31 replies to this topic

[Koniving]

Tarl Cabot, on 09 February 2019 - 05:04 PM, said:

It was changed after that Sept 2015 FAQ, all new accounts would start in Tier 5 with Dec 2015 road map.

New Cockpit Monitors
Long-awaited cockpit screen functionality that will provide us with a good starting point for taking these screens further with more dynamic content options in the future. For now we have 3 animated monitor types, and 1 dynamic kill-count monitor type. Players can toggle them on or off in the Settings screen.

I remember this line....

We've gone three years later without a single touch to them.

[Redshirt4Life]

I'm a new player as well. I strongly advise you to play a medium.
You want to be an aggressive brawler, right?
Check out the crab or the griffin.

Assaults have more armor on paper, but your a huge, slow target. They can lead a push well if you know the maps, but if you make a mistake your screwed. There is no way you can reposition or evade fire. Playing this is just asking for a bad time.

Mediums like the crab and griffin can take hits really well. They are heavily armored mechs that actually have the speed to be aggressive. If we are in a bad spot, we move somewhere else. If someone is weak, we kill them.

[ImperialKnight]

Assault mechs are the last things any new player should start with. They are incredibly difficult to work with. New players should start with something in the 50-65 ton range. Fast enough to get out of a bad position, enough armor to take a few hits, and enough tonnage to play with some variety of builds.

I highly recommend the Shadowhawk, SHD-2K as a starter mech

[Phoenix 72]

Let's wait and see how he does. I usually recommend Mediums and Heavies to new players as well, but I have also seen people (most with a World of Tanks background) come into the game and do quite well (as in, 250-300 MS average) within a month.

If it works for him, great. If it does not, don't worry, he will be back on the forum. And eventually, he will just buy Mechs that do work for him. I have 40 Mechs. I only play about 10 or so regularly. I just checked, the first Mech that I still play semi-regularly is the 13th I bought...

[D V Devnull]

doodooplop, on 08 February 2019 - 01:12 PM, said:

Hi guys, i suspect this has already been raised a lot but here goes. I have just completed my 6th game out of my 25 cadet games and i am thinking of quitting . Is it not possible to have a tier for new players only once they have reached thier 25th game then they go into the normal tier structure. As new players we are totally out matched by other players we are restricted to test mechs (for want of a better word) which we cannot upgrade. I really like the game but I am getting very bored of being hit by mechs that seem to pop up from no where that dont appear on radar and when i do get into the fight i am totally outmatched and out gunned .

ok gripe over

Hi there. I see you've been getting plenty of help so far with your entry into MWO, but thought I might share some useful tidbits with you too. Maybe you know some of this already... So if I'm just repeating the obvious, then I totally apologize, as I'm just trying to be constructive and helpful. Here goes...

• Just for starters, have you noticed a red hinting on the Center HUD's Edge whenever you're taking damage? That big Mech which you're piloting is trying to tell you where it thinks the damage is coming from. If you can take notice of that, and at the same time also notice the initial sound of taking damage to the Mech you're in, then you can quickly react to many things sneaking up on you. (My bet is you very likely know this last thing I'll say on this point, but... Paying attention to your entire HUD, and the game's audio cues which include the On-Board Computer Voice, are both extremely critical to survival.)
  
• MWO, unlike many of the earlier MechWarrior games, does NOT have the hallmark of an Active Sensor Unit built into all the Mechs by default. As such, you're stuck on a Passive Radar System where the Enemy Mech absolutely MUST be in the forward 90 Degree Cone where your view is, in order to see and Lock onto it. This has led to many a headache for people who feel disoriented by the lack of All-Around Radar in the game. Heck, those who have come in from earlier MechWarrior games have likely been some of the ones hit way beyond hard by this. (Just for reference, I know that I was at first.)
  
• Not to be a pain, and I really don't intend any offense, but I should point out that your displayed User Name unfortunately is a Hard Violation of the MWO Code Of Conduct... Rather than just send a Report on it straight off the bat, I figured it would instead be better to not send one, and a lot more friendly and constructive to just tell you about this particular issue. That way, it would be possible for you to fix it, even if you had to Contact MWO Support (easy link at bottom of page) yourself, before that causes some unintended ramifications which would affect you on MWO in the future. I really would NOT want that to happen to a New Player. (Also for a note, it so happens that there was a rash of people creating accounts before with basically similar violations in order to grief others. I'm trying to prevent somebody getting the wrong idea about you!)
  
• One last thing comes to mind, getting back to brighter things, and that's Consumables. There are ones for both Defensive and Offensive operations. They're hard to Equip on a Mech due to where the configuration for them is placed, but they're really helpful. Sometimes they're the controlling difference between winning and losing battles. From the MechLab Home, click on "MechLab > Loadout", then over in the "WareHouse" on the right side, click on the "Consumables" Tab at the top. You'll then find Empty Slots to load up, but the first one is all that's available to start, and the rest are gained through the Skill Tree for your Mech. As you probably already figured, each Mech has their own personal Skill Tree Configuration to kit out... and the same also goes for the Consumables. Make sure to have them on the Mechs you own, so you're not out in the cold when you need something vital to keeping your Mech alive and running properly. (You would be surprised just how badly people get stuck by not having them. The person who created the video for the Crab Mech, which was posted earlier in this thread, has also had times where they made the mistake of not having Consumables, and also occasionally paid the awful price too because of lacking them.)

...and with all that said, I will now hope you have a nicer time on MWO. Heck, maybe I'll even eventually meet you on the battlefields too. Please make sure to come back and get into discussions with the Community on the Forums, and I'll see you there as well, alright? For now, my verbose mouth and I are out of here, with apologies for making you have to read such a long brick of text in order to take all of what I'm communicating in. (Sorry, I couldn't think of how to make it reasonably shorter!)

~Mr. D. V. "just trying to give you a helpful jump on some of the game's Mechanics" Devnull

[Psychoviper]

D V Devnull, on 10 February 2019 - 01:01 AM, said:

Hi there. I see you've been getting plenty of help so far with your entry into MWO, but thought I might share some useful tidbits with you too. Maybe you know some of this already... So if I'm just repeating the obvious, then I totally apologize, as I'm just trying to be constructive and helpful. Here goes...

• Just for starters, have you noticed a red hinting on the Center HUD's Edge whenever you're taking damage? That big Mech which you're piloting is trying to tell you where it thinks the damage is coming from. If you can take notice of that, and at the same time also notice the initial sound of taking damage to the Mech you're in, then you can quickly react to many things sneaking up on you. (My bet is you very likely know this last thing I'll say on this point, but... Paying attention to your entire HUD, and the game's audio cues which include the On-Board Computer Voice, are both extremely critical to survival.)
  
• MWO, unlike many of the earlier MechWarrior games, does NOT have the hallmark of an Active Sensor Unit built into all the Mechs by default. As such, you're stuck on a Passive Radar System where the Enemy Mech absolutely MUST be in the forward 90 Degree Cone where your view is, in order to see and Lock onto it. This has led to many a headache for people who feel disoriented by the lack of All-Around Radar in the game. Heck, those who have come in from earlier MechWarrior games have likely been some of the ones hit way beyond hard by this. (Just for reference, I know that I was at first.)
  
• Not to be a pain, and I really don't intend any offense, but I should point out that your displayed User Name unfortunately is a Hard Violation of the MWO Code Of Conduct... Rather than just send a Report on it straight off the bat, I figured it would instead be better to not send one, and a lot more friendly and constructive to just tell you about this particular issue. That way, it would be possible for you to fix it, even if you had to Contact MWO Support (easy link at bottom of page) yourself, before that causes some unintended ramifications which would affect you on MWO in the future. I really would NOT want that to happen to a New Player. (Also for a note, it so happens that there was a rash of people creating accounts before with basically similar violations in order to grief others. I'm trying to prevent somebody getting the wrong idea about you!)
  
• One last thing comes to mind, getting back to brighter things, and that's Consumables. There are ones for both Defensive and Offensive operations. They're hard to Equip on a Mech due to where the configuration for them is placed, but they're really helpful. Sometimes they're the controlling difference between winning and losing battles. From the MechLab Home, click on "MechLab > Loadout", then over in the "WareHouse" on the right side, click on the "Consumables" Tab at the top. You'll then find Empty Slots to load up, but the first one is all that's available to start, and the rest are gained through the Skill Tree for your Mech. As you probably already figured, each Mech has their own personal Skill Tree Configuration to kit out... and the same also goes for the Consumables. Make sure to have them on the Mechs you own, so you're not out in the cold when you need something vital to keeping your Mech alive and running properly. (You would be surprised just how badly people get stuck by not having them. The person who created the video for the Crab Mech, which was posted earlier in this thread, has also had times where they made the mistake of not having Consumables, and also occasionally paid the awful price too because of lacking them.)

...and with all that said, I will now hope you have a nicer time on MWO. Heck, maybe I'll even eventually meet you on the battlefields too. Please make sure to come back and get into discussions with the Community on the Forums, and I'll see you there as well, alright? For now, my verbose mouth and I are out of here, with apologies for making you have to read such a long brick of text in order to take all of what I'm communicating in. (Sorry, I couldn't think of how to make it reasonably shorter!)

~Mr. D. V. "just trying to give you a helpful jump on some of the game's Mechanics" Devnull

The passive radar definitely affects me. I'm getting the hang of the los targeting. 24 games in and my stats are trash. The only thing I keep reminding myself of is good ol lag shooting curve in mw3. Got slaughtered every game I played until I learned the lag shooting, mech shows there but is actually 5 meters ahead fun.

[doodooplop]

well played a few more games and starting to curb my impulsive agression so much so i hit just under a 1000 damage in one game. torso twisting is starting to pay off and getting the hang of it. Still annoyed that some of the games i have played no one plays as a team and just seems to be a bunch of individuals out for them selves, but can deffo say starting to enjoy the game more.

Thanks for advice and help

[Psychoviper]

doodooplop, on 11 February 2019 - 05:50 AM, said:

well played a few more games and starting to curb my impulsive agression so much so i hit just under a 1000 damage in one game. torso twisting is starting to pay off and getting the hang of it. Still annoyed that some of the games i have played no one plays as a team and just seems to be a bunch of individuals out for them selves, but can deffo say starting to enjoy the game more.

Thanks for advice and help

One tip from my last game, trust your gut. Lance leader picked up a Jenner and said push, 3vs 1 is easy. Well we pushed, there was a mad dog, bushwhacker, king crab and a direwolf as back up. My gut said looks too easy....it was right.

[Koniving]

Psychoviper, on 11 February 2019 - 06:40 AM, said:

One tip from my last game, trust your gut. Lance leader picked up a Jenner and said push, 3vs 1 is easy. Well we pushed, there was a mad dog, bushwhacker, king crab and a direwolf as back up. My gut said looks too easy....it was right.

"Information Warfare" isn't quite up to what PGI once described in the 2012 dev blogs... but "information really is ammunition" (motto from the Battletech cartoon).

Know what you're going to face before pushing, never push into the unknown. The idea of pushing is to take advantage of the upper hand; if the target is a single enemy while the other 11 are still very much alive, the phrase push should never even be said. Instead the situation should get a "enemy scout at [grid square]" "Light at [grid square]" "Target spotted [grid square]."

Push should be heard from/said at the front line, against a weakened enemy front line that's on the verge of collapsing, OR from a mech on the other side of the line with a clear view of all that is there, whom usually provides a distraction that causes most if not all of the front line to turn around. If it isn't coming from one of these two situations or if it is but the writing on the wall isn't right. Trust your gut.

[Tarl Cabot]

Psychoviper, on 11 February 2019 - 06:40 AM, said:

One tip from my last game, trust your gut. Lance leader picked up a Jenner and said push, 3vs 1 is easy. Well we pushed, there was a mad dog, bushwhacker, king crab and a direwolf as back up. My gut said looks too easy....it was right.

Chasing or "pushing" a jenner is what we call squirrel hunting (chasing a squirrel).. fire some shots at it but generally ignore (edited do not chase after it) if it rounds a corner. It is either there to spread out the pack and single out a player and/or acting as the worm to draw a player in...

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 12 February 2019 - 03:59 AM.

[Redshirt4Life]

I learned a pretty nasty tactic in the cicada 3m. Knowing the enemy would ignore me when I turn the corner, I'd turn the corner and swoop around to lay into the back of the leading mech. Hard to punish since I can turn that corner again.

Getting nearly 1k damage is good in any mech as far as I can tell. Something I else I learned is to adjust yourself to your team. IF your team is doing something stupid, support them anyway. Its better to all be doing something stupid then half of you doing something stupid while the other half watches. Sometimes a well-coordinated bad plan can trump a weak good plan.

Edited by Redshirt4Life, 11 February 2019 - 07:54 PM.

[Koniving]

While true, never forget to note in the record your opinion on the plan so you can conclude with "I knew it would be like this."

But in all seriousness. A good squirrel is doing those things. A bad squirrel really did make a wrong turn and is busy producing brown pants at an alarmingly unhealthy rate.

Whether the peat is harassing or really did screw up the proper response is to blow off a leg before they get away.



Skip to 5:18 and note the jenner. Would time skip it myself but on a phone at work on my lunch.
Break the leg and the problem is dealt with. Don't chase.

Ideally you want to one shot when possible. This admittedly was 3 shots in under a second (2 LL, 2 more LL, 2 different PPCs.) Leg then ST.


This guy saw me, stopped to mark me and apparently didn't have time to notice me aim at him from the corner of my eye as only my arms turned toward him.
Screenshot taken after I centered the corpse.

If they don't get the chance to run you'll never have to worry about chasing.

If by chance they do get away make a mental note to keep an eye out for the pest so that when it returns you can finish the job when he comes back.