89 replies to this topic

[Zaver11]

Kiran Yagami, on 15 December 2020 - 09:44 AM, said:

Agreed. Never take one situation that happens once a week and use that as the rule. Even mediocre players die 85% of the time from being shot in the front. When they are shot in the back, it's because they have enemies on both sides, so extra back armor doesn't help anyways. 10 back armor is insane even for newer players. 5 is plenty. Once your position and map familiarity grows you can downgrade to 3 or even 2.

Problem is, it isn't 15% of the time. Having now spent a week testing several of these builds, it's a lot more frequent than that. Because most of the assault and heavy builds I see advocate sacrificing speed for firepower (void Hellfire, I'm looking at you). The end result is if you get stuck on Hibernal, Canyon, or any other "Nascar-o'Clock" map, you get left behind when the "begin the counter-clockwise rotatatoe potatoe! Start up the Benny Hill music! Don't stop for anything and the devil take the hindmost!" results in, well, you being the hindmost that the devil takes, and there's only so much torso twisting can do.

Again, these hyper optimized meta builds seem dependent on the notion that your teammates are, at least nominally, trying to do their jobs. Rather than "skill is only awarded to those best at face melting, thus rewarding those that charge into the fight like screaming Jade Falconeers and/or Kuritans emulating the infamous 'Charge of the Horde'" tactic. It leaves me lukewarm on them at best. I've seen improvements. But that is entirely to do with altering the weapon systems, rather than armor alterations. Because most of the time I'm dying to getting shot from all sides because "Charge of the Light Brigade! Cannon on the left, cannon on the right!" is the order of the day....

Edited by Zaver11, 21 December 2020 - 05:55 AM.

[Brauer]

If you're talking about the 60kph Void build on grimmechs that isn't even that slow. 60kph is typically enough to keep up with the nascar. I can't really speak for that build specifically, but you don't get into the territory of "too slow for Nascar" until you're in the low 50s, and even then it's situational.

Meta builds do not assume that your team will do anything for you. I'd actually say the best meta builds are mechs that you can hard carry a game in whether your team is completely incompetent or not.

Based on your description it sounds like you just are not positioning well Zaver, or you aren't leveraging your firepower well enough.

[Zaver11]

Brauer, on 21 December 2020 - 06:23 AM, said:

If you're talking about the 60kph Void build on grimmechs that isn't even that slow. 60kph is typically enough to keep up with the nascar. I can't really speak for that build specifically, but you don't get into the territory of "too slow for Nascar" until you're in the low 50s, and even then it's situational.

Meta builds do not assume that your team will do anything for you. I'd actually say the best meta builds are mechs that you can hard carry a game in whether your team is completely incompetent or not.

Based on your description it sounds like you just are not positioning well Zaver, or you aren't leveraging your firepower well enough.

I'm being left behind in 60-70+ KPH heavy/assault builds half the time. And I'll admit, my positioning game needs work. Because I'm not sure what is a good position in situations, like, say Hibernal/Canyon, where I can see "ummm, the hostile team is set up on the high ground *on both sides* of a canyon everyone is charging towards and all VOIP calls to alert the team to the fact that they are Nascaring into a kill box that is charitably described as a defender's dream come true results in radio silence. I don't know whether to make like a lemming and pray for the best ( in this particular instance, in my MCII-B trundling along at 61.2 KPH ), or plant my tin planted backside against a wall where I can slide behind cover, resign myself to death, and try to just dakka the crap out of as much as I can before the rest of the team is inevitably blown apart in their best representation of the British Army on July 1, 1916, and the other team inevitably turns their attention to the fellow plinking a lot of autocannon fire off their mechs.

What would you recommend in such a situation? I ask this in all seriousness and with a genuine, non-sarcastic request for help. Because I do wish to try to learn better positioning and how to optimize my performance in the all to common case of "team mates are headless chickens, time to look out for number one."

Edited by Zaver11, 21 December 2020 - 07:16 AM.

[Brauer]

Without knowing the exact situation it's hard to say, but just sitting with your back against a wall waiting for the enemy to come farm you is generally not the best solution. That's a response that you want to use when in a 1v1 where you're in an assault and they're in a nimble light or pseudo light. In a team match generally you want to find an angle and be more proactive.

[Zaver11]

Brauer, on 21 December 2020 - 07:38 AM, said:

Without knowing the exact situation it's hard to say, but just sitting with your back against a wall waiting for the enemy to come farm you is generally not the best solution. That's a response that you want to use when in a 1v1 where you're in an assault and they're in a nimble light or pseudo light. In a team match generally you want to find an angle and be more proactive.

I just don't know what to do half the time. Because it seems like charging into a death trap is also counter productive.

[Brauer]

Zaver11, on 21 December 2020 - 07:48 AM, said:

I just don't know what to do half the time. Because it seems like charging into a death trap is also counter productive.

Oh yeah it is. You want to find angles you can peek without getting wrecked. It's a bit rough in QP as the standard pug deathball is one of the best ways to play as a solo player, but sometimes groups or people pug-whisperjng set up a firing line and short-circuit things. At that point you just need to identify how you can most effectively contest the firing line or pick off isolated mechs.

[Zaver11]

Brauer, on 21 December 2020 - 07:56 AM, said:

Oh yeah it is. You want to find angles you can peek without getting wrecked. It's a bit rough in QP as the standard pug deathball is one of the best ways to play as a solo player, but sometimes groups or people pug-whisperjng set up a firing line and short-circuit things. At that point you just need to identify how you can most effectively contest the firing line or pick off isolated mechs.

Picking off isolated targets is something I struggle with. Mostly because I long ago realized despite my best efforts...I'm just not very good with a light mech that functions as anything other than a spotter. I'm just not good enough at the metaphorical dance to weave in and out of an enemy formation without getting picked apart. And I've no idea how to really practice with that aspect. The best I've managed is the occasional "oh my god, I picked my little Pirri and I got a map that actually allows for CQC surprise heavy laser ambushes!" that has allowed me to wait to scoot behind an assault and give him a one-two "six HSML on M1, six HSML on M2, now bugger the heck out of here as though the very gates of the underworld have been opened behind me and pray that he doesn't have anyone rocking SSRMs in the area...while also deploying a UAV that none of them notice if I'm extra lucky."

Thus, the reason I tend to stick with heavies/assaults. I'm not exactly Adian Pryde by any stretch of the imagination, but I am at least more competent in that regard than I am in a light.

[Gagis]

I give one vote in favour of putting you back against the wall and doing as much damage as you can when that situation happens, especially on Canyon.

Sometimes you get lucky and the enemy team is so busy chasing their own tail along the nascar track that they actually leave you alone and you can do some absolutely stupid amounts of damage from outside the track. Sometimes you get eaten alive by 4 enemy lights instead, but its no worse than those 4 lights shooting your back while you try to keep up with a doomed team.

[Zaver11]

Gagis, on 21 December 2020 - 08:04 AM, said:

I give one vote in favour of putting you back against the wall and doing as much damage as you can when that situation happens, especially on Canyon.

Sometimes you get lucky and the enemy team is so busy chasing their own tail along the nascar track that they actually leave you alone and you can do some absolutely stupid amounts of damage from outside the track. Sometimes you get eaten alive by 4 enemy lights instead, but its no worse than those 4 lights shooting your back while you try to keep up with a doomed team.

Thank you for the advice. I do want to get better at this game. I want to enjoy it. But there are things about it that frustrate the drek out of me and I'm struggling to find ways to deal with it. As I have said, I often play this game with my friends. And I want to be good enough to pull my weight with them and not drag them down. And I can't do that in the way that I used to, it seems. I have to change. I just...don't know how a lot of the time. And honestly, my old approach of "Attempt experiments with different builds, find one that seems to work well and plays to an omnibuild's strengths" seems...rather punitive in this current era.

[General Solo]

Zaver11, on 21 December 2020 - 07:11 AM, said:

..........And I'll admit, my positioning game needs work............

If your positioning game needs work
THATS WHY YOU ARE GETTING LEFT BEHIND IN DA NASCAR
ez

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 21 December 2020 - 08:22 AM.

[Brauer]

Zaver11, on 21 December 2020 - 08:11 AM, said:

Thank you for the advice. I do want to get better at this game. I want to enjoy it. But there are things about it that frustrate the drek out of me and I'm struggling to find ways to deal with it. As I have said, I often play this game with my friends. And I want to be good enough to pull my weight with them and not drag them down. And I can't do that in the way that I used to, it seems. I have to change. I just...don't know how a lot of the time. And honestly, my old approach of "Attempt experiments with different builds, find one that seems to work well and plays to an omnibuild's strengths" seems...rather punitive in this current era.

The easiest mechs to make work reliable are probably either relatively quick heavies (70-80kph) or mpl pseudo lights. For you it sounds like a quicker heavy is the way to go. Try sticking with that a bit to work on your positioning. Slower mechs can be some of the most frustrating to play because they require the best positioning and there are cases where they are simply too slow for the nascar.

[General Solo]

OP it is all selfish play
premades do selfish play as a group
selfish play wins

kills the game due to bad dev cannot do match maker guid
but wot eva

Its why NASCAR is a thing

true story fact

You must devise means to take advantage of this fact

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 21 December 2020 - 08:34 AM.

[K O Z A K]

OZHomerOZ, on 21 December 2020 - 08:31 AM, said:

OP it is all selfish play
premades do selfish play as a group
selfish play wins

kills the game due to bad dev cannot do match maker guid
but wot eva

Its why NASCAR is a thing

true story fact

You must devise means to take advantage of this fact

selfish play is due to matchmaker?

[Zaver11]

Hazeclaw, on 21 December 2020 - 09:25 AM, said:

selfish play is due to matchmaker?

I think he might be trying to say the new matchmaker setup? Used to be that groups were put into ques for other groups. But it was reaching the point where that was no longer viable due to lack of groups in QP (like, me and my two/three friends would often spend 30+ minutes in a que for a single match), so now they're thrown in with regulars. The result is, from my experience, a noticeable lack of any attempt at coordination.

From my own experience, I wouldn't even mind the Nascaring so much if someone would attempt to assert control of it (my own attempts have failed miserably). A complete lack of coordination/communication is the order of things though which too often leads to two groups of chuckle-heads running around the center point of Canyon/Hibernal/HPG while the slower assaults and heavies are left with the choice of "do we let our backs get chewed apart? Or do we turn, face them down, and try to set up a firing line of sorts?" Which is understandably a difficult choice to make when missiles and autocannon rounds are raining down on you to the point where you can barely think and the constant AC explosions make seeing anything virtually impossible.

It's part of what makes positioning so difficult for me. I don't know where I need to get to, because I have no idea what the others are going to be doing, what they're running, or the like. All I can see is basically "prepare to brawl, brawl, brawl for days, and pray that there aren't stealth mechs, because they're just going to ruin your day unless someone else is actually paying attention and/or has ECM and remembers the "J" key is a thing."

[Nightbird]

Current PSR design encourages selfish play. If you have a kill shot on an enemy who is killing your teammate, letting your teammate die first benefits you more than saving him, esp when the win is certain. Better to farm some extra arm or leg damage.

[GARION26]

I don't think you can stop a nascar - but I do find that saying hello in coms and saying (or typing) "Hey folks lets call out targets and focus fire" helps sometimes encourage a team to coordinate. My rates of being on a coordinated team seem better when I try and interact on the drop screen then when I don't. Dropping on Polar Highlands I ask about how much LRM/long range we have something to get folks thinking about being part of a coordinated team. Doesn't remotely always work - but trend seems better when we start talking.

Of course the salty folk yelling on coms at everyone probably doesn't help bring the team together.

[Zaver11]

Nightbird, on 21 December 2020 - 10:13 AM, said:

Current PSR design encourages selfish play. If you have a kill shot on an enemy who is killing your teammate, letting your teammate die first benefits you more than saving him, esp when the win is certain. Better to farm some extra arm or leg damage.

Which strikes me as being poor game design. Given this is supposed to be a team based game...

[Capt Deadpool]

Zaver11, on 21 December 2020 - 07:51 PM, said:

Which strikes me as being poor game design. Given this is supposed to be a team based game...

That is the point, I am afraid.

Many of us advocated that only W/L should matter when determining PSR in a team-based game where winning is the only objective. Taking groups out of the equation, which is a whole 'nother can of worms, pure W/L over time eliminates gaming the system/exploits like those mentioned, since everyone will experience the same randomness of playing with decent teams and potato teams. But such a system was not implemented.

[GARION26]

Capt Deadpool, on 21 December 2020 - 09:35 PM, said:

That is the point, I am afraid.

Many of us advocated that only W/L should matter when determining PSR in a team-based game where winning is the only objective. Taking groups out of the equation, which is a whole 'nother can of worms, pure W/L over time eliminates gaming the system/exploits like those mentioned, since everyone will experience the same randomness of playing with decent teams and potato teams. But such a system was not implemented.

I don't think WLD is a great matchmaking tool. It causes regression to the mean of the main matchmaking statistic and can't meaningfully differentiate someone who has played 1000 matches and worked their way to a 60% win rate (playing lots of matches against people with 50-59% win rates to get there) and someone who has played 10 matches and has a 60% win rate with those matches almost randomly distributes a Wins and losses.

Winning effects match score which effects PSR in the current system. Win enough matches as an active contributor and you'll go up -and you'll go up incrementally. This system isn't perfect (match score or PSR) but I think it does a better job of sequentially winnowing the better players away from the worse players then WLD would.

[General Solo]

Hazeclaw, on 21 December 2020 - 09:25 AM, said:

selfish play is due to matchmaker? https://static.mwomercs.com/forums//public/style_emoticons/default/smile.png

Yeah true me thinks dat too
But knowing the fault and fixing it
Are two different things

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 22 December 2020 - 08:15 AM.