55 replies to this topic

[MadDach5und]

martian, on 15 May 2021 - 11:06 PM, said:

The Tier 1 games are faster, 'Mechs hit harder, the situation in every game is more fluid. Any mistake you make (for example, in positioning) can be punished by the enemy team very quickly.

You can face 4-man premade groups composed of four elite players.

Tier 1 games are "faster" is really a false statement. Lower tier matches may take longer to finish on average, but there has been plenty of Low-Tier matches that were pretty much over in the first minute and a half, due to predictably bad team movements and such. Having a lone mech 'flee' instead of engage in suicide by crossfire does not determine a 'quality' fight or match time.

Four elite players 'slum' drop into lower tiers ALL the time, especially late at night when N American players are getting sparse. So that's not an an entirely true assumption, either.

Alexander of Macedon, on 16 May 2021 - 03:23 AM, said:

The PGI leaderboard ranking isn't a reliable assessment of ability since it's mostly tied to how many matches you've played in the current month rather than your actual performance in them. Jarl's List gives you a much more useful way to self-assess since the rankings there are based on performance and you can look at how you've changed over time.

PGI Leaderboard stats are sortable by all kinds of vectors, so that makes them useful. The ranking ALONE may seem fickle - but I found it remarkable how many Tier One pilots have an abysmal Leaderboard rank compared to mine.
Jarl's graph over time as a visual is indeed useful, and I would strongly encourage PGI to create some sort of similar visual graph for individual pilot performance versus a "Rank". Even better would be zones of improvement.

Something to point out about these databases that can be gleaned from a quick scan ---
-- Top Pilots tend to be more strongly assault based than other sizes, so more credit is STILL given to more damage and kills versus scouting / objective / teamwork play
-- I'm still on my ORIGINAL account with 15,000+ matches - MANY of those high ranked players are not near that kind of total, and I suspect many of them have started NEW accounts AFTER they established their game play. Not ALL, but many of them.

If Pilot Skill was all I cared about, I would open an ALT account and start anew. THAT IS key to making these averages push higher. My biggest complaint -- is that I shouldn't HAVE to. Skill ranks SHOULD be timely to more recent performances, and not tied like a boat anchor to what we did as noobs years ago.

I'm NO genius at this game and don't pretend to be.

I'm not invested in huge gaming rigs like many other players are, and I certainly do not want to crap on them for their time and investment.

What I want more than anything is to eliminate this stupid "class" system that is developing out of people playing vainly to protect their stats. It is WHY we have Impatient brawlers want to deal damage and then twitch to the next channel without any thought or strategy or planning.

I want there to be a vector for improvement that can REALISTICALLY be achieved through more than just sheer damage and kills, and is NOT anchored down by performance while learning the game or play done years ago.

One stat that doesn't show anywhere - and I claim this with at least a crumb of pride - is that I have been the last player standing on my losing team far more often than not. Nobody gives a damn about surviving anymore. In fact, it's treated with a vast amount of disdain from impatient dead pilots who are mad about me not killing myself instead of figuring out a way to possibly win or at least do more damage to their team before I get taken down. I've entertained the crap outta people watching me survive, and I love them for their positive feedback. But the game itself doesn't do that. In ANY way whatsoever.

I really wonder how the game play would change if there was incentives to be the "Last Man Standing" or an "Alamo" award for getting kills while being pursued by half a team. THAT takes pilot skill, and it's certainly not easy to do with a 100 ton fatty that can barely move

[John Bronco]

Every good player I know, and I know a lot of them, cares a lot about surviving. After all, you have to be alive to impact the match.

Unfortunately the game as-is is all about killing mechs to win games. Objectives are always secondary to that and only exist to get fights to happen in some other parts of the map or for putting pressure on the clock.

[Saved By The Bell]

I dont like when elite group fighting with noobs 3-5 tier.
Lets see canyon TRAP:

Game started. All moving to right or center. Of course, assaults and heavies are in left. Then an enemy light or stealth coming to assaults, looking to them, sending their position. Next moment 2-3 lrm boat start to kill poor assaults, who dont know what to do. 1m after 4 assaults' or heavies are dead. After several minutes its 0-12 defeat. I experienced this trap many times. You understand, that only high skill team can do this. So, what the meaning of torturing noobs by elite team?

In this condition "fight, return fire" isn't help you, cause situation so BAD.

Other maps have their traps too.

Edited by Saved By The Bell, 16 May 2021 - 10:27 AM.

[Alexander of Macedon]

MadDach5und, on 16 May 2021 - 10:01 AM, said:

If Pilot Skill was all I cared about, I would open an ALT account and start anew. THAT IS key to making these averages push higher. My biggest complaint -- is that I shouldn't HAVE to. Skill ranks SHOULD be timely to more recent performances, and not tied like a boat anchor to what we did as noobs years ago.

PSR shift isn't tied to anything except your individual match performances. You don't get "dragged" down or up to any meaningful degree except in so far as that a good player in low-tier matches is going to get high PSR gain pretty consistently.

MadDach5und, on 16 May 2021 - 10:01 AM, said:

I'm not invested in huge gaming rigs like many other players are, and I certainly do not want to crap on them for their time and investment.

Rig doesn't matter. I upgraded recently from a computer that was mid-range six years ago to a fairly high-end contemporary one and it hasn't affected performance to any notable degree. MWO really does not demand much in the way of resources, beyond the split between trying to play on a laptop or underpowered business box vs. a desktop intended for gaming, using M&K rather than a trackpad or joystick.

MadDach5und, on 16 May 2021 - 10:01 AM, said:

What I want more than anything is to eliminate this stupid "class" system that is developing out of people playing vainly to protect their stats. It is WHY we have Impatient brawlers want to deal damage and then twitch to the next channel without any thought or strategy or planning.

One stat that doesn't show anywhere - and I claim this with at least a crumb of pride - is that I have been the last player standing on my losing team far more often than not. Nobody gives a damn about surviving anymore. In fact, it's treated with a vast amount of disdain from impatient dead pilots who are mad about me not killing myself instead of figuring out a way to possibly win or at least do more damage to their team before I get taken down. I've entertained the crap outta people watching me survive, and I love them for their positive feedback. But the game itself doesn't do that. In ANY way whatsoever.

Good players aren't rushing in and dying early. That's not how you do a lot of damage. You have to play with measured aggression, positioning to maximize the damage you deal while minimizing how much you take in return. You're pretty frequently going to be one of the last ones alive, but you're going to have little armor or ammo left and a few kills on your HUD.

Being the last one alive in a losing match (if you're not in a light, not heavily damaged, and it wasn't a very fast stomp) is usually a sign that you were playing too timidly and not contributing much. When there's disdain, it's usually because someone in a heavy/assault is last man standing off in Zimbabwe with minimal damage taken, i.e. a clear indication that they were sniping from 1km+, wandering around trying for a wide flank in a slow mech, and otherwise generally not contributing prior to the rest of the team being dead.

I've had snarky comments once when I was last man standing, and it was because I hid and shut down in an Assault match with no ammo left in an SRM Locust after the enemy team stopped me from capping them out. Even then, I hid myself in a position where I might be overlooked and could hear if they moved off the cap, just in case I got the chance to power on and run back in.

[Leone]

MadDach5und, on 16 May 2021 - 10:01 AM, said:

I really wonder how the game play would change if there was incentives to be the "Last Man Standing" or an "Alamo" award for getting kills while being pursued by half a team. THAT takes pilot skill, and it's certainly not easy to do with a 100 ton fatty that can barely move

It would be terrible. We already have enough folk hiding behind their team. Start incentivizing it and it'll only make for even more timid and helpless pilots. Aggression wins matches.

~Leone.

[Capt Deadpool]

Leone, on 16 May 2021 - 11:09 AM, said:

It would be terrible. We already have enough folk hiding behind their team. Start incentivizing it and it'll only make for even more timid and helpless pilots. Aggression wins matches.

~Leone.

In QP this is definitely true a vast majority of the time. You can sometimes herd the cats into holding a tactically advantageous defensive position, however.

I'd highly recommend to the OP and players in general to simply find a mech(s) that matches your preferred most fun playstyle and forget about everything else. Before the 'Great Biggening', I played a lot of different lights, but now the Flea gives me the most giggles so I mostly play that. If you really want to take a game very seriously, there are many other games with higher skill ceilings and more money to be made at the comp level. Smash robots for funzees.

[MadDach5und]

Alexander of Macedon, on 16 May 2021 - 10:30 AM, said:

Good players aren't rushing in and dying early. That's not how you do a lot of damage. You have to play with measured aggression, positioning to maximize the damage you deal while minimizing how much you take in return. You're pretty frequently going to be one of the last ones alive, but you're going to have little armor or ammo left and a few kills on your HUD.

Being the last one alive in a losing match (if you're not in a light, not heavily damaged, and it wasn't a very fast stomp) is usually a sign that you were playing too timidly and not contributing much. When there's disdain, it's usually because someone in a heavy/assault is last man standing off in Zimbabwe with minimal damage taken

Sorry, but there's been disdain for not committing suicide by crossfire no matter WHAT condition. Play abut 10,000 more matches and you get to see practically everything - including YOURSELF becoming that same whiny jerkwad who accuses someone of 'not participating' because they are not a glowing red stick hopping on one leg.

Light mechs survive by NOT getting hit. At all. Scouts help the teams with spotting, tagging, NARCs and several other subtle distraction moves that don't deal damage or add to damage statistics. This game awards NONE of that with any real significance. I freaking love pairing a good NARC launching scout with a couple heavy missile boats. it's devastating to the other team. But it means one pilot gets NO love, aside from the seasoned pilots that bother to recognize the significance -- and it's practically impossible to GET that arrangement from a random free quick match without pre-setting a group drop to make it work.

[Vlad Ward]

MadDach5und, on 16 May 2021 - 11:43 AM, said:

Sorry, but there's been disdain for not committing suicide by crossfire no matter WHAT condition. Play abut 10,000 more matches and you get to see practically everything - including YOURSELF becoming that same whiny jerkwad who accuses someone of 'not participating' because they are not a glowing red stick hopping on one leg.

Light mechs survive by NOT getting hit. At all. Scouts help the teams with spotting, tagging, NARCs and several other subtle distraction moves that don't deal damage or add to damage statistics. This game awards NONE of that with any real significance. I freaking love pairing a good NARC launching scout with a couple heavy missile boats. it's devastating to the other team. But it means one pilot gets NO love, aside from the seasoned pilots that bother to recognize the significance -- and it's practically impossible to GET that arrangement from a random free quick match without pre-setting a group drop to make it work.

Dude. You have a 0.80 WLR and a 0.69 KDR this season. Those are pretty mediocre stats no matter how you sort them. Even if the Match Score system ignored Light mech contributions (and I agree that it does), your WLR should still go up if you're playing Lights effectively.

[Leone]

MadDach5und, on 16 May 2021 - 11:43 AM, said:

Sorry, but there's been disdain for not committing suicide by crossfire no matter WHAT condition. Play abut 10,000 more matches and you get to see practically everything - including YOURSELF becoming that same whiny jerkwad who accuses someone of 'not participating' because they are not a glowing red stick hopping on one leg.

You, sir, are wrong. I only complain about folk not participating when they're actively avoiding the fight or not on the line of battle in CW. No matter how many matches I participate in I doubt I'll suddenly lose the ability to read a battlemap or understand positioning. Now, personally, I like to keep all of my complaints to myself, especially in Quickplay, where I don't expect any teamwork anyways.

However, I play Strategy games, not shooters. So, for the most part I see pugs running around ignoring what appear to be obvious tactical advantages and I sigh, salute and requeue. Because for the most part, folk who survive to the end alot do so by not sharing armour. Which is, by the way an effective tactic for ensuring more of your team lasts longer so as to sway the field of battle in your favour. Fresh mechs to the front, wounded to the back.

Sometimes it's skill, or some poor assault getting legged and so slow to the fray. More often'n not it is not.

~Leone

[martian]

MadDach5und, on 16 May 2021 - 11:43 AM, said:

Light mechs survive by NOT getting hit. At all. Scouts help the teams with spotting, tagging, NARCs and several other subtle distraction moves that don't deal damage or add to damage statistics. This game awards NONE of that with any real significance.

All these things that you listed surely help, but do you know how you can really help your team as a light 'Mech pilot? By killing enemy 'Mechs, so they can not kill your lancemates, they can not cap, they can not drop artillery strike on your team, etc.

[MadDach5und]

Vlad Ward, on 16 May 2021 - 11:55 AM, said:

Even if the Match Score system ignored Light mech contributions (and I agree that it does), your WLR should still go up if you're playing Lights effectively.

I just finished a match running a fast medium where I found two of their lances sneaking around the edge of the map. They totally had the drop on my team. I was instantly under fire from multiple pursuers. If I had stood my ground, I would be eviscerated in seconds. Instead I ran, deploying UAVs and airstrikes above my pursuers. Half the group took the chase, and when I finally did turn around to shoot at them, I only managed to get 94 damage before I was popped like a grape. But guess what? They abandoned their assaults to chase me.

My team noticed the cluster of red on radar behind them and turned to attack - instead of getting the drop, THEY got screwed. Our team won 9 to 12. I had the lowest score.

Yeah, I guess I don't know how to pilot lighter mechs, because my damage points really explain my 'skill' effectively.

Maybe I should have let them sit in their death ball and wait until they creamed my team and THEN attack from behind to get a couple hundred more damage and make sure my green arrow happened.

Most Light mechs that get 400+ damage get it by scavenging already banged up mechs, not by scouting or any other team based strategy. I've played that way. It's not fun.

[Vlad Ward]

MadDach5und, on 16 May 2021 - 12:37 PM, said:

I just finished a match running a fast medium where I found two of their lances sneaking around the edge of the map. They totally had the drop on my team. I was instantly under fire from multiple pursuers. If I had stood my ground, I would be eviscerated in seconds. Instead I ran, deploying UAVs and airstrikes above my pursuers. Half the group took the chase, and when I finally did turn around to shoot at them, I only managed to get 94 damage before I was popped like a grape. But guess what? They abandoned their assaults to chase me.

My team noticed the cluster of red on radar behind them and turned to attack - instead of getting the drop, THEY got screwed. Our team won 9 to 12. I had the lowest score.

Yeah, I guess I don't know how to pilot lighter mechs, because my damage points really explain my 'skill' effectively.

Maybe I should have let them sit in their death ball and wait until they creamed my team and THEN attack from behind to get a couple hundred more damage and make sure my green arrow happened.

Most Light mechs that get 400+ damage get it by scavenging already banged up mechs, not by scouting or any other team based strategy. I've played that way. It's not fun.

Not talking about Match Score, dude. If you lose more games than you win, then whatever it is you think you're doing in Lights/Meds isn't working as well as you think it is. If it was, and your distraction there actually consistently helped your team, they would win more often and your WLR wouldn't be as low as it is.

Edit: As someone who plays Assaults and bigger Heavies more often than not, whenever I do see a friendly Light or Medium screwing around in the middle of nowhere and getting killed, my first thought isn't "Awesome, nice distraction!" It's usually something more along the lines of "Great, now it's 11v12. What a waste."

Edited by Vlad Ward, 16 May 2021 - 12:49 PM.

[Leone]

MadDach5und, on 16 May 2021 - 12:37 PM, said:

Most Light mechs that get 400+ damage get it by scavenging already banged up mechs, not by scouting or any other team based strategy. I've played that way. It's not fun.

Incorrect. Since you like anecdotes, Let's do so. Had me a triple light pcc Panther and noticed the teams other two lights flanking far left. Now, loving a good light pack, but being a bit slow I cut across ready to run into the nascar and distract. Oddly enough quad uac madcat mark two followed. Turns out it was one of those weird matches where the opfor went right. So, we peaked, poked and brawled our way through a pair of helpless assaults sittin' back and the two lights and a stormcrow that came to save 'em. Sadly, our poor Madcat mark two, serving as a safe haven to run behind got legged by the lights, who'd given chase and then retargeted the bigger threat. In the end our line of battle started moving up, since they now outnumbered the enemy, and a few more mechs trickled our way and wiped the lights, letting our Madcat mark two hunt down the last ecm mech whilst legged. (The uac boat was legged three kills into the match and every other mech that fired upon it went torso. Tier three is weird sometimes.)

Every light got at least 400~500 damage, and the highest damage in the match was our brave IIC with 690. It was a good spread.

Ahh, good times. Where was I going with this? Oh, right. The only comms in the entire game was at the end trying to hunt down that last ecm mech. One of the very few matches I stuck around to see the ending of. Our lights were a scourge upon the enemy and died, but secured decent match scores, and I don't recall if'n the panther was the lowest of the lights, but it was a fair spread and I did get a PSR green arrow.

I mean, the computer can't really watch the game and understand the tactics, but it can see, 'damage good, make PSR go up.' Not the best indicator of what you bring to a team, but seriously. It's a computer program. The more complicated you try to make it, the worse it'll get. It works in it's own janky way.

~Leone.

Edited by Leone, 16 May 2021 - 01:06 PM.

[East Indy]

What I find the most interesting is that the OP had grinded to Tier 1 despite consistently playing in the low percentiles, but since the reset and redesign has played thousands of games, and at a higher mid-level percentile the new PSR correctly places him in Tier 3. I think that's a testament to the better system.

[MadDach5und]

Vlad Ward, on 16 May 2021 - 12:43 PM, said:

As someone who plays Assaults and bigger Heavies more often than not, whenever I do see a friendly Light or Medium screwing around in the middle of nowhere and getting killed, my first thought isn't "Awesome, nice distraction!" It's usually something more along the lines of "Great, now it's 11v12. What a waste."

Well, the match I described was not the "Middle of Nowhere" - the team was one ridge over. And if you gave a damn about a teammate asking for help, you'd be finding out a way to help them, not rolling your eyes.

[YueFei]

MadDach5und, on 16 May 2021 - 12:37 PM, said:

I just finished a match running a fast medium where I found two of their lances sneaking around the edge of the map. They totally had the drop on my team. I was instantly under fire from multiple pursuers. If I had stood my ground, I would be eviscerated in seconds. Instead I ran, deploying UAVs and airstrikes above my pursuers. Half the group took the chase, and when I finally did turn around to shoot at them, I only managed to get 94 damage before I was popped like a grape. But guess what? They abandoned their assaults to chase me.

My team noticed the cluster of red on radar behind them and turned to attack - instead of getting the drop, THEY got screwed. Our team won 9 to 12. I had the lowest score.

Yeah, I guess I don't know how to pilot lighter mechs, because my damage points really explain my 'skill' effectively.

Maybe I should have let them sit in their death ball and wait until they creamed my team and THEN attack from behind to get a couple hundred more damage and make sure my green arrow happened.

Most Light mechs that get 400+ damage get it by scavenging already banged up mechs, not by scouting or any other team based strategy. I've played that way. It's not fun.

Nah, you should get eyes on earlier, enough that given your speed relative to the enemy speed, and relative to where your next nearest piece of fall-back cover is, you can safely bail out without dying.

Everyone screws up now and then by over-extending, but don't try to play it off as if you didn't mess up. If you don't acknowledge your mistakes, you'll never improve.

[Alexander of Macedon]

MadDach5und, on 16 May 2021 - 11:43 AM, said:

Light mechs survive by NOT getting hit. At all.

This is true. Which is why I explicitly excluded lights from that statement. That said, sometimes it happens. I had this match this morning:



You don't always get to have perfect engagements. In this case I had to choose between aggressively skirmishing with a full lance of heavies and mediums to keep them away from the fight in center vs. preserving my armor when I already had an open side torso from a hit I took while dropping a greedy strike on most of the enemy team. Applying pressure and damage was more important in this case than staying safe (since my team was struggling), so I had to get a bit sweaty about it.

MadDach5und, on 16 May 2021 - 11:43 AM, said:

Scouts help the teams with spotting, tagging, NARCs and several other subtle distraction moves that don't deal damage or add to damage statistics. This game awards NONE of that with any real significance. I freaking love pairing a good NARC launching scout with a couple heavy missile boats. it's devastating to the other team. But it means one pilot gets NO love, aside from the seasoned pilots that bother to recognize the significance -- and it's practically impossible to GET that arrangement from a random free quick match without pre-setting a group drop to make it work.

Those don't get rewarded because they don't win games. Distraction is fine, but getting people to squirrel is chancy and inevitably removes you from the fight as well. Efficiency damage wins battles, and taking frequent shots from the sides and rear is the most effective way to distract and pressure enemies in a light.

Any mech can spot. NARC and TAG are worthless if you're not coordinating with LRMboats in voice comms and can easily be nullified by anyone with half a brain on most maps (i.e. step behind/under cover and wait for the NARC to go away while peeking for quick shots).

MadDach5und, on 16 May 2021 - 12:37 PM, said:

Most Light mechs that get 400+ damage get it by scavenging already banged up mechs, not by scouting or any other team based strategy. I've played that way. It's not fun.

You're wrong here. That's how lights tend to pick up kills towards the end of a match, and it's usually a matter of coincidence or deliberate tactics. High damage on lights means one of three things: they found an AFK enemy to farm damage on, they found an enemy LRMboat to farm damage on, or they carried the hell out of the match. Here's one to illustrate the point:



Myself and the friendly RVN-4X had half the team's kills and damage equal to the bottom eight players on the team, representing ~40% of the team's total damage. In a match where we had three assaults and a heavy that failed to break 200 damage before dying. Explain how that's the result of scavenging kills rather than playing aggressively to pile on damage and kill mechs.

There are basically two ways to get high damage. The first is to run an assault or heavy with an extremely potent weapon load, something like the meta MCII-B dakka build, and fight it from an ideal position for the entire match. The advantage here is being able to do a lot of damage very quickly as long as you don't die. The other is to run a good light and move to start engaging the enemy team as soon as possible, remaining in contact for the entire match and only pulling away to re-engage from a new angle while cooling off. The advantage here is that you have the ability to always position in a way that allows you to fire at an enemy instead of being stuck trying to get an angle in a slower mech.

Edited by Alexander of Macedon, 16 May 2021 - 03:00 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

East Indy, on 16 May 2021 - 01:05 PM, said:

What I find the most interesting is that the OP had grinded to Tier 1 despite consistently playing in the low percentiles, but since the reset and redesign has played thousands of games, and at a higher mid-level percentile the new PSR correctly places him in Tier 3. I think that's a testament to the better system.

This. OP WLR and survival rate has not changed much before/after the PSR reset/sub reset (1st everyone was moved to Tier 3 and new accounts started in Tier 3... later after lots of backlash, PGI moved Cadets, players with under 25 games and new players to Tier 5) but OP avg MS has increased some, still not enough to get to "Tier 1". The previous PSR setup had players whose had an avg 171 MS, 0.83 WLR in Tier 1 simply by playing 25k+ games. Essentially many the current Tier 2-5 players were in Tier 1, with the players w/lower avg MS getting there by bulldozing their way with a ton more drops than others.

Think of the tiers in Battletech terms as in Elite, Veteran, Regular, Militia, and Green.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 16 May 2021 - 03:24 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

MadDach5und, on 16 May 2021 - 10:01 AM, said:

Tier 1 games are "faster" is really a false statement.

It is completely accurate.

Tier 1 games always run much much faster than Tier 5 games, as an average. That "one game" in 100 type example carries no weight.

MadDach5und, on 16 May 2021 - 10:01 AM, said:

Something to point out about these databases that can be gleaned from a quick scan ---
-- Top Pilots tend to be more strongly assault based than other sizes, so more credit is STILL given to more damage and kills versus scouting / objective / teamwork play
-- I'm still on my ORIGINAL account with 15,000+ matches - MANY of those high ranked players are not near that kind of total, and I suspect many of them have started NEW accounts AFTER they established their game play. Not ALL, but many of them.

It seems you're not really looking at it right and also throwing in a nice amount of tinfoil hat.

Many high up on Jarls at least, are light/med players. I know this as I know the players names. It would seem you might not if you're going to make a statement like that which isn't overly correct.

Additionally most of the high ranked guys have 1,000s of games with most around the 7,000 marker with plenty over 10,000. That is not insignificant at all.

You have 15,000 but you also playing 2-3x the amount of many of them so in that respecct it lines up pretty well as if you half 15,000 guess what? It's 7,500... Most of the guys up the top have not renamed/made new accounts - I mean you could just look at their histroy and it shows you?

Additionally you can spot the renames/alt-accounts quite easily and then brush over them no drama.

It really seems like you're looking at it with rose coloured glasses and only seeing what you want such that is justifies what you're saying. That just isn't accurate.

[MadDach5und]

Alexander of Macedon, on 16 May 2021 - 02:57 PM, said:

There are basically two ways to get high damage. The first is to run an assault or heavy with an extremely potent weapon load....
The other is to run a good light and move to start engaging the enemy team as soon as possible, remaining in contact for the entire match...

You forgot garbage time.
When a match is largely over, with a couple survivors left.

Lazy Pilots will knaw at disconnects and weaponless mechs for added damage - or conversely...

The surviving mech, provided they are a skillful enough pilot, can continue to evade AND shoot at multiple targets because they are all converging on them at once. Often with whiny crybabies complaining over coms that those extra 45 seconds are wasting THEIR time. Been there. Done that. And took three or four more mechs down while doing it. Often after half my team disconnected in disgust.

But that doesn't take any "SKILL" - right? Evading fire from 3 to 6 mechs and STILL dealing out damage is simply lazy piloting because the match is "Over", right?

Dealing large damage from lights happens from positions of stealth and evasive angles, not by full frontal brawling. A light mech constantly engaged with the enemy is a dead mech. You can post all the glory stories you want of being magically evasive through hell and hails of bullets, but you're not going to impress someone who has done it a thousand times at least. You survive to damage more by NOT getting hit, not by magically absorbing stuff that cripples mechs three times your size, and definitely NOT by somehow dealing massive amounts of damage without being a sneaky back stabber.

I have made the leaderboard on Solaris Division 7 (the Annihilator Division) in an Arctic Wolf. It's a ***** to do. Please take note how many pilots in the top 50 are piloting anything less than 80 tons in that division. I don't mind the challenge sometimes, but I did get really fed up with fatties placing their *** against a wall in a corner the whole match and then blaming ME for the tie game we BOTH got because they refused to engage. Please tell me where there was SKILL involved in THAT baloney...