66 replies to this topic

[martian]

AnAnachronismAlive, on 27 May 2024 - 11:41 PM, said:

Main issue: The tendency of players to run around without proper intel via checking ridge / key ground early. Often feels like running through trenches/dugouts without any idea what's happening above the "pasture sod" ... like boxing with your eyes closed until you want to hit your punch.

Seldom to never do I experience matches where somewhat of an advantageous assembly area is taken until the movement/composition of the opfor's main bulk is kinda identified. And yes, brawl build or not ... the risk of exposing yourself early is worth the intel, as long as you do it in favourable terrain. Investing one skillpoint into adv-zoom can be a plus too, if one has issues with his eyesight or monitor.

PUGs on the Canyon Network map are (in)famous for that.

They keep running through those canyons ("trenches") without knowing if the enemy team is in front of them, behind them, or on the left or right side.

[foamyesque]

martian, on 28 May 2024 - 12:54 AM, said:

PUGs on the Canyon Network map are (in)famous for that.

They keep running through those canyons ("trenches") without knowing if the enemy team is in front of them, behind them, or on the left or right side.

On Canyon you can safely assume that unless you see a known good dropcaller on the other team, they'll be rotating counter-clockwise. If you do see one, expect a left-side hold and/or push if you give up that side/the top. You can basically predict it directly from the player list, although actual eyes-on confirmation is always welcome.

Edited by foamyesque, 28 May 2024 - 11:43 AM.

[martian]

foamyesque, on 28 May 2024 - 11:42 AM, said:

On Canyon you can safely assume that unless you see a known good dropcaller on the other team, they'll be rotating counter-clockwise. If you do see one, expect a left-side hold and/or push if you give up that side/the top. You can basically predict it directly from the player list, although actual eyes-on confirmation is always welcome.

Yeah!

You can feel their shock: They have thought that they managed to avoid the actual combat, only to realize that the entire enemy team is waiting for them right there ...

[KursedVixen]

pattonesque, on 22 May 2024 - 11:10 AM, said:

• High ground is free cover from low ground.
  
• High ground gives you way better angles than low ground
  
• High ground lets you pick your fights way better than low ground

• Low ground can sometimes be cover from high ground
  
• Low ground can sometimes give better angles on High ground targets
  
• Low ground can let you pick your fights if the high ground is too saturated (ever notice the guy ac
  
• Low ground does not have the disadvantage of showing yourself to snipers across the other side of the map in certain circumstances

Edited by KursedVixen, 28 May 2024 - 12:58 PM.

[pattonesque]

KursedVixen, on 28 May 2024 - 12:51 PM, said:

• Low ground can sometimes be cover from high ground

sure. and you're usually stuck in that cover because high ground has better angles

KursedVixen, on 28 May 2024 - 12:51 PM, said:

• Low ground can sometimes give better angles on High ground targets

sure. the reverse is true far, far more often.

KursedVixen, on 28 May 2024 - 12:51 PM, said:

• Low ground can let you pick your fights if the high ground is too saturated (ever notice the guy ac

I suppose? I'm not sure what the point is

KursedVixen, on 28 May 2024 - 12:51 PM, said:

• Low ground does not have the disadvantage of showing yourself to snipers across the other side of the map in certain circumstances

sure. but a better option is to just use cover.

basically all of this is *kind* of true but isn't an argument to start out on the (very bad) low ground at all. Point still stands: sometimes going low ground is the right idea, but the drawbacks outweigh the benefits.

[Bud Crue]

foamyesque, on 28 May 2024 - 11:42 AM, said:

On Canyon you can safely assume that unless you see a known good dropcaller on the other team...

This is sort of the core of my little tirade above. There is no such thing as a "good dropcaller" in the higher tiers of this game. Most of the high tier players that I regularly encounter offer comment, guidance, or critique, however useless or accurate, ONLY after the fact. I've been playing for nearly 10 years and I can count on one hand the number of matches where a truly skilled player bothers to drop call or even make suggestions in a live match as to what the rest of us potatoes ought to be doing to win. Yes, there are a few chronic yappers that we have all dropped with and can identify by name, who we all know is an idiot or explicitly selfish player (the forum rules prevent name and shame). But the vast majority of matches are nearly silent but for a few comp wanna bes that will ONLY speak well after the match is a clear loss for their team, and then, they then won't shut up about what "should have been done", as if they didn't have ample opportunity to provide guidance from the beginning of the match. Instead they come to the forums to preach about how it is so obvious how the lowliest of players could be successful as they are if they only played the game like they do. What absolute heroes these guys are. /s

Edited by Bud Crue, 28 May 2024 - 06:59 PM.

[Gasboy]

KursedVixen, on 28 May 2024 - 12:51 PM, said:

• Low ground can sometimes be cover from high ground

Far more often than not, high ground provides cover from low ground (great at keeping your legs safe) while offering great angles on low ground mechs.

Quote

• Low ground can sometimes give better angles on High ground targets

'Sometimes' is not a good enough reason to take and keep the low ground. Much more often the situation is reversed.

Quote

• Low ground can let you pick your fights if the high ground is too saturated (ever notice the guy ac

Sure, it's fine to use the lower ground to flank or escape. It's not fine to be fish in a barrel.

Quote

• Low ground does not have the disadvantage of showing yourself to snipers across the other side of the map in certain circumstances

I'm not worried that the opposing team is entirely made of snipers. The topic is "seizing the low ground" and why it's bad, not "it's bad to use terrain to mask your approach". Even in comp we strive for the high ground, such that if we play on Mining or Canyon/Frozen Canyon, most/all mechs have JJ.

[Grey Hook]

Gasboy, on 28 May 2024 - 06:58 PM, said:

Even in comp we strive for the high ground, such that if we play on Mining or Canyon/Frozen Canyon, most/all mechs have JJ.

I've never played comp, but wouldn't it be great if, in regular games, one could choose their equipment based on the terrain they are going to fight in? I'd always prefer to have jumpjets when fighting in Hibernal Rift, but my luck is such that I usually end up there in a Stalker or something.
I agree high ground is usually better.
I also agree that it sucks when one heads to the high ground and most of their team does not, but that sort of uncoordinated behaviour is kinda part-and-parcel of a game like this.

[foamyesque]

Bud Crue, on 28 May 2024 - 06:55 PM, said:

This is sort of the core of my little tirade above. There is no such thing as a "good dropcaller" in the higher tiers of this game. Most of the high tier players that I regularly encounter offer comment, guidance, or critique, however useless or accurate, ONLY after the fact. I've been playing for nearly 10 years and I can count on one hand the number of matches where a truly skilled player bothers to drop call or even make suggestions in a live match as to what the rest of us potatoes ought to be doing to win. Yes, there are a few chronic yappers that we have all dropped with and can identify by name, who we all know is an idiot or explicitly selfish player (the forum rules prevent name and shame). But the vast majority of matches are nearly silent but for a few comp wanna bes that will ONLY speak well after the match is a clear loss for their team, and then, they then won't shut up about what "should have been done", as if they didn't have ample opportunity to provide guidance from the beginning of the match. Instead they come to the forums to preach about how it is so obvious how the lowliest of players could be successful as they are if they only played the game like they do. What absolute heroes these guys are. /s

Just had a Canyon match where somebody was complaining on textcomms all chat that you *shouldn't* go left on mining, as if a low-ground counterclockwise rotation was a winning strategy. What a doof.

(And then, when I was the last man standing and my choices were shooting a *fresh Atlas* or a damaged Cougar, complained I was shooting the Cougar)

Edited by foamyesque, 30 May 2024 - 05:18 PM.

[Void Angel]

martian, on 28 May 2024 - 12:54 AM, said:

PUGs on the Canyon Network map are (in)famous for that.

They keep running through those canyons ("trenches") without knowing if the enemy team is in front of them, behind them, or on the left or right side.

There's a reason they call that main canyon "Death Valley." You can get through it - if you're fast enough and you know where the enemy is - but it's generally a place you go to re-enact the Lone Ranger's origin story.

Some of the comments in this thread remind me of certain... "discussions" I've had in my own threads back in the day, generally by failure to apply the principle of charity to opposing views. "Taking the high ground," for example, does not mean standing in the open getting shot by 1000m-range weapons; it just means that you don't give up that ground unless you have to, because the benefits it gives are valuable. Conversely, it's not wrong if you're moving under defilade with short-ranged 'mechs, provided you're assisting the team rather than running off on your own or just mindlessly circling that imaginary drain in the center of the map.

[Gasboy]

Grey Hook, on 30 May 2024 - 02:25 PM, said:

I've never played comp, but wouldn't it be great if, in regular games, one could choose their equipment based on the terrain they are going to fight in? I'd always prefer to have jumpjets when fighting in Hibernal Rift, but my luck is such that I usually end up there in a Stalker or something.
I agree high ground is usually better.
I also agree that it sucks when one heads to the high ground and most of their team does not, but that sort of uncoordinated behaviour is kinda part-and-parcel of a game like this.

I think it's be great to have a 2 or 3 mech drop deck so you at least not be totally boned when polar highlands is chosen and you're in a spl mech.

[martian]

Void Angel, on 30 May 2024 - 05:49 PM, said:

There's a reason they call that main canyon "Death Valley." You can get through it - if you're fast enough and you know where the enemy is - but it's generally a place you go to re-enact the Lone Ranger's origin story.

Some of the comments in this thread remind me of certain... "discussions" I've had in my own threads back in the day, generally by failure to apply the principle of charity to opposing views. "Taking the high ground," for example, does not mean standing in the open getting shot by 1000m-range weapons; it just means that you don't give up that ground unless you have to, because the benefits it gives are valuable. Conversely, it's not wrong if you're moving under defilade with short-ranged 'mechs, provided you're assisting the team rather than running off on your own or just mindlessly circling that imaginary drain in the center of the map.

The problem is that many players are just content with being out of the enemy team's sight, with no deper tactical idea behind it.

[1453 R]

TheCaptainJZ, on 22 May 2024 - 03:19 PM, said:

...
Vitric is the map that comes to mind. If your whole team takes top, you are in a stronger position but if only a couple of your team go top first, and the enemy team outranges and outnumbers you, you can get torn up in no time.
...

This honestly sounds like an argument for Pattonesque's point, not against it. The team that moves to aggressively grab the high ground in Vitric gains the edge, and the team who loses a couple people who tried to contest that high ground is at a pretty severe disadvantage because the enemy now has both numbers and better ground. We've all been that guy on Vitric scoring a 1k+ game with a couple of HAG-30s from the high ground dumping damage unopposed into monkeys on the ground. Rubellite's another good one for this, where even just one or two guys taking commanding positions on the elevated portions of the map can trade very effectively and constrain the enemy - or, in the case of brawlers, spot the OpFor's arrangement and disposition early and allow their team to maneuver more effectively.

Start spending one skill point on Advanced Zoom, folks. It's very worth it even for non-snipers.

KursedVixen, on 28 May 2024 - 12:51 PM, said:

• Low ground can sometimes be cover from high ground
  
• Low ground can sometimes give better angles on High ground targets
  
• Low ground can let you pick your fights if the high ground is too saturated (ever notice the guy ac
  
• Low ground does not have the disadvantage of showing yourself to snipers across the other side of the map in certain circumstances

Right. Because somehow "high ground" is synonymous with "totally exposed bare-*** nekkid ground standing there like a goomba waiting to get Mario-stomped." Maybe instead of standing in bad high ground like a total nincompoop, you should focus on finding and holding the good high ground that comes with cover and protected flanks?

The man is not saying to turn your brain off and stand in the highest point on the map no matter what. In point of fact he specifically said not to do that. What the man is saying is that height advantage is very real and giving up good high ground without a good reason is dumb and people should stop doing it. Especially if you're giving up good high ground for bad low ground, like Death Valley in Canyon. The team that can successfully catch its opposition in the ~E4-D5 fishbowl is the team that wins a Canyon match for free, and I don't care how many bad brawlers whine about needing that ground as a dugout to get at the enemy through.

If you as a brawler can't keep it in your pants long enough to wait for a better approach than huddling in Death Valley waiting to get blasted to bits, then get out of the Hunchback and pick up a midrange 'Mech that can contribute earlier in the fight and let your scratch your itchy trigger finger. I cannot say it often enough - the art of brawling is not GLORIOUS CHARGE INTO ENEMY FORTIFICATIONS. It is the art of brutal back-alley muggings against unprepared targets, and just like any good back-alley mugger, you've got to pick your mark and your moment carefully to avoid the fuzz. With 'fuzz' being a tortured euphemism for vast waves of enemy fire, so thick and dense they blend together into an indistinct sheet of murderous punishment for your misplay.

[MechWarrior5782621]

East Indy, on 26 May 2024 - 07:25 AM, said:

Perfect answer. If you can't trade at range you have to close, so to do that you need cover and ideally loss of contact. Hence: low ground.

What an effective advance/flank does require, however, is aggression and cooperative intuition. Often, the matchmaker drops too many hesitant/low-awareness players into one team and the center of mass hunkers down. Like, the east side of the F5 ridge on Tourmaline is mid/high-ground and yet it becomes a kill zone due to inaction and ceding of space.

What I find funny is that the mantra of long-range dominating players has always been to use terrain to close for CQC, and this thread is a complaint about it.

+1

If you're in a brawler, you really have no choice but to stay in the low ground and try to stay behind cover on your approach.

This also shows the limitations of QP compared to FP. If you want to do well in QP, you need to take generalist, QP-style builds that can perform on pretty much any map/game mode. That means you'll never be able to use most of the weapons in the game, because most of them aren't really ideal for QP.

If PGI wants to improve the quality of QP matches, the first thing they should do is let people see the map & mode before choosing their mech. This would allow people to have success with specialized builds, and take more of a strategic approach instead of just being a mindless "button masher" type of game.

[KursedVixen]

MechWarrior5782621, on 31 May 2024 - 04:51 AM, said:

+1

If you're in a brawler, you really have no choice but to stay in the low ground and try to stay behind cover on your approach.

This also shows the limitations of QP compared to FP. If you want to do well in QP, you need to take generalist, QP-style builds that can perform on pretty much any map/game mode. That means you'll never be able to use most of the weapons in the game, because most of them aren't really ideal for QP.

If PGI wants to improve the quality of QP matches, the first thing they should do is let people see the map & mode before choosing their mech. This would allow people to have success with specialized builds, and take more of a strategic approach instead of just being a mindless "button masher" type of game.

PGi doesn't give a crap about this game at present only Cauldron...

[1453 R]

I'd like to know which weapons are "not viable" for QP, to the point of never being seen. Because as best I can tell, you can name almost any weapon in this game and there's a build or six out there that uses it to good effect. Not, perhaps, at ultra tippy-top comp levels, but we're not talking comp, we're talking basic QP.

Brawly weapons? Despite the incessant whining from people who think brawling should be free, they're doing fine. Getting in on somebody with an AC/20 and scads of SRMs is still perfectly doable most of the time, and if you do it you have a huge edge on the target. So long as you stay out of bad ground and don't advance across an open field like a nitwit, you'll do fine. And if you don't because the enemy team had superior recon, coordination, and managed to take and hold better ground rather than flocking to the killing fields? Well boy howdy hey, maybe they deserved that victory.

Lock-on missiles? Missiles can admittedly be more feast-or-famine than other weapon types, but a player can also build to mitigate their shortcomings. ATMs are still really dangerous if someone gets them in the right spot. LRMs and Thunderbolts are admittedly sketch, but that has nothing to do with maps and QP and more to do with the userbase's dogged determination to go out of its way to avoid anything remotely like the concept of "teamwork", as well as the tendency of dumb Puglandians to bring LRM480 Stalkers with forty-three tons of ammo and a STD13.2 engine rather than a reasonable number of tubes on a reasonably mobile platform that can actually keep up with the team rather than get caught out and eaten by one Mist Lynx because it's utterly helpless in an actual fight.

My brother's Hangover has been doing pretty well with massed Thunderbolt-5s and an MPL battery for when the Thunders stop being the best idea, and when I get off shift I'm gonna have some fun with a pocket fire support Thunderspawn. About time that old Halloween freebie made itself useful, heh.

Really, the only entire weapon class I can think of that's just a bad idea altogether is Streak missiles, and that's also not a QP thing, that's a game-design thing. Streaks are just as pointless in organized play as in the Mosh Pit. Hell, they're probably better in the Mosh Pit where you have no real guarantee anyone on your team can hit a Piranha with direct fire unless you can and the whole "anti-lightweight weapon" thing has a sliver of credibility.

Regardless of whatever, your loadout's not gonna save you if you trade good high ground for bad low ground. Or simply 'Good Ground' for 'Bad Ground', since people are having the weirdest conniptions about elevation and the objectively obvious advantages it brings.

[KursedVixen]

1453 R, on 31 May 2024 - 07:20 AM, said:

I'd like to know which weapons are "not viable" for QP, to the point of never being seen. Because as best I can tell, you can name almost any weapon in this game and there's a build or six out there that uses it to good effect. Not, perhaps, at ultra tippy-top comp levels, but we're not talking comp, we're talking basic QP.

Brawly weapons? Despite the incessant whining from people who think brawling should be free, they're doing fine. Getting in on somebody with an AC/20 and scads of SRMs is still perfectly doable most of the time, and if you do it you have a huge edge on the target. So long as you stay out of bad ground and don't advance across an open field like a nitwit, you'll do fine. And if you don't because the enemy team had superior recon, coordination, and managed to take and hold better ground rather than flocking to the killing fields? Well boy howdy hey, maybe they deserved that victory.

Lock-on missiles? Missiles can admittedly be more feast-or-famine than other weapon types, but a player can also build to mitigate their shortcomings. ATMs are still really dangerous if someone gets them in the right spot. LRMs and Thunderbolts are admittedly sketch, but that has nothing to do with maps and QP and more to do with the userbase's dogged determination to go out of its way to avoid anything remotely like the concept of "teamwork", as well as the tendency of dumb Puglandians to bring LRM480 Stalkers with forty-three tons of ammo and a STD13.2 engine rather than a reasonable number of tubes on a reasonably mobile platform that can actually keep up with the team rather than get caught out and eaten by one Mist Lynx because it's utterly helpless in an actual fight.

My brother's Hangover has been doing pretty well with massed Thunderbolt-5s and an MPL battery for when the Thunders stop being the best idea, and when I get off shift I'm gonna have some fun with a pocket fire support Thunderspawn. About time that old Halloween freebie made itself useful, heh.

Really, the only entire weapon class I can think of that's just a bad idea altogether is Streak missiles, and that's also not a QP thing, that's a game-design thing. Streaks are just as pointless in organized play as in the Mosh Pit. Hell, they're probably better in the Mosh Pit where you have no real guarantee anyone on your team can hit a Piranha with direct fire unless you can and the whole "anti-lightweight weapon" thing has a sliver of credibility.

Regardless of whatever, your loadout's not gonna save you if you trade good high ground for bad low ground. Or simply 'Good Ground' for 'Bad Ground', since people are having the weirdest conniptions about elevation and the objectively obvious advantages it brings.

clan weapons

[1453 R]

Oh for ****'s sake, Clan gear is fine. Clan 'Mechs can bring half again the weaponry of Sphere machines, Clans still get Endo and Ferro both for the price of Endo alone on the sphere side, the cXL is still the most busted piece of kit in the game, Clan ECM is still strictly superior to Guardian ECM and Clan OmniMechs with an ECM Omnipod (i.e. roughly half of them) get access to ECM freely, and even with all those inherent advantages, Clan weapons are not dramatically inferior to Sphere stuff. Especially in Quick Play, which is the game mode in question here.

Yes, Clan brawlers have to act more like strikers since they don't get the gigatons of durability quirks Sphere stuff does. That's fine. "Striker" is what a brawler should be aiming for in the first place, and a Clan machine's relative fragility means taking and holding good ground is more important, not less. Sphere stuff with two hundred pointsd of bonus armor can bull through bad ground to try and close with an enemy more easily; Clanners have to have more finesse. Working as intended. Take it from me down in T4 with my krusty-old-lady reflexes, piloting predominantly Clan machines and seeing you pretty routinely in my drops - git gudder, Vixen.

[MechWarrior5782621]

1453 R, on 31 May 2024 - 07:20 AM, said:

I'd like to know which weapons are "not viable" for QP, to the point of never being seen. Because as best I can tell, you can name almost any weapon in this game and there's a build or six out there that uses it to good effect. Not, perhaps, at ultra tippy-top comp levels, but we're not talking comp, we're talking basic QP.

Brawly weapons? Despite the incessant whining from people who think brawling should be free, they're doing fine. Getting in on somebody with an AC/20 and scads of SRMs is still perfectly doable most of the time, and if you do it you have a huge edge on the target. So long as you stay out of bad ground and don't advance across an open field like a nitwit, you'll do fine. And if you don't because the enemy team had superior recon, coordination, and managed to take and hold better ground rather than flocking to the killing fields? Well boy howdy hey, maybe they deserved that victory.

Lock-on missiles? Missiles can admittedly be more feast-or-famine than other weapon types, but a player can also build to mitigate their shortcomings. ATMs are still really dangerous if someone gets them in the right spot. LRMs and Thunderbolts are admittedly sketch, but that has nothing to do with maps and QP and more to do with the userbase's dogged determination to go out of its way to avoid anything remotely like the concept of "teamwork", as well as the tendency of dumb Puglandians to bring LRM480 Stalkers with forty-three tons of ammo and a STD13.2 engine rather than a reasonable number of tubes on a reasonably mobile platform that can actually keep up with the team rather than get caught out and eaten by one Mist Lynx because it's utterly helpless in an actual fight.

My brother's Hangover has been doing pretty well with massed Thunderbolt-5s and an MPL battery for when the Thunders stop being the best idea, and when I get off shift I'm gonna have some fun with a pocket fire support Thunderspawn. About time that old Halloween freebie made itself useful, heh.

Really, the only entire weapon class I can think of that's just a bad idea altogether is Streak missiles, and that's also not a QP thing, that's a game-design thing. Streaks are just as pointless in organized play as in the Mosh Pit. Hell, they're probably better in the Mosh Pit where you have no real guarantee anyone on your team can hit a Piranha with direct fire unless you can and the whole "anti-lightweight weapon" thing has a sliver of credibility.

Regardless of whatever, your loadout's not gonna save you if you trade good high ground for bad low ground. Or simply 'Good Ground' for 'Bad Ground', since people are having the weirdest conniptions about elevation and the objectively obvious advantages it brings.

You'll figure it out as you play more QP & climb the tiers - it's not rocket science (although, in a sense, maybe it is),

[Quicksilver Aberration]

KursedVixen, on 31 May 2024 - 07:21 AM, said:

clan weapons

If you are having trouble with Clan weapons, then that's more telling about you than the "balance" of Clan weapons.