33 replies to this topic

[CaptainDeez]

If you are afraid of the fire coming from 1000m, wait until you let them waltz into brawling range, unopposed.

Something to think about if you start getting a trench mentality. PUGs -,-;

[Ursh]

CaptainDeez, on 24 May 2014 - 09:47 AM, said:

If you are afraid of the fire coming from 1000m, wait until you let them waltz into brawling range, unopposed.

Something to think about if you start getting a trench mentality. PUGs -,-;

The amount of times I've had to tell PUGs to break cover and shoot the same guy i'm shooting at, when they're closer to him than I am, has truly astounded me.

It's almost like they've read too many of the beginner guides that urge them to hide for most of the match until the other players have stripped armor from enemy mechs and made them ripe for kills.

Seriously, if you're a true beginner, it's wise to hide a bit. If you're at the point where you can control your mech and mostly aim at targets moving under 90kph, you need to be looking for people to fire at during the match.

[Void Angel]

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.

[InspectorG]

Timidity means you project no threat or force.

Hiding is good but only when you are not shooting. Dont shoot too long(unless you are 'rolling' the other team), dont hide too long. How do you tell? Mainly experience and watching the flow of the fight(what your teammates are doing vs what the enemy is doing).

[CaptainDeez]

InspectorG, on 25 May 2014 - 02:48 PM, said:

Timidity means you project no threat or force.

Hiding is good but only when you are not shooting. Dont shoot too long(unless you are 'rolling' the other team), dont hide too long. How do you tell? Mainly experience and watching the flow of the fight(what your teammates are doing vs what the enemy is doing).

Exactly, when players stop firing back at the enemy, the enemy will flank them at some point. Even ineffective fire like blind fire in their direction is better than nothing at all. Poke your head out, take a shot, relocate to the side so you won't be zeroed, take another shot. If you find yourself in a situation where you can't poke your head out, relocate and try again, just don't get paralyzed.

I think sometimes players get rattled by the sounds of their mech getting hit. At long range most mechs have a great bit of leeway when it comes to taking damage due to the range fall-off, even though a laser hit will sound just as bad as it would a brawling range.

[Void Angel]

Oh, they definitely get rattled; that's part of the negative feedback that's programmed into the game. Because long-range combat rewards and punishments are instant, they're the most dominant influence on player behaviors. But since you need to accept damage sometimes in order to do things that need doing, the type of behavior encouraged by the long-range combat game can be counterproductive.

[SnagaDance]

There is also no direct indicator of how much direct damage you are taking within a certain amount of time.

That's why people are skittish about my Support Centurion blazing away at them with its single AC/2. Group fired it could be 1 AC/2 or 4 of them that they hear impacting their mech, so people err on the side of caution. And I can't blame them. I've had it happen myself, just exposing myself for a short period of time to draw aggro and unload some weaponry. Unfortunately that 4 AC/2 Jager was stripping my CT at 16 pts/second (this was before the AC/2 nerf).

Same goes for being hit with multiple AC/5's etc. Only once your armour paper doll has stopped flashing dangerously red can you assess the true damage to your mech. Did you just lose some paint or are you already cored?

Timidity may not be a good tactic but for newby Pugs it will get you yelled at less than throwing yourself into the meatgrinder, and it makes you feel like you're actually playing in the game instead of that death before 3 minutes are over.

It will also encourage them to keep playing the game, instead of leaving it in frustration, so I'd rather they be timid than gung-ho.

Might leave me out hanging to dry now and then but hey, it's a pug life!

[TVMA Doc]

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.

I think that 12v12 actually has exacerbated the problem. In 8v8, being overaggressive actually led to high numbers of kills and lower death rate. With more enemies on the field an aggressive player is more likely to wander into larger groups of opposing mechs. Armor that could soak up JUST enough damage from two mechs while destroying them both now is stripped by the four mechs you're up against.

12v12 has changed the tactics a bit to favor a more cautious approach-precisely that "if I'm charging I had better make sure that the rest of the team is charging as well". A single mech charge is less survivable in 12v12 than it was in 8v8.

Edited by TVMA Doc, 30 May 2014 - 09:06 AM.

[Wrathful-Khan]

The beauty of the long range mentality is that when you do get close with your srm-16 your enemy has no idea what to do.

[jper4]

and then there's the times when movement could win the match but no one bothers. had a match in frozen yesterday where the usual peek and shoot by dropship ridge was going on when our side's tunnel lance finally made it through the other side and started shooting. of course this drew most of the enemy in their direction so when i peeked over and saw it i stoppped to type "Battlemaster pushing" (thinking that maybe the knowledge an assault is going to push might get people to come along instead of when say the medium mech announces it) waited a couple seconds and went over the top to try and hit them (with in theory the rest of the team lending support behind) while they were facing the other way.

i go over, fight for about 30-45 seconds or so before i get FFed down. go to spectate and there's the entire rest of the team still standing right where they were behind the ridge before i announced my push attempt and we got slaughted since the flanking lance was wiped out along with me and we ended up losing 12-2 or something like that when the other side pushed with numbers.

so yeah shockingly sometimes you do actually have to move in the game to win it.

[Barkem Squirrel]

to be defensive and when to attack. That is the issue we see with the dynamic battlefield.
1. Make contact with the enemy
2. through the battle plan out the window. At least sometimes.




Last night I was in a match, lost 4 kills to 3 kills. It was skirmish on tourmaline Desert.

We started in the bottom, and instead of going up the canyon or to the stargate, we formed defencive positions to draw the other team to us. It helped that we had 3 ECM mechs to hide us when we peaked and they only had one.

It became a plan to defend. The one issue was we lost two lights trying to brave it, one DDC to gauss and another that exposed himself. Me I engaged targets from 800 to 20 m in a stalker. I was forming a charge to get the two mechs trapped by my LRMs in the canyon to the right. Both of them were orange CT and hiding against the wall where I could not see them. The only problem is that time ran out. Just by peaking a poking the rest of us were not damaged, but ready at that point to attack. I was also drawing LRM fire to hit the ledge above me most of the game.

Both teams commented on chat how intense that match was last night. It was a loss, one kill, but it was a great match. Then time ran out! I sent some comments out acknowledging two of their mechs, and they responded that I had 3 of their mechs pined for 10 minutes, not the two that I through. Other people were doing the same.

A few matches after that I was on Alpine and took the I9 hill with 4 other mechs, realized that the other team was moving up below the tower, so we turned the hill to fire up that valley. For some reason they all charged down the hill. I made a stand to take them out with LRMs as they came down the valley. I got 4 kills almost got another and died, but I still had 2 mechs behind me almost untouched with the rest of the team coming over the hill from the town to attack from the rear down the valley. The other two mechs were able to take a few more down, and the ones from the rear finished them off. There were 8 mechs put down by the 3 that left from defence to a flanking attack. ten charged us.

[TVMA Doc]

I mention this at least from personal experience. In 8v8 I would typically run VERY aggressively. If I thought the team should charge the ridge line in frozen city and everyone else was playing sniper I didn't look back. Charging over the hill I'd often find two or three mechs. With good aim and targeting of specific portions of a mech, more often than not I'd kill two or all three of them.

With the launch of 12v12 this usually means a VERY quick death from the SIX mechs standing on the other side. It took a while for me to change my tactics, and I still often find myself playing the overly aggressive style favored in 8v8 (old habits die hard), and learn to follow the furball more and watch for what others are doing more closely.

12v12 REALLY rewards the group that stays together and the aggressive player only really shines at the end when there are fewer mechs overall on the battlefield. In a target poor environment skill becomes paramount. In a target rich environment, the focus shifts towards numbers. That isn't to say that the best shot can't dominate, but it's more important than ever to stick with the group. In the meta of "sniping is good", that means staying as, or at least with, the sniper.

[Void Angel]

TVMA Doc, on 30 May 2014 - 08:13 AM, said:

I think that 12v12 actually has exacerbated the problem. In 8v8, being overaggressive actually led to high numbers of kills and lower death rate. With more enemies on the field an aggressive player is more likely to wander into larger groups of opposing mechs. Armor that could soak up JUST enough damage from two mechs while destroying them both now is stripped by the four mechs you're up against.

12v12 has changed the tactics a bit to favor a more cautious approach-precisely that "if I'm charging I had better make sure that the rest of the team is charging as well". A single mech charge is less survivable in 12v12 than it was in 8v8.

The additional firepower did make a significant difference; but a few other things happened around that general timeframe that contributed as well - HSR fixes and the rise of the Assault jump sniper. So not only did you have people dealing with more opposing firepower, you had much more accurate weapon systems (at all ranges) and an assault 'mech's weapons loadout bouncing over the far ridgeline every four seconds. The status of all these things have changed as the devs tweak and balance things - but not enough to really fix the meta yet. The much-needed nerf across the board to autocannons might be of significant help (though I'd rather have their DPS/heat tweaked instead, but no one asked me) next patch; we'll have to see.

[Navy Sixes]

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.

[Void Angel]

Speaking as a primarily solo player, I would also love to see the PuGs "be more aggressive," because aggression wins where timidity falters. The problem is that when players do go after the enemy with well-timed aggression, the team will often sit back and watch them.

I recall a fairly recent match on Terra Therma. I was playing in my Thunderbolt and suggested at the start of the match that we stay away from the giant bowl of heat and failure. Instead, we set up a kill zone outside the nearest entrance, put out pickets, and waited to see if the enemy would come to us (we might have circled the caldera and run into them coming out an entrance; this was last week-ish.) The team did great; everyone stayed together, and when the enemy team came after us, we suckered them into our kill zone. This is where it almost all went south - because I called the team to jump on them, and no one moved. They were all hiding out of sight of the entrance, and were afraid to take the plunge. Only after my Thunderbolt was completely destroyed and a Cataphract on our team had also gone out to draw fire did most of my team move to engage the enemy. Fortunately, they listened in time to my frantic calls to engage, and we slaughtered the enemy team like sheep in a pen. I was happy with the outcome, and the team was happy with their victory - I even got compliments on the plan - but it's an excellent example of what's going on with regard to the metagame, and why camping is a universal problem.

I chose this example because it shows that even a team that has committed to doing the right thing still has problems overriding the way the game trains them to behave. Long-range, pinpoint firepower yields immediate rewards and punishments, but closing to medium range and below yields punishments for screwing up immediately, while rewards (reinforcement) are deferred until after you get there - and depend partly on your team. Since punishments (such as getting melted down into commemorative ingots) are useful primarily for discouraging behaviors, players are effectively discouraged from leaving cover - making brawling a low-reward activity in comparison to long-range combat. This causes players to gravitate toward long-range builds, intensifying the negative results of leaving cover, which forms a positive feedback loop. This amounts to operant conditioning, training players to avoid taking fire even when it is rationally desirable to do so.

Premades who treat the PuGs as cannon fodder generally are digging their own graves. Sure, you can win by screwing over your teammates, but actual teamwork in a team game yields more frequent rewards. Sometimes premades will detatch from the group and operate independently - they might even fight from a safe position because they don't trust the PuGs to not hide if the enemy pushes - but unless they work with the team in some way, they're hurting themselves more than they're helping.

Edited by Void Angel, 10 June 2014 - 11:29 PM.

[YueFei]

Void Angel, on 10 June 2014 - 11:29 PM, said:

Speaking as a primarily solo player, I would also love to see the PuGs "be more aggressive," because aggression wins where timidity falters. The problem is that when players do go after the enemy with well-timed aggression, the team will often sit back and watch them.

I recall a fairly recent match on Terra Therma. I was playing in my Thunderbolt and suggested at the start of the match that we stay away from the giant bowl of heat and failure. Instead, we set up a kill zone outside the nearest entrance, put out pickets, and waited to see if the enemy would come to us (we might have circled the caldera and run into them coming out an entrance; this was last week-ish.) The team did great; everyone stayed together, and when the enemy team came after us, we suckered them into our kill zone. This is where it almost all went south - because I called the team to jump on them, and no one moved. They were all hiding out of sight of the entrance, and were afraid to take the plunge. Only after my Thunderbolt was completely destroyed and a Cataphract on our team had also gone out to draw fire did most of my team move to engage the enemy. Fortunately, they listened in time to my frantic calls to engage, and we slaughtered the enemy team like sheep in a pen. I was happy with the outcome, and the team was happy with their victory - I even got compliments on the plan - but it's an excellent example of what's going on with regard to the metagame, and why camping is a universal problem.

I chose this example because it shows that even a team that has committed to doing the right thing still has problems overriding the way the game trains them to behave. Long-range, pinpoint firepower yields immediate rewards and punishments, but closing to medium range and below yields punishments for screwing up immediately, while rewards (reinforcement) are deferred until after you get there - and depend partly on your team. Since punishments (such as getting melted down into commemorative ingots) are useful primarily for discouraging behaviors, players are effectively discouraged from leaving cover - making brawling a low-reward activity in comparison to long-range combat. This causes players to gravitate toward long-range builds, intensifying the negative results of leaving cover, which forms a positive feedback loop. This amounts to operant conditioning, training players to avoid taking fire even when it is rationally desirable to do so.

Premades who treat the PuGs as cannon fodder generally are digging their own graves. Sure, you can win by screwing over your teammates, but actual teamwork in a team game yields more frequent rewards. Sometimes premades will detatch from the group and operate independently - they might even fight from a safe position because they don't trust the PuGs to not hide if the enemy pushes - but unless they work with the team in some way, they're hurting themselves more than they're helping.

Yep!

The thing to do is to almost always follow a teammate at least around the corner to shoot whatever he shoots at. Unless that teammate is faaar away from the rest of the team. But assuming you're in the vicinity of teammates, it's almost always a good idea to at least go around the corner with him. If it turns out to be a bad move, at least your teammate is going to soak the hits (which he would've soaked regardless of you turning the corner with him or not), but you'll at least get some free shots. If it looks good, you can keep pressuring from that side. If it looks bad, you can pull away, no sweat.

One good attitude to have is to get psyched up when you see a teammate get hit. Your first instinct when seeing a teammate getting hit is to move into position to support him and retaliate, get some payback for those hits he took. Not to get scared and run away when it's somebody else that's getting shot.

Had a match on Crimson Straits where a Banshee and me in my HBK worked in tandem to take down 4 enemy mechs between the two of us, two at a time. By that time, though, we were both hurt bad. He was at 45% health, and I was at 50% health. We had a 4-0 lead. But the rest of the team sat milling about. We waited for reinforcements, we waited for healthier teammates to take the front and relieve us. Instead, they sat scattered in positions which were not mutually supporting, little pockets of 2 or 3 friendly mechs which couldn't help each other or even see each other, and we ended up losing 5 to 12. Nobody ever reacted to seeing another group of our mechs engaged, they just sat in their hidey holes until it was their turn to get killed. =(

Edited by YueFei, 12 June 2014 - 12:17 AM.

[Blood Rose]

I am a pug and I rarely play the sniper. Many times I prefer to run sneaky flank attacks in to my enemies rear if someone else is willing to accompany me or at other times I will brawl with my AC10 2ML and SRM4, something that often gives my opponents a nasty surprise.

[Haji1096]

YueFei, on 12 June 2014 - 12:14 AM, said:

Yep!

The thing to do is to almost always follow a teammate at least around the corner to shoot whatever he shoots at. Unless that teammate is faaar away from the rest of the team. But assuming you're in the vicinity of teammates, it's almost always a good idea to at least go around the corner with him. If it turns out to be a bad move, at least your teammate is going to soak the hits (which he would've soaked regardless of you turning the corner with him or not), but you'll at least get some free shots. If it looks good, you can keep pressuring from that side. If it looks bad, you can pull away, no sweat.

One good attitude to have is to get psyched up when you see a teammate get hit. Your first instinct when seeing a teammate getting hit is to move into position to support him and retaliate, get some payback for those hits he took. Not to get scared and run away when it's somebody else that's getting shot.

Had a match on Crimson Straits where a Banshee and me in my HBK worked in tandem to take down 4 enemy mechs between the two of us, two at a time. By that time, though, we were both hurt bad. He was at 45% health, and I was at 50% health. We had a 4-0 lead. But the rest of the team sat milling about. We waited for reinforcements, we waited for healthier teammates to take the front and relieve us. Instead, they sat scattered in positions which were not mutually supporting, little pockets of 2 or 3 friendly mechs which couldn't help each other or even see each other, and we ended up losing 5 to 12. Nobody ever reacted to seeing another group of our mechs engaged, they just sat in their hidey holes until it was their turn to get killed. =(

That's an absolutely brutal story. I had a similar situation last night on Terra Therma, where my lance engaged an enemy lance at the foot of the ramp in F6. I gave the order to hold position, to buy time for the rest of our friendly units to support us. My lancemate, a Jester, was taken out during the first exchagne. To the rest of our team's credit, they maneuvered through the Caldera and down the ramp in F6, but stopped halfway down the ramp. They had seen the Jester go down and our remaining mechs getting beat up so they got skittish. I'm my VTR-9B brawler, taking a ton of damage....just trying to survive as long as possible. I can't go up the ramp in F6 or I'll get hit in the rear and die. I can't reverse back towards to G6 because enemy Shadowhawk and Firestarter are taking potshots at me in F7 from behind the rock hills. To make matters worse, a Cicada-3M as circled around behind me and is hitting my rear with ERLLs.

There is only one thing left to do. I charge into F7 and target the Shadowhawk. I cripple his mech, take out his RT. He takes out my AC/20 and medium lasers. Friendly LRMS finish him off. My RT and CT are now orange critical and I'm out of SRM ammo. The fire starter is circling around me, trying to finish me off. I lock him, friendly LRMS force back for a little bit. I use that time to drop down into the lava, and use the bridge above me to shield my RT and CT. I keep the fire starter locked while turning to my left so that he hits my least damaged components. The firestarter finishes me off in two volleys of laser fire.

Ten minutes later the match ends in a 11 to 11 tie. But we would have won if the rest of the team had just pushed down the F6 ramp. We could have taken out the Shadowhawk, Firestarter, and Cicada, been up at worst 3-2.

I would rather die being overaggressive, than play conservative and by whittled down. Dialing back over aggression is much easier than learning how to be aggressive when you are used to camping. This game is 99% percent positioning. The best teams in the game acquire and keep the best position on the map. Then they maneuver and incrementally gain a better position while forcing their opponent into slightly worse position.

Watch the best players in the game. Its not the meta builds they use, or the hours of practice improving their aim that make them the best. Its how they understand the map and how to position their team so they have an advantage, and continue to do so as the match evolves. Camping cedes better positions on the map to the opposition.

Edited by Haji1096, 12 June 2014 - 07:11 AM.

[Void Angel]

It's important to realize that the game is training people to be this way. It's operant conditioning. Long-range rewards - damage, component destruction, kills, etc. - are instant, while closing to close range yields deferred rewards; meanwhile, punishments - i.e. getting shot - for exposing yourself (both at range and to close the gap) are also instant. Additionally, the rewards for close-range combat depend on your team - if they don't support you, you're toast. All this pushes people toward long-range weapons, which increases the amount of firepower available to provide the aforementioned punishments - which intensifies people's reactions, and the loop continues. Players end up with learned helplessness in the face of incoming fire literally brainwashed into them - the game is training them that taking damage from long range means you're about to die.

Thus you have one factor contributing to the current metagame - there are others, such as the superiority of punch damage weapons, which just happens to be most of the long-range guns. Lights have stopped scouting in favor of either long-range sniping or hiding behind the Assaults in a Firestarter till the action starts. I've even seen an Ember kitted out like an ER Laserchicken, sans ECM. Nobody wants to pretend that their huge armored war machine has armor for a reason, and they'll often avoid exposing themselves even when it's advantageous.

This is frustrating, but you have to remember that - no matter how attractive the idea may be in the heat of the moment - the players aren't actually doing these things because they are stubborn, crash-helmeted, special children; they're doing it because the game has trained that response into them at a level below conscious thought.

[Wrathful-Khan]

Void Angel, on 12 June 2014 - 10:11 AM, said:

Truth

Right on man, preach that ****