24 replies to this topic

[HerrRed]

This is why Polar is the best map. Only map where you can split your team and still get cover from each other and avoid the death ball.

I agree its frustrating when. You are aiming at the enemy only to have a team mate walk in front of you, get under fire, try to move back, get killed and then complain you blocked him. Sad thing is, deathball is not even the best way to go about this game. In a deathball you can have situations where you can only have 3 or 4 mechs able to fire. If you hold such a position and your team flanks the remaining players, you usually win. Its a matter of local fire superiority. Last night in a match me and 2 of my friends plus another guy did a rearguard action while the rest of our team moved forward to catch the enemy rear. We died and did little damage (around 600 or 700 points for the four of us - and I did 98) but, we held the enemy deathball long enough for our team to be able to kill them.

[aaykeem]

Cion, on 11 March 2016 - 01:34 PM, said:

• Blame N1 poor map design. Current maps encourage hide and peek gameplay.
  
• Formations tend to work better when there is no cover and open terrain. We have cover gallore and broken terrain.
  
• The lack of lance objectives are due to poor game design. Best and easiest objective is to kill as many mechs as possible, encouraging the deathball.
  
• This is further encouraged by the fact that we are assigned to 4 man lances, usually never 4 mechs of the same weight class or even the same speed. It's pointless to tell "lance Alpha go cap" when in lance Alpha you might have a Jenner, Cicada, Spider and a Zeus because even in a perfect 3/3/3/3 the weight classes bleed into different lances. Also a Spider pilots worlds appart than a Cicada.

So in summary, the game and it's lack of strategy, tactics, and variation are....(I hate to say it)...Working as intended.


I think i just threw up a bit.

Yes, blame the devs, the game, the maps, the matchmaker, the other guys on your team. Blame everyone except yourself.
You did everything that was possible in that context, you performed admirably, your decisions were perfect. It's someone else's fault.

Edited by aaykeem, 14 March 2016 - 04:12 AM.

[Thunderbird Anthares]

Tier 5 best tactic - deathball
Tier 1 best tactic - coordinated firing line

[Malachy Karrde]

My advice to the op... stay with your lance, no matter what. An assault Lance working together is invulnerable to lights. There is no way a light mech can get behind all 4 of you. Therefore you won't get picked off. An assault Lance is also better than mediums and heavies. Neither can stand up to your firepower. Who cares what the rest of the group does if the assaults stay together. I've lost track of how many matches where the lights, mediums and heavies run off and get killed, but because I rallied the assaults with me, by the time the damaged enemy runs into us, they are usually strung out, no longer fighting as a cohesive group, and are damaged enough that they are 1 hit kills. I've seen many 0 to 8 matches become 12 to 8 matches in seconds. Will it happen every time? No. But it happens alot. People in other big slow mech want support so will usually follow along if someone takes point. Learn your maps so that you can position your Lance where it's best utilized. Try to get to the main fight but don't sweat it if you cant. If your team ran off and left you, f em. As long as you hit around 500 damage you won't lose psr even on a loss (if you care about that). I agree that the death ball is tactic less...but people that play games don't usually care about tactics. I've been playing flight Sims and battle tech games since I was a little kid...I'm pushing 40 now. There are usually only a few people who care about tactics, generally everyone wants to mix it up. If you are one of the few, you can mitigate the disaster by simply modifying your tactics to take advantage of the stupidity.

[PyckenZot]

Deathball works, but so do firelines. Luring enemies works. Area denial by snipers works. Mass lurming (can) work,...etc,... etc

It's all a matter of taking initiave, informing the rest and hope:
a/your plan is sound enough to follow
b/your plan is sound enough and they follow

• I've had a full lance chase my Jenner, told the team and they wiped the 8 guys sticking together. We won
  
• I often ask not to go to the citadel on River City. Works 50% of the time.
  
• I've led the team in a full non-standard push on Crimson Straigth and had them all wiped due to misunderstanding a novel approach. My bad entirely.

Try, try and try again. (and don't give lectures. Just propose and inform)



(Shutting down a lance in ambush just leaves 4 pilots lacking all primary intel sources,...)

Edited by PyckenZot, 14 March 2016 - 06:56 AM.