84 replies to this topic

[Mott]

Viper... i don't think anyone is going to disagree with you. Driving for the center IS stupid.

But it happens (and always will in PUGs) and you're better off tagging along, picking up some easy points (damage & assists) and not ending up a lone mech.

[VIPER2207]

Mott, on 16 January 2014 - 09:49 AM, said:

Viper... i don't think anyone is going to disagree with you. Driving for the center IS stupid.

But it happens (and always will in PUGs) and you're better off tagging along, picking up some easy points (damage & assists) and not ending up a lone mech.

i never said anything else. sure, sticking with your team is your best option in 90% of the time.
Just wondering whether none of this guys who rush to the calderas ingame are on the forums... just because i never met anyone who stated "yeah, i'm the guys who says >RUSH CENTER NAO!!!< at the start of the match".

by the way, same goes for water on forrest colony =/

[xe N on]

Jump sniping don't need to be nerfed. Jump sniping is the direct results of only one thing: map design. Most maps promote sniping, because the majority of the all maps is a open and flat landscape mixed with some minor hills. Maps like giant cities, narrow canyons, or dense rainforests would put jump snipers in some sort of disadvantage.

Edited by xe N on, 16 January 2014 - 10:13 AM.

[mogs01gt]

xe N on, on 16 January 2014 - 10:12 AM, said:

Jump sniping don't need to be nerfed. Jump sniping is the direct results of only one thing: map design. Most maps promote sniping, because the majority of the all maps is a open and flat landscape mixed with some minor hills. Maps like giant cities, narrow canyons, or dense rainforests would put jump snipers in some sort of disadvantage.

Its a combination of map design and mech design. Mechs with low hanging weapons have issues over anything but smooth terrain.

IMO the map design in MWO is horrendous. Maps are way too small, not enough flanking points and give mechs with high mounted ballistics and energy weapons too much of an advantage.

[AaronWolf]

mogs01gt, on 16 January 2014 - 10:30 AM, said:

Its a combination of map design and mech design. Mechs with low hanging weapons have issues over anything but smooth terrain.

IMO the map design in MWO is horrendous. Maps are way too small, not enough flanking points and give mechs with high mounted ballistics and energy weapons too much of an advantage.

Pleaaaaaase PGI?

[Doctor Proctor]

VIPER2207, on 16 January 2014 - 09:45 AM, said:

while i concur with most of your points, i don't think that the caldera on Caustic or the dome on TT are good defensive spots.
When your whole team sits in the theta area and the enemy team flanks around and hits your base, you will not be able to return fast enough to defeat them. lights will charge the base and will be focused to hell in seconds, your heavies will be too slow, because your lights couldn't delay the cap.
The optimal defensive position is closer to your base, in my opinion.

The thing with those points is that while they're not the most defensive positions, they allow your team to see what the enemy is doing a little easier. The following assumes Assault mode.

Caustic:
While I wouldn't recommend sitting directly in the center of the caldera, there is some valid strategy to posting up on the part of the ridge of it closest to your base. Say you try to flank around, for example. Your team decides to go left, the other team goes left as well (your right). Without coordinated scouting, you can't easily see the enemy on the other side of the caldera. Eventually you'll loop around to the far side, the enemy is nowhere to be found, and you realize that they're on the side opposite to you.

This gives you three choices:

• Continue looping around the caldera. This is bad because they'll just park all 12 mechs on your cap point and you will lose.
  
• Drive across the caldera to hit the enemy from behind. This typically won't work great either because the enemy is so close to your base that they can get a significant number of mechs in it while the stragglers hold off your team. Both bases also have natural cover (large rock outcropping on one, and winding buildings on the other).
  
• Cap the enemy base. This is usually the option that gets chosen since you're much closer to their base than you are to the enemy at this point. Of course, this turns the match into a cap race, but at least you have a chance to win.

Terra Therma:

The central dome on TT has multiple entry points into it. While the teams will typically take the closest entry point, what this does allow is for you to look out to the left and right of the dome from the sides. This is really great for being able to spot an enemy team moving around the central dome, and then allowing you an easy egress point to go and engage them. Like Caustic, if both teams pick different routes around the dome they'll completely miss each other due to the prodigious amounts of high cover and weaving routes that block long sight lines (except from a high spot, like at the dome).

This will again leave you with several choices:

• Continue circling the dome looking for the enemy team. Like on Caustic, this will likely result in a full team cap attempt that you won't have the time to defeat.
  
• Upon circling halfway around without encountering the enemy, do a 180 and use the dome as a shortcut to get to them on the other side of the central mountain. Also likely to fail since they'll likely begin capping before you even make it up the mountain, let alone across the central dome and down the other side.
  
• Cap their point since you're comparatively close to it and they will likely begin capping yours soon.

As you pointed out, the smart team might actually decide to defend closer to their base, but on many maps this strategy won't work all that well since the defending team is at a lower elevation than the attacker. Both TT bases, for example, are in large depressions that give little cover, forcing you to either move farther from base or be subject to a lot of high mounted ballistic fire when the enemy shows up.

On the other hand, some maps offer ideal defensive scenarios that most teams don't have the patience or wherewithal to use. For example, on Alpine if the team that starts at the small valley city (the one that usually moves to the radio tower) notices that the enemy went right to assault them using the 10/11 line, they can easily take advantage of the natural choke point at H10/I10 by defending from G10/G11. You have a height advantage and lots of short cover to break locks and avoid pop tarts. You may want to station one lance along the F10/G9 ridge to discourage the enemy from posting up on H10 to unleash long range ballistic fire from a high position. It will be difficult for them to achieve this anyway though, since most of the non-JJ mechs will need to take the slope at H10 in order to get up, which is right in the line of fire for the G10/G11 defensive line.

Do you know how many times I've actually been able to get PUGs to do that though? I'm sure I could count them on one hand... Most groups will either get impatient and push down into H10 (which eliminates our height advantage and cover) to get to the enemy faster, or they will all bunch in G10/G11 and fail to stop the enemy from taking over the high ground at the top of the H10 (which means your team will die one by one to massed PPC/AC fire that they can't get cover from).

Sadly, this is the state of the game at what I presume are the mid Elo tiers. Assault Syndrome and a herd mentality encourage grouping into a death ball that heads to the center, while most players don't have the patience or tactical awareness to execute a good defense. They then carry that mentality over into the other modes, making them more similar than they ought to be. Sure Skirmish is Assault mech central, and Lights can really steal victory in Conquest, but for the most part people will still end up trying to kill the entire enemy team in order to win.

Edit: Here is a map of Alpine Assault in case you're having trouble following all of the coordinates I was throwing out.

Edited by Doctor Proctor, 16 January 2014 - 11:27 AM.

[Commander Binz]

mogs01gt, on 15 January 2014 - 11:04 AM, said:

and sitting there taking pop shots at the other team? I cant figure it out. Are these bots or actual people doing this because it shows no intelligence or game awareness at all.

Typcially I get behind the other team and its too late, by then its 8 kills for the opposing team. I see it constantly and I really feel like its bots.

Like my last game on Frozen City Night in my Spider. I ask for someone to come with me through the tunnel......Of course I get no response and everyone goes to the middle. By the time I make it to their base, 5 kills for their team.......Same thing with Caustic Valley.


This game can be very frustrating...

Mogs

No, no.. its definitely real people playing. If it was AI, they wouldnt make such horrible mistakes...

You gotta learn to be self reliant in a team game or get some buddies to drop with you.

[Doctor Proctor]

BTW, when PGI eventually impliments tonnage limits, I REALLY hope that they have the intelligence to make the tonnage ranges different for different game modes. Basically in a Skirmish > Assault > Conquest sort of sequence. This would help to differentiate the modes by pushing the mech mixes heavier or lighter. Skirmish would be where the big boys play and would gravitate towards a lot of Assaults and Heavies, like the current meta does. Assault could be pushes so that it would favor heavy Mediums and lighter Heavies. Conquest would favor Lights and Medium mechs, particularly in the Light hunter role. This might also help to mix up the tactics and perhaps break people out of Assault Syndrome.

[TheCaptainJZ]

The fact of the matter is, random players behave in a predicable way.

Enemy team starts in one corner, your team starts in another. You advance to meet the enemy. Where are you most likely to meet up at? The middle.

It's conquest and you have dispatched a lance to the closest outlying collector. You know the enemies will likely cap the opposing outlying collector. Where does the rest of your team meet to contest the only other collector? The middle.

You want to get to the enemy base as fast as you can. What area of the map must you cross through? The middle.

You want to have the most control over the map. Where do you go? Typically the highest point with good cover where you are less likely to be flanked from the rear. Where is it? Generally the middle of the map.

The alternative is to position your team to have eyes and sights at the middle of the map (Canyon networks is a great example)

Back when capping in assault was a thing, sometimes teams would defend their base instead of advancing. However, people are impatient and want more cbills so it's faster to meet the enemy in the middle and get the match over with. That way they can launch another game faster. You don't get more cbills the longer the match drags on (you do tend to make more the longer you are alive though since you can deal more damage and such, but depending on the match length, you'll get diminishing returns).

Edited by TheCaptainJZ, 16 January 2014 - 11:32 AM.

[Wildstreak]

The worst is when 1 Light runs into your team Blob and almost everyone tries to kill that 1 Light while you scream, "THEY'RE PUSHING IN AND FLANKING US!" or, "YOU ONLY NEED 1-2 TO KILL IT!"

[mogs01gt]

Merchant, on 16 January 2014 - 11:32 AM, said:

The worst is when 1 Light runs into your team Blob and almost everyone tries to kill that 1 Light while you scream, "THEY'RE PUSHING IN AND FLANKING US!" or, "YOU ONLY NEED 1-2 TO KILL IT!"

Or the cross fire that occurs....

[Mott]

mogs01gt, on 16 January 2014 - 12:23 PM, said:

Or the cross fire that occurs....

I got one-shotted by a teammate last night who nailed me with dual gauss rifles. And the worst part was i wasn't even in the crossfire, i was trying to work through our team to stop the 5 mechs who were coming up our backside and had been using the Jenner as a distraction.

*BAMM!* 2 gauss rounds right to my cockpit and i'm dead by teamkill before i've even fired a shot. Beauty.

[mogs01gt]

Mott, on 16 January 2014 - 12:37 PM, said:

I got one-shotted by a teammate last night who nailed me with dual gauss rifles. And the worst part was i wasn't even in the crossfire, i was trying to work through our team to stop the 5 mechs who were coming up our backside and had been using the Jenner as a distraction.
*BAMM!* 2 gauss rounds right to my cockpit and i'm dead by teamkill before i've even fired a shot. Beauty.

That happened to me in my Spider last night while I was trying to get behind a Heavy!

[Arahantius]

I think that the main solution to this whole thread rests in one understanding:

people have to stop imagining that they are better than anyone else

If you believe a 'strategy' is going to end in defeat, say so, politely. Insulting people on chat will just get the insulter ignored or trolled. A polite statement will receive far better reception, I've done this.

[Koniving]

Arahantius, on 16 January 2014 - 12:52 AM, said:

I agree, this thread is actually quite good.

I also believe Jiggly had a great point. Anyone who follows a proper tactical strategy that they have learned and practised to perfect a particular skill should be rewarded for their effort. Penalizing a tactic, ie poptarting, is just a way to reward the people who didn't try to overcome a challenge.

Honestly, I never believed poptarting itself was the problem. It's being able to focus an insane amount of damage, pinpoint, in an act that involves moving (whether into the air or at 150 kph) with mechs that both in animation and in lore, are supposed to be known for abominably terrible aim since most front-line mechs are at minimum 20 years old and poorly maintained. If MWO's weapons were more damage over time based and less 'instant damage', poptarting never would have had a real punishment associated with it; though that shaking screen thing really was missing.

It wasn't a problem before that point, because convergence made such acts virtually useless. You'd have to be aiming at a target, at the same range, for a bare minimum of 1 full second and any change in range would result in misses even if you were on target. And therefore, poptarting didn't exist before-hand; more than 70% of the time it was a miss and the other 20% it was a lucky shot that usually hit an unintended target that was in the way. Leaving about 10% or less of the time for it to actually work.

Anyone remembered when they would pass by a wall or hill or crane or something and when they fired, their bullets went into a weird X path? That was convergence. Now it's instant, allowing the pinpoint we always see.

Edited by Koniving, 16 January 2014 - 02:39 PM.

[White Bear 84]

My suggestion is to find a team to drop with, usually with more premades the games are 'smarter' (usually).

Hard to find a good quality team that does not do one of the following stupid things;

• Clusterduck: Converge on the same location, usually with barely 50m between each mech - renowned for resulting in mechs unable to retreat. Ideal for airstrikes, rage and broken monitors.
  
• The Rodeo Cowboy: Zerg rush to a point then keep running up and around to try and get a shot in - renowned for resulting in slow 1 by 1 death of your team. Facepalm warning.
  
• The ECM freak out: Mechs come up with ECM, team freaks out thinking its the end of the world - renowned for complete disarray and a brutally epic stomp. Usually avoided if mechs actually take out the ECM.
  
• The Spider: How many mechs does it take to kill a spider.. ..apparently more than 12 because your team is dead and the spider you all spent the whole game chasing is still alive. The team deserved this.

I guess stupid will just be stupid....

Edit: The stand and deliver - Run to open spot, see enemy mech and then just stand there. You're a statute, a rock, nobody knows you are there.. ..you're invisible.. ..aaand your dead.

Edited by White Bear 84, 16 January 2014 - 04:07 PM.

[Void Angel]

xe N on, on 16 January 2014 - 10:12 AM, said:

Jump sniping don't need to be nerfed. Jump sniping is the direct results of only one thing: map design. Most maps promote sniping, because the majority of the all maps is a open and flat landscape mixed with some minor hills. Maps like giant cities, narrow canyons, or dense rainforests would put jump snipers in some sort of disadvantage.

mogs01gt, on 16 January 2014 - 10:30 AM, said:

Its a combination of map design and mech design. Mechs with low hanging weapons have issues over anything but smooth terrain.

Jump sniping is the direct result of jump jets combined with cover. I mean, we HAVE city maps, and narrow canyons. I think thee only way that changing map design would stop jump sniping is the creation of maps that would punish one of either brawlers or sniper/dakka 'mechs at the expense of the other. Given that delayed convergence was abandoned for technical reasons, the best way to deal with jump snipers seems to be limiting the jump sniping mechanic itself.

Arahantius, on 16 January 2014 - 01:36 PM, said:

If you believe a 'strategy' is going to end in defeat, say so, politely. Insulting people on chat will just get the insulter ignored or trolled. A polite statement will receive far better reception, I've done this.

This is because yelling at your stupid teammates will actually make them stupider-y... er... make them dumber. There's been research done on this; essentially, stressing people out by any means (insulting them counts) causes them to lose effectiveness at complex thought as the body responds to the stress situation by shifting more toward "run away," and "hit with rock."

[mogs01gt]

Arahantius, on 16 January 2014 - 01:36 PM, said:

I think that the main solution to this whole thread rests in one understanding:

people have to stop imagining that they are better than anyone else

If you believe a 'strategy' is going to end in defeat, say so, politely. Insulting people on chat will just get the insulter ignored or trolled. A polite statement will receive far better reception, I've done this.

who is insulting anyone?

[Darth Futuza]

mogs01gt, on 16 January 2014 - 06:51 PM, said:

who is insulting anyone?

Happens all the time in pug matches. I'd say at least 1 / 7 matches.

[Arahantius]

mogs01gt, on 16 January 2014 - 06:51 PM, said:

who is insulting anyone?

Chat refers to in-game communication. Insults are tossed about very regularly on chat in regard to how one player dislikes what another player is doing. I can't see how anyone could say this doesn't happen.