79 replies to this topic

[crazytimes]

I watched some streamers and applied some general concepts from other team games.

Main points I picked up:
- Know when to engage and perhaps more importantly, disengage.
- Well aimed volleys of fire do a lot more good than continued spraying.
- Games snowball very quickly usually, don't rush and die because even 1 mech down early means a loss is much more likely
- Doing a lot of damage is not actually helping your team if it is spread out.

On the last- it really hit home one game when I was trying out RAC2s. I did nearly 1000 damage all out around 1km, but our team lost miserably. I contemplated and realised I had not actually contributed anything at all. 1000 damage spread widely across all of the mech and nearly the whole team adds up to almost nothing on any centre torsos.

If you watch some of the streamers, they will pull 3-4 kills solo or most damage, with only 4-500 damage. All on parts that matter. Much more effective than spreading twice that damage all over mechs and not actually taking anything out of the battle.

[denAirwalkerrr]

By joining competitive oriented clan and 1v1ing guys like this.

[Black Ivan]

Back in the day there was a site called meta mechs. At least it gave you a hint how competitive which build was and worked. Since release of the skill tree it is dead. Mech Specs is nice site as well, but since ther are good or bad builds with no rea ranking it is a small guidance at best.

Then again I have the unit I play with. I learned much from here

[HauptmanT]

Sounds like you just need to loosen up... and for god sakes, focus. Podcasts? WTF?

This is a team game. Either be with the team, or find another game.

For the stress, maybe try cracking open a beer or two... and have fun getting blasted. When I first started, I'd kinda freak out too, and kinda mini-panic whenever i took fire. My shots would go all over the place and I'd do everything wrong.

Then I bought my first assault mech. Loaded it with all short range heavy hitting weapons... and stuck my nose into the fight FIRST every chance I got. Hold down that W key and those mouse buttons until either I or my target exploded. That calmed down my angst greatly from then on... and I started getting better. Could keep my head under fire, not miss my shots (as badly) and actually have a plan other than "Rush B Cyka!"

Experience experience experience. Not gonna lie though, I'm still much more comfortable in an LRM carrier, even when I'm on the front line. Just something so reasuring about being able to shoot over things like hills. Well that and my twitch aim still isnt where it should be. Getting to old to keep up with these dang kids.

The claustrophobia issue... well I dunno what to say about that. That is something that has never once bothered me, not even a little. Maybe try walking around the house with a box on your head and just a small cut out for a view slot, until it doesnt bother you that you have to turn your waist to look around. Maybe your using some game controller and arent using your torso twist enough? Lord knows I see that an awful lot, in spectator mode. I'm quite comfortable looking behind me as I run towards the battle, scoping out peoples camos, decals and weapon ports. Maybe get into that habit? Just get used to using that torso and looking around.

[HauptmanT]

I really have conviced myself that your tunnel vision issue has to be controler related.

This is a mouse game. Do NOT use game controlers or flight sticks.

I tried using my CH Pro, but it was horrible. I DO use my pedals, but not the stick. Mouse for torso control, pedals for directional (feet) control, and KB for forward/reverse. My flightsticks throtle is active however, so it puts me into Tom Cruise control as soon as I drop. I hit the ground running every match and my KB will simply override the throttle as soon as I touch the W or S.

Swing that mouse around any time you dont have a target you are shooting at, so you keep a constant picture of what's going on around you. This also acts like torso twisting if someone happens to take a shot at you.

This issue particularly has really sparked my curiosity... lemme know what kind of controls you are using and whether or not you are liberal with torso movement.

[Daggett]

timff8, on 28 August 2018 - 04:29 PM, said:

I've tried using the third-person camera, and it's absolutely no help due to the angle it puts you at.

Years ago back in beta, MWO only had 1PV and PGI realized that not having a 3PV camera would have a huge negative impact on the new player experience and therefore on player retention. The problem: They earlier made the mistake to promise us that there will never be 3PV, to protect immersion.

So as they announced the much-needed 3PV feature the community felt betrayed and started a major shitstorm. It basically boiled down that the immersion crowd wanted to only play in 1PV, so they feared that 3PV would be superior.
This in turn forced PGI to implement 3PV in a way that it trades big disadvantages like the disabled battlegrid/minimap for only minor advantages, which made it basically useless.

So in my opinion they had the chance to implement a visibility and camera system similar to WoT where both cameras make sense for different activities (e.g. 3PV for moving around obstacles and 1PV for precise shots), but failed to convince the community that this would be much better for the game in the long run.

If they would have just forced a proper WoT-like 3PV then i'm sure MWO would not only have much more potential to acquire and hold new players, but also provide a better experience for veterans willing to adapt. Sometimes you have to risk to lose some veterans by doing changes that help the game to survive as long as possible.

I'm pretty sure WoT would have never become such a huge success with MWO's 1PV only gameplay. 3PV is what makes games featuring characters with independent torso-movement easier to learn and in overall more friendly to new players.


But of cause all this does not help you right now. I guess you will have to learn to deal with the lack of overview and situational awareness, your best tool will be the minimap.

I suggest running fast (80+ kph) mid-range builds like laser-vomit to avoid brawls and try learning how to mitigate incoming return fire by torso-twisting from a relative safe position near cover where only one or two mechs will be able to fire back. If you do this often enough in such low/medium stress situations there probably will be a point where twisting your torso becomes a muscle-reflex. This will then help you not only to trade better but also when the enemy forces you to brawl.

And of cause learn the maps to get a feeling where the enemy usually moves along to avoid situations where multiple mechs can shoot you.

timff8, on 28 August 2018 - 06:13 PM, said:

Honestly I'm struggling a lot to do that on so many maps. I keep getting HPG manifold and I hate that brawler-centric shithole. I feel like most maps force you into a close-range firefight where there's not enough space.

While true, it's still possible to avoid brawling on such maps with some experience. I'm mostly running mid-range builds and rarely get forced to brawl unless of cause the enemy side dominates clearly. With enough speed you can evade the enemy brawlers while still being able to deal lots of damage.

Edited by Daggett, 29 August 2018 - 06:16 AM.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

each payer must self lern to become Experience and skill ...im playing many Years Singleplayer games and the mW4 Campaign for many before im join the first Multiplayergame...Play ...died ...retreat !!!learn , adapt or die ever and ever and leave to find a game thats better is for your Skill

When a Guy not can play in FPV or with Mouse and confused ...than is Pc and FPS games of it not really his Field of Luck and better playing Console games or Fallout 4 of PS4 ...not each Game Genre is for each Guy the Holy grail, and not each guy has the Skill to learn it ...im never play Beat em ups by Consoles ..its not my Thing like Sportgames.

and if you try to make a game playable for everyone, then you soon have no community, because you do not like it..either you make a decision and you find a grateful group or you wander aimlessly between completely different groups of which none I do not have to make a strategy game playable for FPS friends or a flight simulator for racing game friends ... every group wants their own games ... just as I do not want a steak that tastes like lemon, just because it hopes lemon friends to attract.The Fallout game was for me a Singleplayer Open World game , now hes become a Multiplayerpart with Fallout 76 ...no Thanks , im not will the kids-terror and stress from GTA V or other Games in fallout ,so FO 4 is my last Game in this Fanchise

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 29 August 2018 - 07:42 AM.

[Nightbird]

If you die in game, you die in real life, so you should be stressed.

[ZippySpeedMonkey]

Honestly, the best way to learn is by playing Lights.

It is by far the hardest class to play / master.

Given how frail they are, you become primarily concearned with survival, and thus force your situational awareness to increase. Damage is of secondary importance as you won’t genenerally survive contact with most anything else.

It is frustrating, and brutal at times. But after getting the hang of this class playing anything with any sort of armour or firepower becomes that much easier. The trade off though is that you will then begin to hate playing anything else as you’ll fine these mechs too slow or ponderous to do the things you used to be able to get away with in a Light.

Edited by ZippySpeedMonkey, 29 August 2018 - 11:10 AM.

[Leone]

From the sounds of it, you really should work on your situational awareness. I can understand not wanting to twist because you don't know where the enemy is. Thing is, after pay attention and playing the game some more, you should be able to pan the camera away form the enemy and know where they still are/what options they have for peeling off.

Until you get to that point, I'd actually suggest not trying to twist, since you've also gotta working on your trading. I say one thing at a time, should help keep the stress down. Now, let's talk battlemap. First off, are you playing this like it's a first person shooter? Cuz if so, that's not helping. Think of it like an RTS, but you only got the one unit. You always wanna be firing and giving the enemy more targets to spread damage amongst. You wanna bring up the battlemap to see where your allies and enemies are, so you know what's on the field and can move to the most advantageous position.

I've some Assualt Advice. that goes over positioning and awareness, if you're interested.

As for your title? I learned to fight going up against Kell's Commandos for months in CW. It wasn't even 'Brawl or Die'. Death was a given. I had to learn to brawl as vicious as I could in the time I had. I think it made my playstyle a bit different'n the norm.

~Leone, of Kell's Commandos

[LowSubmarino]

Play a build that you designed to trade well without getting hammered and blinded by exchanging blows in a brawl.

Get fast meidums and build them to be speedy strikers preferably with JJs. Theres clan and Is options to do that. Youl find yourself chasing isolated mechs a lot or skirmishing on the sides and flanks and in their backs.

Theres a variety of builds and strats that concentrate on other parts of the game and not direct brawling. With those builds you wont get hammered in your face all the time cause you try to avoid that and just hit and run before they can really start firing at you.

[Jman5]

timff8, on 28 August 2018 - 04:29 PM, said:

Beyond that though is my total inability to brawl. I can't do it. I get very stressed out and generally just let someone kill me. And I'm realizing this part is two-fold: one because unlike in WoT there is absolutely no way to take zero damage in a trade. You will get hit, you will start to die. And that still scares me. But beyond that, I can't deal with the first-person camera. It's something that is hard when I'm at mid-to-long range, but up close I seriously cant' handle.

This is hard to explain, but I'll do my best. You have to detach yourself emotionally from your performance or the match outcome. Go into a match with the goal of practicing brawl. not to win, not to score highly, but to just practice brawl. Then make sure during the match you do some brawling and just focus on how that went. Did it go well? Why? Did it go poorly? Why? Now you iterate.

If you're not worried about high scores and wins, it's much easier to lose the stress the just focus on improving.

So just think about an idea that you think would make you better at brawling and then practice that specific idea as much as you can. Maybe it's torso twisting more. So the focus of your next 4 or 5 games is just getting good at torso twisting in a brawl. Don't focus on your match score, or your wins and losses. Focus on getting good brawling experience and practicing that torso twist.

timff8, on 28 August 2018 - 04:29 PM, said:

When I'm in close, and there's 6 mechs swirling around me, and half of them are shooting me simultaneously, and I can see, at best, 2 of them, I can't handle it. It's incredibly claustrophobic to me, and I can't deal well. I've tried using the third-person camera, and it's absolutely no help due to the angle it puts you at.

This is hard for everyone. Don't worry so much about it. One thing that helps me is to switch to thermal vision when things get crazy because it cuts down on the visual noise all around you.

timff8, on 28 August 2018 - 06:13 PM, said:

Well generally speaking I have a lot of frustration with info gathering because mechs' loadouts are so diverse, so seeing a mech doesnt' tell you much about what it's got. That and locks tend to last maybe a few seconds, so I often can't read a mech's stuff before I either fall back or my allies lose the lock, so I cant' see.

I'm trying to use the map more but it's so small and mechs get so close that it doesnt' help much. when I'm surrounded by eight guys the map is useless because we're so clumped. That and the map doesnt' name the mech, which really, REALLY should be a thing.

Sensor tree and Targeting computers can help you get that paper doll information.

My advice is don't try to learn every single variant and build out there. There are just too many. Instead think about 1 mech that gives you trouble and figure out how its built. Then later think about another build that gives you trouble and look that one out. Just one at a time at your own pace.

There are lots of meta builds listed here.

Edited by Jman5, 29 August 2018 - 11:18 AM.

[Dago Red]

1: Soothing folk music.
2: Booze
3: Meditation especially on mindfulness of your current situation and distancing yourself from your body/mech.
4: Raw bloody minded cussedness and an abiding hatred for all mankind and intact side torso's.
5: ******* it up over and over and again until rising to mediocrity.
6: Have played seriously so much Tribes in 1998-2004 so that leading projectiles of varying velocities on erratic targets becomes second nature.
7: Neurotic over analysis of situations.

So probably not much that is universally applicable.

[TheCaptainJZ]

If anyone hasn't said it yet, go into settings and change your Field of View slider to something comfortable. You can test this out in the Testing Grounds so it's not a live match. Something like 75-78 might be good. This will give you a wider horizontal view without it distorting too much like a fishbowl. Also turn off cockpit glass.

Yes, 12 players does get stressful and there is a lot going on in this game in a short period of time. It can be very intense. Best bet for you would be to hold back and stay beside and behind an ally a bit until you feel more comfortable with it. Rather than just torso twisting, if that is difficult, try just moving in a zig zag when you do. This will have a similar effect to torso twisting when you are moving. The important thing here is just not to let the enemy consistently hit the same location. I'm bad at this myself. There's a lot of complaints about improving mobility right now especially for assaults. I would not be surprised to see an agility buff sometime down the road for several mechs which would make torso twisting easier and more effective.

A lot of the battle is psychological which is the part you seem to have the most problem with. The only way to counter this is to try and stay calm even when getting butchered. When things are going south, the key is to try and damage or kill an enemy (or more) enough that it might help a teammate after you die. Things like finding weakened enemies with cherry red CTs and killing them or side torsos on heavy mechs. Since battles are fast, disseminating that information quickly is very challenging. It was easier in the early days and there was much less variety. Now it's almost overwhelming how many configurations there are. I generally aim for right torsos on enemy mechs because many IS mechs are lopsided that way with weapon loadouts. If you can hang back slightly, you will hopefully get a little more time to react and to absorb what your allies are doing and what the enemy is doing.

[Asym]

I've got a suggestion: work the issue the other way.....

Start learning to fight at distance and work your way inward to brawling... Intuition, situational awareness and that "six sense" comes from confidence. You don't jump into the most difficult part of the game and say "I want to exceed at this and then realize the magnitude of that succeeding...."

Learn to fight from supporting and light mechs first. get right behind the Assaults and support them. Or, go out in lights and "see the battlefield" and how it works..... Learn the mechanics by watching and helping.

then, when you have a good feel for the battle space, buddy up with another players with assault experience and be a wingman. Learn to carry the battle....

Too much too quick cause a lot of players to quit.....

[MechaBattler]

I learned by doing. Trial and error. I can honestly say I was cannon fodder for a lot of the early part of my participation in the game. You should get better at aiming and maneuvering in your mech over time, unless your completely talentless. But more important above all else is awareness. Of your surroundings. Of your enemies. And of your teammates, especially in pug queue. Almost equally as important is your understanding of how to respond to a changing situation. Pug queue is like organized chaos.

You have to make the most of a team with 12 self interested personalities and barely any communication (Especially back before voip). Work with it, rather than against it. I see plenty of pigheaded mechwarriors tear off on their own because they believe they are in the right. Sometimes they give as good as they get, but often it's for pitiful gain as they meet superior localized enemy firepower. Then they feel vindicated when our team loses. That's just petty and pathetic. Pug queue isn't group queue. No one owes you anything. You have to play like you're Liao, your teammates are all Davrats, and the enemy are all meta Clan mechs. I find a vague sense of underdog desperation helps.

Situational Awareness and broader battlefield awareness are the most important things to learn. They inform that split second decision you might have to make. It won't necessarily mean victory. But whether you come away knowing you did the best that you could. Which can really get you through a string of losses courtesy of the matchmaker.

Edited by MechaBattler, 29 August 2018 - 01:27 PM.

[Mystere]

Trial by fire.

[LordNothing]

read sun tzu's book

[Mole]

The way I learned to play was by getting my *** kicked for a good long while and literally just honing skills and reflexes. Eventually I learned what worked and what didn't and how to make good trades and stay alive. I found this process fun though. Honestly man, if you're finding a game to be inducing the amount of stress you describe in the OP I think you should find something else to play. That doesn't sound like it's any fun at all and if you're not having fun then why are you wasting your time on a game that you dread booting up? Games are supposed to be fun and something you do in your spare time. If you find a game to be the opposite of fun, you should really waste no time in disposing of it from your gaming repertoire. I'm not trying to be some jerk who is coming in and telling you to uninstall because you're bad, I am just putting myself in your shoes and the honest truth of the matter is if I am finding a game to be more stress than fun, it goes in the trash can because it is not serving its purpose. I get enough stress at work. I don't need it at home too.

[DrxAbstract]

denAirwalkerrr, on 29 August 2018 - 01:17 AM, said:

By joining competitive oriented clan and 1v1ing guys like this.

Looooooool.

Yeah, no. The best people to learn from are typically not found amongst the stat padding seal clubbers that run stacked decks against randomers and pugs unless you intend to play only the most meta heavies/assaults for the rest of your days... But if that's your thing, by all means.