with your death in the game? Do i lose cbills? I do have more then one mech so i just move on and hope to do better in the next drop.

It seems to me when a group charges in and every one locks on to a target you tend to win, when a team stands back in a bottle neck or behind a hill you tend to lose. I do understand roles on the battle field, i believe that an assault mech should be the tip of the spear, but all to often i see the atlas standing back hiding OR trying to do the right thing and his support mechs hiding.

I hope this game play changes i really do i have loved this game for over 30 years and really want this one to work but if i was just coming into this world of battletech after a few games like i just had i would move on to something with a easier learning curve and more excitment.



Yup you got it pretty right there about how to win and what you need to do. Kind of why there is the Topic Timidity is not a Tactic, and Follow the Frakking Atlas. When people follow that very simple advice they win and when they don't they loose alot.





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