50 replies to this topic

[DrSaphron]

When dropping solo you just have to make the best of what you've got. To this point I usually take the role of rear guard/baby sitter. If I see a red marker on a friendly I'll move to scrape them off because live team mates are more useful than dead ones. In group play team synergy is paramount! If you have 3 or 4 mechs all capable of moving at similar speeds and running complementary loadouts that group, working together, can pretty much carry the team. Personally, I prefer to get nice and close and rip other mechs in half, results may vary...

[MacClearly]

To me this game is about learning every weight class, every role, and every play style. Practicing them all an striving to understand them. Doing this forces me to learn positioning, when I am losing/winning my trades, what to look for when a flank opens up, and when to push or not to. Doing this also makes it clear when a team is in a bad position just waiting to get overrun, or a patient team holding a superior position.

[Bishop Steiner]

Ruar, on 07 January 2017 - 07:34 PM, said:

Looking for some help. I'm trying to figure out if it's worse to play hard charging with emphasis on moving up and taking the fight to the other team, or whether it's worse to sit back behind hills poking a few shots while ceding initiative.

Personally I think being timid is worse, but I see so many players who prefer to hide instead of fight so maybe they know something I don't.

Yes, I realize there is a time to trade and conserve armor... but at some point you either push or die. I'm talking about the times where I think it's a push or die moment and people don't push.

both CAN be bad, but timid is ALWAYS bad.

Note, there is a world of difference between "cautious" and "timid".

[Jman5]

Deathlike, on 08 January 2017 - 08:35 AM, said:

While I get that, but the biggest problem with that is that you're essentially using teammates as meat shields... which has its own sets of problems.

It's one thing to be helping your teammates out... it's another to use them to take hits because well... they are target dummies that allow you to live.

It's not ideal, but it blends between the line of being a teammate and not being a good one.

The question OP is asking is would you rather your teammate do one dumb thing, or another dumb thing. So my response is based on which dumb thing hurts my team the least often. Using them as distractions or meatshields is about all you can do in both these situations. I don't want my teammates to charge into an enemy firing line and get obliterated. However if he does and I'm nearby (big if), I'll at least try to use him as a distraction to get a few shots off before he gets vaporized. Me taking up the banner and continuing the suicide charge is only going to turn it from down 1 pilot to down 2 pilots.

With a timid pilot at least the part of my team is being preserved rather than thrown away in a useless charge. I'm able to poke and trade with the option of falling back if things don't go well.

With a timid pilot, at least you have options. With a hard-charger it's all or nothing.

While it may sound cruel or selfish, they are the ones putting themselves in this situation. If someone is going to charge and charge until he dies, using him as a meatshield is all you can do. If he didn't want to die, he wouldn't charge in alone, or he would go up a little ways and take cover to allow someone else to move up. On the other side, If someone is going to sit in one spot all game cowering, using that fact is all you can do.

[Lightfoot]

It's about choke points. If you look at Viking fortifications you see the buildings had one or two low entrances forcing attackers to bow as they entered one at a time allowing a few defenders to hold the entrance against many attackers. MWO uses the same idea, but ideally you have the whole team aiming at the same mech while they enter one at a time. So yes, you can charge blindly into your enemy, but that only works if your team can focus-fire and they can't. Otherwise it's a toss-up. So, yeah, if you see an exposed flank charge it in force, just remember it works both ways. Usually you wait a bit to see how they are weak though.

[Deathlike]

Jman5, on 08 January 2017 - 10:04 AM, said:

The question OP is asking is would you rather your teammate do one dumb thing, or another dumb thing. So my response is based on which dumb thing hurts my team the least often. Using them as distractions or meatshields is about all you can do in both these situations. I don't want my teammates to charge into an enemy firing line and get obliterated. However if he does and I'm nearby (big if), I'll at least try to use him as a distraction to get a few shots off before he gets vaporized. Me taking up the banner and continuing the suicide charge is only going to turn it from down 1 pilot to down 2 pilots.

With a timid pilot at least the part of my team is being preserved rather than thrown away in a useless charge. I'm able to poke and trade with the option of falling back if things don't go well.

With a timid pilot, at least you have options. With a hard-charger it's all or nothing.

While it may sound cruel or selfish, they are the ones putting themselves in this situation. If someone is going to charge and charge until he dies, using him as a meatshield is all you can do. If he didn't want to die, he wouldn't charge in alone, or he would go up a little ways and take cover to allow someone else to move up. On the other side, If someone is going to sit in one spot all game cowering, using that fact is all you can do.

When you have foolish players charge and die, you might as well have started with men down. That sucks in its own right, but sometimes matches play out that way in the first place (their presence or lack thereof would have not likely made a difference).

When you have timid players not even try to assist in a double team (especially with uneven teams that favor your group), those players become far more useless in any sense of the word when it comes to teamwork.

While one may want to equate one with the other... the latter is far more detrimental in the sense that easy teamwork was not accomplished.

[Mawai]

In my opinion, the answer depends on perspective.

If you are playing hard charging and your team is not then you die and that is worse.

If the entire team is playing timid with no initiative then most of the time you will lose and that is worse.

The key is not so much timid or hard charging but team. In general, hard charging, keeping moving, aiming for the opponents flank, avoiding wandering in front of their main force ... that will be more effective than being "timid" since if you are reacting to the other team's actions, and those actions are even modestly coordinated, then you will lose.

.. but if you think hard charging is best ... and you do it by yourself or even with an entire lance leaving the rest of your team behind then you will most probably doom your team even more than playing timidly.

So the strategy depends on perspective and whether you can get the majority of your team to buy into it.

[Cabusha3]

Being timid is worse. You're handing the decision making to the other team, which automatically puts you at a disadvantage.

[Pariah Devalis]

There's an ebb and flow to fights. A charge against a solid position is asking for tears. Holding a location when you've been loosing trades all game long is also terrible. However, as a rule, it is better to be on the offensive and maintain momentum. You force the enemy to be reactive, and can more easily dictate the terms. This, however, again doesn't mean blindly charging. It might take some prepwork to get the enemy softened just enough, or might take you going out of your way to take a more indirect approach path to the enemy.

However, chronic passivity loses matches and is the number one source of my frustration with the MWO playerbase as a whole. People are scared of risk, which leads to a cycle of reinforcing failures. For example, a push is called. Two scenarios can happen. One, the entire team pushes together, might lose one mech, but the enemy team is given far too many targets at once to effectively focus fire and gets overwhelmed. In the other, a push is called, but 3/4 of the team hesitates, and the mechs that do actually push get gunned down because it's now a 12v3 and they can be easily focused upon, which results in the team failing overall.

I've seen people who fail to be aggressive when necessary give in to defeat, or what could have been a sure win backfire into a crushing defeat.

Your mech's paint and armor is free to repair between matches. You want to win, and winning leads to satisfaction. It is in the self interest of any teammate to work as a team to further their odds of success and, as a result, increase their own satisfaction. Being a pansy who's afraid to get a little bloody is bad juju.



A good example of what an aggressive push can do in what is otherwise a stalemate happens below at the 21:30 mark in the following video:

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 08 January 2017 - 03:04 PM.

[The Unstoppable Puggernaut]

It's got to depend on the size of the map. Small maps like caustic, if people go nuts and charge in, you can back them up. Maps like Frozen city, I saw people charge in and....... they just take you numbers down as if they are disconnects.

As for the ones hanging back, they are frustration as heck, a raven holding back isn't the same however as a kodiak holding back.

[LordNothing]

what i dont like are people who are afraid to attack lerm boats because they dont want to get hit by lerms.