Posted 09 March 2015 - 05:28 PM
So, late® last night, I decided WTH, and joined an "attack" with what I think was an 8 man group in FRR, OLD. They were right nice gents, dropped one or two in game VOIP brief "commands" so me and the other 3 pugs knew where we were going, etc.
We dropped on sulfer map, against a 12 man CWI unit. TBR and crows everywhere with an occasional ECM Loki here and there. clan ERML, so many, I couldnt count. ANYWAY-
I dropped in a slightly modified deck I had from quite a while ago, one T-bolt, a firebrand, a Illya, and my ECM cicada I had removed something and it was invalid, but I had the 250 ton limit anyway so I hasitly grabbed my unmoduled HBK-g to fill in the space.
Things started out well. Got a couple VOIP orders about position and tactics from OLD, and as I am not a total n00b, wasnt to hard to fall in and fight with them. Early, we held our own, score was pretty much tied up, held them at the gate. We even trounced their first push, I scored 300+ dmg and a kill and multiple assist with my Firebrand, though I got beat up for it after the first "wave" from those clammers.
then, things got a bit interesting. We werent in the best shape, and the clammer team held at spawn(no, we did not pursue out to their spawn and camp, KUDOS to OLD for not being *******) Anyway, they came in force, and we held, but slowly crumbled. I did not make it too long in my exposed internals Firebrand, and nabbed my HBK with an AC20 because the fighitng was pretty close range at the gate at that point. unfortunatly, be it my fellow pugs or just bad timing on how people were being defeated and respawning, we sort of... were, i dunno, perpetually outnumbered for a bit. I did OK in my little HBK, scored some critical hits on enemy TBR, but not any kills, nor really big dmg before they ganged up on me as I tried with one other pilot to hold a side pass(we succeeded, but then got cut off from our team) and my little HBK was cored next to my team mate.
I dropped then in my Illya. by this time, CWI had pushed in a bit, and, unfortunatly(for my play experiance) my Illya got shot out of the sky as it dropped, and landed with orange RT internals and red CT armor. 3 seconds later it was dead. A couple other team mates recieved this same treatment before the enemy got thinned enough to be pushed back to the gate.
my team mustered up at the gate, but we were down by 9 mechs. I had my last PPC thud, and we held them for a while, and brought the score much closer. I was eventually focused and downed.
So, in the end results: I had overall a poor game. 1 kill in the end, but a decent amount of assist. poor dmg(IMO) especially for 4 mechs. However, I did not expect much from my HBK, as IMO it is not suited for how CW works, especially against 12 mans. my Illya got one shot of its pair of ERLl off before it was blown away, and i do not think the HSR even counted it.
My feelings: I waited 10 minutes for this match. 50% of the mechs I had brought to it(35% of my HBK and 65% of my tbolt, and my initial Firebrand) actually played out in a "fun" way.
CW does not promote any "real" movment, it is mostly one form or another of camp vs camp, especially when units are in field. Some units are very good all around gents, others are the "villains" the puggies like me refer to, where "do what it takes to win" also includes "use whatever gimick, exploit, ********** available to win" like spawn camping, and then trash talk with jokes a juvenile delinquent 14 year old would spout off. Flaws in the game mechanics as to how they pertain to battletech are magnified, like the clan laser meta, poptarting PPC/mega alpha combos, etc.
All in all, it was less than 50% fun for me, despite dropping with a suitably decent unit. Getting shot out of the sky in a 70 ton mech without being able to respond left a sour taste in my mouth for sure. IMO, something as basic and old a spawn camping in a FPS game, I mean, c'mon man, 1998 called PGI, they want you to put something in the game to prevent this. The rest?
Well, it is the age old issue in MWO, an organized unit of 12 players on their own coms, that have practiced together, know each other weaknesses, and have a solid standing on their own tactics ands movments is going to beat an enemy that is not made up of the same. OLD was a solid unit from what I saw, IMO I added what I could, minus my spawn camped death, certainly I didnt create a situation that lead to a roflstomp by being there. I would do it again, EXCEPT i can not tolerate the spawn camping, and a ten minute wait time was simply too long. Wait time= player counts, plain and simple. More players in CW would bring that right down. The other issues, thats on PGI, surely they can not have forgotten the lessons from splitting group and solo sections of the game.
IMO, gating CW to favor 12 man units, well, it is going to fail. There arent enough 12 man units to fight each other. If there was, none of this PUG vs 12 man talk would even exist, as match maker wouldnt be pairing them up just to create a match. IMO, that reeks of a severe minority in the player base. Maybe I am wrong, only PGI would know. But feeding the epeen of a minority is not a sound buisness model either way, and something is going to give whether they like it or not.
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aGentleWarrior, on 06 March 2015 - 06:19 AM, said:
