35 replies to this topic

[TWIAFU]

Yondu the Ravager, on 27 February 2018 - 06:54 PM, said:

I would think that a player that can get a 3k damage score hasn't been lurming away and have been instead firing at the enemy with good precision to the point where he is easily one of the top contributors. As much as this may sound elitist, if one player cannot put out as much damage as the other, it would be better for the former to be 'pug-shielding' than the latter. Of course this does not apply in all situations, especially in Siege Attack where coordinated pushes > dishing out damage.
As for the rest that do not get 1k damage with 4 mechs? I don't think that's called poor teamwork, rather poor piloting and gunnery. Getting sub-1k damage is unacceptable imo unless facing some OP 12man premade. And no I wouldn't call it personal glory at the expense of my teammates, I would call it 'the sack of potatoes are too heavy for me to carry'. Perhaps this 3k damage player would be better off playing with other players since the premade he is in is no better than an average pugger.

It's good you think that, but in reality, what you think is no where near reality within actual gameplay.

Rest of your post reinforces that.

[K O Z A K]

TWIAFU, on 28 February 2018 - 08:37 AM, said:

It's good you think that, but in reality, what you think is no where near reality within actual gameplay.

Rest of your post reinforces that.

so, keeping players that are less likely to take out enemy mechs on the field longer at the expense of players that are more likely to eliminate enemies is beneficial to the team? Please elaborate

I don't condone pug shielding, just curious how that makes sense

Edited by Hazeclaw, 28 February 2018 - 10:04 AM.

[Leone]

It's a matter of numbers. If someone is hanging back at the expense of the team they're effectively helping the enemy focus fire by taking a mech offa the line of fire. So, instead of 12v12, you've a few mechs hanging back, turning it into a 12v10 in the opfor's favour. Congratulations, your 'better players' are actively tanking the team.

It's simple RTS tactics. You spread damage, you rotate out more damaged mechs and put fresh mechs up front. You keep as much DPS in the field as possible and you focus fire your own damage to take out mechs and lower incoming damage faster than you're losing it. Common stuff.

Edit: Thank you all very much for explaining your points of view. It was very enlightening.

~Leone

Edited by Leone, 28 February 2018 - 11:00 AM.

[K O Z A K]

that's an extreme case, obviously if 10 mechs are on their 3rd wave and you have 2 guys sitting in the back on their 1st mechs, they're not being aggressive enough

I don't think that's what Yondu was saying though

[Yondu Udonta]

Hazeclaw, on 28 February 2018 - 12:28 PM, said:

that's an extreme case, obviously if 10 mechs are on their 3rd wave and you have 2 guys sitting in the back on their 1st mechs, they're not being aggressive enough

I don't think that's what Yondu was saying though

I would say only in certain cases will the above scenario be fine with me. Definitely not in Siege and definitely not in organized premades where mechs go wave by wave.

Perhaps in pug drops where half the team doesn't know the standard weapon systems to bring on a map. E.g. Grim Plexus where puggers drop all kinds of weapon systems including SRMs. I would be one of those guys sniping from the rear and I don't see anything wrong with that. As long as I am dishing out the damage required to bring victory to my team and my team dies slower than the enemy team then all is fine.

[Yondu Udonta]

Leone, on 28 February 2018 - 10:52 AM, said:

It's a matter of numbers. If someone is hanging back at the expense of the team they're effectively helping the enemy focus fire by taking a mech offa the line of fire. So, instead of 12v12, you've a few mechs hanging back, turning it into a 12v10 in the opfor's favour. Congratulations, your 'better players' are actively tanking the team.

It's simple RTS tactics. You spread damage, you rotate out more damaged mechs and put fresh mechs up front. You keep as much DPS in the field as possible and you focus fire your own damage to take out mechs and lower incoming damage faster than you're losing it. Common stuff.

Edit: Thank you all very much for explaining your points of view. It was very enlightening.

~Leone

I would absolutely agree with you if you are dropping in a premade with skilled players. Unfortunately puggers generally know no better than to press W. Spreading damage is a myth, so is rotating out damaged mechs. Also I believe that if 'someone is hanging back' but they are dumping 54dmg everytime at 800m+ at enemy mechs, the enemy mechs would be forced to take cover and be unable to engage the frontline. Effectively with a good sniper you can prevent 1-2 mechs from poking out, resulting in the odds being in the favour of your team. Unless, of course, if the fight hasn't become an all out brawl, which is unlikely in a pug setting.

[Willard Phule]

Yondu the Ravager, on 28 February 2018 - 08:51 PM, said:

I would absolutely agree with you if you are dropping in a premade with skilled players. Unfortunately puggers generally know no better than to press W. Spreading damage is a myth, so is rotating out damaged mechs. Also I believe that if 'someone is hanging back' but they are dumping 54dmg everytime at 800m+ at enemy mechs, the enemy mechs would be forced to take cover and be unable to engage the frontline. Effectively with a good sniper you can prevent 1-2 mechs from poking out, resulting in the odds being in the favour of your team. Unless, of course, if the fight hasn't become an all out brawl, which is unlikely in a pug setting.

Unfortunately, in a PUG, most of your "snipers" are actually stationary LRM turrets. In fact, most of the PUG teams out there can be separated into 2 subunits....front line and "support." More often than not, you've got more "support" than you do frontline.

PUG survival 101 is really simple. Never let a "Knight Errant," "Survivor" or anything painted like a trial mech get behind you. They're more liable to shoot you than the enemy. If that's called "PUG shielding," then so be it. Better to be run over by a 12 man than to have your back cored because a teammate doesn't know how to unzoom.

[K O Z A K]

You still have to consider the pacing of the drop, if you're landing your 2nd mech as the enemy overruns your dropzone after crushing all 4 waves of blue doritos, it doesn't matter if you're a new T5 or a Div A pilot, you disappear 1 second after landing

That being said I understand people trying to utilize their ability to maximum effect within waves, especially in pug drops where your teammates may create more problems for you than help

[Sjorpha]

Yeah they should really remover the division by mechs used nonsense, especially since surviving too long isn't even a good thing in FP as you'll get desynced with your teams next wave. If anything you should be rewarded for using your whole dropdeck to it's fullest potential during a match, which means timing your deaths/ejects correctly.

Is it high priority? No but's it's very easy and quick to do, just remove it, and scooping up easy low priority fixes is a good idea to make your game feel more polished overall.

The endless little placeholders, small bugs and design flaws scattered about the game really adds up to making the game feel very half baked. Even if they aren't high priority one by one going through the game and sorting all the minor things out should definitely be high priority.

Edited by Sjorpha, 01 March 2018 - 04:50 AM.

[xX PUG Xx]

UnKnownPlayer, on 28 February 2018 - 06:20 AM, said:

That does beg the question "why is the 3k player there in the first place?" probably because they CHOSE not to engage in team play and is there to intentionally pug shield and damage farm. I guess it would depend on the game, if someone was calling pushes on boreal vault then the team could easily get less than 1k damage whilst a sniper using that confusion to their advantage could claim 3k and avoid pushing, which would be very annoying. If nothing is being called then fair enough it's probably fair play as no one is expecting anyone else to join in with the team play and everyone is just playing in their own style.

Remind you of a clip from my Twitch stream? They are not sitting back using you as a distraction, they are providing cover fire and stopping the enemy from shooting at you......... Oh, you're dead? Really?

[iLLcapitan]

I feel there are some wild misconceptions about 'damage farming','pug shielding' and such.
A good player will do 2-4k while beeing aggressive somewhere at the front, denying the enemy vital spots and wearing them down by attrition (sharing armor while doing so is viral sure, to some extend). When I drop in CW I intend to use all my 4 mechs to their full potential, within the given time frame. Thats why I don't care too much about my K/D. I don't get the term 'damage farming' and the negative undertone that comes with it. I'd rather have 3 players on my team that deal 3k instead of 10 potatos that fail to break 500. Delivering damage while avoiding returning fire is a skill in this game.

People that sit way back with lurms/ERL/Peeps (on maps other than Polar/Alpine/Plexus) usually fail to rack up impressive numbers, so they don't farm damage effectively. Theres a small group of players that is notorious at sitting outside the gate and abandoning their pugs, they try too hard at 'dmg farming' and it only works against a super puggy team. Everybody knows them and it has become a running joke. That is the one extreme case where I would agree to the negative notion.

I drop solo quite a bit in CW and its not unusual for bigger groups on the other side to focus me down, so I try to not get spotted first when going in. That is the most I can make of 'pug shielding'. I can help my team more if I don't die first, thats simple logic. Again, contributing the most (damage wise) requires you to be aggressive and up front.

Its really rare for me to dropcall puggies these days, smth I used to do all the time. One example from a couple of days ago. We were attacking Portico, with a 8man defending, my team all pugs. We even got combat ID and could see the Anhis and Cyclops stacked against us, so I called for a slow approach 1st wave, wear em down from the ramps, make em push. Some of the pugs got rly angry at me for that call, one was esp. vocal and declared that he would keep pushing and encouraged the rest to follow. Of ******* course it was a total desaster, pugs in lrm trials kept pushing into the meat grinder. Because for some people all there is strategy wise is to 'KEEP PUSHING' and that is pretty ******** in some situations.

Edit: Forgot to mention smth. The mechanics of the matchscore, namely score inflation by not using all mechs is utter BS and can encourage bad behaviour, but that is solely on PGI and why thats still in place is totally beyond me.

Edited by iLLcapitan, 01 March 2018 - 06:35 AM.

[Yondu Udonta]

Willard Phule, on 28 February 2018 - 09:06 PM, said:

Unfortunately, in a PUG, most of your "snipers" are actually stationary LRM turrets. In fact, most of the PUG teams out there can be separated into 2 subunits....front line and "support." More often than not, you've got more "support" than you do frontline.

Seen em all Willard, from SNVs to NTGs standing still lurming away. Double alphas to their rear CT from my ASN teaches them to git gud. Or maybe some 800+m pewpew will do the trick.

iLLcapitan, on 01 March 2018 - 06:14 AM, said:

Its really rare for me to dropcall puggies these days, smth I used to do all the time. One example from a couple of days ago. We were attacking Portico, with a 8man defending, my team all pugs. We even got combat ID and could see the Anhis and Cyclops stacked against us, so I called for a slow approach 1st wave, wear em down from the ramps, make em push. Some of the pugs got rly angry at me for that call, one was esp. vocal and declared that he would keep pushing and encouraged the rest to follow. Of ******* course it was a total desaster, pugs in lrm trials kept pushing into the meat grinder. Because for some people all there is strategy wise is to 'KEEP PUSHING' and that is pretty ******** in some situations.

I get pissed too when some potato lacking in experience think they know better than an experienced FP player and decide to drop call. Like tbh if one doesn't know better, don't try to act smart and lead a push, best to just stfu and follow orders till one has gotten a grasp of the game mode.

Edited by Yondu the Ravager, 01 March 2018 - 07:09 AM.

[Ssamout]

iLLcapitan, on 01 March 2018 - 06:14 AM, said:

I feel there are some wild misconceptions about 'damage farming','pug shielding' and such.

Well blaming for hacks is so 2016, so the new flavor is "pug shielding".

Gotta externalize that ineptitude somehow.

[iLLcapitan]

Ssamout, on 01 March 2018 - 07:37 AM, said:

Well blaming for hacks is so 2016, so the new flavor is "pug shielding".

Gotta externalize that ineptitude somehow.

That made me smile mate <3
'We lost because you guys only farm damage!!'

[UnKnownPlayer]

fenomeno, on 01 March 2018 - 04:28 AM, said:

Maybe the '3k player' was there because they were specifically invited to a group? Some people might assume they were invited exactly because they are a 3k player in the first place?

If, in the group mentioned above, a self-appointed 'drop-caller' was then to call a gen rush vs a defending team of no-name skittles, they might just have thought it was going to be a waste of time either way and done their own thing...

In my personal experience, good players care about winning more than anything... but they score those wins by dealing a lot of damage.

Exactly my point.

[TWIAFU]

Yondu the Ravager, on 28 February 2018 - 08:51 PM, said:

I would absolutely agree with you if you are dropping in a premade with skilled players.

Then you get what you deserve for swimming with sharks with water wings on.