mycroft000, on 06 July 2017 - 09:34 AM, said:
I had a long private message conversation with Pat Kell a few weeks back, and while I understand his(and the rest of KCOM's stance) I think they're wrong.
New players to this game are frequently people who are invested in the Lore, not in the gameplay. I know that was the case for me. When I started, and was playing faction play almost exclusively(as a pug), I suffered from enough crushing defeats at the hands of KCom that I wouldn't even participate in the fight if I was grouped up against them. I ejected through my first three drops and then would find a way out of bounds for the fourth. I saw no reason to give them the rewards for my deaths because I knew that as an uncoordinated group we stood no chance.
Since then I joined a unit and have progressed to be the unit leader. As the leader of my unit I have instituted two rules for faction play:
1. We do not push drop zones(occasionally when we're on smaller QP maps like Caustic we may inadvertently end up in an enemy spawn, but that's always in small numbers and unintentional). I'm firm enough on this that I am willing and ready to lose a match over pushing to an enemy's spawn and not giving them any opportunity to actually play the game we all waited 10-20 minutes to get into.
2. If we're against pugs or smaller groups and we're in a group of 7+ we offer and honor 1v1 requests. We will do this at the risk of losing one mech to an enemy who chooses not to honor the 1v1, and when that happens, we retaliate, fall back to regroup, and let our opponent have their next wave to regroup and try again if we're on defense(if we're on offense we complete the objective and end the match).
I straight up asked Pat Kell to consider not spawn camping pugs. I couldn't care less about what he chooses to do against larger groups because that falls on them to coordinate and not simply roll over and die. But against pugs, spawn camping is not healthy for the game despite what he believes. In his words:
In the absence of PGI being able or willing to change the mechanics of the game mode to discourage spawn camping(many ideas have been provided repeatedly by the community), I feel that it is our responsibility as a community to foster a welcoming game mode to new players(for units, go for it, be relentless and brutally aggressive), if we don't do this, we'll continue to see complaints and a lack of broad appeal for the game mode that I am most interested in playing.
And finally I've got some more ideas for what PGI could do to discourage camping:
1. Eliminate C-Bill and XP rewards for kills within 500 meters of the drop zone.
2. Have drop ships avoid dropping people into "Hot LZ's," let the drop ship do strafing runs shooting its large lasers at any enemy in the drop zone until there is a clear place to land.
3. Replace second, third, and fourth drops with Drop Pods(
Drop Pod - BattleTechWiki - Sarna.net) that have numerous choices for location to drop so that there is no single place that spawn camping can occur.
There are many more possibilities that would help reduce or eliminate spawn camping, but until PGI improves their game theory on designing their game modes, then as I've said before, it's our responsibility as a community to encourage players to participate in the game we all enjoy.
Ok, going to warn you all that this is going to be a long post so feel free to ignore it if you like but I had part of a private conversation I had with Mycroft posted here and it seems best that I further explain myself so that the small section he posted isn't misunderstood.
First off, I appreciate Mycroft taking the time to message me personally as I enjoy philosophical discussions such as we had. Anyone should feel free to do so at any time and I will answer as best I can when I have time. This discussion centered around spawn camping and his initial question was how often do we do it. I responded with a simple "As often as we can." and then went on to explain why we do it which the blurb he posted was some of that response. Why we do it is 2 fold. One, we like to win and we like to be aggressive. Very rarely do I or any other officer actually make the call to go spawn camp. What happens (and sadly this happens mostly to pugs who are struggling to find a person to follow) is that the enemy will often times not stray very far from their drop zone so when the initial fight is through, if we have any one of the original 12 mechs standing, I will generally say something like "Ok, go burn your mechs, get fresh ones and re-group in X# grid." This tells everyone still alive to go find an enemy, wherever they are, and do as much damage to their next mechs as you can before you die and all the ones who dies in the initial engagement will wait in the designated grid. At this point, the enemy is often times not yet regrouped as our pushes are often quick and brutal, win or lose. Because of this, and because the enemy didn't push out far enough on the first engagement, we will almost always find ourselves in their drop zones, trying to find mechs to shoot and to burn our 1st wave mechs. That's the aggressive part. The part where we like to win comes in to play here too though. By damaging or killing some or all of their 2nd wave mechs, we have opened up a lead that is almost impossible to come back from. We take tactical advantage of the situation on the battlefield and it's why we win as often as we do. I have been in numerous matches where we were down 6-12 or worse after the first wave and instead of following this procedure, the enemy would either fall back and regroup with their 2nd wave mechs (big mistake) or they would send in their damaged mechs in order to get fresh ones, but would regroup too close to the fight (absolutely horrible mistake). It is very simple for 12 fresh mechs to take out 6 damaged mechs and not much harder for 12 freshish mechs to take out the remaining 6 who thought it was a good idea to regroup within a grid of where the fight was taking place. The fight is now 18-12 and while we have damaged mechs, they have some on their 3 mech and by the time we die and regroup for the 3rd wave, it's now 24ish to 24ish. They have lost but still hold out hope. They have 12 mechs in varying states of damage and we have 12 fresh ones. Often times, we won't even have to dip into our 4th wave mechs at this point and those that do either don't get back to the fight in time or are just scraping for assists.
My response to Mycroft centered mainly around whether or not we (KCom or other 12 man teams) should be more gentle with pugs. You all saw
some of my response but I would like to add that I do not think it is my responsibility or anyone else's to provide a safe environment for others to test the waters in CW. This is a game and everyone here has come here to try to have fun and win. Now, some can have fun while losing if they do well, or they work together with the team well or whatever but I do not have fun losing ever. This doesn't mean I won't be gracious to the enemy and salute them for winning the match but I do not have fun losing. What I will do though is try very hard to learn from it. The scenario I listed above came from a lot of matches where we fell prey to the very same issue and we learned that if we wanted to win, we had to meet the enemy with 4 distinct waves of 12 mechs. No exceptions. Not doing this is the easiest way to lose a match.
So when Mycroft suggests that we hold off on people (pugs), what he is actually (inadvertently I hope) is asking us to put ourselves in a position to lose and I am simply not willing to do that. I am actually surprised that anyone would think that it's ok to ask this of anyone. I am responsible for the well being and general happiness of KCom members and that is it. I am not responsible for anyone else and trying to shame or guilt me into shirking that responsibility is just not something I am going to entertain, ever. You don't have to agree with me, that is fine, it also doesn't matter. I will be as clear with everyone here as I was with Mycroft. I intend to win every single match I play every single time, and I will use all the experience and knowledge I have of the game to achieve that goal as often as I can. That includes spawn camping if it's required. No one else needs to follow this belief if they don't like but lets be clear, if PGI came up with some way to eliminate spawn camping (which I honestly could care less if they do or not) KCom and many other teams will simply develop new strategies and tactics to attempt to continue winning. We will do it within the CoC and I have made it very clear to every member in KCom that we will achieve this goal as often as we can WITHOUT the use of any type of game hacks period.
The issue here isn't that spawn camping exists, it's that too many people absolutely refuse to learn how to prevent it or make it better for themselves. Instead of putting in the work to join a team and develop viable strategies, they seek to look to outside sources to fix the troubles they are having. This is not going to help them in the long run. If PGI "fixes" spawn camping, it will simply be replaced with some other winning strategy by the teams that work hard enough to develop it or learn from watch others do it. At some point, people need to take on the responsibility for themselves of fixing the issues they are having because if you rely on others to provide your happiness for you, you will be unhappy most of your life.
I understand that some will get into CW and will not enjoy themselves and end up not playing any more. That is unfortunate, I just want people to understand that asking us to back off the throttle some isn't going to fix the problem. It's just not. two things will happen, we will lose more and many of our players will stop playing because they want to win and they want to be aggressive. They would not tolerate this order from me and would either ignore it or quit playing. Second, another unit would simply (and many do) do the same as we do and stomp uncoordinated pugs.
Calling out KCom or any other well coordinated team for being too aggressive is looking at the result of the problem rather than the cause. CW is supposed to be a team environment where teams can get together and fight each other. Pugs are meant to fill in groups as necessary but for numerous reasons, there simply aren't that many teams playing any more. This results in Pugs filling entire teams facing some of the few remaining hardcore teams left who have been here from the beginning. Please remember that everything we do, we do because of the lessons we have learned playing CW almost exclusively from the very beginning. This was a time when there were many more active teams around and some very good players. We had to develop strategies that would allow us to beat them and now that they are in place, we have them so engrained in our playstyle that I don't think we could turn it off even if we wanted too.
Not to mention, I honest think that I am being disrespectful to people when I do not try the best I can. It is disrespectful to my opponents because it deprives them of the opportunity to learn something new or something they may not be aware of and it is disrespectful to my teammates who are counting on me to help them to victory. I will not do either of these things. I have no problem with Mycroft or anyone else trying to be kind to new players and providing them with a "safe environment" for them to learn in if they think that will help, I just disagree with the belief that it will help. Therefore, I will not do it.
Several times I have mentioned trying to learn from difficult situations and I have been hit with comments like "what can you learn from get stomped 48-6 and you're last 3 mechs were shot in the dropship" or "people don't learn in stressful situations". I believe these comments to be a huge fallacy on how and when people learn. Stressful situations are exactly when people are most likely to learn. It's an evolutionary tactic we have developed to try to prevent ourselves from being put back in those stressful situations. Some chose to avoid it altogether but others will come up with amazing new ideas to try to deal with the situation better. These are the people who inevitably rise to the top whenever they apply this strategy. It happens in all things in life. They work hard, they practice and train, they watch how others who are better then they are handle the situation. They do all sorts of things to try to improve themselves so that when they find them selves in that situation again, they don't panic but rather rise to it.
As to what can be learned from it. Tons. Get on a team. if you are unwilling or unable to get on a team, use voip to try to wrangle your team into some sort of strategy, doesn't really matter what it is, just get them all agreeing to do something together...anything as long as it's together is almost always better then 3 over here, 4 in the middle and several loners wandering off doing whatever it is that they do on their jolly little Rambo jaunts. Sitting back in your base, is not a viable strategy, ever. It's an invitation to be shot in your drop ship. You should learn to never run off by yourself. You should learn to never reinforce and always regroup well away from the main fight. You should learn to push out and have the first engagement be as far away from your drop zones as possible to allow for an unopposed regrouping. You should learn to bring builds suitable for the map and suitable for the strategy you want to use. Asking what can be learned from a 48-6 stomp is basically admitting that you don't want to put in any effort into learning more about the game. You should, most importantly, learn that you need to improve both as an individual player and as a team player. How you do that is up to you but choosing to ignore it will lead to additional 48-6 stomps and eventually you will quit the game. None of this is hard to do, but it does take effort and a desire to do better. If you chose to ignore all of this advice, that is absolutely within your right to do but you can't seriously expect me or anyone else to tone it down for people who think this way. It's just simply not going to happen. Not because we are mean or nasty or unfair or anything else, it's because we like to win just as much as that other guy does, we just put in more effort and played a smarter match. In fact, in my opinion, asking us to sacrifice or risk sacrificing our own personal happiness and enjoyment of this game by toning things down and risk losing is the mean and nasty thing. My happiness is not the property of the "common good", to be sacrificed at someone else's whim in an effort to provided someone else with it. If they want happiness, it is their responsibility to achieve it and not mine to provide it for them (unless I chose to).
I am thinking they need to change the warning for CW to something simpler to understand and much more to the point. It should simply say "There be Dragons."
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