49 replies to this topic

[Runenstahl]

I think it's a bit crazy that people on the losing side blame a lot of things for the way the game went. PGI, matchmaker and (of course) the own team !

In reality however it boils down to 2 factors:
- The enemy (but remember it's their job to make you lose)
- Yourself

Let me explain with examples:
Dude #1 "Do XY"
The team does something completely different
Dude #1 "Do XY you idiots !"
The team does not and dies
Dude #1 "You (censored) of (censored) (censored)."

Who's to blame ? The team ? Because they didn't follow the orders of a guy they never met before ? And to be honest, if the match ends with someone screaming curse-words at you... would follow this guys orders in the future ?

If you have a plan that might work, then by all means go ahead and share it with your team. But be realistic and do assume that some of those people are newbies (not their fault) and might need better explanations. Others might be people that have their own ideas about what to do and wont follow your plan in any case.

A wise leader will take these things into account. He (or she) should also be aware that it's VERY important how you come across to your teammates. Swearing usually does NOT help to give you the image of a professional and competent leader. Also note that many people don't like to be ordered around.

I have found that it often helps a great deal to pose your orders as questions instead. So next time try "Shall we do XY ?" instead of "Do XY you (censored) (censored) !".

And keep an eye on your map. It would be cool if people who disagree and will NOT follow a plan share this info with the team... but if you assume automatically that everyone here is professional enough to do that it's actually YOUR fault for making false assumptions.

If you propose "Shall we do XY ?" and you head of that way and find that only one guy is following that plan you will have to reconsider instead of following through and then blaming the team.

But some players play very badly !
True. I did too when I started and (honestly) I still often do when impatience gets the better of me. But don't blame others if they don't perform well. If you know how they can get better, then try to help them ! (Again it really helps if you do this in a professional way instead cursing them for being noobs).

Player XY was AFK or disconnected !
If that happens repeatedly, then yes, thats bad style and can be reported. Keep in mind however that this pesky thing called "real life" can get us all. You can get a phone call, your door rings or your pet hurts itself just when you where starting a game. It's only a game and there are more important things in life. Get over it.

The matchmaker is broken !
Fact is: Assuming that the matchmaker works perfectly it should be a 50 % chance to win a given game. Now that doesn't mean that you should win every 2nd game. It should mean that you should win about 500 out of a 1000 games. That can easily include loosing or winning streaks of 20 games or more ! That doesn't mean the matchmaker is broken... it's just bad (or good) luck. Look at your statistics !

Mine says (for example) Wins / Losses 1,491 / 1,332. No, it's not perfectly even. But close enough to come to the conclusion that the matchmaker does indeed work pretty well.

Lastly:
No matter how well everything goes you can still be defeated. Just like in real life there is always someone who is faster or more precise or just has the better mech-build for the situation (or map) at hand. Thats not your teams fault (or PGI's). Sometimes the enemy is just better. **** happens. Use it to learn from it to get even better yourself.

Why don't we all try our best to be good players and make this game enjoyable for everyone instead of blaming other people when we lose. Losing is part of most games (and life too).

Don't be a sore loser. Nothing helpful will ever come from that.

Now go out there and turn some mechs to scrap !

[Speedy Plysitkos]

ye,m but sometimes, its rly hard to not say a word. You see a DDC without ECM like i did yesterday.... i repeated in the chat, turn ecm on, if you have it. no response. After 3 minutes without any word, the guy in DDC without ECM(probably sold it), went rambo, a get killed outside of the team.

[Bishop Steiner]

Titannium, on 24 June 2015 - 05:02 AM, said:

ye,m but sometimes, its rly hard to not say a word. You see a DDC without ECM like i did yesterday.... i repeated in the chat, turn ecm on, if you have it. no response. After 3 minutes without any word, the guy in DDC without ECM(probably sold it), went rambo, a get killed outside of the team.

Sure. But does that mean a person has to be a dbag when they speak up?

Example 1: "Dude, what kind of effing idiot runs a DDC with LURMS and no ECM?!?!?! L2p effing noob!"
Example 2: "Hey, that's an interesting DDC build, but kind of curious why you would drop the ECM?"

Which is more likely to elicit a potentially useful response? Sure the guy could be a dbag himself, in which case, it's on him. Or he could be a noob, and not realize how huge an impact ECM has. Etc. But the first approach shuts him down, and all but guarantees he doesn't listen to you. The second potentially opens a dialogue, that could conceivably rectify his choices in future matches.

Often, in management, and leadership, it's not what you say, it's how you say it.

[Rushin Roulette]

Blaming and flaming someone just because of a build decision is silly. However, I must say sometimes teammates really, really do tax me and sometimes I do let out a rant ingame due to soem absolute stupidity.

Such as the sniper moving forwards and backwards behind you sniping with the advanced zoom module... problem is they cant see anything close by them and mor often than not shoot off an arm or cored me from behind although I was standing still and have been there since before they started sniping from that position.

Luckily these gimps are rare, but they annoying enough, especially if they try to compare their higher damage with your sub 100 damage in the end screen... no **** Sherlock... maybe that was becasue you destroyed 90% of my weapons before the fight started and I was forced to go into the main battle with a single med laser and a nearly detroyed mech.

Edited by Rushin Roulette, 24 June 2015 - 08:32 PM.

[Burktross]

Hmmm... were you in my match a couple days ago?
I was that guy who got cursed out for not falling back to defend the base within the first minute of gameplay.


Whatevs, I don't care about that as much as I care about the people who say, "You shouldn't write GG, its offensive to those who didn't think so"

[Alistair Winter]

It's almost a catch 22 situation. If you try to be team commander in a pug match, you'll often be ignored by people and get incredibly frustrated. However, if you never try to lead your team, it's almost certainly detrimental to your chances of winning. A lot of PUG matches are won by sheer luck or sheer disparity in skill levels, but many matches are also won by teamwork. And from time to time, PUG teams will have a surprising amount of coordination and communication.

Alistair's laws of pugging:

• If you feel like leading, lead.
  
• If the team doesn't feel like following, stop trying to lead.
  
• Never assume anyone will come to save you if make a bold move.
  
• Never try to save anyone else making a bold move. (They'll just run away as soon as you arrive to help)
  
• Don't give up at the start of the fight, even though your team is running around like a bunch of headless chicken. Quite often, the enemy team is doing the same, and your team will win despite doing absolutely everything wrong.

Now, if I actually followed my own advice more, I'm pretty sure I would have a better time pugging. But it's hard to keep your cool sometimes.

Edited by Alistair Winter, 24 June 2015 - 09:06 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Oh, I agree there are things that just frustrate. Like the general hide and peek mentality that pervades in this game. It's pretty well established that the team that is aggressive is far more likely to win, as long as they move together, shoot together. (Obviously aggressively scattering to the Four Winds tends to go poorly). Or the NASCAR away from your Assaults. Protip? If you have to circle, why not circle TO your biggest guns, and escort them, so that if they do get jumped you have your firepower concentrated? Losing 2-4 Assaults in the first 2 minutes, is pretty much a recipe to a Loss.

But even then, while I do occasionally lose my temper too, it never really accomplishes anything.

Mind you, there will always be CoD SoloRamboHero idiots out there who will not listen or learn, no matter what. So yelling at them is a waste of breath anyhow. It's that teachable portion of your team that being calm and reasonable has the potential to reach and help, sometimes in that match, oftentimes for the future. I've had people friend me and drop with me after matches to get practice, get help, etc.

And I've seen people get discouraged and leave MWO because of dbag behavior.... my own included. Not proud of that, but honest enough to admit it. Shame that so many "Comps" feel that the only legit mentality is the Dog eat Dog crap that Villz and Peef and others promoted.

Alistair Winter, on 24 June 2015 - 05:41 AM, said:

It's almost a catch 22 situation. If you try to be team commander in a pug match, you'll often be ignored by people and get incredibly frustrated. However, if you never try to lead your team, it's almost certainly detrimental to your chances of winning. A lot of PUG matches are won by sheer luck or sheer disparity in skill levels, but many matches are also won by teamwork. And from time to time, PUG teams will have a surprising amount of coordination and communication.

Alistair's laws of pugging:

• If you feel leading, lead.
  
• If the team doesn't feel like following, stop trying to lead.
  
• Never assume anyone will come to save you if make a bold move.
  
• Never try to save anyone else making a bold move. (They'll just run away as soon as you arrive to help)
  
• Don't give up at the start of the fight, even though your team is running around like a bunch of headless chicken. Quite often, the enemy team is doing the same, and your team will win despite doing absolutely everything wrong.

Now, if I actually followed my own advice more, I'm pretty sure I would have a better time pugging. But it's hard to keep your cool sometimes.

Don't forget, that most of leadership? Seeing where the crowd is headed, then jumping in front. One man can't stop a river, but sometimes you can influence it's course. If your master plan is being ignored, figure out what they are doing, and adapt to it, and at least try to influence and make it more effective.

Bad leaders are the ones with one plan that wont flex if people don't follow it.

[Speedy Plysitkos]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 June 2015 - 05:44 AM, said:

Or the NASCAR away from your Assaults. Protip? If you have to circle, why not circle TO your biggest guns, and escort them, so that if they do get jumped you have your firepower concentrated? Losing 2-4 Assaults in the first 2 minutes, is pretty much a recipe to a Loss..

Lights and medium say Hi, while running 170 kph from you , during first 1 minute. They dont care about assaults, they dont care about anything. They just.... run and run and run.. .and then die.

[Percimes]

A 50/50 win lose ratio isn't that great when your victories AND defeats are stomps.

Speaking from the solo queue, the MM assemble bad teams quite often but bad teams doesn't necessarily means bad players. It means teams that don't work well together. Too many long range builds in one team, not enough people with offensive initiative in another one, lots of ECM on one side and none on the other, ... Granted, these difficulties can all be overcome, but rarely so in the randomness of the solo queue. Not enough situational awareness, too many people focus on their kills for the stupid event of the week-end, tunnel vision, squirrel chasers...

You can usually say if your team has winning potential within the 5 first minutes of a match. If not, either both teams have more or less equal chances or you can't read the situation (whether in lack of skill, experience or simple no contact with the enemy). If you've played long enough you recognize the patterns... If the team spawn on that side of the map and then goes there = bad. If everyone stay in cover and look at each other = not good. If no one goes to escort the assault lance = not good. If one goes tourist and visit the map on his own = either he'll be the first to die or the last, depending if he finds the enemy team in in sight seeing.

The sad part is when you see this you can't do much about it. You can point it out, it's generally ignored. You can show the way, and die with the team indifference. You can try to lead, and waste your time. In the end you can only do your best and hope the others best will suffice. Or you can join a units and blah blah blah...

[STEF_]

TBH, I rarely care about stuff in chat, except when I find usefull info in it (such as coord, movement, "help"...).

But I find hilarious 90% of the time who wrote "this team sucks" is that one with 2-300 dmg.... so, it's when I troll him in the chat.
So fun

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Most attempts at inter team coordination are too generic and oversimplified to be effective in real world scenarios.

Example: "let's go tunnel."

If the majority of mechs on the team are LRM boats, a tunnel centric approach isn't likely to end well. In worst case scenarios you could have 11 LRM boats heading into a tunnel with the one person giving orders being the only brawler build and no one would realize it until it was too late.

Another example: "we're base camping."

If the majority of mechs on the team are short range brawler builds, base camping could end in them being picked apart from long range. A coordinated push might be a better option in that scenario.

This leads to one issue with coordination: what specific loadouts everyone on the team is using is the key deciding factor for determining what type of plan they should use. If your team is composed mainly of LRM boats your plan would be different from a case where your team is composed primarily of brawlers.

Without individual loadout data it is kind of pointless to discuss. There's no way of knowing whether your strategy will be a good or bad matchup with the builds everyone is using.

Maybe that's the randomness dice rollers and tabletop players have been waiting for?

[Mycrus]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 June 2015 - 05:25 AM, said:

Sure. But does that mean a person has to be a dbag when they speak up?

Example 1: "Dude, what kind of effing idiot runs a DDC with LURMS and no ECM?!?!?! L2p effing noob!"
Example 2: "Hey, that's an interesting DDC build, but kind of curious why you would drop the ECM?"

Which is more likely to elicit a potentially useful response? Sure the guy could be a dbag himself, in which case, it's on him. Or he could be a noob, and not realize how huge an impact ECM has. Etc. But the first approach shuts him down, and all but guarantees he doesn't listen to you. The second potentially opens a dialogue, that could conceivably rectify his choices in future matches.

Often, in management, and leadership, it's not what you say, it's how you say it.

Simple answer... drop the ecm for moar shs and moar ammo

[Speedy Plysitkos]

I Zeratul I, on 24 June 2015 - 06:17 AM, said:

Most attempts at inter team coordination are too generic and oversimplified to be effective in real world scenarios.

Example: "let's go tunnel."

If the majority of mechs on the team are LRM boats, a tunnel centric approach isn't likely to end well. In worst case scenarios you could have 11 LRM boats heading into a tunnel with the one person giving orders being the only brawler build and no one would realize it until it was too late.

Another example: "we're base camping."

If the majority of mechs on the team are short range brawler builds, base camping could end in them being picked apart from long range. A coordinated push might be a better option in that scenario.

This leads to one issue with coordination: what specific loadouts everyone on the team is using is the key deciding factor for determining what type of plan they should use. If your team is composed mainly of LRM boats your plan would be different from a case where your team is composed primarily of brawlers.

Without individual loadout data it is kind of pointless to discuss. There's no way of knowing whether your strategy will be a good or bad matchup with the builds everyone is using.

Maybe that's the randomness dice rollers and tabletop players have been waiting for?

And because of all this, you can see ONLY enemy loadouts ingame.
why th hell, not your teammates also ? (can be a new key on keyboard). specially on own assaults its a good thing to know.
rly weird its not possible now.

[Sarlic]

Can't blame the guy. 12 man full random.

What you expect? There's no team magic.

The magic i see in some matches are very pleasant and that one is like a lottery.

Edited by Sarlic, 24 June 2015 - 06:45 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Mycrus, on 24 June 2015 - 06:25 AM, said:

Simple answer... drop the ecm for moar shs and moar ammo

so useful

[C E Dwyer]

Ironic

Yesterday we had some ranting teet, in our team that went on and on about a crab and another being on their own we were engaged, pretty heavily, but I think about half of us at around the same time got fed up with the Cretin and went after them, needless to say we lost as the other ten stomped the six that stayed and then us in short order.

Somehow that was our fault as well

[TheNef]

Titannium, on 24 June 2015 - 06:41 AM, said:

And because of all this, you can see ONLY enemy loadouts ingame.
why th hell, not your teammates also ? (can be a new key on keyboard). specially on own assaults its a good thing to know.
rly weird its not possible now.

This has been asked for so many times and would make such a difference, knowing who has what in the lobby could change how things play drastically for a team..

[mailin]

We all know that the team that wins is the team that sticks together, locks targets, focuses fire and communicates. The last piece of this, voice comms, have recently been added in MWO. Granted it's not perfect, but it's miles beyond what we had before. And yet, so many teams don't communicate effectively. And really, it doesn't even take the whole team using comms. Three or four players on comms who know what they're doing with a team that can follow the simple instructions is all it takes to win. What frustrates me is that I will usually say something about moving to protect the fatties and I will use comms to let my team know about enemy movements and which target is a good one for lrms. I will also sometimes say, move to Charlie 4 or whatever. With all of that talking going on, the players still don't always move to protect the fatties, lrms will often rain on intermittent targets rather than the solid lock I have on a guy in the open, and we will only get a couple of lights and mediums pushing C4. So then, who is to blame if not the team? If I say something on comms and 1/2 the team does something else without saying anything what can be done about it?

So, I guess in a way I disagree with a lot of the points the OP makes about blaming the team for a loss. One person cannot carry a team, heck even 2 or 3 working together cannot usually carry the rest. The whole team has to work together. If a team isn't working as a team the match will usually end in a loss, especially if the other team IS working as a team.

Oh, and Sarlic, I just dropped with you on Caustic. We were the last two on assault mode. You in your Atlas and me in my 5D. THAT was a pug-tastic drop for me if ever there was one.

Edited by mailin, 24 June 2015 - 07:35 AM.

[jss78]

At least in PuG, about 9 cases out of 10 it's the same old -- the Dead Guy Ranting, and at no-one in particular, just the "$hit team" in general.

But then you get these really awful cases, where someone is hurling insults at a specific player -- and for something that's most easily explained by the targeted player being a novice. That's just actively hurting the whole game.

As a general point, I think anyone who gets this worked up over a video game should re-examine their priorities in life.

Edited by jss78, 24 June 2015 - 07:41 AM.

[Runenstahl]

Percimes, on 24 June 2015 - 05:57 AM, said:

A 50/50 win lose ratio isn't that great when your victories AND defeats are stomps.

It's the game mechanics that play into that. In a regular shooter you can kill people with one shot. In the right position you can even gun down 3+ enemies if you approach them from behind. In MWO however you have mechs that can take quite some punishment before they go down. That means that a single player becomes less important. Even in an assault mech you won't take out a group of 3 mediums if you approach them from behind. Maybe (and thats just a maybe) one. Then the rest will turn and blast you to pieces.

That leads to a game where stomps are much more common. Once a team has lost 1-2 members, the other team has a significant advantage since they can concentrate more firepower on less enemies. Thats the reason why stomps are much more common in MWO then in many other shooters and it happens relatively rarely that a match gets turned around. It's not really a fault of the game... it's meant to be like that to simulate the fact that these mechs are indestructible warmachines.