21 replies to this topic

[John Mechlane]

Hello gentlemen.

A few of us broke off our former unit, and made our own. We wanted a little more than the usual poke gameplay and lurming, and were fed up with people who can't commit to a push, who can't follow simple orders, or people who still have 3 drops left when our team is losing 40-10....etc...
We have a few stable players, and slowly growing, but our battlefield tactics are lacking, because until now, we simply didn't really go beyond "stick together, focus fire" and a little flanking here and there.

I found the most of the time even PUG matches can be pretty solid, if you just tell them what to do. Now...the only thing remaining is knowing what to tell them

Let me start off with something I've learned a few weeks ago:

• After defending against a wave, every single surviving defender from the previous drop pushes out, to weaken the next enemy wave.

For example: First enemy wave hits, Defender drop 1 wind and clears our Attacker drop 1 with a 12-7 standing. Our five remaining mechs from Defender drop 1 quickly push out (even if at full health) just to weaken Attacker drop 2. While this happens Defender drop 2 regroups inside.

This basically looks at the match as 4 waves. There's no point in keeping your mech alive for a non-existent 5th wave. The idea is to secure the advantage for the next wave, which in theory means even bigger advantage for the next wave, which means even more mechs can push out....you get the idea If the guys pushing out manage to secure some kills, we are guaranteed a permadeath advantage on the last wave.



This may be basic knowledge for some of you, but it's pretty new for me. I like it, and try to enforce it as much as I can. The advantages are clear, but what are the disadvantages?

-Does not work on all maps. Sulfurous Rift and Hellebore Springs have different "lanes". If you go out a different way than the enemy is coming in, you might run the risk of the Attacker drop 2 showing up at your base, while some of your pilots are 2km out, in their first mechs.

-If we push out too late, or the enemy starts pushing right after killing the ones who went out, the defenders might not be able to regroup. before the wave hits.

-You may throw away a perfectly good Assault mech, with only smaller mechs remaining in your drop. Guess the question here is: Where is the firepower better spent? Weakening the next enemy wave with a few of your teammates, or just staying in and having the whole team with you?

What are the criteria to decide if we should push out or not? What are the dos and don'ts when playing like this? Is it even worth it?

All advice is welcome from seasoned players, and please feel free to to inject other tactics into the discussion. I just wanted to start off with this one to get the ball rolling

[habu86]

JaniTheWeedman, on 12 August 2016 - 05:19 AM, said:

What are the criteria to decide if we should push out or not? What are the dos and don'ts when playing like this? Is it even worth it?

It totally is and it is a common tactic practiced on defense by almost every top team. You've correctly identified that it helps weaken the next wave and build up the advantage. One other thing it does is it ensures you don't have any weakened/low on ammo mechs on your own side when the next wave rolls by. This is important because your hard-won mech advantage can be flipped on its head if you loose several mechs early in the wave.

Now, obviously when and how to sacrifice a mech is not a decision to take lightly, so it's generally advisable to do so if running low on ammo in an ammo-dependent build, if badly beat up (usual rule of thumb is below 65-70% health), or if your CT is open and crit.

If the Drop Commander calls for a suicide push, you go push. If your big, laserboat assault is still fresh, you can let the DC now (and shame on you for not sharing armor ), but they may have ideas and need your big in order to implement them. So, in the end, you listen to what they have to say.

Other useful things to keep in mind, you don't necessarily have to kill mechs when you push out, especially if they're fresh and big, and you're ready to drop. If your expected survival is short, try legging a few; it'll help slow down their wave, which works to your advantage.

There are also several approach vectors and pathways that work better than others on each map when pushing out; you'll learn them in due time Remember, you're beat up so you need to make good use of cover until you get to your effective weapon range. Try to surprise people by flanking the enemy team or coming up behind any stragglers and killing anyone who's out of position.

You can still push out on maps like Hellebore or Sulfurous, but it's somewhat riskier and you're better off thinking about it in terms of "suicide scouting". The objective is to figure the enemy is, even if you do so by process of elimination, running down lanes where they are not. In this situation, if the enemy team has gone a different way and you can't catch up to them, let your team know and eject. Your DC will appreciate narrowing down the lanes your team has to watch, especially on maps like Sulfurous or Hellebore, where a lot of the best standard defense spots are quite far from each other and take time to get to.

Lastly, if you guys want some additional direction to help improve quicker, you can go visit with some of the more established teams. They will usually be happy to drop with you and show you guys the ropes. It also works in their favor, as they get to meet more people, groom future allies, rivals, and scrim partners, and maybe even get those few extra guys they need to fill out drops where they are short-handed.

Edited by habu86, 12 August 2016 - 05:51 AM.

[John Mechlane]

Spending damaged/low ammo mechs is a given. Let's not even discuss that The real topic here is sending out full mechs.

habu86, on 12 August 2016 - 05:49 AM, said:

If the Drop Commander calls for a suicide push, you go push. If your big, laserboat assault is still fresh, you can let the DC now (and shame on you for not sharing armor ), but they may have ideas and need your big in order to implement them. So, in the end, you listen to what they have to say.

My point was that most of the time I am the DC. Pugs rarely have use voice comms, and even if they do, they refuse to lead. That leaves me or someone else from my unit to lead them.

We do play with bigger units on occasion, and it's spectacle to see how they lead/play. Like a well oiled machine. But sometimes we like to stand on our own feet, and it feels great to win a match with a mostly PUG team, against a premade.

Edited by JaniTheWeedman, 12 August 2016 - 06:11 AM.

[justcallme A S H]

Always out the gate. Even if hellbore or sulfer

[Leone]

The biggest disadvantage when choosing to push out on a surviving mech only happens if it takes too long to clear the enemy from your initial engagement an your too far from one of the gates. Then you may stumble upon a full wave, get little damage in, and warn your team, but be too late to join the initial exchange.

Your team can mitigate this.

If, let's say, your defending the gates in boreal, and the fight is real, the enemy could get a team together and push in on your team before your reinforcements arrive. It is upto the team to realize this, and pull back.

If, instead, you try to keep your first mech, you've a damaged mech in a twelve v. twelve fight, ceding the advantage to your opponent.

I'll admit, there have been some great matches that come down to a few survivors where having a saved mech later on may clinch it. But in those matches, both sides generally went all in during the initial brawls. They were close because neither side held back. By being one mech down on the initial engagement, the enemy team may manage to keep two or three more mechs than before.

This is a tactical game. Yes, you play but one unit amongst twelve, but approach it like you would any other tactical game. Make sure our units share damage, focus fire, and don't leave em alone to be overwhelmed. There is only so much damage to go around and only so much heat to put out one your enemy. It is up to your team to be more efficient about applying damage than your opposition, and making it hard for them to focus fire and pick you off one by one.

One mech, well used, makes a huge difference.

~Leone.

Edited by Leone, 12 August 2016 - 07:06 PM.

[BSK]

JaniTheWeedman, on 12 August 2016 - 05:19 AM, said:

What are the criteria to decide if we should push out or not? What are the dos and don'ts when playing like this? Is it even worth it?

Time to revive. If the enemy reinforcements are already at the gate your time to get there after the animation when you peg out, pick the mech, countdown to drop, animation to drop, walking out of drop zone, walking through base and THEN arriving at the gates might be much more THAN the enemy just rushing gens ..

[Davegt27]

OP-- join up

if your attacking and are down on numbers your second wave does not push up to the gate right away

the join up point is pulled out from the gate this is to counter the other side incase they try to push out the gate
to kill a few of your Mechs

[John Mechlane]

It seems that the biggest factor is timing. Some good advice in your posts guys, made me think...thanks!

...but I'm still curious about what you think about sending out an undamaged assault mech, just to weaken the second wave.

If you send it out to die, the next drop is probably a medium or heavy (meaning less firepower). maybe you'd be better of staying in that assault and defending in the next wave with a higher tonnage...even if it means the enemy force will be that much stronger.

[Positive Mental Attitude]

Honestly the best way to learn to win is focus on being super aggressive, youll screw up plenty at first but if your team focuses on how to win by holding the w key and always sharing armor and using line of sight weapons youll start seeing major improvements in performance. Firefights are won thru sheer aggression and firepower, move to the enemy and when the chance presents itself kill the weakest targets first, those being alone or "brave". Once you stick with that overall game plan everything else will start to fall into place and youll come up with your own tactics and counter tactics.

Do not go into faction play with a solo quick play mindset. You will lose.

[AlphaToaster]

JaniTheWeedman, on 15 August 2016 - 02:21 AM, said:

It seems that the biggest factor is timing. Some good advice in your posts guys, made me think...thanks!

...but I'm still curious about what you think about sending out an undamaged assault mech, just to weaken the second wave.

If you send it out to die, the next drop is probably a medium or heavy (meaning less firepower). maybe you'd be better of staying in that assault and defending in the next wave with a higher tonnage...even if it means the enemy force will be that much stronger.

Making an exception just because the mech is full health leads to other issues. Like the assault pilot still saving his mech every match purposely. This breaks up your cohesion of 12 mechs dying and spawning together as a wave.

I'd say if the mech is full health the remaining damage mechs should fall in behind them and all push out together when called.

Holding back the fresh mech just invites other people to play passively by rewarding this playstyle with addtional opputurnities to score damage off his teammates armor. Everyone should be grouped together sharing armor. Your model you're going for breaks down when you make exceptions for special snowflakes.

I also wanted to add, that a player should never feel like all their firepower and meaningful contribution to the match is front loaded into their first mech or 2, depending if they're bringing 2 100 tonners for some terrible reason. If they feel they can't contribute in their next heavy/medium then they need help figuring out a more normalized deck like 4 heavies, or 3 heavies and a strong medium. Otherwise you're encouraging people to bring essentially 1 serious mech when they need 4 viable killing machines.

Edited by AlphaToaster, 15 August 2016 - 05:20 PM.

[John Mechlane]

My current dropdeck consists of 1 assault, 2 heavies, and a light. The chassis and configurations usually change according to gamemode and map, but the classes stay the same.

When attacking, I somewhat encourage frontloading, I always tell the pugs to bring the slowest mechs first (which ofc means assaults or heavies), and leave the fast ones for last. If all goes well, the first hard wave secures a little lead, and if we can keep it, the last drop can be used for a fast reinforce.

[BoldricKent]

I would add, the success of a push depends on groping and choosing right vector to push, so form up before push and
use relative speed to move up. Dont push out on open area where you an get multiple attack vector, even before opponent fully form up. Dont forget 30 sec delay in respawn (if you are fighting them at gates, they will be in objective area before you can do anything).
For those reasons, assults arent best mech to push out, even fresh. You might end with to short push, you might get flanked and pick apart. Assults can only stall opponent wave in firing line, which is more defensive then offensive by nature. Keep in mind objective of push is to stall and make them bleed. Heavies have much better chances of forming front defense formation and are far more difficult for flanking (2nd wave arent med and light in most cases).

[AlphaToaster]

JaniTheWeedman, on 16 August 2016 - 07:11 AM, said:

My current dropdeck consists of 1 assault, 2 heavies, and a light. The chassis and configurations usually change according to gamemode and map, but the classes stay the same.

That works fine. Nothing wrong with that. What is to be avoided is when the pilot wants to save the assault because the other 3 mechs aren't as good. Assault + HVY + HVY + Light is a solid deck when there's no fear of rotating to the next mechs.

BoldricKent, on 16 August 2016 - 08:19 AM, said:

I would add, the success of a push depends on groping and choosing right vector to push, so form up before push and
use relative speed to move up.

Lots of groping going on in the deathball I tell ya. It's a lot like riding the subway in Japan. You be surprised how encouraging a gentle pat on the bottom is for an Atlas to lead the charge.

[John Mechlane]

AlphaToaster, on 16 August 2016 - 01:26 PM, said:

Lots of groping going on in the deathball I tell ya. It's a lot like riding the subway in Japan. You be surprised how encouraging a gentle pat on the bottom is for an Atlas to lead the charge.

Yeah. A tight deathball moving to the designated grid is the best I can hope for with a 50-60% PUG drop. Problem is, most of the time we have a few special snowflakes, who think their mech is too precious for battle...

BoldricKent, on 16 August 2016 - 08:19 AM, said:

I would add, the success of a push depends on groping and choosing right vector to push, so form up before push and
use relative speed to move up. Dont push out on open area where you an get multiple attack vector, even before opponent fully form up. Dont forget 30 sec delay in respawn (if you are fighting them at gates, they will be in objective area before you can do anything).
For those reasons, assults arent best mech to push out, even fresh. You might end with to short push, you might get flanked and pick apart. Assults can only stall opponent wave in firing line, which is more defensive then offensive by nature. Keep in mind objective of push is to stall and make them bleed. Heavies have much better chances of forming front defense formation and are far more difficult for flanking (2nd wave arent med and light in most cases).

Yeah. We lost a match because of that yesterday. Our survivors were too slow (or slow to follow orders...still not sure which one), and got stomped just outside the gate. The enemy was eating up our gens before we could regroup in the back.

I tried to salvage the situation by ordering people to fall back, and regroup, effectively giving the gens to the enemy. But that's probably better than sending mechs to try and delay them, giving them free kills, and not even helping the drop situation, since we're creating new mechs in the drop queue.

Edited by JaniTheWeedman, 17 August 2016 - 05:24 AM.

[John Mechlane]

So you guys don't want to share, or just nobody comes here?

[iLLcapitan]

I'd rather explain it on TS tbh, trying to type it down would end in a wall of text.

Pushing out after you finish a wave is not always the best option, esp. against clans (due to their slight speed advantage). If they manage to roll your outside guys quickly and manage to get in before you regrouped properly - it can loose you the game, because you expose your objectives. Really depends on the situation, the map, the mode, the pilots you got - experience pretty much.

[John Mechlane]

Pushing out was only one thing. I would like to hear other simple tactics/tips too.

Here's another easy trick:

• When focusing fire, call targets from one side to the other.

For example: your team has 8 enemy mechs in front of it. You tell the team you gonna call targets from left to right. So when I say Delta Timberwolf, people don't have to search for the specific timberwolf, they know it's the one on the left.

Again...this may seem like elementary to more experienced players, but I rarely hear DCs calling targets this way in PUG drops. Yes, usually you have only a few targets, so it's easy to designate and focus fire, but when you are pushing into an open area, and you have 8-10 potential targets, this can really help your team....

Edited by JaniTheWeedman, 30 August 2016 - 05:57 AM.

[Positive Mental Attitude]

JaniTheWeedman, on 30 August 2016 - 05:56 AM, said:

Pushing out was only one thing. I would like to hear other simple tactics/tips too.

Here's another easy trick:

• When focusing fire, call targets from one side to the other.

For example: your team has 8 enemy mechs in front of it. You tell the team you gonna call targets from left to right. So when I say Delta Timberwolf, people don't have to search for the specific timberwolf, they know it's the one on the left.


Again...this may seem like elementary to more experienced players, but I rarely hear DCs calling targets this way in PUG drops. Yes, usually you have only a few targets, so it's easy to designate and focus fire, but when you are pushing into an open area, and you have 8-10 potential targets, this can really help your team....

No. You call targets in order of deadliness to the group and or in desperation when you need help. Just starting from left to right is not good for anything.

[Spider00x]

JaniTheWeedman, on 12 August 2016 - 05:19 AM, said:

Hello gentlemen.

A few of us broke off our former unit, and made our own. We wanted a little more than the usual poke gameplay and lurming, and were fed up with people who can't commit to a push, who can't follow simple orders, or people who still have 3 drops left when our team is losing 40-10....etc...
We have a few stable players, and slowly growing, but our battlefield tactics are lacking, because until now, we simply didn't really go beyond "stick together, focus fire" and a little flanking here and there.

I found the most of the time even PUG matches can be pretty solid, if you just tell them what to do. Now...the only thing remaining is knowing what to tell them

Let me start off with something I've learned a few weeks ago:

• After defending against a wave, every single surviving defender from the previous drop pushes out, to weaken the next enemy wave.

For example: First enemy wave hits, Defender drop 1 wind and clears our Attacker drop 1 with a 12-7 standing. Our five remaining mechs from Defender drop 1 quickly push out (even if at full health) just to weaken Attacker drop 2. While this happens Defender drop 2 regroups inside.

This basically looks at the match as 4 waves. There's no point in keeping your mech alive for a non-existent 5th wave. The idea is to secure the advantage for the next wave, which in theory means even bigger advantage for the next wave, which means even more mechs can push out....you get the idea If the guys pushing out manage to secure some kills, we are guaranteed a permadeath advantage on the last wave.



This may be basic knowledge for some of you, but it's pretty new for me. I like it, and try to enforce it as much as I can. The advantages are clear, but what are the disadvantages?

-Does not work on all maps. Sulfurous Rift and Hellebore Springs have different "lanes". If you go out a different way than the enemy is coming in, you might run the risk of the Attacker drop 2 showing up at your base, while some of your pilots are 2km out, in their first mechs.

-If we push out too late, or the enemy starts pushing right after killing the ones who went out, the defenders might not be able to regroup. before the wave hits.

-You may throw away a perfectly good Assault mech, with only smaller mechs remaining in your drop. Guess the question here is: Where is the firepower better spent? Weakening the next enemy wave with a few of your teammates, or just staying in and having the whole team with you?

What are the criteria to decide if we should push out or not? What are the dos and don'ts when playing like this? Is it even worth it?

All advice is welcome from seasoned players, and please feel free to to inject other tactics into the discussion. I just wanted to start off with this one to get the ball rolling

Without trying to sound like a arrogant jerk but I consider myself to by an expert level drop caller especially where Innersphere is concerned. To my critics I'd like to say I win a hell of a lot more than I lose and have guest drop called for nearly every unit in the comp scene if you ever want to learn some of the ropes find me ill be happy to give you some tips. Either PM me here or you can find me most nights on the steiner TS ts1.housesteiner.com the game needs good 12 man's esp. Now with FW on such a fragile state.

Edited by Spider00x, 30 August 2016 - 01:55 PM.

[Dyhalto]

Deethree, on 30 August 2016 - 09:56 AM, said:

No. You call targets in order of deadliness to the group and or in desperation when you need help. Just starting from left to right is not good for anything.

It's actually a decent general rule to have especially when facing lots of similar mechs alternatively shooting the closest mech to the groups works as well. Most every group I have dropped with wants people to follow a common drop deck so seeing large waves of the same mech chassis or weapon loadout is pretty common.