51 replies to this topic

[Spare Parts Bin]

My last QP game last night was Conquest on The Mining Collective or TMC for short. The game was going well, so I switched gears and started capping. Next thing I know distress calls started coming in.
I was capping even harder then. Next thing I know I am last man standing and I am getting 40 pound bags of salt. Some memorable ones include you ran, you left your team behind, you are in a heavy why CAP, do not drag the game out we have lost.
The objective to Conquest is CAPs. We lost 400-500?,to 750.

Is this an example of group think? Do Objectives Even Matter anymore?

[General Solo]

On most maps the caps are pretty close together, so after you kill the enemy team (should be eazy if they split up to cap) recapping is easy.

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 27 April 2018 - 05:07 AM.

[Gazbeard]

The salt you experienced is because most MWO players do not understand the game. I would say many did not even play the original MW:1 through MW:4 and Mercenaries variants of the game. They have no concept of team play or objective play because they never played the campaigns in those games, which required them to command a lance and the campaign could only progress by completing the objective in each battle.

Most QP games are won or lost in the drop ship before you hit the ground - if only one person is using voice comms, the game is lost. If you get 4-6 people talking to each other and a few more using text chat, then you will usually win. Again there are too many C.O.D. and PUBG style players in MWO right now - they are used to playing only for themselves and do not understand (and often do not appreciate) receiving and giving assistance to team mates, marking and calling targets, focussed fire, objectives, and my pet peeve - they expect everyone else to carry and expend consumable (UAVs, Arty Strikes, Air Strikes) but they refuse to equip them on their own mechs and on the few mechs where they have a freebie consumable from an event or Supply Cache: they refuse to use them. Why are these people even in a team based game?

Russ Bullock should introduce a voice comms test mechanic, whereby if you cannot pass the test every login then you are restricted to Solaris and only allowed in QP and FW if your equipment passes the voice comms test. Why should team players be lumbered with those liabilities that are solo/yolo play egotists?

[TooDumbToQuit]

They do. I have special mechs set up for Conquest.

There are 3 ways to look at Conquest.

A) Go for caps.

Only go for kills

C) Do both.

The A and B people do not get along.....

I would ask what mech were you using. While you were capping, the others needed not to die. If you were in a light, how much difference would you have made if they were wiped out?

Conquest for me is getting three Caps first and then hold them. I've won both ways for me, losing to caps is a real shame. I've been the last mech before and I even hid because we were so up on points.

As to your question. Not really. Most players want damage and kills over objectives. Which I find sad.

You give me an excuse to post a video. I went for the win over damage here. I still need to break it down, there are 3-4 times where I had to make decisions based often on the map. I was slow getting out of the base and I has moving down F line and then switching to E5 and going to their base. The other team was faster off the ball and they were attacking down the other side.

We get radar up and I see they seem to have maybe 6 assaults. I'm moving and I see my team stop. I keep moving and firing at their assaults that I can see because I want them to turn to me. We get the notice that our base is being attacked. I know now that few if any are going to follow me. It is a mental thing, you always defend your home.

Not what I wanted to do but they had their 4 lights at our base. And "Sucy" really did well here among others. BIG PROPS TO HIM. We had good communication in this game.

Since their faster mechs had left their assaults and most of our team had not gone far from our base, it turned out to work great for us. I have lost and won Incursion games by destroying the base or having our destroyed. And that is being down even 8 mechs. So I wanted to go for it.

I'm moving, we killed two of their lights (but I have no idea what damage they are doing but I'm told it was handled). and the radar comes up again. (you will notice that I take too long to look at maps, but I like Maps, lol) I now see their assaults moving back to cut me off on the way to their base (I'm going to be an easy kill)

So I now something very unlike me and I set and think. The plus was that I had pulled most of their firepower back and the rest of my team was both holding off the assaults and killing their lights. So I'm trying to decide when to move. I figure that they now have no lighter mechs to send back but they are not going to leave their base open.

So I move around and just one assault guarding for me. If they had all turned their backs I would have gone right to their base. I killed the Supernova and attacked their base and Sucy and the rest of the team made the kills we needed. We were up 4-0 so I could have turned around and made more damage but instead, I went for the objective.

I often go more for the "WIN" than damage which is maybe not the best idea as far as raising in tiers.

OZHomerOZ, on 27 April 2018 - 05:06 AM, said:

On most maps the caps are pretty close together, so after you kill the enemy team (should be eazy if they split up to cap) recapping is easy.

I will have to disagree. I've lost a few games recently because our slower and beat up mechs could not reach the cap points. And the score was 4-12.

[Eisenhorne]

In general, here is what everyone's roles are in a conquest game in Quick Play:

1) Everyone except lights - > Go directly to Theta to cap it / fight.

2) Lights - > Cap the point nearest your spawn, then cap one other point. Then go to Theta and fight.

There's two ways this can play out generally.

1) Your opponents do the same thing, and the better team wins the fight at Theta. Kinda like a normal skirmish but with extra steps.

2) Your opponents spread out more, and only send half their guys to Theta to cap it. You end up up 4-5 mech kills, and are down to 1 cap, but the point difference is still only ~100-200 or so since you capped 3 to begin with. Your team spreads out, sending 2-3 guys to each cap, and crushes the enemy remnants.

Usually case 2 is very common. The team that spreads out is just going to die. There is usually enough time to kill the entire enemy team and stop their caps from causing a loss because the maps just aren't big enough for caps to matter. It does happen from time to time, but generally you do not lose to 3-4 mechs left alive capping if your team has twice that still alive.

So yea, as a heavy mech, I'd say you should -never- focus on capping until your team is up like 6 kills at least.

[The Schwartz]

Where assualt mechs bring the armor + a ton of firepower, heavies tend to bring the most usable firepower. When the team gets split up the heavies dont have enough armor for their weapons to be effective *they should be around the assualts* But to answer your question, objectives CAN matter but most often DON'T matter. It comes down to how many of the 12 are together vs the other team when they collide. That being said, you can psyche people out by doing the objectives and this can cause rage to be incurred by your team and the enemy team and i do it all the time. too much nascaring on assualt mode? step on the base, they'll come to you and often leave the assualts behind to do so. Incursion on GP? wait for your team to get between the enemy base and the enemy and shoot the hell out of it, they'll try to come back to base and get whiped out. Conquest usually is played for the extra c-bills but the objectives more often than not, don't matter.

[Dragonporn]

Yes they do, bit it still depends on the match flow. You must cap as Heavy only if everyone or almost everyone on enemy team is dead and you're in a hurry to decap points to win. There also can be situation where you left one man standing while being in actual fight and for some reason you can outrun and outcap enemy team which you have no chance of killing, but that's hardly possible.

I haven't been there and haven't seen what's been happening in that particular match of yours, but usually -1 Heavy in the group fight is very-very big loss in terms of performance, so I can see some reason behind bags of salt being thrown your way. The only mech should ever bother with capping are fast Lights and very fast Mediums, but team still needs couple of Mediums for protection from enemy Lights and your own Light mechs for quick strikes in the back and harassment in combat. You can't dedicate too many (usually more than 2, but rather 1) mechs for capping.

As for Conquest itself, personally I had around 50/50 wins/losses by caps and by kills from what I remember, so yeah, objectives matter, I'd say for pretty much every mode, more or less.

[Spare Parts Bin]

In my mind objectives rule and if not then every mission is Skirmish.

I was in a fully skilled Orion IIC Sköl. I can use masc to reach 85 kph for short bursts. My weapons load includes twin ERLL,twin ERML,one UAC-10, LRM-15, TC1,and Active Probe.

I was around to help see 3-4 enemies killed but they were out capping us so it appeared to be more important.

[Koniving]

Spare Parts Bin, on 27 April 2018 - 04:36 AM, said:

My last QP game last night was Conquest on The Mining Collective or TMC for short. The game was going well, so I switched gears and started capping. Next thing I know distress calls started coming in.
I was capping even harder then. Next thing I know I am last man standing and I am getting 40 pound bags of salt. Some memorable ones include you ran, you left your team behind, you are in a heavy why CAP, do not drag the game out we have lost.
The objective to Conquest is CAPs. We lost 400-500?,to 750.

Is this an example of group think? Do Objectives Even Matter anymore?

In the case of a lead like that... you're screwed. If you're the last guy, you're screwed.

Against a lead like that, you need numbers to turn it around.

Objectives do matter, but since you can win by killing everyone, when there's a lead like that against you the ONLY chance you have is to KILL them all.

Also: Leave capping to the lights and mediums. The only capping you should do is if it happens to be on the way to somewhere, or if its a commonly attacked capture point, you can hang around to defend it after your team moves on to other points. You should not actively rush after capture points unless you're 86+ kph.

Also this is MWO...
...every mission is "Skirmish but with X."
Conquest...is Skirmish but with X.
Skirmish is Skirmish...but without X.

Edited by Koniving, 27 April 2018 - 12:10 PM.

[The Basilisk]

Spare Parts Bin, on 27 April 2018 - 04:36 AM, said:

My last QP game last night was Conquest on The Mining Collective or TMC for short. The game was going well, so I switched gears and started capping. Next thing I know distress calls started coming in.
I was capping even harder then. Next thing I know I am last man standing and I am getting 40 pound bags of salt. Some memorable ones include you ran, you left your team behind, you are in a heavy why CAP, do not drag the game out we have lost.
The objective to Conquest is CAPs. We lost 400-500?,to 750.

Is this an example of group think? Do Objectives Even Matter anymore?

Yes, definetly. Objectives do matter.
Thing is most ppl caring and yammering about objectives do not realize that non of those objectives can be achieved in a realistic manner as long as the enemy is still strong enough to hinder you to achieve them.

So you sinply have to realize that your main objective allways must be hindering the enemy to achieve his objective by killing him faster than he can kill you.

And actually there is no loath or irony in this thought.

You kill most of the enemys fast and get the caps in ressources battles, you kill all but most enemys and cap or destruct their base.
You kill the enemys vip after destroying its escort.

Allways has been this way and allways will be.

Only ocassions where this does not apply is when either the enemy or your team are royaly stupid

[Rustybuckets]

Yes, objectives do matter. The programmers are telling you, if you want to WIN this mode, then this is WHAT you need to do.

Can't tell you how many DOMINATION matches were lost because MechKills>Standing in the Circle (<-the objective), or MechKills>Taking Capture points(<-the objective)


As far as certain weight classes, only doing certain jobs...eh.

I'll have no problem taking my Assault mech and getting a cap, and then head for the action of taking one capture point away or defending one.

[Eisenhorne]

Rustybuckets, on 27 April 2018 - 01:30 PM, said:

Yes, objectives do matter. The programmers are telling you, if you want to WIN this mode, then this is WHAT you need to do.

Can't tell you how many DOMINATION matches were lost because MechKills>Standing in the Circle (<-the objective), or MechKills>Taking Capture points(<-the objective)


As far as certain weight classes, only doing certain jobs...eh.

I'll have no problem taking my Assault mech and getting a cap, and then head for the action of taking one capture point away or defending one.

I can definitively tell you though that as an assault mech it is better to always go for the fight. You are far to slow to effectively cap, and without support you will die if outnumbered. Possibly the -only- exception to this would be if you're running an XL 385 victor with speed tweak going 84 KPH +, and it's relatively even on kills, and the enemy team is spread out. Then it might be an OK idea to focus caps in an assault mech. Most likely you are just depriving your team's frontline units of valuable armor and fire.

[mistlynx4life]

Objectives matter but, frankly, the game isn't designed for you to focus on them the most. The payout for capping/holding/running cells just isn't nearly as much as the payout for damage/kills and both the PSR and literally the description of this game ('mech-based tactical shooter) support that idea. If you're not in a Light or a fast Medium, capping in Conquest is probably something you'll never need or want to do. Exceptions occur but your job is mostly to defend one or two points and wreck faces. It can become an issue when a team caps aggressively, kills your fast 'mechs, and then all die - leaving a few slow 'mechs on your team scrambling to cap points as they watch the ticker spelling your team. Even though all the Reds are dead, they'll still win like that. It's rare though.

That being said, the first rule of a good 'mech pilot is going to be to know when and how to break the rules. So you have to adapt to whatever's going on.Typically Lights should cap two points without too much hassle though, and then meet their bigger buddies at a third point where things get hot. When they do, Lights can stick around or go cap some more, depending on how things are going.

[Spare Parts Bin]

Is it not rational logic to insist we take the closet 3 caps and hold them?

Why can most teams not do this?

[General Solo]

LikeUntoGod, on 27 April 2018 - 05:24 AM, said:

I will have to disagree. I've lost a few games recently because our slower and beat up mechs could not reach the cap points. And the score was 4-12.

O I think we are in agreement, as you said: you 've lost a few games by caps so I'm guessing mostly the other games were wins by wipe out of enemy team.

And I said mostly win by wipe outs and thus I've had a few wins by cap, a few.



Maps with objectives always have the same objective, WINNING

How you achieve that is up to you

Capping is one wae to achieve that WINNING objective, the other is to wipe the other team,

All I'm saying is that in my observations winning by capping is alot less common than winning by wipe out da enemy team.

Just count em. Count wins by caps to wipes ratio. I have found wipes wins outnumber cap wins a fair bit.

So I tailor my strat and tactics to the most likely outcome.

Kills before caps
Bring out your Dead

FTW

Its science (sorta)

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 28 April 2018 - 01:51 AM.

[Zergling]

Understand that every non-Skirmish game mode in QP is essentially 'Skirmish Plus'.

While it is possible to win by capping, a team that focuses on capping is significantly less likely to win than a team that focuses on killing the enemy.
As such, you should always focus on killing the enemy team first, or at least gaining something like a 6 kill advantage over them, then worry about the 'objectives'.

Few things will cause a team to lose as fast as being one player down, and a player capping in Conquest or Assault is effectively doing just that to their team.

Spare Parts Bin, on 27 April 2018 - 04:27 PM, said:

Is it not rational logic to insist we take the closet 3 caps and hold them?

A team can take 2 caps and then kill the enemy team. Unless the battle was extremely long and drawn out, it is highly unlikely the team that killed the other will be unable to cap out the other team and win.

The best tactic in conquest for winning is to just take the nearest 2 caps, kill the enemy team, then worry about caps. A team can even go with just 1 cap for a few minutes before caps become a concern, provided they manage to gain a kill advantage over the enemy team in that time.

While it is possible to win by capping, it is a fast less reliable way to win than by simply killing the enemy team.

[Napoleon_Blownapart]

I have won when my entire team was dead in conquest just by the caps.My 1st match on Rubellite my team lost 750 to 749

[Zergling]

Gorantir, on 28 April 2018 - 07:19 AM, said:

I have won when my entire team was dead in conquest just by the caps.My 1st match on Rubellite my team lost 750 to 749

And those battles are in the distinct minority; the majority of conquest battles are won or lost by killing the enemy team, not caps.

That isn't because almost everyone in the playerbase is refusing to play to the objectives or something, it is because players know that killing the enemy team is the most effective way to win the battles.

Edited by Zergling, 28 April 2018 - 04:00 PM.

[Domenoth]

My 2 cents:

I don't think the problem is with the players. I think it's that the objectives aren't a reliable way to win. If you kill everything, that's got a 90%+ win chance. If you try to cap exclusively, you're probably at 20%-.

It's PGIs job to make the objectives necessary and sufficient. Having said that. I haven't seen a single good suggestion on how to do that. So if hundreds/thousands of players can't come up with any good ideas, how can we expect PGI to?

I think we're all just stuck with what we've got. Play the Mechs, then cap.

Edited by Domenoth, 29 April 2018 - 12:19 AM.

[Spare Parts Bin]

Objective missions are Skirmish plus, a sad fact I now acknowledge. If you try to win on Caps you can lose on Kills. If you Kill only then you could lose to that Pirahanna that CAPs your base in Assault or the Locust that CAPS the last two in Conquest. Six of one,half dozen of another.

Honestly the payout for just winning on the objective is measly as well.

To quote Megadeath," Killing is my Business and Business is good."

Edited by Spare Parts Bin, 29 April 2018 - 02:42 AM.