107 replies to this topic

[Meep Meep]

pattonesque, on 03 August 2024 - 03:27 AM, said:

Groups of skilled players are always going to do well, that's just the nature of ... reality. They'll do significantly less well if the opposing team actually attempts to make it difficult for them instead of finding new and creative ways to Die Immediately.

I would highly encourage you to reread and consider this point:

I'm not disagreeing with you. But as you said reality is reality and when skilled players lance in this game they tend to run 90~100% win rates. Geeram did it two months in a row as a proving point to get the soup queue fixed. You can fite all you want but you ain't going to eke out a 20% win rate against those players. Not saying don't try just don't get discouraged when they hand your team its butt in a sling. This isn't a issue in the lower tiers because no one is skilled enough to outplay anyone else with any consistency. If they were they wouldn't be in the lower tiers.

[GreyNovember]

I'm also fairly certain that a big contributing factor is just... we do not care?

If people are not engaging with each other in comms, or only do so because they are venting on their own team that they died/lost/whatever, then the norm moving forward is "Shut up, press W, and shoot at red targets."

And for probably a large portion of players, this is as far as they care to exert effort for a play session, Pew pew robots with some decision making.

Couple this with increasing PSR means increasing likelihood of just getting killed having done 100-200 damage total in a game with no respawns, wait times between matches, and people will start going autopilot to save themselves the frustration that occurs.

[LordNothing]

if i play well i end up in t2 and the wait times go up and the difficulty goes up. if i play for fun i hang out in t3, get fast wait times and can run any build i want, even bad ones, i play a lot of those. effective builds are kind of boring.

[foamyesque]

My biggest gripe is probably people who show their backs. Sure, sometimes you have to retreat -- I play a lot of Shadow Cats, I know that in my bones! -- but you should always be trying to keep your guns pointed at the enemy as much as possible. Torso twist! Arm mounts! Weaving patterns! Whatever it takes, but if you're not firing, people are getting free shots on you.

[LordNothing]

foamyesque, on 03 August 2024 - 09:36 PM, said:

My biggest gripe is probably people who show their backs. Sure, sometimes you have to retreat -- I play a lot of Shadow Cats, I know that in my bones! -- but you should always be trying to keep your guns pointed at the enemy as much as possible. Torso twist! Arm mounts! Weaving patterns! Whatever it takes, but if you're not firing, people are getting free shots on you.

ive killed so many ravens because of this.

[smokefield]

1453 R, on 02 August 2024 - 11:02 AM, said:

All well and good to say "My dumb stupid teammates lost me the match!", and frankly that's true as often as not.

But have you ever considered, Generic You referring to the audience at large rather than any one specific player mod team, that to everyone else you are the Dumb Stupid Teammate? And if you keep making ******* decisions you'll never be anything but?

I know my issues....

this is NOT the issue, and you have only a vague idea of what issues you have. those are just skills, and not all fighters have the same ones, nor it is needed to be a champion at anything to be a good pilot. it is enough to be above average.

there are 4 main factors in a military engagement:
- the equipment: this is balanced in the game and will be ~ similar, ergo not much influence in the outcome
- the terrain: most of the maps have a way to play them that gives you more chances at winning. to simply it - what your team does in the ~1st minute probably decides the fate of the game in 90% of the cases. example - if you go right instead of left you minimize your chances of winning by 20% on some maps.
- the skill of the commander: generally there is no one, but most of the games where someone takes command and has even a basic skill to do it, it increases the chances to win with 20%.
-the discipline of the team: this lacks most of the times, the more chaotic your team is the less chances of winning you have. i can take a team o average players, train them for 2 weeks, and play as a team, and win 90% of the games against a more skilled team where players just do their own thing solo.

[pattonesque]

GreyNovember, on 03 August 2024 - 02:21 PM, said:

I'm also fairly certain that a big contributing factor is just... we do not care?

If people are not engaging with each other in comms, or only do so because they are venting on their own team that they died/lost/whatever, then the norm moving forward is "Shut up, press W, and shoot at red targets."

And for probably a large portion of players, this is as far as they care to exert effort for a play session, Pew pew robots with some decision making.

Couple this with increasing PSR means increasing likelihood of just getting killed having done 100-200 damage total in a game with no respawns, wait times between matches, and people will start going autopilot to save themselves the frustration that occurs.

everything I'm suggesting is extremely low effort

[Swamp Ass MkII]

Team abandonment: when a pilot or 4 go.for the cap in assault, while the rest of the team is getting crushed due to the 8 vs 12.

Team abandonment: when a pilot or 4 go.for the cap in assault, while the rest of the team is getting crushed due to the 8 vs 12.

[Bud Crue]

Swamp *** MkII, on 04 August 2024 - 09:29 AM, said:

Team abandonment: when a pilot or 4 go.for the cap in assault, while the rest of the team is getting crushed due to the 8 vs 12.

As long as the cap win is a possibility there are people who will play the mode as PGI has provided and apparently intended, whether because those people think that is a legit way to win, or more likely as a means to troll reds and blues alike (raises hand). I.e., stop voting for assault and this form of abandonment becomes far less likely.

[Swamp Ass MkII]

I for one hate assault for this very reason.

[Meep Meep]

Dunno. About the only time I see capping on assault is when one team partially rotates away from their base but the other team rolls fully into the enemy base. I will sometimes sit on cap just as a way to try to draw a few mechs away to defend.

[LordNothing]

Bud Crue, on 04 August 2024 - 01:51 PM, said:

As long as the cap win is a possibility there are people who will play the mode as PGI has provided and apparently intended, whether because those people think that is a legit way to win, or more likely as a means to troll reds and blues alike (raises hand). I.e., stop voting for assault and this form of abandonment becomes far less likely.

sending people to cap at the start of conquest is not a bad idea, so long as they aren't assault mechs anyway. most of the caps are usually on the way to the battle zone. so capping at least 2 out the gate should be a first priority. the trick is once the caps are taken is that you should fight to hold them. hold 3 and fight is a winning strategy. this is a good way to get early match kills as well (and usually the faster mechs are the ones there and taking those out secures your caps for longer). thing is once you own a minimum number of cap points time is bought such that you can focus your attention entirely to the fight and not have to worry about a loss on a technicality. besides mini battles for caps are fun as hell.

[1453 R]

Bud Crue, on 04 August 2024 - 01:51 PM, said:

As long as the cap win is a possibility there are people who will play the mode as PGI has provided and apparently intended, whether because those people think that is a legit way to win, or more likely as a means to troll reds and blues alike (raises hand). I.e., stop voting for assault and this form of abandonment becomes far less likely.

I vote exclusively for Assault over Skirmish and Domination when given the chance, and I'll vote for Conquest above everything else. Skirmish was a mistake, and Domination is an abomination.

As LordNothing says - smaller fights scattered across the map over shifting cap points in a Conquest match is MWO at its absolute best. The giant blobby 12v12 dogpile-in-the-middle-of-the-map nonsense engagements that happen all the damn time in every other game mode are just eye-rolling boring garbage. People keep complaining about BIG MASSIV HI ALFAS - do they think maybe making the game such that you aren't always staring down the barrel of 8+ 'mechs every time you peek an eyebrow over the hill would reduce that sort of bologna?

Mobility should matter. Tactics should matter. The objective should matter. Conquest is the only game type where any of that is even remotely close to halfway almost-true. Therefore, Conquest is the best game mode in MWO. Compies agree - they all play exclusively Conquest in organized comp play, after all. Domination is only popular because people cannot abide anything but big massive lumbering slow overgunnd bags of autocannons that are doing pretty dang well if they break forty KPH, and frankly that is a Them problem, not an MWO problem. If you want to play a forty-two AC/35 Annihilator that moves seven whole kilometers a day, that's your prerogative - but you should have to pay for that firepower, and people who invest in being faster than continental drift should be able to play around your basically-a-turret self.

[Swamp Ass MkII]

I love conquest, and like you, I do vote for it every time. Even if running a slow clanner, and thouse arent exactly slow. It creates a nice break from nascar.

[1453 R]

Swamp *** MkII, on 05 August 2024 - 06:25 PM, said:

I love conquest, and like you, I do vote for it every time. Even if running a slow clanner, and thouse arent exactly slow. It creates a nice break from nascar.

People are under the mistaken impression that big slow overgunned molasses-heap assault bloatboats are "useless" in Conquest.

They are not.

They still command whatever ground they can waddle to, and the whole "big central push at Theta" thing is a Thing for a reason. Terminating the enemy still matters in Conquest. It's simply not the only thing that matters. Conquest as a game mode rewards an actually balanced team composition, skewed neither towards overgunned bloatboats nor an army of butt-chewing mosquitoes.

Like you said, no matter what I'm piloting, Conquest is universally more enjoyable than any other game mode. I do wish people would stop dogging on it so damn hard.

[Meep Meep]

Ironically a typical conquest match is won by those that prioritize getting kills over capping. As long as you get your home cap and at least one other then there is plenty of time to back cap once the reds are deds. This does backfire every now and then but not normally.

[Jon Gotham]

Bud Crue, on 04 August 2024 - 01:51 PM, said:

As long as the cap win is a possibility there are people who will play the mode as PGI has provided and apparently intended, whether because those people think that is a legit way to win, or more likely as a means to troll reds and blues alike (raises hand). I.e., stop voting for assault and this form of abandonment becomes far less likely.

Honestly I wish they would remove skirmish, to prevent the "team" deathmatch mentality.

[Swamp Ass MkII]

Yeah, prioitizing kills is ok in Conquest. But, sometimes, when you happen to look up, and well **** we have no caps, are at 200 of 550, and only thing left are slow *** assaults. Thats when it get emarasing!

[GreyNovember]

Jon Gotham, on 07 August 2024 - 11:57 AM, said:

Honestly I wish they would remove skirmish, to prevent the "team" deathmatch mentality.

Bold of you to assume people will stop prioritizing pew pew if the mode doesn't say "Skirmish"

[1453 R]

GreyNovember, on 08 August 2024 - 10:37 AM, said:

Bold of you to assume people will stop prioritizing pew pew if the mode doesn't say "Skirmish"

More a case of "which do you hate more: a three-minute base trade one game in a hundred, or chasing the final Spider/Shadow Cat/Arctic Cheetah/Whatever around the map for ten minutes every fifth game?"

For a great many of us, the latter is a much bigger issue than the former, especially as the presence of bases on Assault also provides the briefest, tiniest breath of tactical capacity since you can play around with base-touching on the enemy. Assault is simply a stronger game mode, even if that doesn't make it 'strong'.