13 replies to this topic

[TheMightySpin]

So I'm not exactly a hardcore veteran of this game, frankly I've really not played any MW game in almost a decade, but I do have some RL experience with tactical movements and such.

I know everyone loves laser vomit here, no judgement. I know everyone loves turning the battlefield into techno raves and waving their flashlights around even when there is nothing there to shine it at, but here is why you should not do it: Imagine you're out in a forest on a dark night with your team hunting a bunch of bad guys. There's enough light from the moon to give some visibility, but not much. Everyone in your team has a flashlight, they're useful and there's no reason not to have them, even all the bad guys have them. Now everyone's running around in the dark looking for each other, what do you think is going to happen to the first guy who turns on their flashlight? They're going to give away their tactical advantage by exposing their position and probably get shot while the bad guy remains unexposed elsewhere. Now, if instead of shining that flashlight around drawing attention to himself, he were to wait until he had located one to turn on his flashlight, he could make much better use of it up close or when his position has already been exposed and it doesn't matter any more.

Point I'm trying to make is that when, at the start of the game, you start waving your ER-flashlights into the air, you expose exactly where you are to anyone who bothers to look and usually wind up tagging one of your own guys in the process. Don't waste your chance to gain advantage early on by exposing your position and doing the enemies scouting for them. Even once you're exposed, at longer ranges lasers effectiveness gets drastically reduced compared to heat production (i.e. shooting a Large Laser at a target 1200-1400m like I keep seeing). Lasers are great within their ranges and potentially devastating when used properly. If you're not smart about using them, however, you're only going to set yourself up for failure.

Edited by TheMightySpin, 24 December 2016 - 10:48 AM.

[DeeHawk]

Your point is valid, but the outcome of flashing your headlights into the air, depends on what the enemy choose to do with that information. As a scout, you can easily use it early on to distract and divert the enemy team into an unfavorable position.
Also, when just spawned, it hardly makes a difference, at least not in higher tiers where players know the spawn locations anyway.

[TheMightySpin]

I doubt there are many higher tier players shooting the guy next to them in the leg less than 5 seconds into the game while racking up heat for giggles. I'm not trying to be some definitive authority on laser tactics, just trying to give some decent advice to new players who keep shooting their whole lance doing weapons checks or wasting the advantage of going unseen while scouting to do 1 point of damage at 750m in the lower tiers. This is not meant to apply to experience players (hopefully) or in every situation, just something to think about before casting your Magic Missile at the dark. Same could go for wasting Missiles and Ballistics ammo, but the issue seems much more prevalent with lasers. I guess I'm just the kind of guy who doesn't like attracting unwarranted attention from people trying to shoot me.

[Navy Sixes]

When you drop into a PUG match and you see a lot of joyfire, it means you're on a team with idiots. You're going to carry hard or you're going to lose, often both.

It is known.

[Insanity09]

These things are sad, but true. I regularly give a heavy sigh when I see my teammates firing at random, especially repeatedly.

There are so many, many very good reasons to NOT fire your weapons at nothing. Even if you escape bad consequences much of the time, a bad habit is eventually going to bite you (or a teammate).

All that said, I do find there is exactly one acceptable reason to do what might be an apparent random fire. I admit I sometimes fire with non-ammo weapons when I can't recall where the firing lines for that mech's hardpoints are exactly ( I rotate through different mechs a lot), but I will generally get nice and close to a wall so there is no chance of friendly fire or being seen by an enemy.

[DeeHawk]

You'll sometimes find me alphaing the ground repeatedly with lasers, especially on hotter maps, to get a hint of the heat managament, haven't I played that mech+map in a while.
I always take care, shooting into the ground and away from friendlies.

[Jay Leon Hart]

If I've just swapped into another 'mech (as I tend to do on an eve), here's the list of things I will do when I drop;
1 - Check weapon Groups (maybe I just swapped that AC10 for an AC5 and it went back to Group 1, sometimes I forget to change it before I drop)
2 - Check my minimap for friendlies
3 - Find a nice spot to shoot
4 - Check my minimap for friendlies
5 - Test a non-ammo weapon group for heat gen
6 - If more groups, go to step 2, else got to step 7
7 - Check my minimap for friendlies
8 - Find a nice spot to shoot
9 - Check my minimap for friendlies
10 - Test non-ammo Alpha for heat

TL;DR - I shoot the ground a lot. Get over it.

DeeHawk, on 03 January 2017 - 06:10 AM, said:

You'll sometimes find me alphaing the ground repeatedly with lasers, especially on hotter maps, to get a hint of the heat managament, haven't I played that mech+map in a while.
I always take care, shooting into the ground and away from friendlies.

That's all it takes, a little care and attention. I can't recall the last time I shot a teammate by mistake. On purpose, sure, but not by mistake.

[mouser42]

always look for pre..ejac...um...laser fire and drop ships it helps with picking the path the red team is taking,

[panzer1b]

While the random shooting of weapons early game is dumb, there are plenty of good reasons to fire your weapons in an attempt to attract attention. being a predominatly medium pilot, i often use the lasers as a method to distract/harass the enemy, and it has won plenty of games for me on many occasions.

Normally you would avoid firing say a erml at 750m, but there are a few times where hitting the enemy from the flank even for like 2 dmg can win a game. People tend to panick when they get shot, and given there is no easy way to determine how much damage you have taken, a erll from 1500m is very likely to scare people and get them to chase you. I often flank the enemy team in say a shadowcat or whatever im running, and ill strafe my beams across the bulk of the enemy mechs. I repeat that a couple times and 90% of the time (when im not playing against a coordinated 12 man at least) i can drag 1-2 guys away from the main group to go chase a medium that is faster then them and then drag them into my team or if thats not possible as far away from my team that the actual game ends up being 11 vs 9-10 and not 12 vs 12.

Ofc if its just 1 guy that runs off 90% of the time its an inexperienced player that i can eat alive, but if i drag more then 1, i know that my team is at a major advantage and ill go drag them out and then come back to the main force using a different route. Works best with ecm disabled so they see the red thing all alone and think its a free/easy kill.

Also, as someone else mentioned, firing energy weapons early game allows you to judge heat levels especially if its a very toasty build like ppc boats. Ofc make sure noto to shoot the team, and never shoot into the air (unless you WANT to attract attention).

Finally, while i advise against firing into the air, ive had a handful of games where i intentionally spammed my lasers (laser vomit build so i had like 2 different colors) into the sky occasionally when going solo on a flank. Guess what, the enemy team assumed that our entire team was going that way and actually lost teh game because i pulled them all away from the objectives (works wonders on assault and escort mode) and our team won via cap/vip kill. Granted it rarely works, but if you are in a light or a medium and arent actyually going for a backstab kill, spreading misinformation is always nice.

[Oldbob10025]

Tycho von Gagern, on 27 December 2016 - 07:17 PM, said:

When you drop into a PUG match and you see a lot of joyfire, it means you're on a team with idiots. You're going to carry hard or you're going to lose, often both.

It is known.

On any map everyone knows where everyone drops at and also what the most likely positions are for any match as 90% of the time everyone goes to the same location. Fear the group that does something different and I can see your point if they are being sneaky trying to ambush etc. but most of time everyone goes to the same location on every map.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

unless the game switches to random spawn points, then it does not matter.

When you are more experienced you will have all the spawn points memorized.

[Insanity09]

Even on the most clearly defined spawn point maps with extremely popular congregation spots, there is always some variety available in the routes to those common fighting grounds.
Given that, air shots visible to the enemy are always a bad idea. They tell the enemy not only where you are coming from, but may also give a rate of advance and an early idea of loadout. Why hand the enemy information they can use against you?

[Mole]

I don't consider myself to be a bad player and I shoot the ground regularly. Sometimes testing heat efficiency, sometimes testing weapon groups, sometimes just because I find the walk from spawn to battlefield boring. The only time I think I've ever hit a friendly in spawn is when my game window lost focus and I clicked on it to gain focus and that fired weapon group one into a friendly.

[BigScwerl]

Tycho von Gagern, on 27 December 2016 - 07:17 PM, said:

When you drop into a PUG match and you see a lot of joyfire, it means you're on a team with idiots. You're going to carry hard or you're going to lose, often both.

It is known.

hahahahahaha!

Test your heatscaling in private. I admit I will occasionally do it also when using a hot build on a hot planet, but I do it with my face against a wall, where there is no chance of hitting a teammate or giving away my position. I agree with the point that shooting lazorz into the air is bad. especially on dark maps, as you suggest. T5's read this thread!

Edited by BigScwerl, 07 February 2017 - 11:16 AM.