54 replies to this topic

[Cabusha]

The only real issue with Polar is you're more likely to see trolling Narc/LRM groups. If you can coordinate a push, it's no big deal. But if your team insists on hiding and let themselves get narcd to death, then yeah, you'll be in for a rough time.

[Chados]

Polar is far and away my best map by won/loss percentage.

I've never taken LRMs on it other than a single LRM10 and I only did that once in group queue.

I nearly always field a midrange brawler, based on an AC5 and lasers, with SRMs onboard, or heavy autocannon backed with lasers.

I use terrain masking to move into range. Patience and situational awareness are required. Every time I've got rekted on Polar it's because I rushed in where angels fear to tread and right into the whole enemy team. And if you're in concealment, and you're getting LRMed and you can't stop it, you're seen. There's a UAV or spotter close. Or both. You gotta break that lock!

I dislike Frozen City in the daytime, unless you get lucky and there's no snowstorm. Caustic Valley at night, also. And Forest Colony at night. Anytime you have to use night vision or heat vision to see kills depth perception and if I wanted to play in green and white or black and white I would play something on a monochrome monitor.

The map I like least in the game is HPG, which happens to be one of the most popular. You invariably get some sort of sniper coward up on the wall, and if you have no jump jets all you can do is hide. And it's always a fight over the platform in the center. Boring, boring, boring. The map I like next least is Alpine, because that's always centered on Mount Tryhard, and that's equally boring, and again favors cowardly snipers sitting a klick away with Clan ER PPCs, Clan ER large lasers, and Clan gauss rifles. When the last enemy mech on the map is a Dire Wolf packing Clan gauss and hiding at the edge of the map, and he's fresh when you're stomping the enemy team 11-4, you see what I'm talking about. And it is no fun at all when you try to jump from cover to cover on that map and get one-shotted from 1200 m away by a guy you can't even see. I'll take LRMers over yellow, cowardly snipers all day, every day. At least most LRMers will give you a fight when you get into AC5 range. Sniper cowards just run.

Edited by Chados, 13 March 2016 - 07:29 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

City fights?

Are we talking about Polar Highlands in here, or are we talking about Frozen City?

There is no map called "Frozen Wasteland."

[jss78]

Cabusha, on 13 March 2016 - 07:09 AM, said:

The only real issue with Polar is you're more likely to see trolling Narc/LRM groups. If you can coordinate a push, it's no big deal. But if your team insists on hiding and let themselves get narcd to death, then yeah, you'll be in for a rough time.

Another way to look at this is that it's one map where LRM's (if properly used) are actually viable. I fail to see how this is a bad thing. Again, The Best Map In The Game ™.

[Whipley]

SplashDown, on 13 March 2016 - 06:41 AM, said:

4 reasons why i hate frozen waist land map.
1st) I feel its custom made for LRM's with very liitle terrain to protect from LRM's.

2nd) in abrawler build it is near impossible to get in range...the ravines are long narrow paths..maken it hard to turn a corner and find an enemy that isnt 600m away..AND if you pop out of a ravine to rush..ur life span just droped to about 3 seconds.

3rd) It is near impossible to carry a pug team on that map..everytime i play that map i feel as tho ive just enterd world of tanks and the stupid is REAL and in abundance.

4th) ppl vote for it over n over n over..im so sick of playing it ive alrdy stabbed out me eyes..wich turns out is a plus..cuz now i cant see the pugs and so doesnt hurt as much to lose.

I've had some of my best brawling on that map. You just need to be patient and wait for the battle to head your way. If you push out too soon you are going to get wrecked by focus fire.

Tips:

Herd the cats. Use voice comms to warn people if they stray too far from the death ball or are pushing across open terrain.

Watch the minimap for the flow of the enemy.

Don't chase the lights. If your team gets separated you will die.

Push together if you are able to isolate one section of the enemy. This is the best way to get a ton of kills as a brawler on this map.

[Nick Makiaveli]

Why do people denigrate other people for differences of opinion instead of politely asking why they believe what they do?


**SPOILER**
Because they seek false self esteem by casting themselves as superior people.

[Bulletsponge0]

Alienized, on 13 March 2016 - 04:31 AM, said:

because its much more enjoyable to just blast your opponents face away. :>
besides that, brawling requires alot of sneakyness not everyone has. the out of nowhere approach alone is devastating let alone the massive damageoutburst of brawling builds.

also its a mental thing. alot of players dont want to get in close and personally, therefore forcing them to brawl is a psychological advantage to those that can brawl and find ways to sneak up and lay the smackdown to the back.

thats a polite way to say that a lot of players are scared to get shot at, even though mechs have armor

[Lightfoot]

My only crit is that it should have two to three ridges in it to allow some tactical variety. The only thing bad about Alpine was the H9-I9 hill placement next to one base. All they had to do was move that base to the southeast directly across from the other base. At any rate it wasn't the mountains that were bad. Polar is just too homogeneously flat, but I like it okay.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

If your mech is quick (80kph+) you can dictate the range of engagement so there's no need for secondary weapon systems or bracket firing.

If you aren't.... well it's good to have at least something you can use outside of your preferred range of engagement. Assault mechs in particular benefit from spending a couple tons on a few LRMs or some LL.

[Alienized]

Bulletsponge0, on 13 March 2016 - 10:19 AM, said:

thats a polite way to say that a lot of players are scared to get shot at, even though mechs have armor

thanks :> i didnt play that day so my rage-o-meter could handle me beeing polite

[LordNothing]

you really cant bring the best mech for the map. if i have my brawler im going to vote for the brawly maps. but thats no guarantee i wont get polar. if its possible to switch to a different mech in the same weight class (or something +/- 10 tons) after the map vote, i would definitely trade up to something with a bit of long range capability, be it lerms, gauss, erppc, erll, whatever. but since that is not a feature of the game, im pretty much stuck with whatever i was running. you just gotta make the best of it.

im not about to give all my mechs mixed loadouts on the off chance of landing on a map that requires a few long range tubes. i also dont know what the rest of the team is packing, they could also have equally stupid builds for the map. if you end up a brawler on polar highlands, look for the mech that is firing the most missiles, then go stand by it and protect it from short range attacks. at some point the lines are gonna clash, and its a good idea to keep your brawler healthy for when that happens rather than waste all your armor trying to get close enough to the enemy to attack early in the match.

[Xylek]

Bulletsponge0, on 13 March 2016 - 10:19 AM, said:

thats a polite way to say that a lot of players are scared to get shot at, even though mechs have armor

If your mech ends the match with armor on it, that armor was wasted tonnage. Either put it to use or don't bring it.

[Alardus]

Xylek, on 13 March 2016 - 02:38 PM, said:

If your mech ends the match with armor on it, that armor was wasted tonnage. Either put it to use or don't bring it.

False dilemma. It could mean that you were good at getting the other team to shoot rocks and stuff while you killed them off from behind cover.

[Chuck Jager]

If you have a good medium range clan build, I have found that folks will follow you into a range that hurts lrms.

I hated this map at first, but after folks found the channels it just takes a little aggressive play with 2-3 heavier mechs and folks will follow.

The flip side is need to keep light from going more than 1 sq away from group. No need to split everyone up.

[Xylek]

Alardus, on 13 March 2016 - 02:56 PM, said:

False dilemma. It could mean that you were good at getting the other team to shoot rocks and stuff while you killed them off from behind cover.

I was more referring to the people scared to get shot. At the same time, though, that armor was wasted in the end, just it didn't adversely impact the performance of the team. Having a heavy/assault not willing to share its armor might as well not have brought any in the first place.

[Tarogato]

Alardus, on 13 March 2016 - 04:00 AM, said:

Each player takes 2 medium lasers, 2 LRM-5's, and 1 SRM-6.

Now what happens?

Now what happens is that instead of every player being able to play to the 100% strength of their build (long range and LRM support needs to know how to flank and press new angles, brawlers need to know how to approach) everybody single player now has reduced effectiveness. If they are at range, they only have two LRM5 each, and they will lose trades against an enemy boating large lasers. But if they are against an enemy that brawls, they only have 2 medium lasers and 1 SRM6, so they will lose the brawl. It's literally a lose-lose scenario, and we call it "bracket building."

Instead of building your mech so that it is partially effective at any range, you build your mech so that it is 100% effective at one given range and you use your skill and experience to always put yourself in a situation where you can take advantage of your one strength.

[oldradagast]

Polar Highlands is a rather boring map, that's why. The plan was that a larger map would encourage scouting and other interesting interactions between the teams. So far, I can't say that I've seen that happen frequently enough to justify the time wasted marching to the approximate location of the coming mashup.

Now, I wouldn't say it's a "bad" map, though what it gains in fluid combat locations is lost in the relative lack of good cover and ease with which coordinated groups with enough long range weapons can flatten a team mostly focused on brawling. More so than probably any other map, Polar Highlands punishes "poor" mech selection and poor teamwork - the frustration comes in because not everyone has or wants to play snipers or LRM's and you can't really force teamwork on a PUG. After a few drops where you get the losing end of the teamwork or long-range mech stick, you get pretty sick of the map for those reasons.

Edited by oldradagast, 13 March 2016 - 04:43 PM.

[Marxman]

I like polar highlands alot. A map that allows all types of mechs to realy shine. Brawlers might need some time to get into position but it works pretty well for me in my Wub-Sparky.
Long and Mid range builds can dominate the map though if they know how to keep a bit of distance. Wich imho is a good thing. There are so many maps that favor brawlers. Its nice to have a map that rewards bringing something else than just short range laser vomit.
LRMs have a good chance to actually do something on that map too. So as i said. I realy liek the map.

As for balanced builds .Most of the times i run builds with PPCs or AC10s . Backup mostly consists of medium lasers and srms. So i can dish out enough to finish off damaged mechs up close.
The PPCs are used to add punch at range. And aside below 90m they work just as good up close as they do in the mid/mid-long range bracket.
Aside from point blank range (90m) and LRMs , Long range weapons work just as good up close as they do on longer ranges.

[Mystere]

Alardus, on 13 March 2016 - 04:00 AM, said:

The question is: Why do we prefer brawling when you're risking being useless and dying in frustrating ways? Why do people complain about being in their brawler mech when they land on frozen wastelands?

Why? It's because the player base is infested with idiots who care absolutely nothing about the lore and instead only want to play "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots". That's why.

[Alardus]

Tarogato, on 13 March 2016 - 03:36 PM, said:

Now what happens is that instead of every player being able to play to the 100% strength of their build (long range and LRM support needs to know how to flank and press new angles, brawlers need to know how to approach) everybody single player now has reduced effectiveness. If they are at range, they only have two LRM5 each, and they will lose trades against an enemy boating large lasers. But if they are against an enemy that brawls, they only have 2 medium lasers and 1 SRM6, so they will lose the brawl. It's literally a lose-lose scenario, and we call it "bracket building."

Instead of building your mech so that it is partially effective at any range, you build your mech so that it is 100% effective at one given range and you use your skill and experience to always put yourself in a situation where you can take advantage of your one strength.

Ah, but then you have 4 people firing the same amount of LRMs at someone. If they chance to hide from the single attacker with all the LRMs, then they have effectively ruined the attack. If four people are concentrating fire, then they have much less room to break a lock, so even if they block LoS to two attackers, the other two are still guiding all the missiles to them.

Like I said before, what happens when the guy with all the LRMs dies? No you effectively have zero response to that large laser boater.

If anything, people should be singling out boats moreso and taking them down first, since we know people are prone to playing rock paper scissor.