188 replies to this topic

[Magnus Santini]

Electro, I find that screaming like a banshee when running between distant cover helps. Also when jaywalking.

[Electroflameageddon]

Hey Magnus I think I've heard you do that once or twice.

Especially when you are leading a charge and there are only one or two mechs trying to keep up with you and the rest of the team is noodling around.

[Necro Ash]

Aloha, on 14 March 2017 - 09:14 AM, said:

I just wanted to point out that assaults often get high damage and few kills because damaged enemies tends to run away and end up dying at someone else's hand. Assaults are not fast enough to chase down damaged enemies.

That's why I carry LRM's on my SNV.......hit the bugger running away.

[I_AM_ZUUL]

Redwo1f, on 06 March 2017 - 10:39 AM, said:

Disappearing are the days of the brawling assaults...the front liners, you know, the job they were assigned and created to do!!! (with a few exceptions). What I am seeing more and more are assaults created for the fire support role. You know the ones? the LRM 60 Kodiak?!?!? The ERLL/ Gauss Dire, etc. etc.

So here's what typically happens when 3 out of 4 members of Charlie lance are fire support and stand back hoping for targets....

YOU LOSE.

Mediums are suddenly forced to be front liners, a role they weren't designed for. Huge pressure on the remaining heavies (they better be good brawlers now, which often these days many aren't).

...the team falls apart one by one while the fire support assaults sit back with all their precious armor on the outskirts of the battle.

Ughh!!!!

Just the other day I watch a brilliantly adept player (*cough*) with his sole load-out 3ERLL on his Direwolf (!!!!!!!) sit back on the island and attempt to provide fire support while the rest of the team crumbled.

This is a terrible trend, imho. Out of role mechs, the disappearance of the brawling assaults...and now the way it is, everything else being equal, a good predictor of success or failure is the make up of Charlie lance.

:/

Yep... the team with the least amount of Cancer Mechs wins almost every time. That Pokebear hanging back 900m from the enemy with 98% armor is helping the enemy team more than his own team... cause he is selfish and cares more about his personal stats than winning, but then PGI has a screwed up Reward System that incentives that kind of anti-team behavior.

Edited by I_AM_ZUUL, 17 March 2017 - 08:26 PM.

[Anjian]

Anjian, on 08 March 2017 - 04:39 PM, said:

I tried to get back and play assaults with my old style and also faced the same problem. They are getting obliterated too quickly.

This is not like the old days of 8x8, when I can sense which team is going to win by the number of assaults they have, and also by the tonnage these assaults have. This was back in the days when the Atlas was a true king of the battlefield.

This is playing like the land version of World of Warships when battleships are getting scared and playing sniper from the back, threatened by destroyers they can't see, and which can unleash a spread of torpedoes that will kill them in one strike.

For this reason, games look to me like skirmishes and peek and boo with smaller, faster mechs, with mechs behind playing fire support.

I myself just play as an LRM fire support these days with Archers, then finish off weakened targets with my medium lasers. I could generally work out 400 to 500 damage in many games. Its the style I have to play for now, but not the style I generally want to play.

Limiting alphas with ghost heat also limits assaults. Sometimes I wish I can be able to fire four large lasers at one time like I did before.

I prefer not to blame players for this, I prefer to blame how the overall game balancing direction led to this situation.

Seems like I am going to have to take that back. Recently I think I managed to find my groove again with Assaults and managed to score my first 1K damage game since I started playing this game again. It does however require a much different approach to the weapons setup than what I am used to.

The lack of mobility means an assault or even larger heavies (75 tons) means they have to commit early and completely to strategies depending on their location.

Assault at the center of the line. This is a defensive posture intended to hold the center and to prevent the enemy from driving through.

Assault at the flanks. This is an offensive posture where the assault has to break through the flanks.

Brawler or Sniper? I say try to set up the assault as both brawler and sniper. An assault is too valuable an asset to be confined to a single role, and needs to be versatile for the unexpected.

Need to be quick off the line, pronto. Because of your slowness, you need to have a plan right at the start, and your mech needs to start going the moment the game starts. You cannot afford to be left behind. You can't be AFK at the start or taking your time doing RL things just because your wife or your mom is scolding you or you have to take the dog out.

[Shifty McSwift]

I just wanted to say, as a mostly assault brawler player, it is not disappearing, but there are some concerning trends;

LRMs are hugely popular IMO at lower ranks due to a massive lack of AMS (and lack of skills with other anti lrm devices), hopefully laser AMS will bring their levels up to reasonable levels (so its more like 9 or more out of 12 have ams rather than the 1-3 out of 12 that have it now).

Then there is the idea that with a lack of proper LRM protection games where LRM boats do 1000+ damage are common, so the style itself is being massively promoted vs other builds that struggle to get these numbers particularly being frontliners who may be killed taking damage for the team and receive minimal rewards, the game promotes hiding behind a hill and letting others do the 'hard work' or to take all the damage while you deal it freely.

Then you have what seems to be a lack of understanding for certain roles, anytime I see an assault that is boating LRMs I take the time to point out how wasteful that is in terms of tonnage and armor, LRM boats should only really exist in the heavy or medium category, and I think this is something that while it happens occasionally, is very quick to be fixed by people who realise and understand this flaw.

So yeah to me it seems like a combination of things culminating in such circumstances, and the only thing more depressing than seeing an lrm boat atlas hiding behind the heavies, is watching the 'rock-a-bye-baby' style employed by so damn many people today, where 90% of their game is just sitting at a ridge edge, rocking back and forth like they are trying to put their cranky spectators to sleep.

[Abisha]

assaults made for brawling? what universe did you play in?.
assaults tank less then light mechs this day's. that's why you see more and more "support" assaults.

[Electroflameageddon]

You can actually find a light in the game?!!!

Since the resize, lights (other than ACH and LCT's) are as rare as honest politicians.

I haven't seen a number larger than 5% playing lights in quick play.

[Khobai]

Quote

assaults tank less then light mechs this day's. that's why you see more and more "support" assaults.

pretty much

Quote

You can actually find a light in the game?!!!

Since the resize, lights (other than ACH and LCT's) are as rare as honest politicians.

I haven't seen a number larger than 5% playing lights in quick play.

Lights have a much higher skill cap than Assaults which is why you see less of them. Its sad but true that Lights (when piloted well) can out tank assaults. But assaults are much easier to just hold down the fire button and walk in a straight line at the enemy, and even if you die you rarely do less than 500 damage.

I personally would like to see Lights perform a more crucial role in the game
Id like to see Mediums become more versatile than they are now
Id like to see Heavies become less versatile and more specialized
And lastly Id like to see Assaults get tankier

I think PGI needs to work on those four things. In addition to giving us proper role warfare. They should divide each mech into one of several roles and each role should have its own unique skill tree suited to that role. That would be a proper skill tree.

Edited by Khobai, 18 March 2017 - 06:33 PM.

[Wildstreak]

Had a Domination match on Friday, 3 of the 4 Assaults on our team were LRM boats.

My Medium and the Heavy that held the circle initially died in seconds while the LRMers and everyone else stayed a grid square away from the circle.

Edited by Wildstreak, 18 March 2017 - 09:13 PM.

[Jubblator]

Im hanging back nowadays in solo QP because almost every time a push is called and i actually push in, no one ever ******* follows...ppl dont know what a push is...so in solo QP screw that, ill gauss or lurm or whatever ^^ im not going in head first.

[FireStoat]

Wildstreak, on 18 March 2017 - 09:12 PM, said:

Had a Domination match on Friday, 3 of the 4 Assaults on our team were LRM boats.

I had that same match today. Grim Plexus Dominion. Our team had more LRM boats so naturally more of the enemy advanced into the circle to decimate the 2-3 mechs that were desperately trying to hold the circle. When that happens, all you can do is shrug and leave your idiot allies that are a sector grid and a half away and try to team up with someone else to score what damage you can before the match is lost.

[Bogus]

Brawler assaults are obsolete thanks to the preponderance of snipefest maps and high pinpoint alpha, low exposure hardpoint configurations. I'd rather my assaults lay down some ownage at range than bravely suicide-march into a hail of PPCs like a bunch of Civil War soldiers.

[Weeny Machine]

Abisha, on 18 March 2017 - 02:46 AM, said:

assaults made for brawling? what universe did you play in?.
assaults tank less then light mechs this day's. that's why you see more and more "support" assaults.

Yup, that's why you see light mechs everywhere and they dominate every game and.... oh wait... it is common to see medium mechs in alpha lance and in general 0-2 lights per team.

People usually gravitate to the chassis which are most powerful / easiest to play. Guess why the light queue is usually the lowest?

Edited by Bush Hopper, 19 March 2017 - 03:49 AM.

[Weeny Machine]

Bogus, on 19 March 2017 - 01:47 AM, said:

Brawler assaults are obsolete thanks to the preponderance of snipefest maps and high pinpoint alpha, low exposure hardpoint configurations. I'd rather my assaults lay down some ownage at range than bravely suicide-march into a hail of PPCs like a bunch of Civil War soldiers.

Brawling in general is dead because of those reasons. Either you are sniped or you are engaged and a rain of lrms starts to fall and you have to disengage while taking shots.

Being often one of the few brawlers in the team doesn't help either. The "support assaults and heavies" sit in the back and snipe and if you try to engage you are singled out automatically

[Jikil]

I think Medium mechs specifically IS medium qwerk robots make the best pushers. Fast enough to move in quickly without getting overwhelmed. Pushing with your faster mechs also creates more targets for the enemy reducing incoming damage.

A medium/heavy push with assaults backing them up is devastating when I'm playing the Atlas-S since no one can single handedly take on an atlas I find its best to enter the fray right after the push has started. Rack up tons of damage and I can finish off most wounded mechs with a single alpha.

If I lead the push I die instantly, and if I enter too late everyone on one side or the other is dead before I can do anything.

The real problem is maps like crimson straight, grim plexus, canyon network and frozen city. These are all super popular maps and 90% of the players are likely to pick them. But they are straight up terrible for a short range assault mech in almost every circumstance, so naturally map selection is deciding what mech loadout to bring.

I can't afford to waste my assault slot on an atlas that might get 900+ damage and 4 kills on hpg only to get polar highlands and do 57 damage and cost my team victory.

[BarelyEvolvedApe]

As someone who pilots mediums almost exclusively, yes. I'm so tired of having to lead the charge and tank. 3/4th of the games I play the assaults are all sitting on a hill half way across the map when a push is needed and the mediums are having to do their job for them.

Edited by Skullkandy, 19 March 2017 - 09:37 AM.

[BarelyEvolvedApe]

Jubblator, on 18 March 2017 - 10:15 PM, said:

Im hanging back nowadays in solo QP because almost every time a push is called and i actually push in, no one ever ******* follows...ppl dont know what a push is...so in solo QP screw that, ill gauss or lurm or whatever ^^ im not going in head first.

This happens because all the heavy armor assaults and heavies want mediums to tank for them.

[BarelyEvolvedApe]

Kiran Yagami, on 13 March 2017 - 12:00 PM, said:

As long as everyone votes for Polar Highlands, Alpine Peaks, and Frozen City, you'll see nothing but long range assault mechs(or mostly long range). There are some maps where being long range is harder than others, but then there are some maps that makes brawling nearly impossible. Tons of open space between cover points, absurdly large maps, maps with no high cover at all. You can either sit there for half the match and be useless or at least be able to return fire.

This is also part of a second problem, everyone votes for these maps because everyone runs laser vomit and cold maps make that particular build style easy mode. That's why I always vote for hot maps.

[Pixel Hunter]

Khobai, on 18 March 2017 - 06:24 PM, said:

pretty much



Lights have a much higher skill cap than Assaults which is why you see less of them. Its sad but true that Lights (when piloted well) can out tank assaults. But assaults are much easier to just hold down the fire button and walk in a straight line at the enemy, and even if you die you rarely do less than 500 damage.

I personally would like to see Lights perform a more crucial role in the game
Id like to see Mediums become more versatile than they are now
Id like to see Heavies become less versatile and more specialized
And lastly Id like to see Assaults get tankier

I think PGI needs to work on those four things. In addition to giving us proper role warfare. They should divide each mech into one of several roles and each role should have its own unique skill tree suited to that role. That would be a proper skill tree.

I agree with pretty much all of that. I think heavies need to get slowed down. they bring a lot of guns and can go as fast as my mediums.