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Initiative, Position, And Momentum


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#1 Insanity09

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Posted 20 April 2017 - 10:24 AM

In my time playing MWO, I have noticed that some folks seem to be either missing or ignoring some awareness that could let them avoid common mistakes.
Some of this I've seen in other threads, but clearly it bears repeating.
This does run into the wall of text category, but I think it has value, if you've got the patience to handle it.

"Shooting Fish in a Barrel"
The idea here is simple. Don't be the fish. If the enemy is mostly contained in a small area, pinned down so they feel like they can't move, then you and your teammates have a very easy time moving around to pick the most advantageous spot to attack from.
If the enemy (or you!) have stuck yourself into a limited area, they have lost the initiative, and their loss is far more likely.

Common places this happens: Any domination circle, the ramps around the central area in Canyon or Viridian, many spots on Polar, around the mesa or arch on Forest, between the ramps or in the basement of HPG. There are, of course, many more than I've listed here.

How not to be the fish. This is difficult. On the one hand, staying together as a group is a simple and frequently effective tactic, but it goes badly wrong at times. If you find your team has (mostly) moved to a single spot and then started milling around in a very small area, you may be in the barrel, aka trap. Getting out of the barrel is very painful and takes coordination. One mech at a time jumping out of the barrel is a source of great amusement to the folks with the guns outside. If there is a coordinated breakout (tough to manage), on the other hand, that evens the playing field. Which brings me to...


"To Peek or not to Peek" or "The Screaming Horde"
By far the most egregious place this happens is on Polar. Indiscriminate poking your head out will get it shot off. If you look around a corner, or over the top of a hill and see multiple enemy mechs, and are lucky enough to survive that first glance, the appropriate action is simple: DON'T DO IT! If you suddenly appear to a number of the enemy, they have only one target, YOU, and you are likely to take far more damage than you give. Don't give the enemy a happy; don't peek into superior firepower. I know the tendency; you want to look, you want to shoot, but if you want to win you can't give in unless it is in your favor. It is too easy to think "yeah, but I'll only show up for a second, I can shoot and hide again without being shot". Most of the time, that simply isn't true. You WILL take return fire.

When is peeking by yourself okay? I'd say three circumstances. One, the enemies are facing away from you. Two, you out-range anyone who can see you. Three, you can see only one enemy and you have better firepower than they do. Be judicious.

The far better alternative to solo peeking is rushing with a bunch of your friends. If a whole group of you all hop a ridge together, prepared to start shooting, then you have the initiative, you have the momentum. If you coordinate (focus) your targets (especially ahead of time, by somebody scouting or having a UAV spotting), then you have a big advantage. (take care, unless you've no choice, you probably still want to approximate match or outnumber the enemy) The break out, aka push, can work if you do it en masse. It will fail if you or your teammates get timid and try to go back into cover. Why? Because one poor teammate will be a bit slower to get back in cover. Whatever the reason, the enemy team will be left with one target, and they will be an angry hornet's nest at that point. Result: dead teammate(s). Don't give up your momentum. Yes, you still might lose people (or lose you!), but the team gets the advantage, and you are more likely to win this way than staying put. Caveat: if the enemy team is obligingly impatient and keeps poking one at a time, allowing your team to focus fire, you can probably wait until they are whittled down. However, you need to watch out for....

"But I flunked flank"
If you can avoid it, you really don't want to fight one on one in MWO. You want the odds to be in your favor. Duh.
First off, unless the enemy is oblivious, you cannot flank with an entire team. You flank with part of your team onto part of their team. Flanking is all about two things: bringing locally superior firepower to bear (remember that phrase), and/or causing the enemy to expose their side/back to superior firepower. Coordinating an actual flanking effort, and more importantly making use of the effort, is difficult to pull off. You need a reasonably mobile flanking force (no slow mechs), you need cover so you can get into position without being seen (ecm can help), and, for preference, you need an enemy in bite size chunks.

The basic situation: two lines (more or less) of opponents are facing each other; they are hiding behind rocks, ridges, buildings, and what all; one team has part disengage and move around to one side (or the back) and begin attacking a small part of the enemy line.
So, as an example, in a 12v12 you break off 4 mechs to find and attack 2 enemies. Better local firepower (4 vs 2). Repeat as possible.

"The hammer and anvil analogy" Flanking successfully means part of your team, usually the larger part, functions as the anvil and holds the bulk of the enemy in place while the other part, the hammer, moves around to hit them from a good spot. Unless domination turns into full on nascar, this is more or less what happens in that mode (albeit in a way that is usually haphazard, rather than effectively organized).
Remember that "locally superior firepower" thing? If you are flanking, and a large portion of the enemy team moves to deal with you, guess who has the bigger guns at that point? The enemy. However, by a big part of the enemy coming for you, you've become the anvil, not the hammer. The bulk of your team should now have a numerical advantage, and be able to push through the part of their team left in the original spot(s). That takes excellent coordination and recognition of the changing situation, however. Pay attention, communicate, and it can work like a charm.

The best flanking maneuver, if you are lucky, is with a single fast mech. The squirrel. If several of the enemy take the bait and give chase, guess what? The bulk of your team suddenly has a number advantage. A fast mech announcing they are being chased by several enemies possibly isn't complaining or hoping for help (I mean, they'd probably like some help, but...), they are telling you the main enemy force is weakened, and you should probably push your advantage (take the initiative). Even if a bunch of the enemy simply turn around to fire at the squirrel, if you could push at that moment, you'd be shooting at their backs (better position). And if the enemy loses a couple mechs, or just sees a bunch of people bearing down on them, they are likely to be in disarray and you have the momentum at that point. Don't stall.

So, always recognize when you have the advantage (numbers/firepower) and when you don't. Move out of the situation where you don't have it, and into the situation when you do. A bit vague? I suggest you read the flanking paragraphs again. (Oh, and for goodness' sake, if you find yourself facing a number of the enemy, do NOT just turn your back to them to run away, that's committing suicide by inches)

To sum up the whole deal. Don't let yourself or your team get stuck, you'll lose the initiative. A concerted effort can carry your team through, and a major mistake that causes teams to fail is when people spend too much time hiding on a push instead of shooting, losing momentum. Finally, you always want the odds to be in your favor, and by moving into good spots you can give you and your buddies a positional advantage. That advantage might mean you get the kills, or it might mean the rest of your team gets the benefit. Either way works.

#2 Renfis

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Posted 22 April 2017 - 03:38 PM

View PostInsanity09, on 20 April 2017 - 10:24 AM, said:

The break out, aka push, can work if you do it en masse. It will fail if you or your teammates get timid and try to go back into cover. Why? Because one poor teammate will be a bit slower to get back in cover.


^
This! More people need to understand the need to keep moving forward during a push. Usually that ends up in a complete steamroll. It's hesitation and backing up that makes a push utterly fail nine times out of ten

#3 Serpentine Shel Serpentine

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Posted 23 April 2017 - 09:24 AM

Thanks for posting this! The basic push and flanking maneuver should be required training in the mech academy for every pilot. "MWO tactics 101 Comics" are a great source for basic tactics in graphic form. I don't have the link right now but if you search the terms I quoted you will find it. A great resource.

Here is the link: https://mwomercs.com...ics-101-comics/

Edited by DeloresAbernathy, 23 April 2017 - 09:23 AM.


#4 Insanity09

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Posted 23 April 2017 - 06:53 PM

Oh, I've read it and am very familiar. There's a lot of very, very good information in there. It really should be required reading for anyone playing MWO.

Sadly, some folks don't seem to get the message, so I thought elaborating on a few common errors and methods might not go amiss.

#5 Renfis

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Posted 24 April 2017 - 06:00 AM

Unfortunately, as covered by someone elses (also good) post, "Timidity is not a tactic", MWO sort of promotes a mentality of hiding as soon as you take damage, which unfortunately leads to people being afraid to scratch their paintjobs. When pushing en masse, I'm usually at the front, taking LOADS of damage, but I rarely die when the team follows through, because after a few seconds of pushing, the enemy just huddles up and stops aiming good

#6 the sixth tier

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Posted 26 April 2017 - 08:35 AM

hah i'm not very good, so i always have questions.

such as "why are we hiding in this hole? so they can bury us easier?" and "why are we stopping in this death pit?"

#7 Insanity09

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Posted 26 April 2017 - 10:42 AM

Sixth Tier, those are awesome questions, a thinking player is a better player.

Sadly, the very difficult, and often frustrating, part comes from that. "Hey guys, thing x we're doing is stupid, can we please do y instead?" Then when your team doesn't stop doing x, you have a choice of dying with them, or going off to do a more intelligent thing and dying alone. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

#8 the sixth tier

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Posted 26 April 2017 - 12:01 PM

i'd be ashamed to fly a 80+ ton mech and hide behind a bunch of mediums. but that's probably why i'm tier 6.

#9 Serpentine Shel Serpentine

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Posted 26 April 2017 - 12:15 PM

Maybe I'm a shameful coward but I disagree, based on my limited experience. As a newbie I was inclined rush into battle with my brand new assault and get wiped out quickly. And as others have pointed out elsewhere that sort of suicide whether intentional or not is bad for the team as well as pilot stats. The mediums are far more agile and speedy than assaults and are lower priority targets. So they can provide an effective and appropriate security screen to allow assaults to advance within push range before being destroyed. But at a certain point of course the assaults and the rest of the team have to commit and expose themselves at medium to close range to kill the enemy. The trick is always on the timing and doing it together. Even expert pilots on youtube recommend keeping a large slow brawler in cover until everyone is in position for "the push." If this does not happen then defeat in detail usually follows (at least for me). But of course the necessary coordination is often lacking and if you want to fight you just have to get out there and do it.


#10 the sixth tier

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Posted 26 April 2017 - 12:49 PM

it's good for the assault hiding in back to get a few easy kills before the team loses, and probably good for his bank/psr/etc. everyone wants to be that guy, but it's impossible for everyone on the team to be at the tail end of a push. everyone trying to be is why you end up in a hole.

#11 Kaethir

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Posted 27 April 2017 - 06:04 AM

I had a map a couple of nights ago that felt like it was going to turn into our team being timid until it died... but there was a distinct difference. Domination on Polar Highlands, I was in an Arctic Cheetah, and I got to the circle 25 seconds before anybody else on either team... The rest of the team slowly caught up and then sat on our side of the beacon and basically did nothing but shoot at peekers. Here we go again, I think... but our lights and mediums continued to harass their flanks, not doing any significant damage but not allowing them to focus on anyone in particular. We did lose one or two, but eventually had 3-4 of them focused on two lights on our left flank, and 3-4 of them that started chasing the one light and two mediums on our right flank... which exposed them to the push from the rest of the team around the right flank. We only lost 1 or 2 more mechs as we smashed them because most of our team could focus while they were split between 3 targets.

The point is that it is smart not to charge in without purpose - and at the beginning, a push probably would have resulted in complete destruction - but to pay attention to the positions of both teams and push when an advantage can be had.

#12 Serpentine Shel Serpentine

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Posted 27 April 2017 - 07:41 AM

I have to admi to some frustration and confusion. I've been doing this about three months now in the PUG solo queue with about 500 games. I watch a lot of expert YouTube videos like Molten Metal, Kanajashi, BlackhawkSC. I study Tactics 101 Comics and other guides. To try for more kills I got the KDK-3. But with a KDK-3 with two UAC10 and two UAC5, I get pressured to get up front in every situation (both in the forums and in the game itself) yet it seems like no one is following through or even covering me. In a Kodak I get focus-fired and insta-gibbed in 3 out of 4 games usually without a Kill of my own. Somehow this never happens in those YouTube videos (I know they only show you the best ones but still they say 1000 damage is not so rare with that build..). I torso twist and use cover when I can, but if you want to shoot cannons you have to see the enemy and they can see you too. So can I just blame my teammates for this or what am I doing wrong?






#13 Roughneck45

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Posted 27 April 2017 - 08:11 AM

View PostDeloresAbernathy, on 27 April 2017 - 07:41 AM, said:

I torso twist and use cover when I can, but if you want to shoot cannons you have to see the enemy and they can see you too. So can I just blame my teammates for this or what am I doing wrong?

Its tough. You have to play with a mixed mentality of self preservation and holding the front line. Kodiaks get naturally focus fired too, everyone knows how deadly they are. Try to get the firing angles that will let you dakka without without multiple mechs returning fire.

There isn't really a single answer to it, but you're way ahead of most by watching those videos.

Edited by Roughneck45, 27 April 2017 - 08:11 AM.


#14 the sixth tier

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Posted 27 April 2017 - 09:54 AM

well, speaking of following through, i was just playing conquest. i had 4 heavies right behind me and spotted 2 enemies. i went off to their right and posted up on their flank. then i looked at the minimap and realized the heavies had stopped in a corridor back a ways and it was 1vs2 instead of 5vs2. so i jumped down in their line of sight and went to make a sandwich.

edit: another time that sticks out in my mind was on polar, when one of the lights said over voip, "contact in h8". literally the entire team just stopped in their tracks over one contact a kilometer away.

Edited by the sixth tier, 27 April 2017 - 09:58 AM.


#15 Kubernetes

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Posted 30 April 2017 - 08:37 PM

Good stuff.

Regarding peeking and poking, it can be done but you must stick to some fundamentals.

First off, try to iso-poke (isolation poke). What this means is to expose only until the very first target appears, shoot, and then back into cover. I see many people get fixated on the target they want to hit ("Oooh Kodiak!"), and they'll leave cover to shoot it, even if it means being exposed to multiple enemies. For instance, say you're trying to poke from the right side of a wall; when you expose, shoot the first mech you see on the right, don't pass it up and expose more in search of another target. If you're looking at multiple mechs when you expose, you're probably doing it wrong.

Second, reverse into pokes if you can. Your forward accel is way faster than reverse, so you want to reverse into the poke and then forward into cover when possible.

Third, don't stare after the shot. If you've got ACs, Gauss, or PPCs, don't wait to see your shots hit. That's just asking to get a faceful of return fire. If you do it right you should be back in cover before your shots connect.

Finally, get a feel for the enemy's cooldown and tempo. If your enemy is doing the exact opposite of 1-3 above, you can time his shots and twist/hide appropriately.

Oh, and last bit of advice, if you're losing trades against a particular enemy, just stop. Move elsewhere and find angles on a lesser opponent.

Edited by Kubernetes, 30 April 2017 - 08:38 PM.


#16 Erronius

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Posted 01 May 2017 - 07:24 AM

View PostRenfis, on 24 April 2017 - 06:00 AM, said:

Unfortunately, as covered by someone elses (also good) post, "Timidity is not a tactic", MWO sort of promotes a mentality of hiding as soon as you take damage, which unfortunately leads to people being afraid to scratch their paintjobs. When pushing en masse, I'm usually at the front, taking LOADS of damage, but I rarely die when the team follows through, because after a few seconds of pushing, the enemy just huddles up and stops aiming good


This is why I've never really played my assaults, and more or less stopped playing heavies (I now mostly play lights). I only drop in QP, so it isn't organized teams. And most of the time when someone calls for a push, they're not up at the front getting ready to push themselves. I can't count how many times I've heard someone call for a push, and then found myself completely alone leading a solo push while everyone behind me moves forwards, then starts backpeddling when they see me getting lit up. But if I hang back waiting for someone else to go first, the odds are pretty good that the push won't even happen.

Having the person who called for the push then scream at you for dying alone on a failed push, when everyone else lost their nerve and fled, is simply extra awesome-points. I had that happen enough times that I was just like "Welp, I'll just hold off on playing fatties for now".

I also question when people say on the forums something like "Brawling is dead; the current Meta killed it". Personally I think brawling is only dead when you're unorganized and everyone on a team is only playing for themselves...but that's just my opinion, I guess.

#17 Serpentine Shel Serpentine

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Posted 01 May 2017 - 08:42 AM

View PostErronius, on 01 May 2017 - 07:24 AM, said:


This is why I've never really played my assaults, and more or less stopped playing heavies (I now mostly play lights). I only drop in QP, so it isn't organized teams. And most of the time when someone calls for a push, they're not up at the front getting ready to push themselves. I can't count how many times I've heard someone call for a push, and then found myself completely alone leading a solo push while everyone behind me moves forwards, then starts backpeddling when they see me getting lit up. But if I hang back waiting for someone else to go first, the odds are pretty good that the push won't even happen.

Having the person who called for the push then scream at you for dying alone on a failed push, when everyone else lost their nerve and fled, is simply extra awesome-points. I had that happen enough times that I was just like "Welp, I'll just hold off on playing fatties for now".

I also question when people say on the forums something like "Brawling is dead; the current Meta killed it". Personally I think brawling is only dead when you're unorganized and everyone on a team is only playing for themselves...but that's just my opinion, I guess.


Thanks for letting me know I'm not alone in being left alone. This is so true ... it happened to me more than once. Someone says the assaults have to get out there and push and then you go and no one else is sharing their armor or firing at the guys who are shooting you. I've learned to be more cautious but love assaults so keep playing them. But once I master an assault I'll spend more time with a lighter mech like the HBK II-C which I know is a great mech. It's been said many times: Continuous voice communication and willingness to take risk for the team is really necessary for the team to work.

Edited by DeloresAbernathy, 01 May 2017 - 01:50 PM.


#18 CFC Conky

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Posted 01 May 2017 - 09:18 AM

Hello all,

I usually drive heavies or mediums and I've called for my share of pushes, but usually after having a 'peek over the hill', and I'm right up there with the assaults when I call it. That said, you don't have to be right up with the big boys to call for a push if you have a good vantage point somewhere else giving you a good idea of the situation although it be be harder to get the rest of the team to follow up.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky





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