179 replies to this topic

[riverslq]

Cion, on 05 November 2014 - 05:30 PM, said:

When direwhales complain about that on River City in the likes of "stupid team always leaves assaults behind (dead)" I kindly tell him that no one forces him to ride a Direwhale every game.

Yes, a 100 tonner is SLOW. that's your choice to trade speed and maneuverability for extreme firepower. Either work to handle the weakness of the mech you take or choose another mech.

An assault complaining (in certain occasions) that he was abandoned is about the same as a Light complaining that he doesn't have enough firepower and exclaiming "Why did the team not fire at the target I was firing at??!"

wow
epeen much?

its a problem with both spawn points in the game, and pug tactics.
direwhales as you call it (probably also use the term libtards too) are stuck at a certain speed by pgi.
can't be changed. if it was an atlas you were referring to maybe, it can be upgraded, but nope.
nope, nope.
nope nope
nope
nope

[Wintersdark]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 05 November 2014 - 05:35 PM, said:

I've watched them, they usually sit idle for a few seconds. Then alpha all of their weapon towards the nearest ally "to check heat". Then they write their name in the snow with lasers, before finally hitting the throttle, of course they usually head in the wrong direction for 30 seconds, before correcting, or just walking into a wall, while they lick the Cheetos dust off their fingers.

In this case, I almost garauntee this is what happened:

They clicked PLAY, then alt-tabbed. Then they noticed they were in a match, and either alt-tabbed back but had TAB keybound to Alpha Strike, or just clicked the game window and in the process fired all the weapons bound to that (likely left) mouse button. This is a very, very easy mistake to make. Not a justification for that, but it's very likely what's happened, if I may play Reasonable Guy for a minute here.

[Kain Demos]

If a fast light spawns near you it doesn't matter.

Maybe a half dozen times I've got that spawn in my DW only to have the entire team start the counter-clockwise racing immediately and as soon as my legs touched the water I got tagged by a light and LRM'd into submission wihtout ever even getting a clear shot on anyone.

[riverslq]

Wintersdark, on 05 November 2014 - 05:35 PM, said:

I play Direwolves regularly, and have since day one with the Clan release.

In that time, I have never once had that issue on River City. I've suffered from circle-race deaths, yes, but I've NEVER had an issue with being overrun by mediums. You don't need to turn and fight them, just twist enough to take hits on your arms, not your back while still moving at full speed to your team.

With that said, if you're in a group of 3 Direwolves, you can also elect to simply crush your opposition too; the choice of whether or not to do that depends on where the rest of their team is.

nice idea
everything works in theory
you are god.
i bow

[Stonefalcon]

Spawning in Alpha lance (Skirmish - Blue Side) on Alpine, it takes 5 minutes to walk over to the H10 hill where the fights generally take place.

Edit: And that's using speed tweak and no stopping.

Speaking of River City, if I run my whale and spawn on the far side, I just run behind the boat, especially when I am engaging skilled groups like Lords that flank that spawn within the first 30 seconds, a minute is not long enough to get away from them and the boat can be done within 30 seconds.

Edited by Stonefalcon, 05 November 2014 - 05:44 PM.

[H Seldon]

riverslq, on 05 November 2014 - 05:30 PM, said:

well, you're ******* wrong
i spawned with 2 other dwolves on river city
we started moving, and by the time we got to the dropship on top which is a few hundred feet from where we spawned, here comes 2 fast mediums. call for help, noone turns around, start walking backwards to not take hits to the back. first dwolf down, 3-4 more mechs join up, we're ******. noone helped.

so that's a nice idea and all, but when you have to maneuver through all that **** at the top of river city from spawn to even make it to the rest of the drop? you're ******.

48kph.
death by pug.

I play assaults exclusively, I have for the past 2.5 years (mostly playing DWFs now). That spawn point in river city is the worst. I'll watch to see what the rest of the team is doing and what targets they pick up. If I can make it, I'll move to join up. Otherwise I drop below in the tunnel and try to cause as much damage as I can before I die. Same thing with Crimson Strait, the tunnel was the quickest point to cover. I ended up getting 8 kills with over 1300 damage one match by staying tucked in there. Sometimes I'll get a light or medium pilot to back me up, those moments are really appreciated. Seems like Caustic is a really bad one for getting left behind. And once you are in the open you're screwed. And the DWF has a horrible torso twist so you have to turn to hit things perpendicular to you.

[The Strange]

Comes down to who is on your team as well. For instance, when I am running my Raven 3L, I almost always start the match by going to provide ECM for the fatties that didn't bring any themselves. I make sure NOT to leave the assaults behind, as they are an important factor in whether we will win or not.

[Xmith]

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.

It all depends on how aggressive the red team is when trying to run down the stragglers. There is not much you can do against a full rush in a DWF. The red team will catch up to you and put a hurting on you. You can only hope your team has enough sense and recognize the situation and act in the best interest of the entire team. Most of the time, a DWF is expendable when a full rush is on.

[Monkey Lover]

Here you go, right after you saw you post i played river city just to show you.

Under 1 minute i ran from one side the map to the other to get the dire. I attacked him until my team showed up and he died in under 1 30 seconds.
Without his team helping him he had no shot.

[Jman5]

Monkey Lover, on 05 November 2014 - 05:48 PM, said:

Here you go, right after you saw you post i played river city just to show you.

Under 1 minute i ran from one side the map to the other to get the dire. I attacked him until my team showed up and he died in under 1 30 seconds.
Without his team helping him he had no shot.

This is my point. 45 seconds after the match started and he hadn't even moved an inch from his spawn location. And then people like me get blamed for not rescuing him from his own incompetence.

[Cygone]

Lets get one thing straight here. There is only ONE slow assault in this game (DWF) EVERY other assault should be doing a minimum of 60kph.

If your Mech' (not trail) is doing less than this; you have built your Mech' WRONG. There are no exceptions to this rule and no build that is even remotely competitive moves at those speeds.

If you want to take a slower Assault Mech' then you are not playing to be competitive, you are not playing to win. You are not helping your team by using a competitive build YOU DO NOT DESERVE the help of others as you are not helping them or yourself.

If you disagree with this, then that is fine, you just aren't good at MWO.

Edit: Grammer.

Edited by Cygone, 05 November 2014 - 06:02 PM.

[aniviron]

Corollary: If you are in a slow mech and you think you're not going to be able to get to your teammates in time to avoid getting swarmed and killed early, tell your team to come help. 100% of the time whales complain about being left behind in games I'm in, they didn't tell me that they were piloting a mech that can't do 50, and they didn't ask for help. If you ask for help, I always come over and give it, because that's how games are won; and generally either the light or medium lance is more than happy to come assist their fatties, because it means good cover for them too. The rest of your team isn't psychic; as OP points out, some whales have no problem keeping up because they know how to move efficiently. If you don't, it's your job to ask for help.

If you can't move and you won't ask for help, stop complaining about getting left behind. You clearly know how to type because you're whining in chat, maybe put those typing skills to use before the game goes sour instead of after next time.

[process]

That red arrow is about the same distance from upper city to the spawn point. If a pack of aggresive lights spawn in upper, moving 2.5x as fast as your assault, you can't avoid them. Or mediums running 2x as fast, or heavies running 1.5x as fast.

Then come the LRMs.

You'd think it would be easy to have assaults spawn in the most protected point. PGI has already demonstrated that the spawns can be grouped by weight class.

That said, being AFK at the beginning of the round is the pilot's fault and no one else's.

Edited by process, 05 November 2014 - 06:04 PM.

[Monkey Lover]

Jman5, on 05 November 2014 - 06:01 PM, said:

This is my point. 45 seconds after the match started and he hadn't even moved an inch from his spawn location. And then people like me get blamed for not rescuing him from his own incompetence.

Did you see one person in his lance was still on top when i was firing on him?One was on the side of the ship, one was on the bridge and one was in the water. Even if he was in the water i would have got him. They would have never turned around to help him.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 05 November 2014 - 06:07 PM.

[Dauntless Blint]

The only thing's you can complain about is if the Assault pilot was asleep at the start or stopped to smell the roses,I consider not starting with your finger on the "W" key negligence for slow assault's especially,position is a force multiplier,
The best place for assault's is on mass in an ambush/hidden holding cover while the enemy crosses open ground straight at them,Or center of mass in a death ball.

And throwing out an"SOS D4" or what ever has quite often changed the course of a battle,If there's no reply the team is otherwise engaged/tunnel vision/lack of situational awareness/ignores chat.
It is annoying when opportunity is missed,If you reverse the chase the tail situation and hold a line the enemy funnel's in, in a neat line one by one to your consolidated force.
If people listened to suggestion more often,instead of arguing in their head about why or just too superior to listen,well it's gold when it happen's.

Edited by CorditeJunkie, 05 November 2014 - 06:21 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Dropping in a Dire Wolf without even unlocked Basics in River City I still got to D2 in the middle of the pack and when dropping in D2 was out of the death zone in time to avoid getting isolated and killed.

Playing a slow assault is a choice that makes that 100 ton mech a potential burden to the team. It's up to the Assault pilot to keep up with the team. Every other mech on the team is keeping up, gimping your entire teams tactics because you can't be arsed to be fast on the stick.

The moment the match is GO, you need to be moving and have the most direct route planned out in your head. Getting into position is exactly what balances the DWs massive firepower; in the same way that lights stay moving because their weakness is weak armor so their tactic needs to be not getting hit, slow assaults trade mobility for firepower and so their biggest challenge is making sure they're in position.

If you drop in a Dire Wolf on River City and you're dicking around or you take the bridge to B2 before going down to D2 or you take a meandering route or you stop to look up the 4-line to see if anyone is coming, you're going to die and die alone and the very fact that you dropped in that match means all you did was make your team start 100 tons down.

I love my Atlas. It's one of my best performing mechs and I do well in them. I'm never in the back. NEVER. Why? Because an assault pilot who hangs out in the rear is pretty much just praying the other team is all stupid every single match and is making a minimal contribution to their team.

I drop in a Dire still sometimes. I keep up. I'm not some piloting genius or have magic tricks. It's not hard - you just get into position with your team FIRST, then you shoot people. If you're out of position and still shooting you are a bad assault pilot and need to change how you play.

Saying that everyone else needs to chuck their mobility advantage, ignore isolated or lagging enemy targets, blow off targets of opportunity and just babysit you because you're in a slow assault and can't get into position on your own is selfish and a doomed tactic.

Oh, and in pugs aggressive play is what wins. Almost universally. You can't coordinate a defense in pugs - you can't respond quickly, the environment favors the attacker. If the attacker says 'Push D2, then left to D4' and everyone does it then that's it. That's all the communication they need. The defender needs to call out directions attacks are coming from, changes in position and the like. Play aggressive stick with your team and if you're in a slow mech it's your job to get yourself into position. It's always great for faster mechs, especially faster heavies, to help shepherd and cover their slowest teammates but to say that's their obligation is flat out wrong.

You are responsible for carrying your own tonnage in every pug match.

[LORD TSARKON]

Its been almost a year since the new Lance Spawn system was introduced...

This thread reminds me when I used to play a Dual Gauss Catapult that went 32 KPH.... (because I use Standard Engines because the hitboxes were and still are borked on that mech).... yes my teammates hated me LOL

But I was a noob and figured it out.... sometimes new players join in high Elo Games... it happens (not enough players in Match Maker)...

However.... Sometimes people.. including myself.... Have horrible START LAG and are still loading... normally this is not really an issue except for some maps and certain slow mechs...

This is one of the largest maps in the game (Tourmaline) and has the closest Lance Spawns of ANY CURRENT MAP.... Here is an old screenshot... If you lag on Startup in the game and everyone ditched you... you will die.... I"ve seen it happen

Edited by LORD TSARKON, 05 November 2014 - 06:25 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Monkey Lover, on 05 November 2014 - 06:06 PM, said:

Did you see one person in his lance was still on top when i was firing on him?One was on the side of the ship, one was on the bridge and one was in the water. Even if he was in the water i would have got him. They would have never turned around to help him.

Here's the thing - I can get a dire from spawn point to under the bridge by about 1 minute in and keep up with my team. Also, when playing a slow assault try to call positions to your team 'Meet under bridge then go to D2 in force?' that is likely to keep you in position with your team for when some wiggly light screams up to catch you. The guy you caught at 45 seconds in wasn't even in position with his own lance; he was dicking around in the back. He died because he didn't hustle.

[Malcolm Vordermark]

That Dire Wolf is behind schedule. However, just playing around in the training ground I was able to reach that firing position in 34 seconds with my Timber Wolf. When I did that run on my Dire Wolf using the most direct route I could I also reach the corner in about a minute but at 34 seconds I was out in the middle of the river, I hit the water at about 21 seconds.

Stormcrow gets there in about 29 seconds untweaked Ferret in about 24.

Unless your friends turn around to help you, you either get shot in the back or you turn around and take about 2 mins to reach the corner.

Not much of an issue for anything but a Dire Wolf but I'm starting to think you're better off to dig in and try to take as many with you as you can.

Changing skirmish spawns to the same as assault would probably help.

Also for comparison, the Warhawk had moved beyond the line of sight of those firing positions before the Stormcrow would reach them, and could fire at them until they were out of sight, it reached the corner in about 42 seconds.

Edited by Rouken, 05 November 2014 - 06:35 PM.

[Sigilum Sanctum]

I pilot assaults almost exclusively, Dire Wolves included. But I make a habit of trying to keep up with the team and make it to the front of the pack to do my damn job.

However, there have been several games where my team literally won't stop moving, everyone is rushing to get to the front to get behind the enemy, leaving me behind (relatively). Typically though, people notice and come to assist, during which a battle line is formed and we begin fighting.

Most of the time though, I'm in my Misery, taking charge and wrecking face. Just the other night my client crashed, I was able to reconnect, and trudge my way ALL THE WAY to the front of the battle and kill and maim 3 Centurions before we lost because everyone collapsed.

Assaults should try to keep up, but team mates shouldn't make a push without their damage fountains. My opinion at least.

Edited by Sigilum Sanctum, 05 November 2014 - 06:36 PM.