228 replies to this topic

[Jake Doyle]

The past few weeks have proven to me that this game is becoming so frustrating it's unplayable, I've found myself turning to the PS4. Every match the faster mechs only want to nascar, and outrun the assaults (which is what I play for the most part). Leaving us vulnerable and the first ones killed in the match... you know the rest. It's so bad that not only do I rarely get to see a win, I almost never even get to see a kill anymore, I'm chasing our faster mechs while I get caught from behind and have no chance, usually dead in the first 2 minutes of the match. It seems it is no longer a team, communicating game. I just came back to MWO about a year ago and have really enjoyed it until the past 3 weeks or so. I thought that MW5 would get rid of it as many "in the now" players would leave and the hardcore would stay. I guess I was wrong.

[FupDup]

Lel

[John Bronco]

Slow assaults are difficult to play in quick play, and are best used in faction play early waves.

For qp you just need to accept it and take something faster.

[Flyby215]

It's tough being an assault, that much is true.

Personally, I ditch the assaults now-a-days; at least the ones that don't keep up. I'm interested in shooting enemies, not waiting around in a silly firing line.

Different story if Big-Al comes along and says "right, wait for me at B4, when I get there I will lead the charge straight into the enemy team so you all back me up!" Right, excellent, I'll wait the 20 seconds for damage sponge to arrive.

That, vs the "you guys go in, get shot at, sacrifice your armour and life, to get me locks, so that I can take five seconds getting a lock, then do my sand-blasting, non-precision, easily negatable LRM damage!" Right... no... have fun getting eaten by the light mechs.

My opinion only

[Monkey Lover]

As an assault you should know where the team will be going not where they team went.

If you can't do this stick with faster heavy mechs. Some of the IS have more armor than assaults lol


As we been sync dropping because group Q is dead I have only been running assaults. I havn't had any issues other than when i screw up.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 21 December 2019 - 03:07 PM.

[Daggett]

Yes, assaults are the hardest class to play, but if you know what you do they are still very strong.

Having said that, assaults are currently the class i'm most successful in, even the slower ones.
But to not get eaten alive in nascar you need a build that is able to consistently deal 1000+ dmg within 4min, the skill to actually reach that number regularly and last but not least the courage to cut corners at the right moment to keep up with your fast-movers:



If you go the same long route your fast-movers usually take, you are doomed. You have the armor to take some hits while cutting corners and the firepower to punish + supress most opposition when doing so at the right time.

Edited by Daggett, 22 December 2019 - 07:25 AM.

[Jake Doyle]

I always try to get to the spot that I know they will eventually be, however when dropped into Canyon... it's impossible and there is absolutely no chance whatsoever, the same with the city map. Whenever i play smaller, faster mechs I always stay back with the assaults until they meet up with the rest of the team. I just don't understand the logic of running as fast as you can away from the mechs that can suck up the damage.

[Vorpal Puppy]

A really good assault pilot can almost guarantee a win in certain modes, but there are so few really good ones left. It is the hardest class to plan. Take a clan heavy if you want a lot of firepower - and you will still go 81 KPH, which is fast enough to keep up with the NASCAR.
Right now, for whatever reason, a lot of the really good pilots that are left are playing lights. Frankly, lights are the most fun - hard to play as you get one-shot every so often, but fun!

[Prototelis]

Go atleast 65KPH, profit

[LordNothing]

like assaults? play more fp. you can usually get 2 of them in a deck. theres usually less squirrel cheese. if you get a siege game, you can use them for their intended purpose, laying waste to an entrenched adversary.

[Valdarion Silarius]

Vorpal Puppy, on 21 December 2019 - 03:58 PM, said:

Right now, for whatever reason, a lot of the really good pilots that are left are playing lights. Frankly, lights are the most fun - hard to play as you get one-shot every so often, but fun!

Makes sense. Lights have incredibly small hitboxes and are a major pain the *** to deal with in numbers. Nothing more annoying than dealing with circle strafing light mechs, while their buddies run up behind you and core out your back armor. It doesn't help that it can also seem like lights can tank damage better than assaults.

[Koniving]

Sounds like we're kickstarting the MWO threads again with a classic.

[martian]

Jake Doyle, on 21 December 2019 - 02:25 PM, said:

The past few weeks have proven to me that this game is becoming so frustrating it's unplayable, I've found myself turning to the PS4. Every match the faster mechs only want to nascar, and outrun the assaults (which is what I play for the most part). Leaving us vulnerable and the first ones killed in the match... you know the rest. It's so bad that not only do I rarely get to see a win, I almost never even get to see a kill anymore, I'm chasing our faster mechs while I get caught from behind and have no chance, usually dead in the first 2 minutes of the match.

It has always been so. From the very beginning of the game I remember nascaring around the centre plateau on the Caustic or nascaring around the central peak of the Canyon.

Just because some original maps were smaller (such as the original Forest Colony or the original River City) and PUGs camped behind every rock or behind the Citadel, the Assaults had time to keep the pace.

Jake Doyle, on 21 December 2019 - 02:25 PM, said:

It seems it is no longer a team, communicating game.

MWO has never been such game, so this is nothing new (at least if we are talking about the Quick Play). If you think so, it is only because of your rose-tinted glasses.

Jake Doyle, on 21 December 2019 - 02:25 PM, said:

I just came back to MWO about a year ago and have really enjoyed it until the past 3 weeks or so. I thought that MW5 would get rid of it as many "in the now" players would leave and the hardcore would stay. I guess I was wrong.

But that is exactly what MW5 has done. Random players are attempting to complete the MW5 campaign and the hardcore core stayed in MWO or completed the MW5 campaign already.

I would advise:
1) Take faster Assaults.
If the problem is that you are too slow, either modify your existing slow builds to incorporate larger engine or use faster and more agile 'Mechs (if you can not put a larger engine in the chassis). Try the Man-o'-War, the Gladiator, the Mad Cat Mk. II or the Warhammer IIC instead of the Daishi, if you like Clan machines. Try the BattleMaster, the Zeus, the Charger or the Cyclops.

As a rule of thumb, their speed should be at least 60 km/h, preferably more.

2) Do not be timid.
Two thirds of assault pilots are very timid (actually, I would use other word: cowards) and indecisive. They park their assault 'Mechs 300-400 m behind their team, instead of actually sharing their weapons and armor with heavies and mediums. It is perfectly obvious that they expect medium and occassional heavy 'Mechs holding the line and dying while they in their assault 'Mechs will farm damage. Frequently they load their 'Mechs with LRMs and are thus useless on many maps with a lot of cover, especially if they spam their LRMs indirectly against targets they can not even see.
Plus, they have not noticed that it is no longer 2013 and MWO has more ECM-equipped 'Mechs than the Raven, Spider and Atlas D-DC.

When the team moves forward - and before the Assault decides to move - they are suddenly 500-600 m behind the team. And of course the Daishi or the Atlas with their 50 km/h can never catch up.

[Mole]

Am I the only one who has literally never had issues getting left behind by a team in even the slowest of assaults unless I've done something stupid and I deserve it?

[ShiverMeRivets]

Arnold The Governator, on 21 December 2019 - 10:30 PM, said:

Makes sense. Lights have incredibly small hitboxes and are a major pain the *** to deal with in numbers. Nothing more annoying than dealing with circle strafing light mechs, while their buddies run up behind you and core out your back armor. It doesn't help that it can also seem like lights can tank damage better than assaults.

Lights can tank a huge amount of damage. Besides regular armor and structure they also have “hit box armor” and “ping armor”. It is extremely difficult to focus the damage on a specific component of a spazzing 20-25 ton mech, so that 20 armor on its side torso is equivalent to 40 or 50 total damage that you need to out into the mech (actually hitting) before that specific component is opened.

It is inaccurate to think of tanking damage as the amount of damage that your components can sustain - what matters is how much damage you can sustain being thrown at you, including all the damage that misses. Some light mechs can run through an enemy lance, circle a couple of times between their legs, and come out damaged but intact. No assult can expose itself to 4 mechs of any class and survive the encounter. Assults can use their armor to its fullest only when the enemy is shooting at them from a single known direction. If an assult gets encircled it is dead within seconds, unlike a light mech that may still break out and run, or spazz out between the enemy mechs who will be shooting each other for a good minute before they get him.

Assults under 60/58 kph can get frustrating to play in QP. This is why I rarely play them. The 80–90 ton heavy heavies are still playable if you build them as such.

[Ssamout]

Mole, on 22 December 2019 - 02:17 AM, said:

Am I the only one who has literally never had issues getting left behind by a team in even the slowest of assaults unless I've done something stupid and I deserve it?

Nope. I am the only one.

[Warning incoming Humble Dexterer]

Jake Doyle, on 21 December 2019 - 02:25 PM, said:

Every match the faster mechs only want to nascar, and outrun the assaults (which is what I play for the most part). Leaving us vulnerable and the first ones killed in the match...

The name "Assault" is misleading :
- A 80kph Assault is indeed a front line brawler.
- A 65kph Assault is more of a second line trader.
- A 50kph Assault is more of a turret then a mech.

Edited by Humble Dexter, 22 December 2019 - 07:25 AM.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Learn to accept that no matter what kind of assault mech you bring, 500 damage and a 1 kill is what the main goal is to aim for. If you get more than that and a win, then it's a bonus. Once you accept this fact, you will start performing better.

As a side note, NASCAR tracks like HPG and Mining still do offer some amount of cover on the "top". It's best not to rush in and stay there to fire upon the reds. On HPG, try to stay slightly to the edge so that you can drop down instead of turning into Swiss cheese. On Mining, the large blocky structures offer excelling cover to peak from. Then, simply follow the NASCAR by taking the shorter route.

On other maps that offer decent cover, like Grim Plexus or Tourmaline, stay on the edge of the NASCAR track early on and then once the race begins, take the shorter route through the middle or try to keep moving around the outskirts from cover to cover.

[Cyanogene]

FRAGTAST1C, on 22 December 2019 - 07:56 AM, said:

Learn to accept that no matter what kind of assault mech you bring, 500 damage and a 1 kill is what the main goal is to aim for.

This is a pathetic goal for an assault. You can easily do more than that is certain medium (!) mechs. If you use an assault mech, you should either aim for 1k+ damage or at least several kills/KMDD, or else you are a waste of tonnage. I'm not counting occasional freak matches when everything is just against you and there's no way to pull your weight or the team is really weak, but if everything is under control and you roll with the group, you should just dish out punishment left, right and centre. After all, you use the heaviest and most dangerous thing on the field.

Needless to say, you shouldn't use garbage assaults and non-viable loadouts. Use something that will be effective, something like a dakka mad cat, or a scorch with 4x srm 6+ 2x 20 shotguns, or something like an annihilator or a fafnir with 2x heavy gauss. And whatever you do, don't get away from your team, those guys serve as the perfect meat shield. Use them as cover as much as possible, never mind if you damage them or even get an accidental teamkill. If you pull your weight nobody's going to care. And remember - the more damage and kills you do, the more space cash you'll get. Winning is not really a priority.

[MOBAjobg]

Check the Jarl's list for my performance, some of the assault class mechs are still viable.