6
I'm in Tier 1 now! I can have opinions!
(It really tells me the tier system is crap. I'm a mediocre player. Putting me in Tier 1 makes no sense.)
Koniving, on 23 April 2014 - 06:11 PM, said:
The Fourth Tip: Paint is a weapon. (Intimidation.)
"There is a reason armies wear uniforms even though they make them easier to spot. Sometimes that's what you want. Uniforms suggest organization, power, and numbers. These, in turn, inspire fear. And as any good operative knows, there is no more effective weapon than fear."
"There is a reason armies wear uniforms even though they make them easier to spot. Sometimes that's what you want. Uniforms suggest organization, power, and numbers. These, in turn, inspire fear. And as any good operative knows, there is no more effective weapon than fear."
I think this concept fell out of favor around the end of the 19th century. By WW1, almost all armies were wearing dull colors and trying to hide.
A sniper may know there are a dozen targets in front of him, but he has to pick one that he can see clearly.
Koniving, on 23 April 2014 - 06:11 PM, said:
People say that painting your mech is a good way to draw attention. It is known that at some point a pilot's confidence in his mech will be high enough to start giving it some colorful love. It is a declaration, "I am not new. I know what I am doing," or at least that is what they want you to believe. After reading this, you may catch yourself being more cautious around an enemy with paint just as you may have always been. If that same enemy was basic green you wouldn't have even hesitated. Be honest. You know it's an easy kill! Now imagine this pause of caution times two, times four...or even times twelve. Now without your own numbers, your mech's legs will be stained brown. That's not paint, by the way. Here's a change of pants.
Well, it worked for the Red Baron...
For a while I had the idea that a more colorful mech would draw more fire. There was plenty of room for doubt, especially since the game engine renders all mechs as dark gray, at a certain distance.
At some point I decided to name a Jenner "Sapo Chingo" (naked toad) and apply some bright colors like a poison arrow frog.
I specifically remember painting the center stripe in Jungle Cyan for a while. After a few matches I was wondering why this Jenner was so short-lived. I changed the color of the stripe from Jungle to something less bright, and started lasting longer. I was drawing less fire and thinking "Really? It was that simple???"
Koniving, on 23 April 2014 - 06:11 PM, said:
There's a quirk in Battletech called Distracting. It's a psychological effect and it does work against players even in Mechwarrior Online; it works by getting into their heads. A group of enemies with the same faction tag alone will make some nervous pilots (disconnect from the game) abandon their mechs; even if those faction members have nothing to do with each other.
I don't know... I seem to remember some good CW matches where my team looked like IS skittles, but had 10 players on TeamSpeak together. At the end of the match we said "gg" while we were thinking "Bwahahahahahaha!!!"
Koniving, on 23 April 2014 - 06:11 PM, said:
A group of battlemechs with the same paint scheme who act with precision will cause panic and confusion in everything they face...
More often we got compliments from our own team, who saw us up close and liked our colors. We couldn't tell what the other team was thinking...
One real life example is an anecdote from my (now ex-) father-in-law. I can't verify all of this story but I know my then-future-in-laws were stationed in Germany in 1991. My father-in-law was an officer in an armored cavalry unit and got deployed for Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. During Desert Storm he says they were a little worried about the wisdom of going around a pale tan desert in olive green tanks and uniforms with woodland camouflage.
He says at some point they found out from some Iraqis who surrendered that they saw the green tanks in the desert and panicked. They though this was some bad-@$$ elite unit that didn't care who saw them coming.
...And this cavalry division got their desert camo uniforms in time for the victory parade in Germany.
Edited by Liquid Leopard, 07 June 2017 - 07:25 PM.
