18 replies to this topic

[3wesleyc]

Please feel free to critique me, I just started playing a few days ago I managed to get 4kills in this match, but if there is any flaws that I can fix please make them known.

Here is the YouTube link

https://m.youtube.co...h?v=r54APH_ji0M

[JC Daxion]

You should really give assaults or large heavies a look they seam much more suited to your play style or in the way you were playing the game at least.


Lights need to be moving, or behind cover.. never stand on hill tops like that.. Move over, sure, but not stand.. Though some snipers might argue for peek and poke..

You had a lot of time you could of been searching for the enemy, moving around on the wide flanks, looking for guys sneaking up, or getting behind/side for spotting on your team to relay info. But often that is just for a short period of time, and then get back to the group to protect them, and fight when the time comes. But honestly to be doing that you need a mech that can run at least 130KPH+ 90 will not cut it.

You also shot your small pulse lasers out of range many times.. anything over 175 is a total waste for them. I personally would tweak that build, and go with 4 MPL's and a pair of SLP's.. it also really needs a better engine.

You did seam to aim for places that were wounded, so that was a nice plus, you also did your share of locking radar, so thumbs up for that as well.

Major kudos for putting up a vid though.. best way to learn is know what you could of done differently/better

Edited by JC Daxion, 28 January 2016 - 11:26 AM.

[Brizna]

No offence meant but you need to learn to play.

You are playing that fire starter as if it were a medium mech, which to be honest seams like a great idea when I realized it "runs" at 90 kph top speed which is a really bad idea to begin with.
Also it's not a good idea to have weapons in the same group that are not in the same type of body part, arm weapons should be grouped together and the same is valid for torso weapons. Even more if you have enough button it's better to group left and right arm weapon separately so you fire corner peek and fire only the meaningful weapon to avoid useless heat generation.
Also, you did click it once or twice, but please push R all the time, jsut as oyu see a potential target, push it! it will get yo information on the enemy mech (loadout and damage taken), will allow LRM support and less obvious but important too, let's all your team know there is an enemy there.

Once you get a faster firestarter and reorganize your weapons and weapon groups use that speed to attack the enemy from the sides and rear, move more, don't over extend though a light mech will be destroyed very fast if it does a bad move but scouting, flanking and picking off enemy stragglers is the real job of light mechs, not poking with the heavier mechs in the main battle line.

To build a firestarter I recommend you visit: https://www.mechspec...firestarter.54/
There are lot of builds there good and bad, but you can see comments on most of them.

Also I want to stress I mean no offence, you are obviously a new player and I still remember how I "piloted" the trial Jenner back then.... suffice to say I rarely released the "w" key and rarely lasted over two combat minutes, lol.

[Coralld]

3wesleyc, on 28 January 2016 - 11:07 AM, said:

Please feel free to critique me, I just started playing a few days ago I managed to get 4kills in this match, but if there is any flaws that I can fix please make them known.

Here is the YouTube link

https://m.youtube.co...h?v=r54APH_ji0M

The first thing that jumped out at me is the low speed on your Firestarter. I'm guessing you still have the stock engine in there. In which case save some money for a larger XL. You will be a bit squishy but you will move much fast in which case you will want be much more aggressive.
Which brings me to another thing. Your play style is more of that as a Medium pilot. Nothing wrong with that, perhaps looking into Mediums in the future would be a good idea.

Another thing I noticed is you firing at target's way out of your weapons range. Strongly suggest learning the ranges on your weapons.

A Light mech standing still is usually a dead one, stay on the move as much as possible and avoid open terrain.

Other than that you played very well.

Edited by Coralld, 28 January 2016 - 11:48 AM.

[Sandpit]

Brizna, on 28 January 2016 - 11:36 AM, said:

Also, you did click it once or twice, but please push R all the time, jsut as oyu see a potential target, push it! it will get yo information on the enemy mech (loadout and damage taken), will allow LRM support and less obvious but important too, let's all your team know there is an enemy there.

This is probably the best piece of advice you can take away from any and everything. Hitting R is so helpful and useful to not only yourself (extra cbills and exp!), but to your team as well. When you hit R and you see that Marauder missing a side torso, knowing to shoot at the CT, or another specific location to bring it down more quickly is essential.

That also allows you to use chat or voip and let your team know "Alpha, Marauder, hit CT in E5"

That right there lets me know that if I turn to E5, I'm immediately looking for a Maruader and even if I don't have time to target and review damage information myself, I can immediately start plowing into the CT thanks to your information.

It sounds minor, but little things like this will go a much longer way to you and your team winning more often.

Other than that, just make sure you know the ranges of your weapon systems. I can't count the number of times I'm sitting at 320m chuckling at a new player firing off their SRMs while I'm firing away with my weapons. I'm taking zero damage while they're getting chewed up.

Weapon grouping can be done based on a few different strategies depending on the build. Some mechs I'll group according to location, others by weapon type, some by range. Just depends on the build and what I'm using it for honestly. It's a good idea to get used to doing things like setting up weapon groups and learning when to chain fire, when to group fire, and when to alpha strike.

One thing I tell players (new and old alike) is pay attention to your minimap. You will get a LOT of useful information from it. Just like driving a car, you train yourself to actively scan. You scan the road, you scan behind you, you scan your instrument panel. Scan your minimap.

"Push E3" might be the best thing your team can do to win the match, but if you look at your minimap and notice 5 mechs are over in F6 and you're the only one actually charging the enemy location, it might be a good idea to abort the plan.

It takes a bit to get used to as the amount of things to try and track while in the middle of having 5 enemy mechs trying to do their best to blow you up can get overwhelming at first.

Honestly, light mechs are the hardest to learn this with in my opinion. They move so fast, get into the middle of trouble so quickly, and have to be willing to adapt to the situation much faster than other weight classes. I always suggest new players use mediums and/or heavies to "learn" the game. Assault and light mechs, on the surface anyhow, are the easiest mechs to get into due to light speed and assault armor and firepower, but the truth of it is, that those mechs are expected to be able to run certain roles and do certain things on most teams.

Tossing all of that on top of everything I listed above can be a bit much for new players to take in

[3wesleyc]

Thank you for your critiques, I appreciate all the comments, Good and bad, I can see all the areas that I need to work on, I will consider moving up to a medium mech and sticking around there. There is so much to learn, but again I'd like to thank thoes of you that gave me some input up to this point

[mailin]

The nice thing about mediums is that they move at about the same speed as your Firestarter, but can utilize longer range weapons and/or more weapons for greater damage. Also, they aren't as squishy as a light. Keep at it and you will get better. Feel free to post questions here as well because we love to help out new pilots.

I can't stress enough the importance of the R key though. Stay with your team and try to press the R key before firing on an enemy, unless of course you round a corner and a baddie is staring you down.

GL HF and hope to see you on the battlefield.

[Coralld]

3wesleyc, on 28 January 2016 - 12:33 PM, said:

Thank you for your critiques, I appreciate all the comments, Good and bad, I can see all the areas that I need to work on, I will consider moving up to a medium mech and sticking around there. There is so much to learn, but again I'd like to thank thoes of you that gave me some input up to this point

If your going Medium then get Hunchbacks, great mech will lots of different play styles allowed thanks to the variety in chassies.

Edited by Coralld, 28 January 2016 - 01:55 PM.

[Cy Mitchell]

I am new too. I have had the game since Beta but just returned to it and actually started playing a couple days ago. While I understand everyone's critique and agree with it all, I must say that you did a good job of farming some kills and rolling up a wad of c-bills for your trouble. 3000 damage/4 kills in a light is nothing to sneeze at. I have not come anywhere near that yet but then I am running a Kit Fox in a support role.

[Surn]

You are ugly and your momma dresses you funny.
I hope that is helpful,if not come on teamspeak as a kurita at housekurita.tserverhq.com and ask a srmx player to ge you in a drop with a team. We help new players all day.

[Rhavin]

If you like the light chassis for whatever reason Ravens are more suited to the way you played that firestarter. The ecm version in particular uses two large lasers to really get spooky and stay low key whilet putting up impressive numbers.

[Leone]

First off, what kinda of critiques are you looking for? Build, playstyle, build considering a certain playstyle, playstyle aiming to ill a certain role? There's tonnes we could go over.

As a light pilot without any idea of what your looking for, let us go over the video an notate areas of general improvement.

1:40 firing small pulse seperate from the mediums. Just quibbling here, but you do it alot, and it allows the enemy to spread the damage more by spreading out your shots into two distinct hits. Allows you a better chance to correct aim on the other hand. Comes up alot, something to think about.

2:31, Firing small pulse form outside of range, merely give your intentions away an wastes precious heat. Not so bad here, but a habit to break. Missile warning, we know where the enemy is, ergo where they're most likely coming from. A simple torso twist to give em the shoulder would have spread the damage better. Furthermore, with known enemies're behind you, yet you moved your mech directly away from them, presenting rear CT without nary a wiggle. An aggressive mechwarrior could've crest, alphaed your rear CT and pulled back. Torso twisting whilest disengaging, along with a bit of minor directional changes whilest running are important.

5:30, Standing still whilest shooting. Unless trying for cockpit shots it's a risky proposition for ya.

So, playstyle looks more like a mediums, more of a defensive poking style of gameplay, with an aggressive willingness to hold the front an flank. Which seems to work for ya, so good on ya. I think those are the biggest piloting improvements I can see.

Edit: http://mwomercs.com/...g-like-a-light/ shows a super aggressive guide to light piloting that'll hopefully showcase what I meant about disengaging an torso twisting, as it happens alot in there.

~Leone.

Edited by Leone, 28 January 2016 - 05:24 PM.

[Rogue Jedi]

MechregSurn, on 28 January 2016 - 02:06 PM, said:

You are ugly and your momma dresses you funny.
I hope that is helpful,if not come on teamspeak as a kurita at housekurita.tserverhq.com and ask a srmx player to ge you in a drop with a team. We help new players all day.

I hope you do not mind some advice,
if you are trying to convince people to join you throwing generic insults at them is not usualy the best way to go about it. next time perhaps make some helpful suggestions rather than insults before the suggestion to join you.

[epikt]

I think you were in too much of a hurry to buy your first mech. This is only the 4th game you played! Before buying a mech of your own, you should test the trial mechs: they are well made and show a wild variety of gamestyles. Test them all and see which one you prefer and then you can make an informed choice when you buy your first mech.


But just in case you'd want light mech advice : First boost up the engine to an XL295 (or XL280 if you really want to load heavy equipment), a light mech must be fast (~130+). Also, mount a jumpjet, one is enough for basic mobility. Then play again, record another video and we'll be able to talk business.
If you don't have the money, play with the trial Arctic Cheetah, it's the same style of mech.

Or if how you play is really the style you want, try a medium chassis (look at the trial Hunchback-4P).

[InspectorG]

3wesleyc, on 28 January 2016 - 11:07 AM, said:

https://m.youtube.co...h?v=r54APH_ji0M

New or Stock Firestarter? Too small of an Engine, speed=life for lights.

You were standing in the open a lot near the middle of the map.

Opening match you went to the center, but then took cover near a building, which is good, but were very out of position from the group on the flank.
You turned your back to the B4 area, which is the other gathering spot for enemy pugs and would have been rear cored at higher levels of play.
Dont worry, map awareness comes with experience.

Next was near the dropship you stood in the open and shot two mechs but did not hide after each shot. You need to think 'PEEK-A-BOO' with every shot unless you feel a good push happening...agian this awareness comes with experience.

More eyes on the radar map. When you shot the Direwolf, there was a mech on the other side of you cover to your right you could have helped with.

Enemy AMS tells you where they are and you peeked over the hill to shoot that Dire, this gets you killed in higher play.

That number next to the reticle is your range, to took many shots that were out of range, which under pressure leads to overheating. Overheating = u die. MPL on a FS is optimal around 250m...almost knife fighting.

As JC Daxion said, you may do better in a heavy or assault, you have the patience and are conscious of positioning.

Here is an example of the twitch fest that is a light fight.
Constant movement, sneaks behind and doesnt always fire at first sight.
Exposes the LEAST over cover to shoot then hides quickly.
Looks for lone enemies that he can sneak behind and blocks an Awesome from retreating(dirty but, hey, its a tool of the light pilot)

Example of 'dont be that Commando'. Circle of Death vs Atlas while teammates were involved. Legs enemies so they cant twist damage. legs enemy lights. At the end when things go bad, runs away trying to draw a loner out.


Dont worry, most of this will come with experience and practice. All you have to do is be more mindful of where you are, where they are, and where things are moving.

[Takashi Uchida]

You got a lot of good advice here (besides the wannabe comedian lol) so I won't add much beyond that your playstyle might make you a good candidate for a Crab or Thunderbolt style energy build w/ decent mobility.. Though you probably want to become familiar with all weapon types too. Props for posting a vid up! Feel free to check back if you want advice on buying mechs and stuff.

[Khereg]

I'm going to take a different stance from most of the others here. I think your playstyle is a result of your build and if you move to a more traditional FS-A build, you'll unlock the ability to perform like a true light pilot.

The FS-A chassis is unique as it's the only FS with 8 energy hardpoints. As a result, most top tier players run it with 8 SPL's (usually divided into 2 firing groups - either 4 on the left, and 4 on the right, or 4 on the torsos and 4 on the arms). Also, on virtually any light chassis, you want a lot of speed. For the FS-A, the usual build is to put the max size XL in it and really fly around the map. With the short range of the SPL's, you need this speed to dart in and out of cover, close in on enemies, punch them hard, and get away before they get good shots on you.

Your positioning instincts seem good for your current tier, but as you move up, if you don't go with a build more like the one I describe above, you're going to get rekt in a hurry when you start facing higher tier players - at least in this mech. Good luck. Looking forward to seeing you once you hit tier 3.

[Rogue Jedi]

Khereg, on 30 January 2016 - 11:03 AM, said:

The FS-A chassis is unique as it's the only FS with 8 energy hardpoints.

what about the FS9-K? It also has 8 energy hardpoints, 3 in each arm and 2 Center Torso.

otherwise good advice

[Khereg]

Rogue Jedi, on 30 January 2016 - 12:48 PM, said:

what about the FS9-K? It also has 8 energy hardpoints, 3 in each arm and 2 Center Torso.

Stop pointing out my senility or I'll report you for elder abuse.