2 replies to this topic

[NovaFury]

Recently I've been noticing both among my own team and those of my enemies, that a great many people don't really understand 'flanking' and how to do it properly. This doesn't really come as much of a suprise, as MWO's audience seems to be primarially made up of fans of the single player Mechwarrior games and those of First Person Shooters, many of which have vehicles. It's a pretty powerful tactic when it happens (Sometimes accidentally) and is probably the case of several stompy matches between what were initially even teams.

Generally I've observed instances on Terra Therma where the team not controlling the center backs off and moves to another entrance en-masse, or when a lone light mech encounters a lone assault mech with its back turned and attempts to engage it and exploit its delicious thinner rear armor. Neither of these maneuvers is flanking, because in both instances the enemy is engaged from a single direction, albeit not the direction they were expecting.

The previous instances are examples of an ambush, and it works very well for the first shot, but after that the game is up, and the enemy can simply turn and all of that time spent circling around six different grids to get at them from an odd angle goes up in smoke. It works in FPS games, because characters usually die to bullets and don't possess the same durability battlemechs do. Mechs in general have gotten faster and more agile over time, what with the introduction of the clans and the general arms race with engine size amongst IS Mechs. A mastered Atlas with a decent pilot won't have any trouble keeping a light mech in his sights once he figures out where it came from.

So, flanking. It's more than that paltry Cbill bonus you get for accidently dragging a laser over someone's rear armor.

A flanking maneuver involves two or more units* simultaneously engaging an enemy unit* from different, mutually exclusive directions, forcing the enemy to divide their attention and present a vulnerability to one side or the other.

*A unit can consist of multiple mechs occupying roughly the same space, or a single mech. Size doesn't matter... much anyway.

Sounds basic, right? It's not. It requires a rare sort of coordination I don't often see.

Let's take an indepth look.

1.) Two or more units, simultaneously

This is the kicker. You can't be a deathball if you're flanking, and you need to engage at the same time. Get the timing wrong or don't commit to the maneuver at the critical moment and one or the other side will die to the full firepower of the enemy before you (or they) arrive.

2.) Divide their attention

The result of course, forces the enemy to engage one or the other unit, but not both (At least not at full strength in the case of a large 'unit') at the same time. Deathballs, much like the early pike-and-shot formations of the 17th Century, can't come to bring all of their firepower to one direction very quickly because some of the guns are blocked by other units in the ball, or line, or whatever. It can easily become more of a 'death banana' on maps with circular points of interest (Caustic comes to mind) where a particular direction is favored over another for outgoing fire.

By the same token, assault mechs (Usually) can't twist fast enough to engage two different targets who might be playing peekaboo with rocks or something. Failing that, they can't engage both and still twist defensively at the same time. We all know assault mechs love their defensive twisting and do it as often as possible or quickly become former assault mechs.

3.) Present a vulnerability

So naturally, the target is forced to either pick something to commit to, or act confused while attempting to do both and fail miserably. They could also rout, but that's favorable too because it means exposing that delicious rear armor. Whatever happens, the ball is in the flanker's court and they need to exploit it.

Say the enemy does lock hard on your Alpha lance, and Bravo lance has a great clear shot at their lines, completely unmolested. The burden is on Bravo to commit hard, or else Alpha is probably going to die, or at least take unfavorable amounts of damage seeing as they're the ones causing the distraction and thus taking all the fire. PUGs don't like commitment much, so this is also a common point where maneuvers that were excellently executed by accident suddenly fall apart. Don't commit enough and it's like you never arrived in the first place.

So, there's the main bullet points, yet there's not a lot you can do to set these situations up without knowing your allies and being able to rapidly communicate with them. Still, knowing what flanking entails and what it does can allow you to notice when these events are occurring, so you can properly react, either as the aggressor or defender.

Edited by NovaFury, 07 December 2014 - 05:07 AM.

[Katotonic]

A nice write up and I absolutely agree on the premise of educating people on tactics. I would point out one way in which flanking can (and does) occur quite naturally in MWO even without communication. It is when people start looking for the flanks once two death balls (or groups) collide and two "lines" form. Once this happens a lot of players, especially those pilots who are in lighter mechs, although sometimes heavies or assaults as well, start moving towards the edges of the lines as they realize they don't have the armor or staying power to stay in a shooting line. These players create a flanking movement by searching for a way to hit without necessarily being hit back, they in essence, create a 2nd unit once the first has the enemy attention.

Sometimes both teams have players doing the same thing in the same direction, in which case no flanking occurs and the line just elongates. Sometimes teams have players doing this in opposite directions and this is when you end up in what seems like rotating circle fights as both teams hit the other's flank and start rolling it up and it becomes a race to see who can eat the other team first.

In any case, I would agree that many times (especially in singles que) there is a lack of communication to properly pull this off. But many player actually do this or take part in this instinctively and maybe just do not realize what they are doing. But if done properly, intentionally or not, flanking can be absolutely devastating in both real life and MWO.

Edited by Katotonic, 07 December 2014 - 05:42 AM.

[SnagaDance]

Katotonic, on 07 December 2014 - 05:40 AM, said:

In any case, I would agree that many times (especially in singles que) there is a lack of communication to properly pull this off.

I'd just like to add that the lack of communication also means that flanking is also more difficult to defend against as players are focussed on the enemy in front of them and don't notice other players on the mini map turning around to defend themselves against this attack from an unexpected direction. Those attacked also don't ahve the time to type a warning, which may very well be ignored as these often slip by an already engaged player. One sneaky tip: splashing one of your lasers quickly across your team mates their backs is actually one of the most efficient warnings in this situation, they'll probably turn around and notice the enemy behind them (of course it was the enemy that shot that laser).