33 replies to this topic

[Grayblue]

Wait till I post a thread about "Number one reason a dumb charging team is doomed to fail." My PUG groups lost more to that then trench mentality.

[Void Angel]

Don't worry - you'll have to worry about it less and less as and if your Elo rises.

[Bigbacon]

Yea!..

more PUG hate....

give it up already elitists..

[YueFei]

Grayblue, on 12 June 2014 - 02:31 PM, said:

Wait till I post a thread about "Number one reason a dumb charging team is doomed to fail." My PUG groups lost more to that then trench mentality.

Pushing into the enemy doesn't mean to charge at them and continue running towards them firing until you are dead. The reason that being active works better than being passive is that it lets you seize initiative to shoot the same enemy target over and over again.

Imagine two teams separated by a ridgeline. Team A sits behind it and just takes potshots as opportunities arise, shooting at whichever enemy pops up, haphazardly. Team B, on the other hand, crests that ridge, takes turns firing, rotating hurt mechs out of the line of fire, and consistently singles out 2 or 3 enemy mechs to repeatedly hit. Because Team A isn't seizing initiative to crest the ridge and finish off Team B's hurt mechs, they aren't securing any kills. Meanwhile, Team B's ability to keep hitting the same enemies over and over with focus fire eventually secures a kill. Then it becomes two kills, and then 3. It suddenly snowballs from there. Team B's hurt mechs can retire to the back line and continue pumping shots into the fight from behind healthier teammates. Team A gets picked off 1 by 1.

THAT is the kind of aggression that we're talking about. Not the kind of blind aggression where you just rush all-in amongst the enemy to allow yourself to be shot by 5 or 6 enemy mechs at the same time until you are dead.

Bigbacon, on 12 June 2014 - 04:22 PM, said:

Yea!..

more PUG hate....

give it up already elitists..

I don't care if my teammate is in a group or solo PUGing it. I have had some of the best games playing solo with a total stranger where it turned out that we made great wingmen together. Often you can tell just from how someone moves what kind of attitude and approach they'll take. A reliable wingman will move intelligently. He won't charge in to get shot by multiple enemies. But he also won't sit timidly behind cover accomplishing nothing. He'll eagerly move to contact and then slice the pie to get shots on enemies while limiting his exposure to 1 or 2 enemies at a time. If he's on point, he'll briefly pause to make sure his own wingman is in position and ready to provide fire support. He'll have your back, and you'll have his. He recognizes when he's being focused and pilots defensively to survive. And he also recognizes when he is NOT the focus, and when you are the one being shot at, he'll shoulder up behind ya and will steadily pump as much precision fire into the fight to kill the enemies attacking you.

Edited by YueFei, 12 June 2014 - 10:33 PM.

[Void Angel]

I honestly wonder how people take constructive advice and turn it into "being elitists." It's like they view laziness as a social norm, so any call to effort or advice for good results is an insult. It's been the same in every game I've played - some people just can't differentiate between the words "casual" and "sloppy," and make up names like "tryhard." Can't do much about it, I suppose, but still... I can only wonder what such a mentality would look like from the inside.

[YueFei]

Void Angel, on 12 June 2014 - 10:43 PM, said:

I honestly wonder how people take constructive advice and turn it into "being elitists." It's like they view laziness as a social norm, so any call to effort or advice for good results is an insult. It's been the same in every game I've played - some people just can't differentiate between the words "casual" and "sloppy," and make up names like "tryhard." Can't do much about it, I suppose, but still... I can only wonder what such a mentality would look like from the inside.

Some people get very very defensive if the things you say seem to highlight their flaws. Even if you aren't even talking to them personally.

People who are self-assured take criticism and either are able to reply with a rebuttal, or they'll accept the criticism as valid and learn and improve. They don't throw tantrums and resort to name calling.

My dad was once showing a new coworker the ropes, and giving him criticism here and there. The guy threw hissy fits at first. But finally my dad just calmly told him, "I'm not trying to be mean to you. I'm trying to teach you." The guy took a step back and his attitude changed.

I never knew about this until that coworker showed up to my dad's funeral to tell me about this event, and the positive influence it had on his life. He told me he owed my dad for having the patience to put up with his crap and help him improve. He told me "there's no way I could not be here to say goodbye to your dad."

So yeah. Folks, MWO is just a video game. But the attitude you take going into this video game reflects the attitude you face life with, too. If you find yourself throwing a hissy fit whenever someone criticizes your play, you might wanna think long and hard about your approach to life in general, not just this video game. Take criticism as a way to improve yourself, man up (or woman up), and act like an adult, not like a petulant child.

[Vanguard319]

There's an old saying: Fortune favors the bold. I scored some pretty impressive kills during the Public test by not being indecisive about tanking some damage. Two in particular, a Timber Wolf and Nova. both times I was in a Summoner Prime modified into the C variant, and both times I went toe-to-toe, with them, Some people claim the Summoner isn't a "competitive" mech, but a Summoner C is a close range brawler, and knowing this, I played it very aggressively. I took a considerable amount of damage in both fights, but tenacity (and a constant barrage of UAC 20 fire) won both engagements for me, even though I was running stock armor.

[Jon Gotham]

Tycho von Gagern, on 10 June 2014 - 02:43 PM, said:

Maybe the PUGs were just dragging their feet in the rear, learning from the "successful leet premades," who'd love nothing more than for the PUGs to "be more aggressive" and tear the hell out of the enemy (or at least sponge up their ammo) and die so they can go in minty-fresh against 6-8 cherry red CT and ammo-dry enemies.

Camping in the back is a universal problem, not confined to solo players.

I get the defensive tome there Tycho, but the FACT remains I mostly have more issues with solo players than premades.
Usually if I am with some of my guys and we have another premade, we might suggest a plan or tactic. The response we usually get is "rgr" or "ok, we'll try that."
We try that with a bunch of solo players we get "............................" or something like "don't tell me what to do."

Usually (around 99% of the time) solo puggers tend to be the ones hiding and camping (I've found, your experience may differ), and the ones who simply refuse to follow you-no matter how many times you ask them to. It's so frustrating when you try to co-ordinate, They simply refuse to listen.
Great example: Terra therma, my lance has gone left round the mount noob centre. We are engaging eight of the enemy team,I notice on the battle grid SIX of our team are cowering at an entrance from ONE MECH. I ask them to push and state where the enemy is, I also state they can shot these eight guys in the rear if they get to us. A simple matter of a six vs ONE push and a short 20 second walk.
What happens?
They don't push. Or respond in chat. Just sit there, not one of them wants to take any fire at all. They feed one by one out and die. Then we die.
Or another good one, just me and one unit mate this time on canyon. "Guys, if we stay here like this, we are going to get swarmed, flanked and killed. We need to push or flank?"
The response: "Shut the **** up, stick together"
I then reply "Guys, there's 3-4 of them coming from the right-someone needs to head them off" The result? All the puggers STILL just sit there, none of them wanting to get hit first...
Game ends when we get surrounded and shot to pieces. With many of the puggers proclaiming our team to be {scrap}.

Void is very, utterly correct I think. It has become autonomic response to just sit there. Rationally you must know it's a bad idea, yet people still do it.In this game, if you cede intiative and position you are dead, finished.
If you don't like that, then people need to stop being sheep-don't listen to that voice that tells you to hide and get rational:)
It's sad, as I have never seen behaviour like this before in any online game I have ever played.

Look at the following video (From Mr Zear no less:P):


5:10 as Blagg is hopping he is spotting, watch as he turns to the right only to see many of the team just....stood still....doing nothing. They all have a battlegrid, why are they not using it? If they had've moved and flanked right, Blagg need not have taken so much damage and they could have torn them up in a pincer. Backs up Void's point nicely, if not for Blagg and his lads, that team probably would not have pushed as they did.....

Edited by kamiko kross, 14 June 2014 - 08:44 AM.

[Reza Malin]

Void Angel, on 25 May 2014 - 01:49 PM, said:

It's because the game trains people to act that way. They are literally being conditioned to view taking fire as tantamount to crippling or death.

Currently the game rewards long-range combat (e.g. shooting someone with a PPC) instantly, but defers the rewards for close-range play (e.g. accepting being shot at in order to get into brawling range) - and those rewards also depend on the team supporting you. This causes players to gravitate toward long-range guns - often because they're tired of being crippled or destroyed for no return. This means that there's a lot of long-range firepower sitting on the either side of the battlefield, and anyone who exposes themselves is going to get shot with it. When players make a mistake leaving cover, they can get simply destroyed, with little opportunity to recover - particularly when this happens to new players, they learn that leaving cover is bad. Thus, players are taught by the game's mechanics that in order to survive long enough to deal damage and actually be an asset for the team, they need to either camp and snipe, or hide their brawler until the end of the match.

Even with players in 12-mans, I've seen people who had been doing 12s for a while still hesitate and double-check that everyone else was coming with before they'd actually commit to a charge. It's the wrong answer, and a boring way to play besides - but it's there because the game is pushing it at people.

This. Really frustrates me.

[Navy Sixes]

kamiko kross, on 14 June 2014 - 03:33 AM, said:

I get the defensive tome there Tycho, but the FACT remains I mostly have more issues with solo players than premades.

Fair enough. In addition to AFK-for-the-first-five-minutes Alpha lances, which -once you reach a high-enough ELO bracket- you will see plenty of, I also have issues with premades who assume their matching banners and nerd-helm walkie-talkies make them the brilliant leadership the rest of us PUG scum have been waiting for. Then you find out they are often more clueless than anyone else in the game, solo or otherwise. I am reminded of this famous quote by Sun Tzu:

"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."

With that in mind, when you tell me

kamiko kross, on 14 June 2014 - 03:33 AM, said:

...my lance has gone left round the mount noob centre. We are engaging eight of the enemy team...

I hear that you recklessly committed yourself against 2-1 odds, then when things got hairy, rather than think, "gee, maybe we shouldn't have done that" you looked around for some PUGs somewhere else on the map to blame for the defeat you deserved.

People (even PUG scum) follow leaders who instill confidence. Based on your derogatory opinions regarding solo players, does it really boggle your mind that none of them want to follow you? Good leaders also convey competence. Based on the flaming-bag-of-dogsh*t tactics you and your lance employed on Terra Therma, I wouldn't have followed you into that meat-grinder either.

[Lavos]

i admit i have almost no playtime on this game and ive had it since buyin the $120 founders...plan to go on the test server later today for the coming Clan Mech test (preordered last night ,still slapping myself for not doing it 5-6 months ago of course but oh well)

i understand this is a thing that tends to happen to new players...and while im likely horrible at the game right now (but my new mouse may help alleviate that a bit) i am going to try to keep myself from getting into this "habit" or "mindset"...while i may not have alot of experience with MWO...i have played Mechwarrior 2 through 4 so its not as if the games are entirely foreign to me...MWO will take some adjusting to, of course as it IS different from what im used to

but i hope to become a person who doesnt just sit back all game..im sure it wont be something i become good at instantly or even quickly...itll take time, experience and many games played to get a feel for things and ideas of when and when arent good times to push or sit back

i agree that timid play wont help but i also understand there are times its good to be aggressive...and times where being so is a death wish...finding a balance between the 2 is whats really important...and to do that one must learn the game...learn openings, timings, some of the not-so-advanced intracacies (yet still VERY important)

in other news im one sad Ghost Bear (since Pandas are overrated)

i want my Kodiak :/

Edited by Lavos, 15 June 2014 - 02:23 AM.

[Jon Gotham]

Tycho von Gagern, on 14 June 2014 - 10:02 PM, said:

Serious attitude

Look mate, enough of the defensive stuff ok? We didn't know they were there. You also handily disregarded the bit where they were all hiding from one mech. You must see this sort of stuff in a lot of your games you play, and frankly the pug defending is wearing a little thin.
I will have derogatory opinions based on what I experience, and mostly I experience sheep like pugs who refuse to move. That's just my experience. I find other premades to be more helpful and responsive than pugs are. Sorry if that needles you, but that's exactly what I experience.

"I notice on the battle grid SIX of our team are cowering at an entrance from ONE MECH. I ask them to push and state where the enemy is, I also state they can shot these eight guys in the rear if they get to us. A simple matter of a six vs ONE push and a short 20 second walk."

SIX people, all hiding from ONE guy. I ask them multiple times to push, they also get told where the enemy are and from what angle they can shred them and win from. They still cower.
There is NO defending that behaviour.
It makes me want to give up even trying to talk to people.
If that had been a premade, I'd bet real money that one guy would have been dead and we'd have gotten sorely needed help. Now, of course I often meet great pugs, people who talk in chat and respond-but they are the exception.
I'm sorry you seem to take such great offense, I take the same when being called an "elitist premade" when expecting people to act rather than cower.

The sad fact is, there is a great minority of puggers that get tarnished with the derogatory brush. But from my personal experience and the experience of the people I usually play with-it IS a minority.

[Davoke]

Speaking from experience, me and the guys I play with are those dirtbags who play the Brawlers and Close Fire Support mechs, who then proceed to rush straight into the middle of everything once the long-range mechs close and realize we aren't going to be "finished off."