35 replies to this topic

[kesmai]

i'm just here for davion rank 13 and 14 for the next two weeks. My opinion on the quality of the affs forces stays until proven wrong.
and rj is rj. So no real problem for me.

[Vlad Ward]

I felt like I swung a lot harder than he did, to be honest. It's easy to get salty and overreact when there's a history, though.

I hope that this event will come off as a learning experience for Davion. While they did see some organized resistance (I fought Javin's HHOD 12 a couple times with NKVA 12s), a lot of their losses came from Clan Pugs as well.

This actually surprised me (I logged off early expecting a Davion win by the end of the night), because Davion's individual players aren't all that weak. Sure, there are a good number with an unhealthy adoration for LRMs, but that's gotten a lot better over time. Rather, it may be more accurate to say it's been beaten out of them, but whatever works. Davion's pretty average. It's got its good players and its less good. It's not innately deficient, is what I'm getting at.

The trouble really stems from the needlessly complicated tactics I see from almost every Davion 12 I encounter or play with. CW is a simple game mode in an even simpler FPS. Things like flanking, ambushing, baiting, and split pushing are almost always less effective overall than simply picking the best position in the best gate and shooting until the bad guys don't get up no more.

Sure, those things succeed on occasion. But it's not because the tactics themselves are great. Typically it just means that the people pulling them off simply played better than the guys on the opposing team to such a degree that their tactical handicap didn't have a significant impact on the match.

While I don't really expect too many Davions to give up their armchair generalship easily, I'd rather not see them end up like Marik. Clan Purple Bird is so hopelessly demotivated that you could hand them 20,000 MC and a golden LAM for each planet taken from Kurita and they'd still walk away without even trying. They picked a fight with a stonger faction, refused to adapt their play styles to keep up with them, and lost so thoroughly that many of their most vocal CW players uninstalled the game entirely.

The most effective way to motivate a faction population is to win. Just ask Kurita.

tl;dr Tactics are fun, but winning is funner.

Edited by Vlad Ward, 07 September 2015 - 11:25 PM.

[kesmai]

At least i saw no light rushes yet...

[VorpalAnvil]

kesmai, on 07 September 2015 - 11:46 PM, said:

At least i saw no light rushes yet...

Just you wait...

[VorpalAnvil]

MischiefSC, on 07 September 2015 - 12:30 PM, said:

Without question or exception every unit that is smoking Clanners is doing it by not taking lrms. If you need the rest of your team to be working extra just to let your weapons contribute that is a problem.

Direct fire, stay with the unit, help spread damage among your team, focus fire and stay on the firing line. Cover your teammates, don't wander off, don't linger in the back. If you're over 70% be moving toward the front. If you're under 50% stay back a bit, do as much damage as you can but don't stay gimped in the field.

Push together and push means push, not poke and retreat. Sometimes you win by being first into the breech and going down gloriously so your teammates can march over your corpse to kill the enemy.

LRMS are good for none of that. Easily countered, they require your team to babysit your needs, you're hiding and leaving your teammates to be targets, there is no damage lrms do that direct fire doesn't do faster and more accurately.

Every successful team does this. All of them. No great teams are rolling lrms. This isn't a debate, we already know what is and is not successful. Our problem is people wanting to pretend that reality isn't what it is and if they just pretend hard enough it will change. That doesn't work, please gear up for success and the good of your teams and your faction.

We fought several times recently MischiefSC, and you showed great prowess in battle. Your tactics are those of a Clanner. Perhaps you are on the wrong side of the battle field, quaiff?

[ccrider]

Mischief's hair is far too rockin' for him to be a clanner.

[nagdamnit]

There are certain players that can mouth off about the ability of others individuals (or entire factions), especially in a game. Some of those players are decent people, very talented, committed to the game and capable of ripping opposition teams to shreds on there own. You're not one of them Kesmai. I'd respectfully suggest you stop pretending to be.

[kesmai]

exactly. Whatever makes you happy.

[White Bear 84]

kesmai, on 07 September 2015 - 11:08 PM, said:

i'm just here for davion rank 13 and 14 for the next two weeks.

[kesmai]

Thanks Bear. I Remember some good Zeus matches with you recently.

[MischiefSC]

VorpalAnvil, on 07 September 2015 - 11:57 PM, said:

We fought several times recently MischiefSC, and you showed great prowess in battle. Your tactics are those of a Clanner. Perhaps you are on the wrong side of the battle field, quaiff?

Hey, I had fun and you played great. No reason to get insulting

Davion tag, since CW day 1.

My pride is worth more than a mech bay or two.

All teasing aside I've had some great matches lately. I admit I find it funny that generally CSJ defends Clan Wolf and Clan Jade Falcon better than they defend themselves.

[White Bear 84]

kesmai, on 08 September 2015 - 07:59 AM, said:

Thanks Bear. I Remember some good Zeus matches with you recently.

I must have convinced you then with the charm of my LPL

[MischiefSC]

Vlad Ward, on 07 September 2015 - 11:22 PM, said:

I felt like I swung a lot harder than he did, to be honest. It's easy to get salty and overreact when there's a history, though.

I hope that this event will come off as a learning experience for Davion. While they did see some organized resistance (I fought Javin's HHOD 12 a couple times with NKVA 12s), a lot of their losses came from Clan Pugs as well.

This actually surprised me (I logged off early expecting a Davion win by the end of the night), because Davion's individual players aren't all that weak. Sure, there are a good number with an unhealthy adoration for LRMs, but that's gotten a lot better over time. Rather, it may be more accurate to say it's been beaten out of them, but whatever works. Davion's pretty average. It's got its good players and its less good. It's not innately deficient, is what I'm getting at.

The trouble really stems from the needlessly complicated tactics I see from almost every Davion 12 I encounter or play with. CW is a simple game mode in an even simpler FPS. Things like flanking, ambushing, baiting, and split pushing are almost always less effective overall than simply picking the best position in the best gate and shooting until the bad guys don't get up no more.

Sure, those things succeed on occasion. But it's not because the tactics themselves are great. Typically it just means that the people pulling them off simply played better than the guys on the opposing team to such a degree that their tactical handicap didn't have a significant impact on the match.

While I don't really expect too many Davions to give up their armchair generalship easily, I'd rather not see them end up like Marik. Clan Purple Bird is so hopelessly demotivated that you could hand them 20,000 MC and a golden LAM for each planet taken from Kurita and they'd still walk away without even trying. They picked a fight with a stonger faction, refused to adapt their play styles to keep up with them, and lost so thoroughly that many of their most vocal CW players uninstalled the game entirely.

The most effective way to motivate a faction population is to win. Just ask Kurita.

tl;dr Tactics are fun, but winning is funner.

There is always a temptation to 'swing for the fences' with calling drops. Back before VOIP was in game and everyone communicated in chat if they were not in TS (hence my not using a mic wasn't as significant an issue as it is now) I called hundreds of drops.

There's always this desire to drill down a bit and find some new angle, some new approach. To surprise the other team, to not be where they expect and in so doing, crush them.

Realty though is that even a complete ambush only gets you a couple seconds advantage and being split up as a given rule just leaves you vulnerable to exactly what you're trying to do to the other team. If you're going to flank you need to stay within covering distance and range of each other, like going around a ridge on Boreal or one opening over on Vitric Forge, other side of the channel on Grim Portico, etc. Different gates? Odds skyrocket that you'll have a problem when that happens, there is no way to recover from those going wrong.

Also there's the complexity problem. The more complex a plan is the more there is to go wrong. The best plans are 'go to Beta gate, go in to D4, set up firing line, wreck face' and the like. Also, set clear expectations at the beginning what the general plan and drop order is, especially if it's not people you drop with all the time. Especially with pugs they need to know what the plan is before the first drop starts or they're going to end up buggering up your plan and that is YOUR fault not theirs.

Davion has a lot of great pilots. Been dropping in CW a *lot* lately and dropping with some exceptional people. Universally over 1k a match, generally 1500-2k and winning most the drops. Sometimes we make some poor choices, end up out of position and get rekt but that happens to everyone.

What is important to me about Davion is that we keep showing up. We're not fragile, we get pissed over our losses like everyone else but we don't cry and go home. We will, inevitably, keep getting better. Six months ago I tried to coordinate 12 people to work on a cross-unit comp-tier group of players who would take good habits and good tactics back to every unit in AFFS. Couldn't get 12 people together with comparable schedules. Now I don't think that would be a problem. Want to wait for the rebalance since that will likely change everything tactical on Davion side but still. We're in a vastly better place than we were as a faction. In that Comstar Intercept event we ended at like 43% in most timezones, and that was us against the sum total of Clan players. We show up, we drop, we win or take our lumps, we queue up and we drop again.

As to Marik, it wasn't Kurita that killed Marik. It was a civil war that killed off a lot of leadership and burned a lot of bridges internally. They were a really tight-knit group and the events around that whole thing left a lot of bad feelings. Kurita never fought the Marik that Steiner and Davion ever did. Unfortunately, I hope those guys remember that it's all pretendy-fun-time-games, shake hands, make up and put the band back together. CW is a lot better with a full Marik in it.

[White Bear 84]

Davion has always felt solid for me personally & its always a good time dropping with HHoD, 22AL, c4, Aces and especially our good friends the rangers [RRB].

Feels pretty tight compared to most other factions.

[MischiefSC]

White Bear 84, on 08 September 2015 - 09:35 AM, said:

Davion has always felt solid for me personally & its always a good time dropping with HHoD, 22AL, c4, Aces and especially our good friends the rangers [RRB].

Feels pretty tight compared to most other factions.

I pug all over. Out use of a single faction ts to coordinate the bulk of our cw drops helps a lot. I love dropping with a 6man, we get 6 pugs and they all jump into Davion ts before our mechs are powered up. You don't get that anywhere else. I know we crush uncoordinated Clanner drops all day every day.

Sol Invictus, baby. The Sun Unconquerable.

[Scout Derek]

Sorry, but I had to add this :