66 replies to this topic

[PocketYoda]

As i've never seen it yet it must be above tier 2...

[sosegado]

Well, I'm kind of glad that the basics are hard to define until you get to the higher Tiers. Maybe that's how it should be. At least it makes me feel less incompetent. I know it's a glorious bowl of chaos on QP, especially in Tier 5. I trained a lot of different mechs in Tier 5 (well 90 but that's a lot for me since I'm just a weekend warrior) and mostly sucked at them. But I was always partial to the assaults. Now I feel a little more confidence changing to the other 3 chassis.

This is probably the closest to the 'checkoff' list I was looking for:

I LOVE ANNIHILATORS, on 04 September 2022 - 01:30 PM, said:

.....

As for basic competence, to me at least it's
1. Knowing what parts of the map to avoid
2. Being able to hit the mech and hit the CT in close range
3. Not running away when the fight starts
4. Torso twisting and reacting to dmg when you are shot at
5. General spatial and situational awareness. (Example: being able to infer that if the enemy is not here then they are over there, or seeing gunfire from behind a wall and inferring an enemy mech is shooting from there, looking at the map.)

This basic competence is only found in players at tier one, and probably the top half of tier 1.

It's a list I can work with and I can tell I'm having more success with understanding these as the basics even if I can't actually perform them all well yet. I watch more and more videos from some great names and what they're doing is making more and more sense.

Something tells me that chassis to chassis is an even wider gulf of what's considered competent and it may be that individual mech types are going to have their own definitions as well.

Edited by Stab Wound, 07 September 2022 - 01:56 PM.

[XDarkPrinceX]

When I first started I almost made it T3 without knowing much about MWO only being an avid MW player since MW2, problem is getting matched with a full group of t5's then placed against a group of t3's and just getting steam rolled.

[XenoWraith]

An6ryMan69, on 06 September 2022 - 08:34 AM, said:

Quickplay is generally a free-for-all, and everybody needs to take a pretty high degree of personal ownership of what goes on.

That starts with mech selection - personally I find assaults to be the mechs most impacted by team dynamics, including people doing stupid things like running away from you, or not scouting, or not locking targets, or shooting you in the back, or whatever.

Don't let all the guns fool you, big and slow is often not the way to go when dropping with a bunch of randoms.

My experience is mobility and adaptability keep me alive much longer than firepower or armor, and generally make me less subject to what the mob is currently doing.

I get much less frustrated with my own team if I'm in a Phoenix Hawk than if I'm in an Atlas, and generally have much more control over my own fate.

This is an understatement. You very rarely see any actual team play in quick play because everyone wants to do their own thing. Granted the point of playing a video game is to have fun but when you lose 10 matches in a row because no one wants to incorporate a little bit of team work and still have fun let’s just say keyboards have been sacrificed for less.

[ScrapIron Prime]

XenoWraith, on 08 September 2022 - 12:30 PM, said:

This is an understatement. You very rarely see any actual team play in quick play because everyone wants to do their own thing. Granted the point of playing a video game is to have fun but when you lose 10 matches in a row because no one wants to incorporate a little bit of team work and still have fun let’s just say keyboards have been sacrificed for less.

Right. You have to implement little bits of teamwork where you can. Get on comms at the beginning to see if you can get a lance to stick together, or just glue yourself to someone with the same weapon ranges as you and declare that you're their battle buddy. (the slow assaults appreciate this) Maybe even hit LFG before you drop and make a small group. Those tactics you can count on.

If I'm going to play "escort the fat boi" then I bring a light or medium for the "Protected" bonus I'll get, and aim for something that can contribute at range while also deal with light mechs. A Raven 3L or Kintaro-19 work best because the +100m Seismic Sensor quirk allows you to see an incoming light mech before it gets into small or micro laser range of your big friend. Just make sure you bring enough ranged weapons that you can do something to the same target your big friend is picking on.

Edited by ScrapIron Prime, 08 September 2022 - 12:52 PM.

[Dekallis]

The answer to your question is basically never. You will always see these behaviors mostly because there aren't really enough players to properly fill out the tiers for matchmaking. So the teams are almost always lopsided. Organized groups also complicate the issue. Then again I've seen "organized" squads throw the game entirely by dying less than 30 seconds into the match and leaving the team down an entire lance.

Most people are only concerned with padding their stats as proof of how great they are rather than whether or not the team wins or loses. As a result you'll see all the same behaviors of people across all tiers clogging choke points and blocking lines of fire just so they can get a shot in, pilots who just want that kill credit popping out at only the last second to shoot a crippled mech for the kill and spending the rest of the match hiding, People ignoring objective to chase a kill and losing the game etc. etc.

Also fully expect to see jank builds all over the place because the game doesn't teach people anything about builds or configuring a mech so most people either A. just wing it or B. search the net for a build. This results in a lot of people playing builds they either don't know how to use or that are undergunned or are terribly heat ineffecient and they spend more time cooling off than shooting, or the most common newbie mistake of overgunning a thing with large caliber weapons and not having enough ammo to be useful in the fight because they just assume big number=good then get eaten by MG's or something and call lights overpowered.

Situational and spatial awareness is almost non-existent if it ain't on their scanners it doesn't exist.I can't count how many times I've spotted or shot at a ecm mech and someone just looked in that direction saw no red and just moved on like they were blind only to get shot in the back by said ecm mech. The fact that text chat is disbaled by default because pgi were afraid of people getting their feelings hurt by meanwords in chat didn't help either because you can be communicating and not know whether or not people can even see it.

So Short answer to your question is: Never assume the team is competent.Regardless of what tier you're in. I've basically never been below tier 3 since the system was implemented and generally end up in t2 somewhere occasionally I might bounce into t1 if I care enough to try hard but believe me there's little actual difference.

[Void Angel]

Sad but true. It would be nice if everyone would just get on board with basic principles of teamwork in order to all be on the same page tactically *cough*followthefrackingatlas*cough,* but in the end, the only person's behavior that is under your control is your own.

Incidentally, I've had to explain this to premades on occasion. I've seen premade groups assume that because they have the advantages of cohesive loadouts, communication, and teamwork within their 3-or 4-man group, they necessarily trump the pugs' actions. So they'd go off to do their own thing, with superior teamwork, coordination, and skill - and lose. Over, and over, and over - and then grind their teeth blaming the "stupid PuGs." Which, to be fair, was often an accurate assessment of the sum total of PuG actions (tending as it does toward the lowest common denominator.) So I told them, "guys, we're better than the pugs, but we can't 4v12 the entire enemy team. Why don't we give the pugs our recommendation, but then follow along with whatever the group decides to do, and help them do that - even if it's wrong?"

Instant positive win/loss ratio. And the same thing works in solo play. There is a random element in every match, and you will not always have a team that works together. And by that token, you can't just look at one match and decide that whatever you're doing (tactically or with builds) isn't workable. But if you look at matches from the standpoint of helping out whatever the bulk of people is doing, and asking what you could have done better yourself, you'll have a lot better results overall; and your tactical improvement will be much greater than many PuGs (which is to say, improvement will exist. )