MadPanda, on 22 November 2014 - 06:09 PM, said:
If you read my suggestion, I said there would be small cover on the 'open field', kinda like the rocks on Caustic. They aren't big enough for the whole team to group up but big enough for one mech to take cover from LRM rain or ballistics. And comparing the map to river city assault is not correct. River city has the citadel which is the center point, and the water area is so small it can be really easily covered. My suggestion is a whole big map, if one team centers their efforts at the center, there is opportunity for enemy mechs to slip by near the sides. The map is not river city size, its a good big size map. The size will force people to spread out to defend the "line", and there would not be centralized fights and death balling would also be gone. My suggested map solves all problems mwo has with its maps, even if I say so myself its true.
You misunderstood my likening of your suggestion and RC:A.
I wasn't comparing the maps themselves, but how they play: teams hole up in their defensive area, as cover is better than in the open field. Makes River City: Assault horrific to play, and it's got a much smaller "no mans land" between cover.
Small bits of cover are insufficient. Pugs will do what's simplest, and that's to defend the reasonably fortified position rather than rush across the deathtrap.
Jman5, on 22 November 2014 - 06:11 PM, said:
There are three basic strategies a pug team can pull off that work better or worse depending on the map.
1. Long range stalemates,
2. Short range standoffs,
3. Mobile aggression (NASCAR)
Wintersdark lays out solid points, but it also comes down to practicality. It's difficult to get 11 other people to pull off an unconventional plan. The more straight forward and familiar the plan, the better your team will be able to organize around it. There are plenty of other ways to play, but it's best done with a premade that you can practice the strategy with.
If you wanted to try a 12-man flank through jenner's alley on frozen city skirmish, you could totally do it. But if you tried doing that with a pug group, you're likely to confuse people who are used to going another direction.
Exactly. PUG's settle on a single battle type not because the maps favor that (for example, taking the big hill on Alpine isn't necessarily the best strategy!) but as Jman says, because there's no communication, and a common simple strategy gets all the players moving in the same direction and doing the same thing. That leads to victory, and thus those players feel it was the strategy itself that won for them reinforcing that in future matches.
No matter what the map, it'll come down to that. One common strategy that pugs take by default. Not because they're bad, or too stupid to understand anything else, but because it's simpliest in a situation where there basically isn't any communication.
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