34 replies to this topic

[FRAGTAST1C]

When we click on Quick Play or go to FW and wait for a match, instead of the screen fading slightly black and having a useless button in the middle, the OP should be displayed. Great job, man.

[RumpledMunky]

I've given up on this ever being anything but a walking to your right simulator. Currently debating whether sticking a coin in my walk button and going afk or just uninstalling would be a better solution. It's become unfun. It's been years now since I've been able to stomach playing more than maybe 50 matches a year. The frustration of watching team after team run in a circle, half the time not even remembering they have weapons as they race to be at the front of the pack so they aren't the one being shot in the back, adds up too fast. I still like collecting mechs and fiddling with the lab but actually playing isn't any fun at all.

Edited by RumpledMunky, 23 April 2019 - 05:25 AM.

[Febrosian R Gillingham]

Bohxim, on 22 April 2019 - 07:53 PM, said:

If I may add some of my opinions, as this feels like a very stand-offish strategy:
1) many lights and speedy med brawlers might do a flank or harass the outliers (which arguably is what they're good at), if this becomes the norm, wouldn't they be potentially stuck in a position that is just too far for the friendlies to support? Is successful however, it might potentially just lead to a wider circumference nascar of sorts, as the mechs in C3 and D5 might not have line of sight or time to support those in c5 and e3 respectively
2) the rock paper scissors situation where 1 team does a center rush/nascar and the other team has a few spread out to do covering fire. For example 12v7-8 in the middle, then after the first few fall to that rush (which is highly possible given decent armour rotation or many brawl focused mechs all happen to be on the same team) as there's so much less targets within range for them to target, then when the rotation finally goes to the outliers, they won't have enough heat capacity to fight off a wave of brawl mechs rushing at them

I think as sound as this strategy sounds, a bad roll with members on either side could potentially usurp the strategy easily. Sometimes on certain maps, a firing line situation could melt brawlers significantly before a main engagement (see frozen city and grim) but in a map full of cover like canyon, it could sway the match if the front line crumbles before the ranged soften the brawlers sufficiently

But this is just my 2 cents on what could potentially go wrong

Sorry I missed this, just read it now when I linked back to this thread in another thread. But lets take a looksie!

1) If you are a light/fast med, and you are moving to the extreme flanks to harass a few mechs, you are definitely away from the support of your team. Really though, that is the standard role for those mechs because they are able to play without too much support. It just requires patience and awareness of what is happening on the field.

As for getting stuck, that shouldn't happen. The job of those mechs in a slower, more developed game isn't to swarm someone (as they'll have the support of nearby mechs) but to make the enemy position uncomfortable enough that they need to move or be whittled down. This means taking potshots and staying in cover, which here would mean staying on the inner ring of low ground and popping up over the top of the outer ring of high ground to shoot, then retreating back down. With your team positioned so they can shoot things on the high ground, the enemy can't expose enough to shoot down into the canyon. The inner ring of low ground becomes a relatively safe position (until enemy lights/meds jump in or your team starts losing trades badly).

When successful, yes this can sort of become a big rotation play, with the difference that the bulk of the push is through the outer ring of low ground. Specifically because, as you pointed out, mechs positioned on the high ground in C3/D5 cannot shoot mechs pushing through the low ground in C5/D3. A good example of this was from the 2016 World Championship round robin game between Lords and SJR (). Note, lights opening the flank does NOT have to turn into a rotation play, but it does often turn into a push of some variety.

2) This setup actually works great in the situation you are suggesting - a few mechs cover the ramp the way the team SHOULD, while the rest derp off to the middle. The mechs covering the ramp will be firing non-stop because 1) they can get to their positions way before the enemy gets to the ramps and 2) their positions cover the ramps entirely. The enemy will not all arrive at once, have absolutely no cover, and are coming directly against (in your example) 4-5 mechs with great cover. What typically ends up happening is the enemy nascar stalls in the low ground of the canyon/ramp and gets ripped apart from both sides once your team's nascar gets to the top of your ramp.

Even with well-coordinated teams, pushes up the big ramps end up in an automatic loss. During the 2016 World Championship Tournament (which was 6 months long), every conceivable variation of brawl, laser vomit, dakka, etc. push up the ramps was tested and thrown out. Literally speaking, LRM-centric plays were found to be dramatically more viable. The ramps are just too much of a kill zone that a handful of mechs can easily control it.

[Mister Glitchdragon]

LordNothing, on 20 January 2019 - 12:48 PM, said:

anyone who thinks that herding cats is hard has never opened a can of tuna within earshot of a bunch of cats.

Which is why I don't call for a push anymore. I call out, "Annihilator with an open CT in delta-four!" Now that someone else has put the work in, wind-em-up and watch all the little killers go!

[LowSubmarino]

Febrosian R Gillingham, on 20 January 2019 - 09:23 AM, said:

Hello children of all sizes!

There have been a silly number of threads debating the strategic value of rotation/"nascar" plays. Regardless of how warm and salty or burning with fuzziness you feel, an m-barrasing m-mount of MWO matches have devolved into blind nascar races. It is now the default tactic on most maps, a veritable stripper pole which we the community feel compelled to swing around on in a counter-clockwise fashion from the word go. But given the insane frequency with which the map Canyon Network comes up/is chosen, the notion of nascar as the strategem nonpareil should be deader than alpha lance's jiggling bottoms.



Behold! For before you picture 1 shows the generic nascar route, through the canyons and up the ramp of each respective side. The ramps are shown as the large circles. Somehow, aggressively taking the low ground and pushing through a killzone devoid of any cover has become the community's go-to strategy.



Picture 2 shows just a handful of positions that can easily overwatch each ramp and stuff any nascar attempt before it can get started. Each position shown can be reached within seconds of the game starting, has fantastic cover for vertical or side peeking, can be covered with ~500m of range, and can be retreated from under complete cover in either direction.



Pictures 3 and 4 are the views from the southern ramp. Enemy positions are circled. You have no cover, while as many as 7 enemies can blap your soul off from good cover.



Picture 5 is the general team positioning and breakdown of map control for what SHOULD be the standard opening play. It is a very simple setup that does not leave anyone to die, allows mechs of all ranges to be useful, completely shuts down the current "tactical" meta, and requires almost no coordination other than "walk 50 feet from your spawn and hang out there for a minute" and "brawl mechs go left". It is not a specific counter to nascar that somehow becomes useless in every other scenario; it is a basic starting setup that can transition into almost any play.

There are humans amongst us that like to blame map design for nascar matches, but here is one map at least that provides every possible deterrent to that style of play. We just need to decide to actually use the map and a lil teensie part of our brainstems. We just need to stand up for what we believe in and be firm in our confections! We just need to stop tinkling in our diapies and put on our big boy pyants! Let's blowwem up nyascar! Pew!

Hahahaha....I admire your passion and entusiasm.

Though youre a bit naive to truely belive that puggers will even undersand any of that. Team 1 regularly drops into the canyon. Whenver they face a team that is slightly smarter than the avera pug team, a team, that just waits on high ground till the first slow mechs come around the corner to reach ramp to get up to center, and hammer them with their entire team an just melt them. That so simple strat is so highly effective that you will kill any pug team, ltierally any pug team in QP with that most simplistic strat.

Even though it is obviously so strong, you will hardly ever find pug teams that try these 'advanced' strategies, simply becasue they dont understand.

You gotta understand that most humans are 'followers'. They dont like to think for themselves or experiment and theyre bad at communication. That is the reason why theres only very few successful ppl or why only very very few guys ever in their entire life kiss a truely hot girl. Not because they dont have the potential, but it is easier, way easier and more comfortable, to do what evybody else does. They just follow. ANd they have been following for so long, that they cannot even understand, that high ground gives you a massive advantage. A game and war winning advantage.

Most puggers dont even understand that.

If you tell the stanard pug team that e.g. on alpine peaks, it is advantageous to take the hill (at k9 I think?) with an ecm mech and some support for vision and for locks etc) then they wont understand why that is good. Most QP palyers dont even understand that it is not smart to face many mechs and to trade vs many mechs. Subsequently, they also fail to understand, that creating situations where you have a firing line which waits for team reds single file nascar is very very potent and will just melt team red intstantly.

Most puugers do not understand such concepts. Most puggers are also too scared to even speak via voice, becuase they are too scared what other ppl think. Theres this one guy that is always drunk and stoned I think chattering nonstop. He doenst play well but hes soo funny. Cracks me up everytime. Rest either give ineffective 'commands' or just make random jokes, but they rearely ever point out the relevant starts possible on a map.

And im simply too lazy to expalin that every time. To explain that one mehc vs many means you melt. That falling behind means you have 12 enemy mechs on your butt in the next 10 seconds.....and you melt. Most pugger just dont understand even the most basic of concpets.

And you give them drawings and plans and good positions of a map?

Do you truely believe that even 0.000000000000001 % of players will undersatnd anything you said?

No, my friend. And I dont mean to mock you at all. Yout pointed out all the good positions and you pointed out where and how teams die and what baisic mistakes they make. I think youre a good observer. But most ppl, hardly any ppl here will ever undersstand anything you say and the ones that do wont play differntly. I mean...this is mwo. The most static game and community ever on planet earth haha.

You wasted your time. Good effort, but you wasted your time and energy. Dont share those observatiosn for free, instead show them to some good unit and use it in tournaments, cause puggers......well, its like your speaking chinse to a few toddler that are sleepiing, and wouldnt understand even a single word you said even if they were awake, Dont waste your time and energy.

[LordNothing]

Mister Glitchdragon, on 28 May 2019 - 10:47 AM, said:

Which is why I don't call for a push anymore. I call out, "Annihilator with an open CT in delta-four!" Now that someone else has put the work in, wind-em-up and watch all the little killers go!

nothing lites a fire under a pugs *** like giving them an easy kill. they still find a way to muck it up but at least they stop cowering in terror.

[A Really Old Clan Dude]

Good luck getting PUGS to follow.

Every light/faster medium nascars to try to get an easy isolated kill.

Then the dum heavies and assaults either stand, shoot and die as they are nascar'd on or try to follow the fast units like a lemming and usually do little or no shooting and still get nascar'd on.

[Kanil]

The problem is that a strategy requires everyone to be on the same page for it to work, and the easiest page to get everyone on is NASCAR. You can take the rocks, strike the ramp, get three really great trades off on the enemy team as they approach, then die as you get overrun by 12 guys, with none of your teammates in sight.

Do that enough times and you start to realize that you'd have better matches sticking with the team, even when the team is doing something suboptimal (or even outright idiotic at times.)

[Dauntless Blint]

Or you could just have procedurally generated maps and never play the same map ever.

[The6thMessenger]

Febrosian R Gillingham, on 20 January 2019 - 09:23 AM, said:

I always urge my team to do that, problem is that they don't. And I have to pay for it because i always get isolated and killed.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 29 May 2019 - 03:24 AM.

[Jman5]

Something important to point out is that Canyon Network - Conquest has very different spawn locations than say Canyon Network - Skirmish. In Conquest you can see that the map is split where team 2 controls the top and team 1 controls the bottom. In Skirmish, its split gives team 2 control of the left, and team 1 control of the right side.




The result is a very different positioning game. At least at the start.

Another thing that is also worth pointing out that often seems to get overlooked by the group queue/comp team folks is that lances are split by weight class in solo queue. Unlike competitive, you can't immediately secure your left flank from NASCAR by putting assaults in Alpha Lance. Alpha lance is where the smallest mechs are going to be.

So if you set up your firing line based on spawn locations you will always have a very, very uneven firing line. One side will be highly mobile and weak. The other side will be overloaded, but slow. Also, more often than not the Light mech lance is the one that is going to be flanked into if the opposing team NASCARs. Expecting them to hold a firing line against that is frankly unreasonable. On top of that you're then expecting your slowest teammates to be able to take advantage of the opening flank? In Canyon-Skirmish case this is true for one side, but not the other.

However, you know what is a powerful tactic with an asymetrical formation? FLANKING! Pushing your strength into their weakness. Or using your speed to hit their line where they are vulnerable.

I like firing lines and positional control, but they require good communication and coordination from the team. You have to call out where to set up, how long to hold. Most importantly, you have to call out when to move. Otherwise they are extremely susceptible to flanks and missing attack windows.

Edited by Jman5, 29 May 2019 - 04:16 AM.

[Havsra]

90% of the time canyon, or its cold version, gets chosen (I never vote for that crap) I spawn on the side leading to that death trap of a ramp, which means most of the time Its watching everyone group in that murder zone and get killed. I hate that map with a passion. Assault can be a blessing in disguise sometimes, as occasionally a bunch of lights boops our base and people wake up from the braindead rotato and things get different for once.

[Vieterihiiri]

I learned to Nascar on tier 3, by constantly having the team rotate to right and abandon me to the wolves. In the end, I gave in and started going to the right too, in a fast mech.

[PsionicMantis]

4 years too late for this post, start a new one. Where is the gravedigger? Put this back into the ground

[RickySpanish]

Thread necro, but the key to Canyon in soup queue I find is to bully from mid. If you try to play the edge game, you get out rotated. If you drop into the valleys, you lose map awareness and control. Go mid, pick a ramp for cover, and pop up to shoot at your opponent's side of the map. Keep your team behind you (so you must rotate with them) so that anyone who pushes you gets shot by the rest of your team. Enjoy as your opponents get scared of going mid and either string out along the edge or drop into valleys for cover.