71 replies to this topic

[Arahantius]

marepinta, on 19 January 2014 - 12:07 PM, said:

I like the idea of this thread ... but am enough of a beginner that I've never played in any Assault so I can't offer an opinion about starting with that specific one.

Thank you, it is my intent to help ease new players into the game so we don't lose them. I'm a protector of the innocent type of person, always have been.

[White Bear 84]

I say be a soldier and try out each class to see what feels the most right, work on it to gain some c-bills and get a feel for the game then try out other mechs and classes.

Dont hold back behind the team doing squat, remember to try call it if you get in trouble, manage heat and always press R to target!

If you are new and you pilot a light - spend as little time as possible standing still so your not such a target

If you are new and you pilot an assault - do not EVER go off and leave the group by yourself.. ..you will be minced.

Most of all know your mech and your weapons! Dont take an LRM boat with med las to a <200m AC/20 fest!

[JC Daxion]

I like the Idea of buying a Yen-lo-wang, Stacking it with Cadet bonus, and premium for your first 25 matches.. that said, Most people reading this, id bet, if they never spent money, and only played a handful of matches and founding it enjoyable I could be worth making a new account, and pony up the 15 bucks to do this.

Id also spend some time in trial maps, maybe give a few drops to each map, just learning them.. It makes a world of difference when you are not completely lost on a new map.

[Metafox]

In general, I'd suggest a heavy mech as a beginner mech. As others have said, assault mechs aren't very maneuverable and they're very unforgiving if you find yourself in a bad position. Heavy mechs can absorb a decent amount of damage, they're maneuverable enough to get out of bad situations, but they're slow enough that they're easy for new players to control.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...04bc4f6bb57d929
This CTF-1X is one of my old favorites. It doesn't fit the current meta too well, but a new player probably wouldn't be too worried about the meta right away. Besides, the CTF has always had viable meta builds so they're useful for both new and experienced players.

[BaconTWOfourACTUAL]

As a new player, I actually prefer a light or medium mech for mobility.

The easiest way for a new player that isn't accustomed to the pace of the fight and is overwhelmed with enemy or enemy fire,is to avoid it, to run away from it and get a second to breathe.

In an assault mech, you're not going anywhere fast. I find them to be lumbering and clumsy.

Edited by BaconTWOfourACTUAL, 22 January 2014 - 07:47 AM.

[Katus]

White Bear 84, on 19 January 2014 - 03:31 PM, said:

I say be a soldier and try out each class to see what feels the most right, work on it to gain some c-bills and get a feel for the game then try out other mechs and classes.

Dont hold back behind the team doing squat, remember to try call it if you get in trouble, manage heat and always press R to target!

If you are new and you pilot a light - spend as little time as possible standing still so your not such a target

If you are new and you pilot an assault - do not EVER go off and leave the group by yourself.. ..you will be minced.

Most of all know your mech and your weapons! Dont take an LRM boat with med las to a <200m AC/20 fest!

I feel the need to expand on the first line. As your skills as a new player grow, Mechs and weapons that at first did not suit your play style and skill level will sometimes change for the better. I HATED light Mechs when I started, now I run them all time. Then I swapped back to assaults then to mediums. Now I am working on my first heavies beyond the Phoenix pack Thunderbolts. I tried and liked the Orion.

[Buckminster]

BaconTWOfourACTUAL, on 22 January 2014 - 07:46 AM, said:

As a new player, I actually prefer a light or medium mech for mobility.

The easiest way for a new player that isn't accustomed to the pace of the fight and is overwhelmed with enemy or enemy fire,is to avoid it, to run away from it and get a second to breathe.

In an assault mech, you're not going anywhere fast. I find them to be lumbering and clumsy.

Worth mentioning again. I think it's the hardest thing to learn about MW:O - that an assault mech with it's heavy armor is NOT going to take nearly as much punishment as you think. It's a slow, easy to hit target, and once you've made a mistake and made yourself vulnerable, it's all but impossible to get back to cover.

I think lights may be a little too light for most new players, but the heavier mediums should fit the bill nicely.

[Koniving]

Buckminster, on 22 January 2014 - 08:50 AM, said:

Worth mentioning again. I think it's the hardest thing to learn about MW:O - that an assault mech with it's heavy armor is NOT going to take nearly as much punishment as you think. It's a slow, easy to hit target, and once you've made a mistake and made yourself vulnerable, it's all but impossible to get back to cover.

Agreed. For example, despite identical armor amounts, the Stalker can take more abuse than the Battlemaster. Under certain conditions, it can actually take more abuse than the superior Atlas. This is due in part to size, shape, and attributes.

The cost of running an assault is the fact that a mistake = death. There is no recovering from a mistake. There is no escape. You will very quickly learn the lines "I'm going down" and "I'm committed." You will know, ahead of time, that your death is coming and that there is nothing you can do about it. As for being committed, it means that you are in a fight that you cannot stop; either you win or you die. Every movement, every step, every action must be planned 10, 20 seconds ahead with changes to it made on the fly. In the words of a character from a show I started watching, "I can see the ending."

15 seconds until check, bring two mediums my way and wait for them to come around the corner; focus the Jager first.

Count to 10 and move in front of me to draw attention, I'll veer to the right and fire after.

"I'm overwhelmed." "On my way." "Negative; I cannot be saved. I'm going down." 9 seconds later, A Flying Beer Can has killed Koniving.

"Are we committed?" "No, pull back."

1, 2, 3, Twist! (AC/20 round hits arm). Twist back, return fire. 2, 3, twist! (AC/20 round hits other arm). Twist back, return fire, return fire, twist away (AC/20 round blocked again).

"I'm engaged." "Come back, we're not ready yet." "Too late, I'm committed. No return."

Every move must be calculated to survive.

Another prime example of things not being what they are on paper is the comparison of the Raven versus the Jenner. Both are 35 ton mechs with identical armor and structure limits. The Raven is very difficult to kill by torso because of the arrangement of how the torsos are overlapping one another making damage difficult to focus; but those legs are easy to fry. The Jenner whose legs have identical health and armor is almost impossible to leg, but very easy to kill by the torso due to its entire body being the torso with only the shoulder humps before the stubby arms being side torsos. This is despite both of them having very forward-extended torsos that are relatively easy to hit.

Edited by Koniving, 22 January 2014 - 09:13 AM.

[oldradagast]

Koniving is right - once an assault enters a battle, it either wins or dies. There's no disengaging, no breaking off.... nothing of the sort. Problem is that new players will have no idea which fights they can win or where even half the typical fights occur on a given map. So, they'll plod around in their big, slow assault mech, eventually end up out of position, and then die.

New players are best of with solid Mediums or Heavies; they have some durability with speed.

[Koniving]

If you want to sample what it's like to be an assault without the risk of not being able to escape, try an Orion. It is perhaps the best combination of speed, weapons, durability under fire, etc. for a very cheap price for what you get. Keep the engine at 280 or above and keep it of the 'Standard' type and work your build around that. It's just fast enough to get away, just tankable enough to feel like an assault without actually being one, and carries just enough firepower to compete against its assault-class friends with a genuine chance of winning, while maneuverable enough to take just about anything else of equal size or smaller.

But most importantly, unlike an assault, an Orion is quick enough to turn tail and run. Even better, like the Kintaro, Hunchback, Catapult and certain Battlemasters, it's flexible enough to keep hitting enemies behind it while running.

[AaronWolf]

Koniving, on 22 January 2014 - 09:30 AM, said:

But most importantly, unlike an assault, an Orion is quick enough to turn tail and run. Even better, like the Kintaro, Hunchback, Catapult and certain Battlemasters, it's flexible enough to keep hitting enemies behind it while running.

This is exactly why I love my Hunchbacks. I can turn back and aim at a target pursuing me every so often and dump an AC-20 round into them, to try and keep them off my back as much.

The fact that the Hunchback can also retreat faster then say a Atlas, means that if you make a tactical mistake (i.e. maneuvered into a firing line or kill zone/chokepoint) you can back off fast and get to cover.

Still it is hard for me not to want to charge down the enemies and keep firing like a loony with my AC-20 + MLas'.



Usually that leads to a early death for me.

Edited by AaronWolf, 22 January 2014 - 09:35 AM.

[BaconTWOfourACTUAL]

AaronWolf, on 22 January 2014 - 09:35 AM, said:

Usually that leads to a early death for me.

I know the feeling. I start to over pursue...Thinking I'm all . Then I start taking fire, and I'm like.... then get taken apart by a missile system or AC 20 and I'm just sitting at my computer like.... .....

[Katus]

On a side note, I will tend to shoot at the bigger slower Mechs since to me they are more threatening unless I am running my Light Hunter Mediums (SSRM Boats). There are two main reasons assaults will be shot at first if all other things are equal. First, like I said above they appear more threatening. Second, by killing an assault you deprive the bad guys the massive firepower that is the stock and trade of the assault class Mech.

In all reality though in many cases this is the wrong choice. By killing the lights early in the match (if you can catch them) you deprive the bad guys the ability to scout (unless they are using Steiner Scout Lances) and the harassment of LRM and fire support units. It can't be stated enough, harassment of bad guy rear echelons is a "Really Good Idea". If the Lurm boats are running from a wolf pack of Spiders and Jenners then they are not busy melting people's faces off. And I for one am NOT pretty so a face melting episode just is not my idea of fun...

[AaronWolf]

BaconTWOfourACTUAL, on 22 January 2014 - 09:47 AM, said:

I know the feeling. I start to over pursue...Thinking I'm all . Then I start taking fire, and I'm like.... then get taken apart by a missile system or AC 20 and I'm just sitting at my computer like.... .....

Exacto-mundo. That is what happens to me too.

Since I get caught up in the heat, an forget about the fire. It just is too much fun to run down targets, yelling "FOR SPARTA!" or something like that, and putting rounds into them.

[BaconTWOfourACTUAL]

AaronWolf, on 22 January 2014 - 09:56 AM, said:

Exacto-mundo. That is what happens to me too.
Since I get caught up in the heat, an forget about the fire. It just is too much fun to run down targets, yelling "FOR SPARTA!" or something like that, and putting rounds into them.

I'm more like.....

Edited by BaconTWOfourACTUAL, 22 January 2014 - 10:13 AM.

[AaronWolf]

BaconTWOfourACTUAL, on 22 January 2014 - 10:02 AM, said:

I'm more like.....

Yep. That is a good depicting of events ingame.

Triple AC-2 4G HBK feels like that. Especially on chain-fire.

[Goldfinger]

Regardless of tonnage, situational awareness is a good thing.

That said, I think we all occasionally fall prey to "target fixation".

[Koniving]

Indeed. Pursuing things is a quick way to die; it always helps to know when to quit.

Other vids. One on hunchbacks with flexibility, and another on an Atlas. Both recorded externally by a Camera Commando.

Spoiler

On the Hunchback, this video by Lordred is one I like to spread because it follows me from the exterior and there just happens to be a comment in the middle of it where I realize how great the new flexibility is. It's also a good example of when pursuing too much can be a bad thing. Com chatter beyond myself (as is typical in these) is actually other members of Zhizhu in the same teamspeak playing something else. In this case one guy waiting to join us and the others playing World of Tanks.


As for an assault; this is me in an Atlas jokebuild. I had three things going for me. 1) I looked unimportant; I had a joke build that isn't optimized, so I wasn't a priority target. 2) I had an unattached ECM that was difficult to counter, because it constantly moved but kept me in its bubble. 3) Heavily yet evenly distributed armor; all of my torso armor was evenly distributed with no strong or weak focus; people couldn't decide where to focus their fire. These three things stacked up to enable me to do what normally can't be done. As a side note, beyond my voice all comms chatter is from another match where Zhizhu has a second premade dropping in the same chat as me and Lordred (Lordred doesn't record his own voice). (We had 6 players, and so we had to do two separate groups.) Every other assault mech perished; their builds optimized to the point that they were all focused first and annihilated.


As I'm playing for fun and with a significant advantage on my side (an ECM commando can compliment any Atlas quite well), and given the open nature of the map, I'm engaged and committed at the first time I'm hit and the only choice is to fight and kill anything and everything I see. Therefore, I'm not planning ahead except at the realization that I cannot defend the Commando and so I tell him, "You should defend yourself." This allowed me to concentrate more on engaging multiple targets.

Edited by Koniving, 22 January 2014 - 10:55 AM.

[LeMaudit]

Arnold J Rimmer, on 19 January 2014 - 05:34 AM, said:

Assaults are big targets that are priorities anyway. Seeing that [C] at the end of a variant just makes the thing an even bigger target. Although, if it's a bought mech rather than a Trial, it probably won't have that.

However, I'd suggest a Medium or a Heavy for a first buy. They're generally more jack-of-all-trades, while still allowing focused builds. With an Assault, if you don't want to be useless, your choices are a little more limited. If nothing else, lighter classes are cheaper!

I'd have to agree with this. Either of these two classes can fill a number of roles depending on the build and will get the new guy ready to run lights and assaults later on.

[Koniving]

AaronWolf, on 22 January 2014 - 10:13 AM, said:

Yep. That is a good depicting of events ingame.

Triple AC-2 4G HBK feels like that. Especially on chain-fire.

It felt amazingly fun, but using it that way is no longer feasible. At least not how I used it here. (Video is time skipped to the action for reasons in spoiler.)

Spoiler

Because I was a very unhappy camper and so near the beginning I was rather belligerent to say the least; trying to prove for a second time in a row that there was, in fact, a Heat Scale/ghost heat penalty applied to AC/2s which at the time both some of the Devs (Community managers don't count technically as devs) and the moderators all denied. Later on, the lead designer, Paul said it was true and intentional (the reasoning not given, assuming as a way of dealing with macro users utilizing it to 'troll' enemies with constant screen shake,) but not working as intended. Some time later, it became exponentially worse on how you're using them and labelled 'as intended'. As such, using 3 AC/2s in this way is not only no longer feasible but literally impossible.

Edited by Koniving, 22 January 2014 - 11:34 AM.