46 replies to this topic

[Old-dirty B]

Miyamoto Musashi said:

There is timing in the whole life of the warrior, in his thriving and declining, in his harmony and discord. Similarly, there is timing in the Way of the merchant, in the rise and fall of capital. All things entail rising and falling timing. You must be able to discern this. In strategy there are various timing considerations. From the outset you must know the applicable timing and the inapplicable timing, and from among the large and small things and the fast and slow timings find the relevant timing, first seeing the distance timing and the background timing. This is the main thing in strategy. It is especially important to know the background timing, otherwise your strategy will become uncertain.

in very short, patience, hurry, slow or fast - its all irrelevant, "on time" is what matters!

Edited by B3R3ND, 20 April 2017 - 06:24 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Tarogato, on 19 April 2017 - 08:51 PM, said:

I disagree with this assessment. Once you've run the gamut of mechs (fast/medium/slow, short/medium/long, and the various weapon types), familiarity with your mech kinda comes naturally.

I'm going to disagree with you here. Sure once you've run the gamut you can generally be competent in that mech, but you will make small mistakes that cost you in serious matches and that can be problematic. For example, last night I drove a Locust despite normally being SJR's assault pilot. Gut and Mag have typically played the lights more than me, but neither of them have spent time in the Locust like I have (which isn't that much, but it is more time) so I ended up piloting the Locust. Not all lights play the same, they each have nuances you have to be aware of that can be the difference between just a competent player and a great player (and this applies to all mechs). Quirks only pile on to those nuances as well, especially velocity quirks.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 20 April 2017 - 06:50 AM.

[Mole]

razenWing, on 19 April 2017 - 01:57 PM, said:

Phenom #4: Feel

This is where a lot of players sometimes feel like Master players are hacking. But they just have great feel to the game. Because they have fought so many pilots, they can comfortably predict when and where someone would navigate. When you are wedge behind a building, are you going left? Are you going right? They won't guess 100% correct, but there is a major tendency among populations and you can definitely find a trend. When you feel like you are being clever, you are really not.

I feel this one is really important and is a skill that can only come from experience. Most people are right handed. It feels more natural for most people to go right. If someone slipped behind a building, chances are he's going to try and flank right instead of left. This is a trend that I've noticed again and again and following it when chasing has landed me many kills. After a while you just start to gain a sense of what the person you are fighting is probably thinking, feeling, and what they will likely do next. It's very easy to defeat even a good player when you can seem to predict everything they try to do before they've done it.

[Tarogato]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 20 April 2017 - 06:47 AM, said:

I'm going to disagree with you here. Sure once you've run the gamut you can generally be competent in that mech, but you will make small mistakes that cost you in serious matches and that can be problematic. For example, last night I drove a Locust despite normally being SJR's assault pilot. Gut and Mag have typically played the lights more than me, but neither of them have spent time in the Locust like I have (which isn't that much, but it is more time) so I ended up piloting the Locust. Not all lights play the same, they each have nuances you have to be aware of that can be the difference between just a competent player and a great player (and this applies to all mechs). Quirks only pile on to those nuances as well, especially velocity quirks.

I'll give you that one. Locust and Commando play a bit differently from all the other lights, they're almost their own category.

[razenWing]

Mole, on 20 April 2017 - 07:02 AM, said:

I feel this one is really important and is a skill that can only come from experience. Most people are right handed. It feels more natural for most people to go right. If someone slipped behind a building, chances are he's going to try and flank right instead of left. This is a trend that I've noticed again and again and following it when chasing has landed me many kills. After a while you just start to gain a sense of what the person you are fighting is probably thinking, feeling, and what they will likely do next. It's very easy to defeat even a good player when you can seem to predict everything they try to do before they've done it.

Another analogy related to basketball is fitting here, it's like playing defense. Human reaction is like 20 millisecond I think, so technically, offense will always have an edge. Yet, there are shutdown defenders aren't particularly athletic. How? It's experience. Thousands upon thousands of games will enable you to predict what players will most likely to do, and allow you to setup a more advantageous position before the offense has a chance to make a move.

"Offense players are shifting away, this is most likely going to be isolation play, so I should expect shot or drive. He's a predominant right hand user, so I should play strong right to force him left."

And at the heat of the moment, a defender is not even thinking all that, but hours upon hours of practice will allow those to become instinct. This is pretty much how I feel uber players are.

(It's like military training. No one is a good soldier at birth. But repetition can make anyone like an expert in firearm, map read, or whatever.)

Edited by razenWing, 20 April 2017 - 09:23 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 20 April 2017 - 06:47 AM, said:

I'm going to disagree with you here. Sure once you've run the gamut you can generally be competent in that mech, but you will make small mistakes that cost you in serious matches and that can be problematic. For example, last night I drove a Locust despite normally being SJR's assault pilot. Gut and Mag have typically played the lights more than me, but neither of them have spent time in the Locust like I have (which isn't that much, but it is more time) so I ended up piloting the Locust. Not all lights play the same, they each have nuances you have to be aware of that can be the difference between just a competent player and a great player (and this applies to all mechs). Quirks only pile on to those nuances as well, especially velocity quirks.

'Mech geo plays a lot into it, too. Two 'Mechs can have the same weapons in the same places and at the same level, but if one is humanoid and the other is oblong, they won't play at all the same. Like, I'm having a rough time in Roughnecks and Warhammers because my most-played 'Mechs have difficult-to-isolate frontal sections, which means you can face stare and do the wiggle to spread damage. 'Mechs like the Warhammer and Roughneck don't spread damage, they shield damage. Shielding isn't my most practiced mode, so I wind up trying to play those 'Mechs like I would a Marauder or Catapult and I crash and burn because of it.

[Flak Kannon]

Yeonne Greene, on 20 April 2017 - 03:40 PM, said:

'Mech geo plays a lot into it, too. Two 'Mechs can have the same weapons in the same places and at the same level, but if one is humanoid and the other is oblong, they won't play at all the same. Like, I'm having a rough time in Roughnecks and Warhammers because my most-played 'Mechs have difficult-to-isolate frontal sections, which means you can face stare and do the wiggle to spread damage. 'Mechs like the Warhammer and Roughneck don't spread damage, they shield damage. Shielding isn't my most practiced mode, so I wind up trying to play those 'Mechs like I would a Marauder or Catapult and I crash and burn because of it.

My whole point is, when we, the pilots that drop thousands and thousands of times, come up against each other, the margin of error is so small sometimes. The edge, in my opinion, DOES come down to experience with a specific chassis and the experience with the loadout on that specific chassis.

There is no argument that a good pilot can pilot anything well, because they understand all the ideas that Razen pointed out, and the essential Battlefield Awareness mentioned just above.

But, I play my Com 3A much better than I do my Com 1D because of my experience with its hardpoint layout due to me having 899 drops in the 3A, and only 53 drops in my 1D.

I know what to protect instinctively based on the nanosecond glance at the WireFrame damage indicator. I need that LEFT ARM in my 3A, it houses my Medium Laser. Well..I know that I have protected my WEAPONLESS Left Arm many time accidentally in my 1D because Im used to doing so in my 3A

It's these very small things that Targato isn't taking into account it seems. There is no replacement for experience. Period.

I will disagree the point of it not being 'massively important' until my last breath. It matters at the highest level of play, which I believe is what Razen made this post about.


Enjoi