59 replies to this topic

[Gattsus]

That's it, in your opinion what makes good pilot?

Is it map awareness? mech awareness? i.e. knowing the builds and their strengths and pitfalls when piloting them and fighting against an opponent, fast twitch reactions? intuition (i.e. when to commit and when not)? or am I missing something fundamental?


I am asking this because I have 2000+ games on my belt and I think I'm becoming slightly above average. Sometimes I carry hard, 5-6 kills (even on an adr) or sometimes I just die midway the match because of a misstep. Most of the time I pug, though occasionally play with the Mariks <3

Thus my second question is, which do you think is a good way to improve?

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A summary of the best answers:

• A lot of tabbing targets. Legging this guy, getting away to knock the arm off an almost stripped guy, switching to the get the kill shot on a open CT and moving back to range the legged. Prioritizing.
  
• Patience; the ability to hold back, protect yourself, and know when to engage and disengage. It's hard to get better when you charge headlong into the fray and die. It's also seemingly REALLY hard for some pilots to break off an attack when they aren't winning an exchange! If you're going to die before the person you are shooting, move.
  
  • a. Patience is also a decent virtue when shooting; taking an extra half second to actually AIM at damaged components is a skill that seems to elude most people.
• A good mouse, well calibrated. Most people have their mouse sensitivity far too high.
  
• Lots of games are won or lost in the mechlab. Running crap variants with crap loadouts is a sure way to earn yourself a seat in the sub 100 damage club.
  
• I think one of the best tips though, is to find a mech you excel in, and keep excelling in it. Lots of my friends won't run in their favorite mechs because they're playing the giant killer robot version of Pokemon, and use their playtime simply to grind out mechs and variants. Madness!
  
• Knowing when to commit in a locust mech or an atlas and everything in between, same goes with ecm jamming, when to give away your position when sneaking/flanking with lrms or close range weapons, when is the best time to use that single uav and so on.
  
• To improve you just need to keep playing, every map has different flows of battle for each of the different game modes. Observe the routes that are taken most often so that you will know if it is a good idea to go that direction or not from the other team, where to wait for a bottleneck surprise or a uav drop and more importantly where to flank and sneak up on the enemy.
  
• An experienced pilot has played the game for a while, knows how to Modify a Mech for his play style
  
• The ability to zoom back out once they've zoomed in (nothing says "noob" like someone trying to navigate the terrain while zoomed in and getting stuck on EVERYTHING).
  
• Being able to move and shoot at the same time...as opposed to standing still in the middle of an open field, zooming in and trying to be the best CoD sniper in the game, ever.
  
• Experience != good. Experienced pilot just mean:

a. Play time exceed certain number


b. Have enough fund for proper mech
c. Played in each map enough to know the layout
d. have story to tell
e. understand terminonlogy

This topic should be called "what make a good pilot" instead. Then that would mean
a. Have good awareness of the battlefield
b. Applied knowledge of mech strength and weakness
c. Applied knowledge of his role to fit with the team
d. Have good hand eye coordination to land shots
e. Applied map knowledge
f. Ability to create opportunity
g. Can make fast, accurate, and decisive decision
h. Ability to perform under pressure
i. Ability to take criticism/failure and improve

• One thing that sticks out in my mind, and something I try to do whenever possible, is prioritization. I see a lot of pilots trying desperately to kill the Atlas that has no arms or STs and no weapons; two or three or four swarming around it trying to get the kill shot while the fresh Warhawk is chewing up their teammates.
  
• Knowledge of how mechs affect the battlefield. An atlas can change the flow of battle. enemies will abandon other mechs for the atlas. Timber Wolves can inspire other mechs to stay and keep fighting if they are outnumbered. Dire wolves set the firing line.
  
• The other part is ability to read the game flow and react appropriately, for example given your game knowledge you know that within 30 seconds of a match starting an ecm raven could make it to X location, or given that x mechs were spotted at y location you can safely move to z. This also includes understanding what your teammates (and opponents) are trying to do and acting appropriately.
  
• Knowing how to spread damage, pressing the R key, focusing on one component and removing it (whether it's a Leg or the CT) with minimal spread.

I hope this helps you all

kudos to all contributors

Edited by Gattsus, 05 October 2014 - 09:41 PM.

[Zolaz]

200 damage consistently.

[LiGhtningFF13]

Vassago Rain, on 26 September 2014 - 02:04 AM, said:

The ability to spell correctly.

... not necessary, no! How to be a good MECH WARRIOR, just don't be average like the PUG!

[Gattsus]

jajajaja so funny.

[-Natural Selection-]

All of what you said, and allot of tabbing targets. Legging this guy, getting away to knock the arm off an almost stripped guy, switching to the get the kill shot on a open CT and moving back to range the legged. Prioritizing...

[Gattsus]

Mickey Knoxx, on 26 September 2014 - 02:11 AM, said:

All of what you said, and allot of tabbing targets. Legging this guy, getting away to knock the arm off an almost stripped guy, switching to the get the kill shot on a open CT and moving back to range the legged. Prioritizing...

cheers mate,

[Kiiyor]

IMHO, it's patience, the right tools, and the mechlab.

• Patience; the ability to hold back, protect yourself, and know when to engage and disengage. It's hard to get better when you charge headlong into the fray and die. It's also seemingly REALLY hard for some pilots to break off an attack when they aren't winning an exchange! If you're going to die before the person you are shooting, move.
  
  • a. Patience is also a decent virtue when shooting; taking an extra half second to actually AIM at damaged components is a skill that seems to elude most people.
• A good mouse, well calibrated. Most people have their mouse sensitivity far too high.
  
• Lots of games are won or lost in the mechlab. Running crap variants with crap loadouts is a sure way to earn yourself a seat in the sub 100 damage club.

I think one of the best tips though, is to find a mech you excel in, and keep excelling in it. Lots of my friends won't run in their favorite mechs because they're playing the giant killer robot version of Pokemon, and use their playtime simply to grind out mechs and variants. Madness!

[Gattsus]

I

Kiiyor, on 26 September 2014 - 02:16 AM, said:

IMHO, it's patience, the right tools, and the mechlab.

• Patience; the ability to hold back, protect yourself, and know when to engage and disengage. It's hard to get better when you charge headlong into the fray and die. It's also seemingly REALLY hard for some pilots to break off an attack when they aren't winning an exchange! If you're going to die before the person you are shooting, move.
  
  • a. Patience is also a decent virtue when shooting; taking an extra half second to actually AIM at damaged components is a skill that seems to elude most people.
• A good mouse, well calibrated. Most people have their mouse sensitivity far too high.
  
• Lots of games are won or lost in the mechlab. Running crap variants with crap loadouts is a sure way to earn yourself a seat in the sub 100 damage club.

I think one of the best tips though, is to find a mech you excel in, and keep excelling in it. Lots of my friends won't run in their favorite mechs because they're playing the giant killer robot version of Pokemon, and use their playtime simply to grind out mechs and variants. Madness!

I agree with you, patience is a virtue in MWO, inside the match and in the mechalb. For example, my k/d changes dramatically when I use loadouts that do not reflect my playstyle, i.e they are not used in the role for which they were originally intended.

Edited by Gattsus, 26 September 2014 - 02:21 AM.

[SirLANsalot]

A good pilot is someone who is accurate with ANY weapon, not just ballistics, but also able to get the full duration of a beam weapon onto the target (clan ERLL is a very high skill gun...maybe a tad too much skill needed now).

Someone who knows what there mech can and cannot fight, and knowing how to fight when against mechs/weapons that should beat it. Example, a Dire Wolf isn't the most nimble of mechs, but a good DW pilot, can easily hit any mech, even ones trying to out maneuver it. This is where another criteria hits, knowledge of the MAP, where to position yourself to minimize your weakness, while maxamising what you built you mech for.

Knowledge of the mechlabfu. The mechlab dojo masters, are ones able to build there mech to perfection. Able to come up with an array of builds, on demand, without the use of a mechlab.

[Gattsus]

SirLANsalot, on 26 September 2014 - 02:23 AM, said:

A good pilot is someone who is accurate with ANY weapon, not just ballistics, but also able to get the full duration of a beam weapon onto the target (clan ERLL is a very high skill gun...maybe a tad too much skill needed now).

Someone who knows what there mech can and cannot fight, and knowing how to fight when against mechs/weapons that should beat it. Example, a Dire Wolf isn't the most nimble of mechs, but a good DW pilot, can easily hit any mech, even ones trying to out maneuver it. This is where another criteria hits, knowledge of the MAP, where to position yourself to minimize your weakness, while maxamising what you built you mech for.

True

SirLANsalot, on 26 September 2014 - 02:23 AM, said:

Knowledge of the mechlabfu. The mechlab dojo masters, are ones able to build there mech to perfection. Able to come up with an array of builds, on demand, without the use of a mechlab.

I want a life though jajajaja

[Ph30nix]

Patience

[Soulscour]

Theres a lot of pilots with a ton of drops that don't even know how to play certain maps. Because of this I have no idea what makes an experienced pilot.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Excel in Zellbrigen

[MonkeyCheese]

Gattsus, on 26 September 2014 - 01:53 AM, said:

intuition (i.e. when to commit and when not)

It is this for me, knowing when to commit in a locust mech or an atlas and everything in between, same goes with ecm jamming, when to give away your position when sneaking/flanking with lrms or close range weapons, when is the best time to use that single uav and so on.

Gattsus, on 26 September 2014 - 01:53 AM, said:

Thus my second question is, which do you think is a good way to improve?

To improve you just need to keep playing, every map has different flows of battle for each of the different game modes. Observe the routes that are taken most often so that you will know if it is a good idea to go that direction or not from the other team, where to wait for a bottleneck surprise or a uav drop and more importantly where to flank and sneak up on the enemy.

Seismic helps a lot.

[Joseph Mallan]

Vassago Rain, on 26 September 2014 - 02:04 AM, said:

The ability to spell correctly.

Don't mind Vass... Polite behavior isn't one of his strong suits.

An experienced Pilot has played the game for a while, knows how to Modify a Mech, and knows his/her way around the game.

Damage done
Win/loss
KDR

Are not a measure of Experience. Those are a measure of competence. There is a vast difference between the two.

[keith]

most of the exp mech ppl have played online mech for alot longer then MWO has been around. add in FPS exp and awareness =skill.

[smokefield]

some very good answers here, but all of these answers are related only to individual skill of piloting a mech. I don't think that this is enough to call someone experienced. Over these skills an experienced pilot knows how to lead a lance/star, how to position them, how to move them related to enemy moves, knows how to read the battle and use everything at hand to win. even positioning with the sun in the back it is a skill that not many posses at the moment.

[Willard Phule]

Just the basic stuff that SHOULD have been in a tutorial:

- The ability to zoom back out once they've zoomed in (nothing says "noob" like someone trying to navigate the terrain while zoomed in and getting stuck on EVERYTHING).

- Knowing the heat of any given map so you don't have to "test fire" your weapons into the back of your teammates every single match.

- Being able to move and shoot at the same time...as opposed to standing still in the middle of an open field, zooming in and trying to be the best CoD sniper in the game, ever.

- Not building/using a mech that is going to overheat every single time you fire your weapons.

- Not begging your team to "lock targets" so you can spam LRMs....then blaming them when the other team has ECM and you got wiped before you did 100 damage.

[Redshift2k5]

It's not only "knowing" but knowing what to do about it and being able to pull it off consistently. Even when you lose you should still have been valuable to your team, although everyone makes mistakes sometimes.

[FORGE88]

skill is being able to play in sync with team mates to maintain a calm and confident state of mind.