179 replies to this topic

[Ultimax]

Gut, on 09 June 2015 - 07:44 AM, said:

Only read the first page of comments, but didn't see the real reason to wait for your assault: if the enemy lights get a good spawn and your dire gets the crappy spawn, they will literally not have time to get to the rest of the team before being assaulted. And in 1v1 scenario like this, a good light player can easily take down a dire who doesn't have anyone there with him.

This is my experience as well, and in the timed trials I did with a Jenner moving from B2 to D2 and also from B5 to D3.


The light doesn't even need to engage personally, you can light up the target for LRMs.

[Ted Wayz]

People are expressing a level of intelligence and/or coordination that does not exist in the pug queue. The irony of it is that sometimes out of ugly chaos comes beauty. Because most of the time the other team is just as incompetent, so anything can happen.

Saw a match where the lights and the mediums rushed the saddle and while the assaults lumbered along unescorted through the train tunnel. They ended up corn-holing the enemy, who were too timid to go over the top. Once the enemy turned the lights and mediums came over and finished the job. Never should have worked but I have dozens of similar stories.

[PhoenixFire55]

Roadkill, on 09 June 2015 - 01:25 PM, said:

What you're implying is that a PUG that doesn't communicate can somehow manage to come to the same conclusion all at once - that abandoning their Assaults is a good idea - while simultaneously the Assaults can't see this perfectly obvious conclusion.

Yes and no. One decent player can have a great idea of where to go and what to do. A bunch of PUGs will see him going something and think 'hey, this guy probably knows what hes doing, lets go follow him'. They might actually help him out there or they might actually be a hinderance, but all it takes is one guy going somewhere. Same way, if one guy decides to go back and help the assaults it might actually make everyone do the same. Thus the term 'herding'.

Roadkill, on 09 June 2015 - 01:25 PM, said:

Possible? Sure. Likely? Not at all.

Everything we are discussing greatly depends on your own skill level. On average, when you yourself become better, your PUGs also become better. When I'm nascaring on Caustic I always keep an eye on the caldera unless it is controled by opposing team and will always provide cover for teammates crossing it for as long as I am able to.

Roadkill, on 09 June 2015 - 01:25 PM, said:

What makes it even worse is that the Assaults aren't going to all be together when they get run down from behind. Unless you happen to have 3 Dire Wolves in your Assault lance, some of the Assaults are going to be moving 70+ while the Dire Wolf lags behind at 53 so they're going to get eaten one at a time. Which means that even the Assaults aren't paying attention.

When nobody is paying attention is it such a surprise that team does stupid stuff and loses? Do you know how many people actually look at the minimap at all, let alone able to make any sensible maneuver depending on what they see there?

[Joseph Mallan]

Jman5, on 05 November 2014 - 04:57 PM, said:

People who play with me, know I have very little patience for players who get "left behind" as the team pushes aggressively. Despite what many people say over and over, 9 times out of 10 players are not left behind. They stay behind either by stopping in their tracks while the rest of the team moves, or by taking round-about paths that make keeping up impossible.

You see this sort of blame-game coming from a lot of assaults particularly direwolves who would like you to believe that they are physically incapable of keeping up with a standard slow-push. I get told I simply don't get it since I play a hunchback, so let's load up the trial dire-wolf and look at a common situation of assault-angst: The River City Skirmish spawn by the Boat.



Spawning there let's see how long it takes to get to the citadel bend at d4 in a direwolf without speedtweak.



About 1 minute +/- 10 seconds in the slowest mech without speed tweak.

Let's look at where you typically see players that spawn by the boat at the 1 minute mark. This is a real world game where our banshee buddy is taking his first shot at the direwolf.



Wow, he's only gone about half the distance we did in our test and he probably has speed tweak too.

As you can see there can be a huge difference in distance covered by just moving a little more efficiently. Also never forget that you are an assault pilot weilding a ridiculous amount of firepower. Sure, I may be able to get a few shots on you, but you've got a 60 damage alpha to answer back as you move. Too often people seem to either stop and shoot, or just straight up die without firing a shot.

So next time you load up your big-bad-direwolf and you find yourself in a tricky spawn, don't just give up and say it's impossible. Think about how you can get to where you need to be faster.

And stop blaming your team for leaving you behind.

We keep covering this J. Dire Wolf, top speed with perks 53 KpH. If it is left behind it is not always the Dire's fault. In fact look to your mirror for teh most common reason for the Assaults being to far away to be useful.

My Atlas rarely, if ever, comes off full throttle. Now what more can I do to "Stay with the pack" J? If you cannot show some discipline and stay with the slow units or at the least stay within our guns, who's fault is it that you don't have cover from the big guns?

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 10 June 2015 - 01:19 AM.

[Bleary]

Unless you're in a fast light on a flanking run, you're going to end up standing around anyway. You don't really want to push until everyone gets there. You don't gain anything by rushing to arrive as fast as you can and then waiting while the rest of your strung out team catches up and bunches together again.

And let's not pretend that only slow assaults get left behind. PuG players abandon teammates all the time, in 'Mechs of all sizes, at all points in a match. It's all functionally the same. The fact that it happens right in the beginning and occurs so frequently is the only reason this particular example stands out.

[Wintersdark]

Joseph Mallan, on 10 June 2015 - 01:19 AM, said:

We keep covering this J. Dire Wolf, top speed with perks 53 KpH. If it is left behind it is not always the Dire's fault. In fact look to your mirror for teh most common reason for the Assaults being to far away to be useful.

My Atlas rarely, if ever, comes off full throttle. Now what more can I do to "Stay with the pack" J? If you cannot show some discipline and stay with the slow units or at the least stay within our guns, who's fault is it that you don't have cover from the big guns?

Even in my Dire Wolf, I'm nearly never left behind. At 53.6kph, I'm able to keep up with the team... In a manner of speaking

I always move efficiently and immediately at match start because of this fear, and as such am often initially in the front of the pack.

However, there are two key points if people are playing extended NASCAR matches:

First, eventually I am going to fall behind. That's simple physics.

Second, and more importantly, I'm not shooting at anything. I have to just push forward, but lines of fire are blocked and I'm simply going to be far enough back that I can't get a good shot. My team has just completely negated my 100t of firepower (and any other slower assaults) so we may as well not even be there.

[Melon Lord]

First off I agree that Assaults complain waaay to much about this sort of thing. You picked the slowest mech knowing you were at a speed disadvantage, when it comes to bite you in the butt don't complain.

That said, first thing I do on certain maps (i.e. River City) when in my SDR-5D is check where the fatties are. They spawned near a place like E1 where they can have LRM rained on them before they get to the group, and I'm running down to give them ECM cover while they waddle their way to us. Then I walk backwards beside them and poke at the lights that poke them in the back. Ok, scratch that, I use them as meatshields as I poke the enemy lights while walking backwards with them to the group. It's the least they can do for the help, right? It bothers me to no end when lights with ECM don't do the same in similar circumstances at the beginning of a match.

Edited by Melon Lord, 10 June 2015 - 12:55 PM.

[Dimento Graven]

Melon Lord, on 10 June 2015 - 12:54 PM, said:

First off I agree that Assaults complain waaay to much about this sort of thing. You picked the slowest mech knowing you were at a speed disadvantage, when it comes to bite you in the butt don't complain.

Only you lights and mediums bitched for years and years and years you were too easy to kill, KNOWING FULL WELL you were at an armor and firepower disadvantage, and what the **** happened? PGI quirked and massaged the game enough that now you little ******* can take multiple full alpha strikes and run off laughing.

So let the big guys ***** until they get their speed tweaked to a 'survivable' state...

Quote

That said, first thing I do on certain maps (i.e. River City) when in my SDR-5D is check where the fatties are. They spawned near a place like E1 where they can have LRM rained on them before they get to the group, and I'm running down to give them ECM cover while they waddle their way to us. Then I walk backwards beside them and poke at the lights that poke them in the back. Ok, scratch that, I use them as meatshields as I poke the enemy lights while walking backwards with them to the group. It's the least they can do for the help, right? It bothers me to no end when lights with ECM don't do the same in similar circumstances at the beginning of a match.

And now you come to the real meat of this issue, it's a team game, but when all the non-slow-ass assault 'mechs just abandon the assaults in an apparent, "**** 'em they were stupid enough to pick an assault 'mech in the first place, let 'em die!" type attitude, after the 300th time it happens it starts to get to you...

After all, SOMEONE HAS to select assaults, the damn MM is trying to maintain as close to 3/3/3/3 as possible, and if no one is playing the biggest "3" in that combo, your time to find matches will always be at least 5 minutes, until MM says, "**** 3/3/3/3" and throws anyone it can find into the match, so you should be a bit more thoughtful of those sacrificing speed to allow you to find matches in a reasonable amount of time, by suffering through piloting a slow ass assault.

You should say, "Thank you Mr. Assault pilot, I won't abandon you to a fate of having your ******* eaten by fast moving lights and mediums," and enjoy the privilege of doing so.

And yeah, am sorta serious about that (not 100% cause I find what I said humorous enough to not be taken TOO seriously).

[Roadkill]

PhoenixFire55, on 10 June 2015 - 12:23 AM, said:

Everything we are discussing greatly depends on your own skill level.

I'm speaking generally. At my skill level, NASCAR is rare because it is usually a bad idea, and everyone knows it. Not always, but usually. Occasionally the stars will all align and it will actually be obvious to everyone - Assaults included - that NASCAR is the right option. When that happens, the Assaults know what's coming and know what to do to benefit the team.

But to address your point, if you are monitoring the caldera, what makes you think everyone else isn't also? In which case your Assaults that are being forced to cross the caldera in order to try to keep up with your NASCARing team are sitting ducks.

You can try to support them all you want, but they are the ones out in the open exposed to every enemy that pokes their head up.

We're not talking about late in the game when there's a firefight going on, possibly in multiple places. Strategically crossing the caldera under those circumstances is much safer. We're talking early in the game when the team has NASCAR'd off and abandoned the Assaults which are about to get overrun. There's no other fight going on to distract anyone, and the enemy is likely already in contact with your Assaults or it wouldn't seem necessary to them to try to cross the caldera in the first place.

We're also not talking about some idiot who spun in circles for 60 seconds before he started moving, just like we're not talking about some idiot in a Firestarter who charges into the middle of the Assaults and stops to shoot one of them in the back.

We're talking about reasonable people playing the game in a reasonable manner and getting left behind because their teammates don't care/aren't paying attention. It happens all the time, and there's nothing the Assault drivers can do about it. The more mobile Mechs are at fault when this happens.

[Suko]

Did you try clocking the time with 4-6 team mates all blocking your path being AFK until 20 seconds into the start of the match? This seems like a more real-world number to base your times off of.

[Gladewolf]

.....Several spawn points on this HORRIBLE map are almost fully visible to the enemy from the very start of the match. You are suggesting that leaving an assault exposed and mostly alone for even 1.5 minutes to long range fire with no response or attempt to seek cover is a good idea. My usual worst case time to target is less than 20 seconds. Someone else suggested "torso twisting" would stop me from maiming their assault mech..... I'll just thank all the NASCAR fans for the free kills and move on.

[PhoenixFire55]

Roadkill, on 10 June 2015 - 01:24 PM, said:

But to address your point, if you are monitoring the caldera, what makes you think everyone else isn't also? In which case your Assaults that are being forced to cross the caldera in order to try to keep up with your NASCARing team are sitting ducks.

It usually easy really easy to tell. When an enemy mech peeks above the ridge on the other side, the amount of mechs shooting at it will be the amount of players monitoring the caldera. If he gets shot by 3-4 mechs when he'll think twice before harassing the assaults crossing through the middle. It is the most basic concept of covering fire when your mates are required to pass through an exposed area.

Roadkill, on 10 June 2015 - 01:24 PM, said:

You can try to support them all you want, but they are the ones out in the open exposed to every enemy that pokes their head up.

And also the ones with most guns and most armor, i.e. most suited to dish out and recieve damage.

Roadkill, on 10 June 2015 - 01:24 PM, said:

We're not talking about late in the game when there's a firefight going on, possibly in multiple places. Strategically crossing the caldera under those circumstances is much safer. We're talking early in the game when the team has NASCAR'd off and abandoned the Assaults which are about to get overrun. There's no other fight going on to distract anyone, and the enemy is likely already in contact with your Assaults or it wouldn't seem necessary to them to try to cross the caldera in the first place.

One funny thing ... when I spawn in a Dire in the farthest lance I always cross the caldera right away instead of trying to run away from the enemy team. 9 times out of 10 I reach the opposite side of it perfectly safe and sound. Because I know that the enemy team is going to nascar and I know they'll be looking to catch our assaults but in an entirely different place from where I am ... This tactic is predictable, meaning you can easily counter it.

Roadkill, on 10 June 2015 - 01:24 PM, said:

We're also not talking about some idiot who spun in circles for 60 seconds before he started moving, just like we're not talking about some idiot in a Firestarter who charges into the middle of the Assaults and stops to shoot one of them in the back.

Yeah well, bout 80% of times when assault pilot complains about being left behind he started moving about 25-30 seconds into the match so ...

Roadkill, on 10 June 2015 - 01:24 PM, said:

We're talking about reasonable people playing the game in a reasonable manner and getting left behind because their teammates don't care/aren't paying attention. It happens all the time, and there's nothing the Assault drivers can do about it. The more mobile Mechs are at fault when this happens.

It is a nature of any PUG. But ... there are millions of things an assault pilot can do. Running away from the enemy when it becomes impossible and thus not doing any damage and getting killed through the rear armor is entirely assaults fault.

[Nine-Ball]

Assaults can't nascar, who knew?

The problem is not the "******" (there are no ****** spawns in a map that small) spawns assaults get, the problem is nobody knows how to effectively push up the left-side of River City anymore.

Infact, that map seems to make people forget about general tactics and throw all that **** outta the window in favor of nascaring. Always counter-clockwise. Always. Even if your other heavies and assaults are engaged with the enemy team at the rear, most people are OK with continuing to "flank" or grab cap points. Even if your team holds the D5 area from which they can poptart out and rain LRMs, knowing the enemy team is going to advance around the water.. people still want to try and flank them through the river in the middle? Wtf?

Whats worse then getting a spawn in D2? Getting spawned as an assault at the airport. Nobody ever seems to want to rush from B4 to D4, so assaults will always get left behind and pot-shotted as they are crossing the river, or swarmed if they are too slow. I had that happen one time, so I said screw it and bunkered down in the underpass area with 2 other assaults. The 4th one got picked apart by the wolves above, but we eventually distracted the enemy long enough for the rest of our nascar team to finish their lap and and blindside the enemy who was probably mad at our camping skills.

Anyways, I'm a pure Assault pilot (love my BLR-3M) and sorry (#notsorry), but the main reason assaults get wrecked on that map is because they have zero support. Think about it, even with a good engine an average Assault tops out around 70k/h. It just does not have the acceleration or speed of lights or mediums to take advantage of the numerous buildings that provide cover and essentially render an Assaults firepower null and void. The first team that wins at nascaring (having their lights and other fast mechs make contact with the enemy assault lance) wins more then half the time, probably upwards of 3 quarters of the time depending on spawn and gamemode. Why? Because the majority of light pilots (and other fast mechs) in PUGS seem to think they are being smart by continuing to nascar after their assaults/heavies have been engaged. They are essentially taking themselves out of the match for upwards of a minute to merely take the scenic route to the fight, hoping that their one single sneak attack would do anything meaningful. By the time they are finished taking their detour more often the not 50% of their team is dead and they have to still face down 2 full lances at best.

Edited by Cryll Ankiseth, 11 June 2015 - 01:24 AM.

[Jman5]

The most important point that gets lost in these discussions is that running back to your assaults is not a free move. When you run back to escort a potentially slow assault, you are completely giving up any early game offense. If your assaults got from starting spawn to cover efficiently and were not killed, you just sacrificed your team's early game offense for nothing. They would have gotten from Point A to Point B with or without your standing over them. The best case scenario now is that you're back to square 1.

The way I see it is this. The vast majority of the time when my assaults that spawn in vulnerable points, they can manage on their own just fine. Either the enemy doesn't rush them, or they use their superior firepower to fend them off while they move to cover. On top of that, the vast majority of the time if I hustle and go on the attack, I can give my team some early game lead either by wounding an enemy or killing one. So in the long run, I gain more from attacking the enemy in the early game, than defending my assault lance.

That said, if you're the kind of player who just goes with the flow and you have no early game plan, by all means glue yourself to an assault. It's better than doing nothing.

[Deathlike]

Jman5, on 06 June 2015 - 01:08 PM, said:

I have been playing an assault lately and I can't tell you how frustrated I get when I see my light/medium lance run backward to "escort me". Instead of scouting ahead, or attacking the enemy, they sit there staring at me as any initial advantage they could have created with their speed/spawn position slips away. What makes it worse, is that most of the time these lights and mediums have short range weapons. Even if we got attacked the enemy is almost always doing it from outside their range.

I want my teammates out there doing stuff. Not standing around hoping for someone to carry him.

I think that has more to do with understanding what it means to be a Light and Medium...

The natural course of action is to "support" an Assault in an escorting fashion, but I think not enough players (the average ones anyways) are adept at trying to help out by scouting properly the angles in which a DW has to cross through in order to properly "watch his flank/back".

It's not something a tutorial that PGI would have to cover (yay, less work amirite?) but it's not just inherently obvious unless it is explained or used properly against players.

So, it's ultimately not as simple as it sounds, but I don't think the PUG queue allows for proper development of such concepts.

[Moldur]

It's pretty frustrating how often I am the fastest mech on the team, even if that means I'm in an Atlas going 51kph.

[Wintersdark]

Deathlike, on 11 June 2015 - 12:46 PM, said:

I think that has more to do with understanding what it means to be a Light and Medium...

The natural course of action is to "support" an Assault in an escorting fashion, but I think not enough players (the average ones anyways) are adept at trying to help out by scouting properly the angles in which a DW has to cross through in order to properly "watch his flank/back".

It's not something a tutorial that PGI would have to cover (yay, less work amirite?) but it's not just inherently obvious unless it is explained or used properly against players.

So, it's ultimately not as simple as it sounds, but I don't think the PUG queue allows for proper development of such concepts.

Emphasis mine. Yeah, all too often I see well-meaning mediums escort slow assaults, but do so by running alongside them or even in front of them. I appreciate the effort, but that doesn't really help. You don't even need proximity to the Assaults to help cover their advance, just positioning so that you can:

A - Spot the hostile moving to take a shot, before he can take the shot
and
B - Fire at him, push him back into cover.

Doing this effectively means often being nowhere near the Assault in question, and being able to reposition quickly and often as to not get overrun yourself by getting campy. All the escort really needs to do is slightly delay that rush - a pack of lights, for example, are going to be much more hesitant to rush an assault lance when there's people firing at them before they can even get a shot off.

The escort's advantage is they know precisely where the hunters will come from, where they need to be.

But yeah, this is NOT a simple task, and it requires a good knowledge of the maps and how they play out.

[Roadkill]

PhoenixFire55, on 11 June 2015 - 12:31 AM, said:

It usually easy really easy to tell. When an enemy mech peeks above the ridge on the other side, the amount of mechs shooting at it will be the amount of players monitoring the caldera. If he gets shot by 3-4 mechs when he'll think twice before harassing the assaults crossing through the middle. It is the most basic concept of covering fire when your mates are required to pass through an exposed area.

You're once again assuming that your team is more coordinated than the enemy team. If you have 3-4 Mechs responding to every enemy that pokes their head up, then that means there are 3-4 enemies poking. And they're targeting slow-moving easy-to-hit Assaults that are in the open, while you and your buddies who are providing cover fire are having to play Whack-A-Mole as random enemies pop up.

The only way you win that is if your team is paying attention and coordinated, and that's not the case if you've abandoned your Assaults which are now making the desperation move of crossing the caldera to catch up to the team.

Everything you're saying makes perfect sense, but none of it applies to the situation we're talking about.

Quote

One funny thing ... when I spawn in a Dire in the farthest lance I always cross the caldera right away instead of trying to run away from the enemy team. 9 times out of 10 I reach the opposite side of it perfectly safe and sound. Because I know that the enemy team is going to nascar and I know they'll be looking to catch our assaults but in an entirely different place from where I am ... This tactic is predictable, meaning you can easily counter it.

Must be a difference in our Elo levels, and by that I'm not implying which one of us is better because I have no idea. But in my Elo bracket if you tried that you'd be dead before you made it halfway across.

Then again, in my Elo bracket you'd have no reason to try that because full-on NASCAR is pretty rare.

/shrug

Quote

Yeah well, bout 80% of times when assault pilot complains about being left behind he started moving about 25-30 seconds into the match so ...

Not my experience. At my level most Mechs are moving within 10 seconds... the few that occasionally aren't are the people who won't alt-tab back from browsing the forums (or whatever other crap they're doing) until a good minute or more into the match. If they come back at all.

Quote

It is a nature of any PUG. But ... there are millions of things an assault pilot can do. Running away from the enemy when it becomes impossible and thus not doing any damage and getting killed through the rear armor is entirely assaults fault.

Sure, once abandoned by his team the Assault's actions are his own.

But he never should have been abandoned in the first place.

Jman5, on 11 June 2015 - 12:21 PM, said:

The most important point that gets lost in these discussions is that running back to your assaults is not a free move.

Absolutely, 100% agree.

But that begs the question - why is "away" from the Assaults the offensive direction? Why shouldn't the location of the Assaults determine which way the team should attack?

For best results, the Assaults should move toward the closest enemy regardless of where they spawn. The rest of the team - the faster and more maneuverable elements - should either move toward the Assaults directly or toward the same area that the Assaults are moving toward.

If your team's Assaults spawn in B4 on River City, the entire team should move toward B4 and attack down into B3. Given relative speeds, that means your entire team should arrive at roughly the same time giving you 12 fully functional 'Mechs attacking the same area. Now THAT is a Death Ball, and the enemy Assaults will still be crossing the water when the attack happens.

But no... it's always gotta be NASCAR. Pedal-to-the-metal and turn left, baby!

I was in a game with you the other day on Caustic and you started chastising people for coming to support the Assaults because your lance spawned on the far left. (We were the old refinery side, not the water side. You were in your missile Warhawk and I was leveling my Hunchback 4J.) But we weren't actually coming to support you, we were attacking clockwise instead of counter-clockwise so that you could be part of the attack. The lead elements of the enemy pushed right up to the ridge and got blasted to pieces. A fierce fight broke out, but we ultimately pushed over the ridge and rolled the enemy.

We attacked as one (more or less) while they were NASCARing and came in piecemeal. By the time their Assaults arrived the battle was over even though there was still 3-4 minutes of fighting left.

[1453 R]

The thing that always gets me when I see assault pilots kvetch and moan about being left behind all the time is that what they’re basically asking for is close escort – that 40m away tight formation wingman business that makes them feel all cozy and protected, and which means they have a sacrificial lamb to throw at the lights when they come sniffing.

My problem with this is that a Dire Whale moving at 53kph has been compensated for moving at 53kph by having stupidiculous levels of firepower and hundred-tonner armor. My Stormcrow cutting down to half-throttle to provide close escort on someone kvetching that he’s being left behind?

I’m moving 53kph, and I’m not at all being compensated for that speed. You’re asking me to move like an assault ‘Mech without benefit of assault ‘Mech firepower or armor, and to thusly give up one of the principle advantages of my lighter, faster machine.

Now, I fully support the idea of assault overwatch, i.e. hanging within a few hundred meters of the assault ‘Mechs and keeping an eye on their butts, discouraging any attacks I see coming their way, but close escort is something you get only when it makes sense. Which is a lot less often than you think, man. Especially when there’s only a handful of maps in the game where you’re at significant risk of being harmfully ditched as it is. River City, Alpine, sometimes Caustic…I believe that’s about it for maps in which being ditched is a real and recurring possibility. Everywhere else? If you end up ditched, I’m going to assume it’s your fault more than mine.

Edited by 1453 R, 11 June 2015 - 01:46 PM.

[GRiPSViGiL]

Since most games devolve to Nascar there is no other option than being swarmed by the front end of the enemy train if your team decides to leave you behind. Even when if you go backwards to put damage on targets once there are multiple enemies shooting you uncontested what is your solution to that? I usually can do between 200-300 damage in that time and maybe score a kill but you are just dead meat thanks to your team chasing the tail end of the enemies.

Smart players will take the fastest possible path but you need cover fire and support when you only do 54kph.