108 replies to this topic

[Evil Ed]

Enough with discussions in the numerous turrets-threads and out on the battlefield. I will dedicate this weekends mechwarrioring to a little science project where I will study how turrets have changed the assault mode. I will play assault solo and take notes after every match. I will probably play the majority of the games in either my Jester or my Dragon Slayer. My skills are probably a bit above average (can be found on the leader board for last weekends event) but not "competitive". I will adjust my play slightly by not giving any orders/suggestions in the chat, only observations and warnings. I will not "lead" any movement, just follow along and support.

The notes will be short and focus on the turrets. Abbreviation for the map and a short comment. "Skirmish" means that the teams just met somewhere and fought until one of the teams won, with no triggering of the turrets. "Skirmish-like" is same as "Skirmish", but with some turrets involved. Generally the turrets are trigged by accident, or someone do a desperate retreat back to base.

Interesting matches where the turrets have a major impact or with tactics involving turrets will be bold.

First batch:
1. CN, Skirmish-like, team killed a few turrets while flanking.
2. AP, Skirmish
3. HPG, Skirmish
4. CV, Skirmish-like, team trigged a few turrets while manoeuvring around caldera and passed C3/C4.
5. CN, Skirmish-like, few survivors pulled back to base before getting killed.
6. TT, Skirmish
7. CN, Skirmish
8. HPG, Skirmish
9. RCN, Skirmish, early failed 4-man push followed by curbstomp.
10. TT, Skirmish
11. CV, Failed base defence by part of one team, rest wiped out by very skilled team.
12. TD, Skirmish
13. TD, Skirmish
14. FCS, Push through tunnel and cap attempt, main part of team went tunnel and moved in on cap facing only two defending mechs, rest rtb after a while. Turrets killed, but cap failed 2-11 in kills. The capping force consisting of at least 6, probably up to 8, mechs only managed to kill one defender.
15. TT, Skirmish
16. FCS, Cap attempt by 4-6 mechs, very close fight on cap, failed cap but seconds away. Arty strike finished of one badly CT-damaged (by turrets?) mech. If this mech had survived the strike cap would have been successful.
17. CV. Skirmish, maybe a few turrets trigged when team pushed D5->C4. Had no impact on the outcome.
18. CV. Skirmish-like, one survivor pulled back to base.
19. Alp, Skirmish-like, one turret trigged.
20. CS. Skirmish-like, few pushed over to D5, sent back with some parts missing. This team later lost the match.

Observations:
- Heavy teams. Not many lights today.
- Two (10%) serious cap attempts - both failed.
- One (5%) sort-of base defence - failed due to very skilled opposition.
- No light groups manoeuvring for cap / fake cap.
- No "get one kill - retreat" so far.
- 85% of the matches is played as skirmish - a few of those ends with a desperate retreat back to base.

Will be back with more matches tomorrow - I hope to do at least 50 matches during the weekend.

Edited by Evil Ed, 07 March 2014 - 04:54 PM.

[Suko]

I'm interested to see your results. I'm very sad that even the strategy of fake capping is all but futile with the new supper-turret defense network.

On a silly note, the last game I played last night had our team down to a locust and a pult and the enemy team had a hunch, phract, and BJ, all in moderate condition. Using the turrets at our base, our Catapult was actually able to pull out a victory. He was a good pilot, but that would NOT have happened a month ago.

Edited by ShadowVFX, 07 March 2014 - 04:18 PM.

[Evil Ed]

A few more:

21. AP. Skirmish
22. RC. Skirmish-like, a few turrets killed. Horrible matchmaking - 12-0 curbstomp with non of our mechs damaged.
23. CV. Lights and LRM/sniper Stalkers made early push to cap and killed a few turrets. Early warning had some of us pull back and support the turrets. The early push ended in clear defeat.

- First deliberate attempt to kill turrets with a combined light/assault group.
- Still no successful cap.
- Every attempt so far to engage turrets early in the match has ended with loss.

That's it for tonight, will be back tomorrow.

Edited by Evil Ed, 07 March 2014 - 04:57 PM.

[Khobai]

turrets basically turn assault into skirmish.

the intended purpose of turrets was to delay capping. instead they discourage capping so much the game just becomes skirmish.

at the very least they need to lower turret hitpoints. if not add some kindve power generator that powers all the turrets.

Edited by Khobai, 07 March 2014 - 05:11 PM.

[Alex Warden]

looks pretty much like what i experienced so far

[Deathlike]

Welcome to Skirmish v2.

[Sephlock]

[Tw1stedMonkey]

Still totally worth it to stop the ninja capping. There are 6 turrets correct? maybe try only using 4 and putting them closer in LOS to the base. I could support lower health on turrets if the base can only be capped if all turrets have been destroyed.

[Chemie]

I hate as a light just getting close to the base brings LRMs down on you...especially small maps

[Sephlock]

Chemie, on 07 March 2014 - 06:23 PM, said:

I hate as a light just getting close to the base brings LRMs down on you...especially small maps

Just wait for the LRMs to launch and then go stand behind a member of the enemy team.

Trololololol!

[Chemie]

What is the difference between assault and skirmish? Oh assault now has reasons to stay by your base as a blob instead of fighting in the middle as a blob?

[Abivard]

Chemie, on 07 March 2014 - 06:52 PM, said:

What is the difference between assault and skirmish? Oh assault now has reasons to stay by your base as a blob instead of fighting in the middle as a blob?

Are you a blob warrior? Is conquest just a blob also when you play? where did you read that any match recorded above had the team stay as a blob by the base?

[GalaxyBluestar]

turrets were supposed to mean if you went for base you had to earn it via combined arms co-ordination and sneaking past unit defenses. an ecm mech and 2 other mediums/ 3 lights should be able to waste 6 turrets easily... currenty pgi don't allow this because turrets are simply way too strong.

every previous MW game had turrets destoyed with about 15-20 damage applied ie: 2 shots of ac20 at most unless it's a calliope turret which would need a third shot. that's 60pts of damage at most. Pgi turrets are 150 HP! no wonder light mechs won't go near them, hell assaults take a while to waste a turret. that's the problem. make cacoon mode 50% resist and HP down to 60 and you'll have cappers back but under control which is the objective for adding turrets.
get that devs?

Edited by GalaxyBluestar, 07 March 2014 - 07:28 PM.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

I like the Turrets b/c it stops the obnoxious 1 or 2 lights stealth capping

Now I actively put on a Cap Accel on my CTF-3D and actually make a serious attempt at capping.

[Deathlike]

Chemie, on 07 March 2014 - 06:52 PM, said:

What is the difference between assault and skirmish? Oh assault now has reasons to stay by your base as a blob instead of fighting in the middle as a blob?

It doesn't always happen, but on maps where the turrets are spread out in such a small place (River City), there's a tendency of that to happen.

Abivard, on 07 March 2014 - 07:23 PM, said:

Are you a blob warrior? Is conquest just a blob also when you play? where did you read that any match recorded above had the team stay as a blob by the base?

BlobWarrior online? Is this F2P?

Conquest actually has blobs, but they tend to be smaller due to the capping nature. Then there's Alpine...

[Dirus Nigh]

Tw1stedMonkey, on 07 March 2014 - 06:16 PM, said:

Still totally worth it to stop the ninja capping. There are 6 turrets correct? maybe try only using 4 and putting them closer in LOS to the base. I could support lower health on turrets if the base can only be capped if all turrets have been destroyed.

I'm sorry but I read this as saying, its worth it so I and any one else on my team never have to bother even thinking about base defense. They have a mode for you now, it's called skermish.

"Ninja caps" were always preventable if at least one or two people on your team properly watched the movements of the other team, and responded quickly to an attack on the base.

[Hauser]

GalaxyBluestar, on 07 March 2014 - 07:26 PM, said:

turrets were supposed to mean if you went for base you had to earn it via combined arms co-ordination and sneaking past unit defenses. an ecm mech and 2 other mediums/ 3 lights should be able to waste 6 turrets easily... currenty pgi don't allow this because turrets are simply way too strong.

every previous MW game had turrets destoyed with about 15-20 damage applied ie: 2 shots of ac20 at most unless it's a calliope turret which would need a third shot. that's 60pts of damage at most. Pgi turrets are 150 HP! no wonder light mechs won't go near them, hell assaults take a while to waste a turret. that's the problem. make cacoon mode 50% resist and HP down to 60 and you'll have cappers back but under control which is the objective for adding turrets.
get that devs?

Meh.

On the big maps it is perfectly possible to cap a base. Provided you do these things right:

1. Focus fire.
2. Use cover.
3. Avoid opening turrets prematurely.

Given that #1 already seems to be impossible in most pickup games, nevermind #2 and #3, you do need some people on TS to coordinate with. If you do it right, each laser turret will exactly be able to get 1 shot off at best.

On the smaller maps its not worth the effort. People are too close to the turrets anyway. You're better of helping your team by shooting the defending mechs.

edit:

What you shouldn't do and what I've seen pug teams do all to often is walking in, opening up all turrets with each player shooting their own turret.

Edited by Hauser, 07 March 2014 - 07:45 PM.

[Fooooo]

They mentioned they would eventually be adding generators etc, but I think that was for the atk/def mode only.........


I think generators are probably the best way. (as long as making sure the turrets themselves are balanced in terms of firepower / ttk )

Link 1 or 2 turrets to a generator somewhere on the map.
Link another 1 or 2 turrets to another generator somewhere ELSE on the map.

So basically 4 or 6 generators (2 or 3 per team) spread out on the map.

Destroy 1 and the turrets linked to it shutdown.

Maybe link other things to this in the future / add more stuff to destroy. Obv give cbills or "completed obj bonuses" for taking them out etc.

Maybe a shield generator and some commlink building you have to emp which would temp disable enemy teams minimaps and targetting info etc.......tho these would only work on large maps really i think.. (maybe have it as 1 or 2 mechs are assigned an EMP device per team meaning only thos mechs can do this...if they die you lose EMP ability)


I like this way because anyone sitting in base all map will lose their generators (not that its what ive seen happening everygame) and the reason they were sitting on their base in the first place..............

Ok well, if they just liked the terrain adv at base then killing the gens wont hurt them, but will help you take out the extra damage they would have had otherwise.....

Edited by Fooooo, 07 March 2014 - 08:37 PM.

[CrashieJ]

Turrets add a bad experience to Assault because it's not really assault when you have 2 teams waiting for some idiot to charge into a turret network.

that and the "Darksouls 2" level of AI which blast your weakest armor almost instantaneously.

most of the teams I face camp on base with their precious LRMS and wait for the enemy team curbstomping them with their locks.

Tactics and Maneuvering pretty much went out the window that day

[NKAc Street]

Assault mode is pointless now with the turrets. Virtually no team defends, so, we now have Conquest and 2 skirmish modes.

The turret idea is fine, but in random matches who wants to wait around and defend hoping the other team doesn't do the same thing? I usually select "any" so a few matches where a team would defend and see if the other team lost patience would be interesting, but it just doesn't happen.

Before turrets, it was good entertainment watching the whiners complain about capping when all the whiners had to do was select skirmish and solve their own problem. And on one level it was nice t have three modes of play, even if in assault mode people who think their opinion matters would call ninja cappers names.