47 replies to this topic

[TVMA Doc]

YueFei, on 22 May 2014 - 08:37 PM, said:

1.) Break line-of-sight from the LRM shooter quickly enough that he can't get missiles onto you.
2.) If a spotter is locking you up, consider breaking the line-of-sight of the spotter if you have no hard cover available from the LRM trajectory. If you cannot break the spotter's line-of-sight, but the spotter either doesn't have BAP or he is too far away to use BAP (>180 meters IIRC), power-down to break his lock. Or, snipe the spotter and try to force him off or scare him off.
3.) Choose a route of approach that keeps you concealed until you're within LRM 180 meter minimum range.
4.) Jump up and power-down in mid-jump to break the lock and make the missiles miss you.
5.) Equip AMS. If LRMs are flying at your teammate, move forward so your AMS can shoot down the missiles as they fly in front of *and* behind you, doubling your AMS effectiveness. If *you* are the LRM target, position yourself behind teammates who have AMS to make use of their AMS coverage.
6.) If all else fails and you are gonna get hit, at least move laterally and torso twist to tank the LRMs on your arms/shoulders.
7.) Check for UAVs and shoot them down.
8.) Check for NARC on teammates. Hopefully if you are NARC'd a teammate will let you know, in which case you must seek hard cover and wait it out.
9.) Throw artillery / air strikes at the enemy to force them off to break line-of-sight?

10.) ..... ?? probably more stuff I didn't think of.

10) Remember, if all else fails close on the LRM boat. If the team didn't task a few escorts for the purpose of defense, a good LRM boat will be particularly squishy. They also may not have much offense inside of 170ish meters. Even the somewhat balanced Catapult boats can be reduced to four MLs-that's less offsense than the typical Raven. Unless the guy is a great shot with those MLs you can finish him off quickly. Even if the other team did task escorts, you can often throw their entire rear into a tizzy, allowing your team's main force to turn the battle.

The key is making sure to communicate the move. Your team can't take advantage of your mad dash/suicidal run on the LRM line if they don't know it's happening. If they do, you might just survive and win the day. LRMs are not all powerful, but they can be if you THINK that they are. You don't need to immediately panic every time you hear the "incoming" warning.

[Ajantise]

I played today and tried to heed the advice in this tread. I have two conclusions:

1. Stay in the group, tightly. Dont try to flank, scout or freeroam if you are not a ultra fast light mech.
2. Don´t be aggressive, wait at the start. Be passive and wait for your enemy to come to you.

With this two pointers you will be in the top half of players. They basically slowed the game with the increase in missile speed intentionally. Why they did that i don´t know, but this is now reality.

[Void Angel]

Ajantise, on 22 May 2014 - 10:46 PM, said:

How do you say in english, i am at a loss? I haven´t played in a month so i just wanted to know is there something new. 333 MM is a hope for me, that is new information. Thanks everybody that tried to help. I dont want to ruin the game for anybody, i am desperate. I loved this game and played 50 matches a day, but now i just don´t have the wish to play. I will try to play with the advice again. Maybe it will come to me ;-).

ps. first i will rebuild all 11 of my mechs

The most important thing you must remember is that games tend to move slowly right now. Because of certain game mechanics, people are using long-range weapons and staying behind cover. Because of this, it's very hard to flank them or brawl with them. So, you have to be patient, and learn to read them. Sadly, your teammates often will hesitate before they actually fight. If they see someone going forward or around the side - and that person starts getting shot at - they will cower and hide instead of taking advantage of the opening. It's not always quite that bad, but it is going to happen to you. In order to compensate, you need to be very patient, and work on damaging the enemy without getting shot for the first part of the match.

It's a balance thing. If you are too timid, your team will sense this and huddle together like a flock of sheep; if you take more aggressive action before they are ready to support you, they will see you getting damaged or destroyed... and huddle together like a flock of sheep. Only if you can push at the right time will they help you out - and this takes good judgement, which can only come from practice. To learn, pay attention to what the team is doing, and try to help them do it. Then ask yourself what you could have done better and go from there.

Modo44, on 23 May 2014 - 01:21 AM, said:

They could when they were super fast. If you do shallow jumps, the danger is much higher for the LRM boat than for the jump-sniper.

Magnakanus, on 23 May 2014 - 01:37 AM, said:

Depends on the cover the jump-sniper is using. If it is low enough that he can snipe with shallow jumps then it won't protect him from LRM fire that much. Artemis/TAG gives you a lock pretty quickly and if you begin blind firing before lock the already fired missiles may hit due to good aim or pick up on the lock before they reach the target. Either way, the sniper has no idea if the LRM has a lock or not, they will still get the missile warning if he is in danger of being hit.

A good, mobile meta sniper will find cover high enough to soak your missiles and then just peek around the side or jump over it to plaster you. I had some kind of heavy chassis doing that to me today - I forget what it was, exactly - but I was literally unable to fight back from 500m away, because he had a rock.

[Void Angel]

Ajantise, on 23 May 2014 - 04:46 PM, said:

I played today and tried to heed the advice in this tread. I have two conclusions:

1. Stay in the group, tightly. Dont try to flank, scout or freeroam if you are not a ultra fast light mech.
2. Don´t be aggressive, wait at the start. Be passive and wait for your enemy to come to you.

With this two pointers you will be in the top half of players. They basically slowed the game with the increase in missile speed intentionally. Why they did that i don´t know, but this is now reality.

From what I understand they told the folks at No Guts, No Galaxy, they were trying to put in a counter for long-range, rapid-fire builds - the so-called "dakka" 'Mechs. Before the LRM buff, a 'mech that was built around a few AC/2s or AC/5s could take several shots at a missile boat, then wander back into cover long before any missiles arrived - and those same builds were pure murder against brawlers trying to cross open ground. So they were trying to help brawlers out and help LRMs (which really did need it) at the same time - the problem is that LRMs are also pure murder against 'mechs crossing open ground. So, it ended up making long-range the dominant force on the landscape - you can still brawl, but the burden of skill is solidly on the brawler, and teams are often hesitant to support you, even if you do it right.

[The Flying Gecko]

Even without LRM's the "Sit-and-wait-behind-a-rock" for most of the match is one of my chief complaints

[YueFei]

Ajantise, on 23 May 2014 - 04:46 PM, said:

I played today and tried to heed the advice in this tread. I have two conclusions:

1. Stay in the group, tightly. Dont try to flank, scout or freeroam if you are not a ultra fast light mech.
2. Don´t be aggressive, wait at the start. Be passive and wait for your enemy to come to you.

With this two pointers you will be in the top half of players. They basically slowed the game with the increase in missile speed intentionally. Why they did that i don´t know, but this is now reality.

You *can* free-roam if you have good map vision and map awareness. The danger of detaching yourself from the main friendly force is two-fold:
1.) You get isolated and killed.
2.) The enemy team pushes into your team and you are waaaay out of position to help. As a result, your team fights with 1 less mech.

Both of these can be remedied by having a greater awareness of the enemy positions, and by making sure you aren't too far away from friendlies. Having a good awareness of the map often requires you to expose yourself, so you have to be comfortable with dodging long-range sniper fire and LRMs. LRMs fired from 600+ meters away give you alot of time to dive into cover. And besides that, sometimes it's worthwhile to get eyes on a situation, take a little bit of damage, but gain information on the enemy that lets you make smart decisions.

Alot of new players start off in this game running around in the open boldly, and then get blasted to bits. So they go the exact opposite and hug cover super tightly. But this blinds them. Hold you hand in front of your face at arms length. Doesn't obscure much of your vision. Now hold that hand up and press it near your face until it is only 3 or 4 inches from your face. Now you can hardly see anything.

A good example is on Canyon Network. If you have teammates who are smart and brave, they'll take to the ridgelines. They'll be smart enough to stay near one of the taller rocky outcroppings for cover, but they won't cower in the ravines *behind* the ridgeline doing nothing. So, they'll be able to see the enemy, and if enough of you use the ridgeline to get angles, you can concentrate firepower better, and yet if you are attacked, you can still drive behind a rock or dive back down into the ravine (hope you brought jump jets to hop back onto the ridgeline!). Those tall rocky outcroppings are tall enough to block most of an LRM salvo, too. Even if you get hit, often it's only the top few missiles of a salvo's spread, not the entire salvo.

But when you have teammates who spend nearly *all* of their time hiding behind the ridgeline and huddled in the ravine... it's almost certain that you're going to lose, unless the enemy team is also just as timid.

BTW, "flanking" doesn't mean to run 1 kilometer away from any friendlies and take a long circuitous route to attack the enemy from the side. Often a flanking position is only 200 or 300 meters away from friendlies at most. Think about the weapon ranges in this game. If one team forms a firing line where every friendly mech is 50 meters apart, that firing line will span 600 meters. That means that if you were to face-hug one enemy mech at the end of the firing line, and all you have are medium lasers, you can't even deal any damage at all to the enemy on the opposite end of the firing line.

[Flaming oblivion]

Ajantise, on 23 May 2014 - 04:46 PM, said:

I played today and tried to heed the advice in this tread. I have two conclusions:

1. Stay in the group, tightly. Dont try to flank, scout or freeroam if you are not a ultra fast light mech.
2. Don´t be aggressive, wait at the start. Be passive and wait for your enemy to come to you.

With this two pointers you will be in the top half of players. They basically slowed the game with the increase in missile speed intentionally. Why they did that i don´t know, but this is now reality.

I showed a lil squirrel why scouting wasn't a good idea on caustic moments ago

[Ursh]

Wait till you get in higher elo matches, where breaking cover means getting shot to pieces in seconds by ac/ppc snipers.