76 replies to this topic

[Tarl Cabot]

Just to note, OP has either just started playing w/24 drops under his belt this month or has not played since PGI introduced season tracking.
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Did something happen that has prompted you to make this thread? And if so, what mech(s) were being used and its weapons, along with the range you believe you were engaging the enemy?

Considering newer players may read this thread, also consider the ranges from you and the enemy. Those ranges listed on the weapon display in game, those are the optimal ranges for weapon damage, that is going beyond those ranges for each weapon the damage drops off, except for missiles which those are max range.

If a laser is showing a range of 300m, it is doing full damage upto 300m then the damage drops off. At 450m it is only doing half of its optimal damage. At 600m it is a toothpick trying to scrap the paint.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 07 October 2017 - 02:37 PM.

[Mechteric]

Nascar'ing isn't an effect of being competitive, more an effect of not having leader in most pug games.

[Shifty McSwift]

Jay Leon Hart, on 07 October 2017 - 01:23 PM, said:

As a general rule, I have 2 kinds of matches.

Type #1 where I'm aggressive and try to push the enemy, die early, but my team wins. +W/L, -AMS, -K/D

Type #2 where I hang back, let my team engage first, fight what remains, then lose. -W/L, +AMS, +K/D

I can help my team or I can help myself, rarely do the two go together.

I feel that.

But I find if you can stand to, it works to literally just hold the hands of mechs you don't know (usually at least one guy in your lance), try to identify their playstyle and either play into it with yours, or find someone(s) more suited on your team.

I find being abandoned mid fight to be some of the most headshaking inducing moments, so to counter it, you forcefully put yourself in the position of protecting/supporting at least one mech, and ensure that you won't be abandoned (while if you do it right, you ensure at least 1 other guy doesn't get abandoned).

You can still get mobbed, or find yourself holding hands with what turns out to be a heinous troll, or get stuck with 11 guys doing stuff that doesn't synergise with you at all, so it is no cure-all way to go about things, but it can be a nice change of pace to save some asses and fight the good fight

[Cloves]

Jay Leon Hart, on 07 October 2017 - 01:23 PM, said:

As a general rule, I have 2 kinds of matches.

Type #1 where I'm aggressive and try to push the enemy, die early, but my team wins. +W/L, -AMS, -K/D

Type #2 where I hang back, let my team engage first, fight what remains, then lose. -W/L, +AMS, +K/D

I can help my team or I can help myself, rarely do the two go together.

Then you, like me might be a little too Rambo for your skills. I took forever to get out of the low tiers due to my aggression, but from the very beginning held a positive W/L ratio. Once your skills start to catch up, you will move up in tiers because W/L is the most important part of PSR.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Cloves, on 07 October 2017 - 02:51 PM, said:

Then you, like me might be a little too Rambo for your skills. I took forever to get out of the low tiers due to my aggression, but from the very beginning held a positive W/L ratio. Once your skills start to catch up, you will move up in tiers because W/L is the most important part of PSR.

Yeah, when PSR hit I was thrown into Tier 5. I had a W/L and K/D of about 0.7 each. Now my W/L is just over 1 and my K/D is just over 1.1. Not great, but certainly better. If I only include matches since PSR, my W/L is still only a little above 1 and my K/D is almost 1.3. Still not great, I know

[MischiefSC]

Dakota1000, on 07 October 2017 - 02:05 PM, said:

Way I see it, shooting an enemy up so badly that they hide more instead of peek more and killing enemies so they can't peek anymore sure does save teammates from a lot on incoming damage. Rocks can draw the damage, people need to learn to poke better instead of asking others to take damage for their mistakes.

It all depends what you value. I value winning. Winning is the most important stat and one you can't game. I watched a guy in an ACH the other day spend the majority of the match hiding - he attacks a crippled Warhawk and loses a ST. He's snaked 2 kills already this match, securing two kills on crippled mechs. The match is currently 6-8 in favor of the enemy....

He runs, hides and powers down. We lose (he could have easily finished that WHK and helped us turn the match I to a win) but he saves his KDR.

KDR is a worthless metric. Intelligent players recognize that armor is a team trait and it needs spent as evenly as possible. It's very easy to use cover to neutralize a camping poke player and kill his teammates then kill him last. You need to draw fire and attention or you just ensure your team will lose to attrition unless the other team is significantly worse than yours.

[Escef]

CapperDeluxe, on 07 October 2017 - 02:32 PM, said:

Nascar'ing isn't an effect of being competitive, more an effect of not having leader in most pug games.

It's an effect of trying to gain a flanking advantage over the other team. Not a bad idea, just that there's very little flexibility in the application, and it leaves the sub-70kph crowd very vulnerable.

[Shifty McSwift]

MischiefSC, on 07 October 2017 - 03:01 PM, said:

It all depends what you value. I value winning.

That's fair, I put that second to good teamwork at the end of the day. Finding a good team that can take a loss, learn from it and fight on cohesively and consistently is much more valuable than any specific win here to me. If you see that from a perspective outside of your own team, inclusive of the idea of other teams, you have to be able to appreciate a good loss/fight against and with good teams.

[Judah Malganis]

The priority should be fun, but I've never understood those guys that stand in the back in an assault and fire one alpha, hide for 45 seconds, then repeating, then suddenly being the last one alive getting rushed by 4-10 enemies and dying, and repeating the same process for 16 matches straight, scoring 200 dmg every match. That just can't be fun.

If you're good at hanging out in the back, doing tons of dmg, scaring enemies into hiding, and supporting your team, do it. If you're doing it because you hate fighting, well, you're playing a mech fighting game, so there's that.

No one is saying you have to kamikaze into the enemy team, but you should support your team in the best way you know how. People hate long-range poke meta, but there's players that do it well. LRMs are by all accounts terrible, but some players will LRM you to death so horribly you'll come back to the forums and cry for even bigger nerfs. Some brawlers seem like they can kill any mech that gets in their face. Some lights can get behind another mech and shred them in what feels like 5 seconds. The one thing they have in common is that the can see a little bit through the chaos of 11 other self-interested players and find a way to maximally support what the bulk of the team is doing.

On another note, organized aggression, even if slightly misguided, often beats communal cowardice. A team full of players doing the every-man-for-himself thing usually just sits behind cover and waits, too afraid to take dmg and risk their precious KDR, which usually means they are just waiting to die.

Edited by Judah Malganis, 07 October 2017 - 03:56 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Escef, on 07 October 2017 - 03:06 PM, said:

It's an effect of trying to gain a flanking advantage over the other team. Not a bad idea, just that there's very little flexibility in the application, and it leaves the sub-70kph crowd very vulnerable.

NASCAR is a gambit. Your fast mechs abandon the rest and hope to get some fast kills and get back to exploit it before their teammates get rolled as well.

A flank is the whole team. A rolling firing line moving cover to cover. Ideally you want to be 1 to 1.5 grids wide, depending on map and cover. You're always spiraling in on an enemy flank, depending on the map. The goal is to push into a good position where either the enemy can't cover each other or the enemy only has cover on 1 side and you are shooting them on 2 sides. Then you push aggressively. Polar is a great one for this - you keep circling in until you've got the enemy in a valley and spread out. The opposite flank is moving around the edge of the valley but the near flank is still stuck down in it. You push in around the side, giving them no cover and over the top. The far flank, in trying to keep in cover has effectively abandoned half their team to a 12 v 6 engagement and you destroy the enemy in detail, two fights of 12 v 6.

Grim does this too. People try to take the high ground but it has limited advantage - the buildings can block your ability to cover each other and you skyline when you move in, so the low ground team can use both high and low mounts while the high ground team can only use high mounts. Also most mechs deflect up far more than down. So you let the enemy take buildings in high ground, then push in on low ground around the side. You'll win the trades on approach due to mount positions and when you push their side they a) can't all return fire due to obstructions and b ) have no real fallback position of value.

Aggression and flanking, but not too fast, wins well in QP. The team that camps loses unless the other team is even worse.

[Mcgral18]

As long as you shoot robots


Preferably more than 200 damage worth of robots
At least then, you did more than the guy who didn't shoot robots

[MischiefSC]

Mcgral18, on 07 October 2017 - 04:02 PM, said:

As long as you shoot robots


Preferably more than 200 damage worth of robots
At least then, you did more than the guy who didn't shoot robots

But I always get more than 200 damage with mah lurms! Sure, my win/loss is under 1.0 but I do damage!

Damage isn't good enough. I'll take a crafty locust pilot who ties up 4 mechs for 5 minutes but only does 150 damage over the leet snyper in the 5 erll BLK who spends 7 minutes settling I to a spot and sprays enemies then overheats again and again, even if he does 500 damage.

[Lord0fHats]

Escef, on 07 October 2017 - 03:06 PM, said:

It's an effect of trying to gain a flanking advantage over the other team. Not a bad idea, just that there's very little flexibility in the application, and it leaves the sub-70kph crowd very vulnerable.

It's a result of the team being lemmings, unable to realize that the year isn't 2013 anymore (or whatever year it was) and that a flank with no front is just dying in a circular motion.

Sometimes rotating is necessary, but more often than not teams just rotate themselves to death. Stop rotating!

[Void Angel]

gooddragon1, on 07 October 2017 - 10:21 AM, said:

I just want to kill things. I don't want to think about tactics, flanking, nascar, chokepoints, and such (the comic was interesting to read, but I'm not that competitive). As per previous statement: I'm just not that competitive. I'd just like to stick in the back of the stack and fire lasers at enemies.

Is this ruining the match for others? (Quickplay anyways of course)

Also: Such laser, very skirmish, wow.

Competitiveness isn't code for "not lazy." On the other hand, if you're not comfortable being in front, don't worry too much about it. As long as you're supporting the team and shooting what other people are shooting at, you'll do fine. "Every Man for Himself" is more along the lines of ignoring tactics and objectives to insist on sniping from my 1337 $N1P@R SP077. As long as you're Following the Fracking Atlas, it doesn't matter that much if you're in the front of the group, or the back - just try to shoot at the enemies your teammates are also shooting, and don't be afraid to take a little damage if you think it's a good trade.

[Escef]

Lord0fHats, on 07 October 2017 - 04:17 PM, said:

It's a result of the team being lemmings, unable to realize that the year isn't 2013 anymore (or whatever year it was) and that a flank with no front is just dying in a circular motion.

Sometimes rotating is necessary, but more often than not teams just rotate themselves to death. Stop rotating!

And then there's the people that think camping the high ground is a good idea. But it isn't 1800 anymore. Napoleonic tactics just don't work here. There is no piece of terrain in any of the quick play maps that holding it is worth sacrificing mobility and aggression. (Especially as the traditional advantages of high ground, battlespace awareness and extra range for projectiles, don't really apply to MWO. Battlespace awareness is better gained by group communication, UAVs, and paying attention to the minimap. Highground in MWO is just a way to advertise your presence most of the time.)

I'll take a team that Nascars over one that camps any day of the week.

[Ghogiel]

MischiefSC, on 07 October 2017 - 04:09 PM, said:

But I always get more than 200 damage with mah lurms! Sure, my win/loss is under 1.0 but I do damage!

Damage isn't good enough. I'll take a crafty locust pilot who ties up 4 mechs for 5 minutes but only does 150 damage over the leet snyper in the 5 erll BLK who spends 7 minutes settling I to a spot and sprays enemies then overheats again and again, even if he does 500 damage.

I will always want a player that's guaranteed to do 500dmg opposed to a player guaranteed to do 150.

[panzer1b]

Sitting on teh 2nd line firing lasers isnt inherently useless if you have the skill to properly apply damage to targets, but you should never be so far away from teh team that you never get shot by the enemy. Being shot at means the enemy isnt hitting your allies, and if you do it at the right range the enemy isnt going to be doing effective damage on you while you can keep hosing them down with your ERLLs.

That said, if you are one of those people that sit 1km behind the main force, i will never help you when you get swarmed by lights, ill just hold my fire until u die and then ill kill the light mech

[MischiefSC]

Ghogiel, on 07 October 2017 - 04:39 PM, said:

I will always want a player that's guaranteed to do 500dmg opposed to a player guaranteed to do 150.

I would in group queue. I would in FW.

In pug queue the odds are too high that the "high damage" is mostly worthless from LRMs or spamming LBX with joystick aim.

I'll take the player who's good at teamwork even if I have to carry the damage/kills.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

MischiefSC, on 07 October 2017 - 03:01 PM, said:

It all depends what you value. I value winning. Winning is the most important stat and one you can't game. I watched a guy in an ACH the other day spend the majority of the match hiding - he attacks a crippled Warhawk and loses a ST. He's snaked 2 kills already this match, securing two kills on crippled mechs. The match is currently 6-8 in favor of the enemy....

He runs, hides and powers down. We lose (he could have easily finished that WHK and helped us turn the match I to a win) but he saves his KDR.

KDR is a worthless metric. Intelligent players recognize that armor is a team trait and it needs spent as evenly as possible. It's very easy to use cover to neutralize a camping poke player and kill his teammates then kill him last. You need to draw fire and attention or you just ensure your team will lose to attrition unless the other team is significantly worse than yours.

KDR alone is worthless exactly because of those people who go out and only kill crippled mechs then hide in corners, having really done nothing, I care more of KMDD. Though, I never mentioned KDR in my post, I said exactly to cripple enemies or quickly kill them so that they are unable to harm enemies. I'm often the guy who'll turn someone to a stick and move onto more important targets and the guy who makes whoever is shooting at my allies regret it. Why turn the other cheek and sponge damage when you can remove theirs?

In the end we both get the high win rates we want, your method is by sharing armor with your team, my method is by focusing fire by marking targets, ripping a big hole in them, and having the team focus down enemies quick. Then again, its not like I don't take my fair share of damage in matches anyway, I just don't take additional damage trying to save every Rambo who thinks charging a firing line was a bright idea, I spend my armor making favorable trades.

[adamts01]

Dakota1000, on 07 October 2017 - 02:05 PM, said:

Way I see it, shooting an enemy up so badly that they hide more instead of peek more and killing enemies so they can't peek anymore sure does save teammates from a lot on incoming damage. Rocks can draw the damage, people need to learn to poke better instead of asking others to take damage for their mistakes.

My philosophy is that if I'm not taking hits, I'll ramp up my aggression in order to draw more fire. Even if that means giving them a better target to let them waste their ammo/heat on a shot I know they won't deal much damage with.

Ghogiel, on 07 October 2017 - 04:39 PM, said:

I will always want a player that's guaranteed to do 500dmg opposed to a player guaranteed to do 150.

500 isn't special though. That's a kill on 1 assault if you spread your damage. I've done half of that in my Locust bylegging an assault in the start of the match that never made it to the fight to help his team, and then killing 2 lights by taking off the legs. It all depends. And if it's Assault or Conquest, lights sometimes don't get to do much shooting and might win the match for the team without firing a shot, which is why I hate those modes in pug land.