grimunk, on 17 April 2014 - 11:23 PM, said:
I won game #33. I barely survived it, 1 kill, 8 assists, 400 or so damage.
It sounds like
your performance is fine. It was months playing before I posted a score like that. However:
grimunk, on 17 April 2014 - 11:23 PM, said:
In most of my games, it seems that once close range combat starts, my team meets the enemy team, and my teammates just start falling. If I'm not one of the first, I quickly find I'm alone and surrounded. Almost all the enemy mechs are in good shape too.
What's happening here is your team is not focusing fire. They're coming at the enemy either piecemeal (as Kon said upthread, this happens when you get flanked), or they're getting distracted shooting at whatever is in front of them rather than coordinating.
Other than "play more, get better, improve your Elo to get matched with better players", or "join a team", there's not much you can do about this. That said, you can at least make sure you're not contributing to the problem.
Best way to do that is a trick you've known since about the second grade: the buddy system. Find another 'mech on your team with similar speed and weapons capability who looks like he knows what he's doing (I'll explain that in a moment), and be his shadow.
Move with him, staying within a couple hundred meters (if he has ECM, stay in the bubble);
watch his back, always try to be looking wherever he isn't so you cover each other's blind spots;
shoot what he shoots. If you're good enough and have the angle, shoot
where he shoots, too; focus your shots on the same parts of the enemy as he is for a faster kill.
It's often a good idea to let him know you're doing this. A simple "playername, I've got your back" or "on your six, playername" in chat is usually enough. Particularly if he's faster than you, if he knows you're trying to stay with him, often he'll slow up or orbit you. More importantly, he
knows he's got backup when the shooting starts, and can act accordingly.
Once you've decided you're sticking with somebody,
stick with them. Sometimes circumstances will force you to split off, and sometimes the chaos of battle with cause you to drift apart, but you need to make sure you don't wander off, and that includes when you're chasing a Light. In fact, head TOWARD your buddy when you've got a Jenner/Ember/Spider/whatever nipping at your ankles; you might be having trouble hitting the little pest, but he probably won't. A lone Assault is easy prey for a wolfpack of Lights. Two is a problem. Three is a suicide run.
Now there's at least two of you focusing fire. Even if the other ten yahoos on your team spend the whole game firing blindly into the sky, even two Assaults concentrating fire will take down a target in a hurry. I've seen many games that ended 12-10 where the two guys left alive had all 12 kills between them. When that happens, it's almost always because they were working together, focusing fire, and watching each other's backs.
And by the way: all of this is applicable no matter what you're piloting. Two or three Lights working together can bag an Atlas in under thirty seconds for nearly no return damage. Two Mediums on a flank can break up the enemy formation almost instantly. Two Heavies or Assaults can smash holes in an enemy line... or stop the other team from exploiting a hole in yours.
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