21 replies to this topic

[Cord78]

Coming form a military background there are some basic concepts that I constantly see people either not knowing or ignoring during matches that change what should have been a steam roll into a close win if not a straight loss.

I am going to try to cover some of these topics and put them in an MWO context that should help new players. Feel free to make suggestions etc.


Field of Fire:

Very simple concept - where ever your weapons point that is your field of fire. Respect your teammate's fields of fire! If you jump in front of them to either shoot at the enemy or steal a kill you are doing 2 major mistakes:

• You have just stopped your team mate from adding their firepower to take down the enemy which is the opposite of what you should want to do.
  
• The lasers and AC rounds that were supposed to be going into the enemy mech are now hitting your thin rear armor instead. Was that AC20 round in your back really worth it for you to jump in front just to fire your med laser?

Another part of respecting fields of fire is distance. Keep some distance from your team mates as this accomplishes 2 things: Your team mate can back up out of enemy fire and you can easily add your own firepower with a slight shift left or right. Neither option will work if you are following so close that you are almost inside him.


Concentrated fire:

I still don't get why people don't understand this. Concentrated fire will bring down any mech fast. Everyone always wants to go for the solo kill. Any time I am on a losing team where we have been steam rolled there is always one constant: concentrated fire. Multiple mech taking down a single mech hard and fast.

People might complain that you don't get many c-bills that way look at the payout:

5000 for killing a mech
7500 for HELPING kill a mech

So lets review the scenario again, if you go off solo you most likely will die fast with little cbill reward and your team will probably lose. If you concentrate your fire you will take down the enemy fast and get more Cbills for helping kill mechs and you also probably win the match.


Overlapping fields of fire and the importance of separation:

Earlier we talked about fileds of fire and respecting your team mates fields of fire so not to block them, now we will talk about overlapping fields of fire.

For this explanation we will use a basic scenario of 2 hunchbacks versus 1 victor in an open field. If the 2 hunchbacks are side by side versus the victor, the Victor doesn't have to do any work to spread out the damage against the hunchbacks, they are both right in front of him within his field of fire. He can potentially move around them and the hunchbacks potentially can get mixed up and block each others shots or block each others movement.

Now lets take the same scenario, but see what happens when the hunchbacks get some distance between them so that they are in a wide V in relation to the Victor? Now the victor can only shoot at one target at a time while they can concentrate their fire on a single target without hitting each other or blocking movement to dodge missiles or AC rounds etc.


Choke Points or concentrated targets:

This is one of my pet peeves as I see people constantly poorly play these over and over. Lets use the Center bowl on the Terra Therma map. Each one of those entrances to the bowl is a choke point. The common mistake people do is stand in these choke points or walk in and out of them to shoot at the enemy. This basically turns it into a competition of who can last the longest through the pot shot circus. Also if you are all crowded into the same spot a simple non-targeted LRM barrage, arty or airstrike can do heavy damage to a large part of your team for little effort.

To properly defend or attack what should be done is to take the concepts overlapping fields of fire and concentrated fire and use them here. Instead of everyone crowding into the choke point, spread out in a semi-circle around the choke point.

You can now shoot at the enemy without hitting a team mate, you can concentrate your fire while forcing the enemy to divide theirs, it is also easier to react to any flanking the enemy does as you are not all tripping over each other.

[Androas]

Nice work, one addition, you cant spread in a semi circle arround the chockes of T.T. there is simply no space for something like that, you need to use different points to engage.

But on other maps, it works, because you have the space (for example Tunnel on Frozen)

[focuspark]

Thank you, I think you outlined all of my complaints about the way other people play (and get in my way) in an elegant and informed manner.

[Kjudoon]

Nice work. Too bad there's a lot of players who want these basic realities 'ruled' out of existence because it messes up their style of play and/or isn't lore.

[Modo44]

Kjudoon, on 24 April 2014 - 10:51 AM, said:

Nice work. Too bad there's a lot of players who want these basic realities 'ruled' out of existence because it messes up their style of play and/or isn't lore.

It feels like people watched too many Star Wars "battles".

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Cord78, you're going to find this game frustrating.

Well, not the game itself, but many of your fellow players.

Find a team that plays your way, or you'll probably not be satisfied with MWO.

Good luck!

[Rear Admiral Tier 6]

Basic concepts of asymmetric maneuver warfare work in skirmishing with fast mech:

- Move like the water flows

- Strike the first strike

- Momentarily overwhelm the line of defense with artillery and airstrikes,when the arty ceases,go for the kill,destroy couple of components or an opponent and vanish.

[Ultimax]

Great write up, unfortunately most players don't visit the forums.

These concepts and tactics should be in some kind of an in-game tutorial at the very least.

[Wraith0177]

Very nice, good stuff. Can't tell you how many times I've had folks cross in front of me taking out an entire swarm of LRMs or helped me blow their side torso off w/ a load of beams.

[Hellen Wheels]

http://en.wikipedia....re_and_movement

http://en.wikipedia....nding_overwatch

[Munin Ravensong]

If you haven't yet read sun Tzu's art of war - you should. if you haven't applied what you read in the art of war - you should. A solid knowledge of tactics & strategy can compensate for a lack of skill. Combine a high level of skill and discipline with a knowledge of tactics & strategy and your team (your team, not just you) will be UNSTOPPABLE.

[General Bedlam]

here's a specific one, DO NOT GIVE UP HIGH GROUND, unless there is a tactical advantage in doing so.

I am sick to death of watching players spawn on the two highest points of River City (the crash site and upper city/B2) to just all blob up and run into the low section of the dock area. Subsequently the opposite team take B2 and either rain direct fire down on the team or direct LRM fire into the milling masses.

Oh so frustrating........

[Kalimaster]

One problem I see is the peer pressure to move out of a role your good at or what Your Mech was built to do. If you are in a sniper position someone will get mad and consider your actions as being a coward and report you.

Hit and fade. People get mad when you do this instead of taking a AC 20 to the noodle.

But overall, thank you for mentioning the fact that people will get into your line of fire when you are trying to nail someone.

Then there is the lack of watching each other's backs. Got a slow Mech in the bunch.. Heavy firepower yet a light Mech can come in and do some damage because the guy who could keep the light fast little bleeps off him ran off and got his can handed back to him in the first three minutes of the game.

Lack of effective scouting, no use of cover fire. The list is endless. If people got into a firefight they way they play this game sometimes, cemeteries would have a population problem.

[Greyboots]

This should not be taken to mean that I disagree in general with the OP! He makes a lot of sense BUT ignores one simple factor; MWO is a video game, Mechs are not soldiers and both of these things make a difference.

Cord78, on 24 April 2014 - 09:37 AM, said:

Overlapping fields of fire and the importance of separation:

Earlier we talked about fileds of fire and respecting your team mates fields of fire so not to block them, now we will talk about overlapping fields of fire.

For this explanation we will use a basic scenario of 2 hunchbacks versus 1 victor in an open field. If the 2 hunchbacks are side by side versus the victor, the Victor doesn't have to do any work to spread out the damage against the hunchbacks, they are both right in front of him within his field of fire. He can potentially move around them and the hunchbacks potentially can get mixed up and block each others shots or block each others movement.

Now lets take the same scenario, but see what happens when the hunchbacks get some distance between them so that they are in a wide V in relation to the Victor? Now the victor can only shoot at one target at a time while they can concentrate their fire on a single target without hitting each other or blocking movement to dodge missiles or AC rounds etc.

This shows one HUGE misnomer about MWO that a LOT of prople with tactical training make continually; A Mech is not a single soldier. It is a unit of 9 soldiers.

When you attack on a spread formation, the Victor can then face one Hunchback directly. This will prevent one of the hunchbacks from having a clear line of fire to all torso locations. This means you can actually take more damage because you can spread the damage from one of the hunchbacks to your arm and rear torso (forcing other soldiers in the unit to participate in combat), reducing the effectiveness of it's weapons making it take longer to kill you.

Also, if you've got 2 hunchies in front of a Victor (which is a bad example for me because of how easy it is to take one side off a hunchback but I'll stick with it), it doesn't make a lot of sense for the Victor to attack both. They're doing it because they outweigh you by 20 tons and chances are they're going to win. They're going to slice off your AC arm or whatever is most dangerous and put you at an even more serious disadvantage.

So, as the Victor, you get out if possible otherwise you close in on one hunchback moving the other further into your side arc (preferably your aide with the least armament). Closing in on the one which is on the side of your heaviest weaponry also helps to prevent the other from blowing these crucial parts off and reducing your DPS (allows you to decide which soldiers in your unit are "acceptable losses"). This will force more of his hits to be on your arm to soak up damage. You can't do this to 2 hunchbacks fighting side by side as they outweigh you by 25 tons. If you let it be a "my torso vs your torso" fight you're going to lose.

One hunchback might go down but it's still killing a Victor for the price of a Hunchback. This addage is going to get even more valuable when 3/3/3/3 makes it back into the game.

There are many reasons to do things in MWO that you would never do in "real combat". The number one mistake I see being made repeatedly by people with real-world tactical experience is not quite understanding the difference between a Mech and a Soldier.

Kalimaster, on 06 May 2014 - 07:37 AM, said:

If people got into a firefight they way they play this game sometimes, cemeteries would have a population problem.

I agree in general but then again I've been yelled at for doing the right thing by those with tactical knowledge too. Unlike the real world, getting shot doesn't hurt a lot and one hit doesn't remove you from combat. You can have an entire torso removed and keep on fighting with the right setup (as above making you a UNIT as opposed to a soldier).

PEOPLE can't do that and it makes things different.

The fact that you can't overpopulate cemetaries in MWO offers new viable tactics.

Edited by Greyboots, 11 May 2014 - 02:32 PM.

[n r g]

Cord78, on 24 April 2014 - 09:37 AM, said:

Coming form a military background there are some basic concepts that I constantly see people either not knowing or ignoring during matches that change what should have been a steam roll into a close win if not a straight loss.

I am going to try to cover some of these topics and put them in an MWO context that should help new players. Feel free to make suggestions etc.


Field of Fire:

Very simple concept - where ever your weapons point that is your field of fire. Respect your teammate's fields of fire! If you jump in front of them to either shoot at the enemy or steal a kill you are doing 2 major mistakes:

• You have just stopped your team mate from adding their firepower to take down the enemy which is the opposite of what you should want to do.
  
• The lasers and AC rounds that were supposed to be going into the enemy mech are now hitting your thin rear armor instead. Was that AC20 round in your back really worth it for you to jump in front just to fire your med laser?

Another part of respecting fields of fire is distance. Keep some distance from your team mates as this accomplishes 2 things: Your team mate can back up out of enemy fire and you can easily add your own firepower with a slight shift left or right. Neither option will work if you are following so close that you are almost inside him.



Concentrated fire:

I still don't get why people don't understand this. Concentrated fire will bring down any mech fast. Everyone always wants to go for the solo kill. Any time I am on a losing team where we have been steam rolled there is always one constant: concentrated fire. Multiple mech taking down a single mech hard and fast.

People might complain that you don't get many c-bills that way look at the payout:

5000 for killing a mech
7500 for HELPING kill a mech

So lets review the scenario again, if you go off solo you most likely will die fast with little cbill reward and your team will probably lose. If you concentrate your fire you will take down the enemy fast and get more Cbills for helping kill mechs and you also probably win the match.


Overlapping fields of fire and the importance of separation:

Earlier we talked about fileds of fire and respecting your team mates fields of fire so not to block them, now we will talk about overlapping fields of fire.

For this explanation we will use a basic scenario of 2 hunchbacks versus 1 victor in an open field. If the 2 hunchbacks are side by side versus the victor, the Victor doesn't have to do any work to spread out the damage against the hunchbacks, they are both right in front of him within his field of fire. He can potentially move around them and the hunchbacks potentially can get mixed up and block each others shots or block each others movement.

Now lets take the same scenario, but see what happens when the hunchbacks get some distance between them so that they are in a wide V in relation to the Victor? Now the victor can only shoot at one target at a time while they can concentrate their fire on a single target without hitting each other or blocking movement to dodge missiles or AC rounds etc.


Choke Points or concentrated targets:

This is one of my pet peeves as I see people constantly poorly play these over and over. Lets use the Center bowl on the Terra Therma map. Each one of those entrances to the bowl is a choke point. The common mistake people do is stand in these choke points or walk in and out of them to shoot at the enemy. This basically turns it into a competition of who can last the longest through the pot shot circus. Also if you are all crowded into the same spot a simple non-targeted LRM barrage, arty or airstrike can do heavy damage to a large part of your team for little effort.

To properly defend or attack what should be done is to take the concepts overlapping fields of fire and concentrated fire and use them here. Instead of everyone crowding into the choke point, spread out in a semi-circle around the choke point.

You can now shoot at the enemy without hitting a team mate, you can concentrate your fire while forcing the enemy to divide theirs, it is also easier to react to any flanking the enemy does as you are not all tripping over each other.

Good **** man. Being a CS:GO and Battlefield player, I love applying military concepts toward competitive FPS play

[Dauphni]

Greyboots, on 11 May 2014 - 02:29 PM, said:

This shows one HUGE misnomer about MWO that a LOT of prople with tactical training make continually; A Mech is not a single soldier. It is a unit of 9 soldiers.

I don't have any military experience myself so I may be wrong, but wouldn't Mechs be much more analogous to tanks than infantry? And as such would require different tactics?

[Hauser]

Cord78, on 24 April 2014 - 09:37 AM, said:

Very simple concept - where ever your weapons point that is your field of fire. Respect your teammate's fields of fire! If you jump in front of them to either shoot at the enemy or steal a kill you are doing 2 major mistakes:

Exception here. When you're escorting an assault mech in a medium and the assault is engaged in a brawl. After two alphas you can jump in, unload, and jump out. Preferably back into cover behind the assault. This will give your assault mech time to cool down and it will keep all damage from being put on the assault. In a narrow area this maximizes the amount of damage going out.

[Ursh]

As a former intelligence analyst in the army (96B), I have something to add about knowing the terrain and using the map to your advantage. If you're not directly engaged in a firefight, take the time to pull up your map for spotchecks on friendly positions and red triangles they may have currently in their sights.

EX: You see a red triangle pop up 1200m away, meaning a friendly has eyes on target. You pull up your map quickly and see that the triangle is facing west out of G5. You, having played this map before, know that the enemy mech is in a common fire position. You also know that, based on the tendency for people to clump together, it's highly likely that he's got a minimum of 3 friends with him. Sounds like a good time to start working on a flanking maneuver, or finding a more advantageous fire position to support your teammate that has eyes on.

EX: There's only one mech left and it's a light who's hitting and running, emphasis on the running. You can use the map and your knowledge of terrain to cut him off, especially crucial if you're in a mech that's much slower. Some teammate has him locked, so you're watching your map, not the screen, waiting to see which way the light runs next. He's heading east out of F6, so you start heading to D6 because that's where you think he'll next be in range of your guns, rather than being stupid and heading to where the light used to be. *Just an example, I forget which direction the letters flow*

I see so many situations in games where I react to the overall tactical situation because I'm frequently consulting the map to see what's happening with the battle, and I'm often alone in this it feels.

[ReXspec]

Cord78, on 24 April 2014 - 09:37 AM, said:

Coming form a military background there are some basic concepts that I constantly see people either not knowing or ignoring during matches that change what should have been a steam roll into a close win if not a straight loss.

I am going to try to cover some of these topics and put them in an MWO context that should help new players. Feel free to make suggestions etc.


Field of Fire:

Very simple concept - where ever your weapons point that is your field of fire. Respect your teammate's fields of fire! If you jump in front of them to either shoot at the enemy or steal a kill you are doing 2 major mistakes:

• You have just stopped your team mate from adding their firepower to take down the enemy which is the opposite of what you should want to do.
  
• The lasers and AC rounds that were supposed to be going into the enemy mech are now hitting your thin rear armor instead. Was that AC20 round in your back really worth it for you to jump in front just to fire your med laser?

Another part of respecting fields of fire is distance. Keep some distance from your team mates as this accomplishes 2 things: Your team mate can back up out of enemy fire and you can easily add your own firepower with a slight shift left or right. Neither option will work if you are following so close that you are almost inside him.




Concentrated fire:

I still don't get why people don't understand this. Concentrated fire will bring down any mech fast. Everyone always wants to go for the solo kill. Any time I am on a losing team where we have been steam rolled there is always one constant: concentrated fire. Multiple mech taking down a single mech hard and fast.

People might complain that you don't get many c-bills that way look at the payout:

5000 for killing a mech
7500 for HELPING kill a mech

So lets review the scenario again, if you go off solo you most likely will die fast with little cbill reward and your team will probably lose. If you concentrate your fire you will take down the enemy fast and get more Cbills for helping kill mechs and you also probably win the match.


Overlapping fields of fire and the importance of separation:

Earlier we talked about fileds of fire and respecting your team mates fields of fire so not to block them, now we will talk about overlapping fields of fire.

For this explanation we will use a basic scenario of 2 hunchbacks versus 1 victor in an open field. If the 2 hunchbacks are side by side versus the victor, the Victor doesn't have to do any work to spread out the damage against the hunchbacks, they are both right in front of him within his field of fire. He can potentially move around them and the hunchbacks potentially can get mixed up and block each others shots or block each others movement.

Now lets take the same scenario, but see what happens when the hunchbacks get some distance between them so that they are in a wide V in relation to the Victor? Now the victor can only shoot at one target at a time while they can concentrate their fire on a single target without hitting each other or blocking movement to dodge missiles or AC rounds etc.


Choke Points or concentrated targets:

This is one of my pet peeves as I see people constantly poorly play these over and over. Lets use the Center bowl on the Terra Therma map. Each one of those entrances to the bowl is a choke point. The common mistake people do is stand in these choke points or walk in and out of them to shoot at the enemy. This basically turns it into a competition of who can last the longest through the pot shot circus. Also if you are all crowded into the same spot a simple non-targeted LRM barrage, arty or airstrike can do heavy damage to a large part of your team for little effort.

To properly defend or attack what should be done is to take the concepts overlapping fields of fire and concentrated fire and use them here. Instead of everyone crowding into the choke point, spread out in a semi-circle around the choke point.

You can now shoot at the enemy without hitting a team mate, you can concentrate your fire while forcing the enemy to divide theirs, it is also easier to react to any flanking the enemy does as you are not all tripping over each other.

Wonderful work! Though, I wouldn't call these concept so much "military" as I would call them basic combat skills.

See, I also come from a military background (U.S. Army. 173D ABCT, 1-503rd) and these more fall in line with concepts of common sense during 'mech combat as opposed to pure tactics.

Now, if you are talking about advanced tactics such as battle drills, concepts of shooting, moving, and communicating in specific situations, under specific conditions, and in specific environments, then you are stepping into the realms of the tactical.

Sorry if this sounds like a nitpick, but I am pleased to see that there are players that still adhere to lines of common sense.

Again, nice job.

Edited by ReXspec, 14 May 2014 - 04:34 PM.

[_Comrade_]

Flank and Bounding overwatch would also be nice terms to add

Those in the military know what bounding overwatch is...it works well if the suppressing team can lift and shoot that is