25 replies to this topic

[Swamp Ass MkII]

Yeah, as the title say's. Those who have had the ill gotten drops with me. Yeah, patience is not a virtue, standing around with thumb up butt, just doesn't sit well with me especially when I'm wondering when not if my rear armor is going to be inspected. I would rather go downin a hail of lasers and ballistics than waiting to get blown to bits beore I had an oppertunity to do something, even if it's dying while fighting. Simply put, sitting around doing nothing doesn't work for me even if that costs YOU the round!

[caravann]

When you protect your rear never twist 45°
Max 35° never beyond that.

Always try to keep a distance when shooting.
And if you lost all hope , run backwards.

[Swamp Ass MkII]

You missed the point of this. I am appologizing becasue when I get sick of standing around while the rest of my team is doing just that I push. I play mostly brawly mechs, SRM's so my range is a mere 200 or so meters. I can't shoot accross the map, nor can I shot down the length of a wall... Brawly range. So yes, I reply on my team to push, so I can then engage. If my team isn't, then I find something to do, and that usually includes dying, very much first, and usually early in the game.

[LordNothing]

i really dont blame you. last thing i want to do in a war game is not fight. i like to get to engagement range quickly such that we get the prime locations before the enemy does. i have little patience for people who doddle early match. every second you squander is a second the enemy could be using to find an advantage over you.

that said if you run into battle time and time again without team support, you are hurting your stats. doing this is why ive spent so much time in tier 3. il spend a few game gauging the mood of the current batch of players, and then choose builds accordingly, or opting to play something else if they are doing something i really cant tolerate. but most of the time you can adjust your play to match the situation. dont let yourself get locked into a specific play style that is situational. its like hammering screws because you cant be bothered to switch tools.

Edited by LordNothing, 09 March 2025 - 02:33 PM.

[Meep Meep]

Short range brawler is one of the toughest metas to play right now unless you are in an organized lance. As a solo as soon as you expose you just get insta cored unless there are other targets to dilute their fire. Why not flip over to something mid range? You only lose a few points of alpha but gain a lot of range and also in most cases some dps.

[Swamp Ass MkII]

Meep Meep, on 09 March 2025 - 02:38 PM, said:

Short range brawler is one of the toughest metas to play right now unless you are in an organized lance. As a solo as soon as you expose you just get insta cored unless there are other targets to dilute their fire. Why not flip over to something mid range? You only lose a few points of alpha but gain a lot of range and also in most cases some dps.

Think bracket builds might be viable in this case?

[kalashnikity]

Your problem sounds more like lack of patience.

If you want to brawl, especially in a slow mech, you have to be willing to spend half of (most) matches hiding.

Matches usually devolve into close range brawls at the end.

Your team mates will not be happy about you not "sharing armor", but just calmly and briefly explain your build, and wait for your moment to shine.

Edited by kalashnikity, 09 March 2025 - 05:45 PM.

[LordNothing]

Swamp *** MkII, on 09 March 2025 - 05:15 PM, said:

Think bracket builds might be viable in this case?

midrange is usually good enough to do work no matter how lazy your team is.

[kalashnikity]

FWIW, I recently got a BJ-2 and after testing both long and short range builds, I settled on a mid range build, (LPPC and MRM) and I'm pretty happy with it.

Testing builds these last few days, it was hard to engage with SRM/SNPPC as it is too slow and low armor to deal with brutally accurate close range counter fire, and ERPPC/LRM had too low of DPS, and FWIW, LxPL felt broken (weak)

That's far from the only example, except for niche builds and certain maps (e.g. Alpine Peaks is sniper's paradise), most encounters these days are going to be in the 400m to 600m range, lots of mid range trading these days. My BJ-2 does full damage out to ~700m, so it's right in the sweet spot.

(without duration quirks, LxPL seems super weak)

[caravann]

It all depend on the map. If successful the enemies will jump down and run into your team while you keep stand there doing nothing else than waiting for an invite. There are more of them, which is why you wait.

It's not true that you have to wait but it all rely on elevation. If the map is all walls with no way to go you really can't brawl. It will not be a brawl match but teams of energy weapons shooting in a gallery as the opponent has to jump down into a brawl pit to work.

And it maybe intense but brawling isn't worth the effort. It takes too much timing and corporation of the opponent.

The inner sphere won against the clans since them had invited too many opponents into a brawl. Sure, when they see you they'll spot you but in that one minute there is nobody else than a duel between two mechs.

I find medium mechs to be a bad joke in attempt of brawling as 1/2 of the mech is gone in a single alpha strike and the other half of the mech doesn't have what it takes to win.

If you would use a centurion the ( shield arm + the side torso) is gone before you get to retaliate. You are by now better off use a locust with rockets.

It's not really brawling to use a suicide mech relying on glass cannons. It's likewise the case if you the only one brawling you and the team doesn't have the momentum to make them running out of heat or hills to hide. And coolshot pretty much is the anti-brawl pay to win. Since the concept of heating up their mechs who rely on glass cannons as well rely on the map to provide the chance.

And like I mentioned, when one mech 1/2 your mech in one alpha strike all it takes is two to defeat your mech. You going to be in need of a speedy mech to create the momentum for you to prevent them from solve everything with coolshot.

In practice the only ones you going to defeat in brawling never had the chance to win.
Someone has to be the decoy to prevent the alpha strike and it can't be you.

[1453 R]

the problem with Yeehaw #$%! the Law banzai charges like what you describe, Swamp, is that they reinforce the behavior you despise.

Think about it - the other eleven people on your team see you bolt from the cover they're all chickendicking behind, Braveheart your way into the enemy team, and get blown into metal tabletop dice in short order. Are they going to say "Damn, we should've supported that guy so his aggressive charge into the enemy wasn't wasted"?

No. Not even a little. They'll say "wow, that guy was a total idiot, he got himself blown into an Etsy reclaimed-art store right away. Man I sure am glad I'm sitting behind this rock not getting blown up instead!" And when they die ten minutes later to the enemy finally developing the gonadal fortitude required to get out from behind their rocks and take advantage of the power play you've gifted them, will your team say "Oh no! We should've gone with that guy who charged tender bits first into the enemy while we were still even up!"?

No. Not even a little. They'll say "wow, that guy was a jerk for getting himself killed so early instead of waiting behind a rock accomplishing nothing like the rest of us until everybody consumed enough alcohol to get going and fight in our giant robot combat game!"

Void Angel wrote a whole thing on it, and it remains one of my favorite posts on this forum over a decade later. You can either account for human psychology and its malicious tendency to encourage chickendicking, or you can just explode uselessly a lot. Which, I absolutely feel you, I end up doing a lot of premature detonation myself when I've had it with people being cowards. But that doesn't really make me a better player, or help people learn that camping behind a rock for twelve minutes ceding ground and initiative to the enemy is an absolutely terrible idea.

[LordNothing]

1453 R, on 10 March 2025 - 07:54 AM, said:

Void Angel wrote a whole thing on it...

there seems to be some old think in that post (eg the part on sharing armor), also cat pictures, its worth it for the cat pictures.

it still boggles the mind how people subject to a 5+ minute wait for a match, an extra 2 minutes to load and then another 2 minutes for those still loading from spinning rust, finally to have a match start and the first thing they want to do is wait. sometimes i wonder if they view the actual game with the same sort of ire with which i view the cumulative waiting time.

anyway the soviet army had a useful technique for dealing with cowardly soldiers.

Edited by LordNothing, 10 March 2025 - 08:55 AM.

[kalashnikity]

1453 R, on 10 March 2025 - 07:54 AM, said:

the problem with Yeehaw #$%! the Law banzai charges like what you describe, Swamp, is that they reinforce the behavior you despise.

Think about it - the other eleven people on your team see you bolt from the cover they're all chickendicking behind, Braveheart your way into the enemy team, and get blown into metal tabletop dice in short order. Are they going to say "Damn, we should've supported that guy so his aggressive charge into the enemy wasn't wasted"?

No. Not even a little. They'll say "wow, that guy was a total idiot, he got himself blown into an Etsy reclaimed-art store right away. Man I sure am glad I'm sitting behind this rock not getting blown up instead!" And when they die ten minutes later to the enemy finally developing the gonadal fortitude required to get out from behind their rocks and take advantage of the power play you've gifted them, will your team say "Oh no! We should've gone with that guy who charged tender bits first into the enemy while we were still even up!"?

No. Not even a little. They'll say "wow, that guy was a jerk for getting himself killed so early instead of waiting behind a rock accomplishing nothing like the rest of us until everybody consumed enough alcohol to get going and fight in our giant robot combat game!"

Void Angel wrote a whole thing on it, and it remains one of my favorite posts on this forum over a decade later. You can either account for human psychology and its malicious tendency to encourage chickendicking, or you can just explode uselessly a lot. Which, I absolutely feel you, I end up doing a lot of premature detonation myself when I've had it with people being cowards. But that doesn't really make me a better player, or help people learn that camping behind a rock for twelve minutes ceding ground and initiative to the enemy is an absolutely terrible idea.

poetry ^^^

And the only thing as bad (or worse) than that, is when half the team leaves their main firepower behind in a blind rotato potato.

Of course the other team is doing it too (half of the time), so most of the fire power of each team is wasted when they get swarmed one by one and picked off from behind while trying to catch up.

And when you call your own team out they respond with "you should have brought a faster mech, if you can't keep up don't step up".

Of course the rotato potatoes win half the time so that just reinforces (in their mind) that rotato potato is a winning strategy, when it is actually a simple dice role (not skill). I've seen these matches end in a near tie many many times, and yet the winning team still thinks it was their cunning linguists who yelled "charge" at the bell, that won them the match.

[LordNothing]

assault mechs should be ready for nascar. it happens with enough predictability to actually plan your movements around it in the event that it happens.

[1453 R]

Nothing Void wrote has changed or become wrong. "Sharing armor" isn't necessarily about taking damage; it's about giving the enemy more to shoot at. The more targets the enemy has to fire at, the less damage anyone takes.

It's the other reason the 12v12 Blob Fight is the worst possible match of MWO. Think about it - how often in a typical Puglandia match of MWO do all twelve 'Mechs in a Murder Blob have the ability to fire on the same target at the same time? Think of the typical engagements in the maps everybody picks. Mining Collective is a perfect example - initial engagements in that map almost always happen in the chokepoints to either side of the central Dom point Cover Dingus, and you can't really fit more than two 'Mechs in the choke point to put fire on the enemy. Even if somebody pushes brazenly through and overextends, typically the other team is positioned in such a way that only half-odd of their number can get guns on the overextender.

Odds are that if you're in The Blob Formation, you're sitting uselessly behind cover - whether that 'cover' is terrain or your teammates - with your guns cold, contributing nothing to the battle. The side that can pack one extra 'Mech's worth of gun into whichever fraction of their Blob Formation contacts the enemy first tends to gain the edge. Blobbing may be 'safe', but it's hugely inefficient because it maximizes the amount of damage your team's front elements take compared to the amount of outgoing firepower they can produce. Especially if your team's front elements are lighter units without as much firepower to contribute.

Maneuvering aggressively to get your guns on target can change that equation, but only if you do so intelligently, as well. A 12-'Mech Blob that gets set upon by two split-up 6-'Mech Mini Blobs that can get a total of eight 'mechs' worth of guns on target while the 12-'Mech Blob can only manage six is gonna get eaten alive in short order. But you've got to live to make that plan work, because a 12-'Mech blob still beats a 10 or 8-'Mech Blob.

There's a reason the Blob Formation is never used by any military worth its salt. Get out of the Blob and keep your guns hot, and you'll be a better player even if you die more often.

[kalashnikity]

LordNothing, on 10 March 2025 - 09:37 AM, said:

assault mechs should be ready for nascar. it happens with enough predictability to actually plan your movements around it in the event that it happens.

and if I do that (hide for a few minutes and wait for the second lap) then half the time I miss out if we don't rotatoe.

Early communication saves the day.

[LordNothing]

kalashnikity, on 10 March 2025 - 06:45 PM, said:

and if I do that (hide for a few minutes and wait for the second lap) then half the time I miss out if we don't rotatoe.

Early communication saves the day.

nascar is only a tactic if you agree before hand, otherwise its an emergent phenomenon.

besides with how much time the typical player wastes doddling you can get to the front of the pack in a stock urbie if you use it wisely.

Edited by LordNothing, 10 March 2025 - 07:31 PM.

[Swamp Ass MkII]

Read some of the stuff here, really good stuff. And theen read "wrote a thing", really good stuff! First map played after that, crimson straight dommintion. Someoen asked if we were pushing tunnel or pass? I replied, "both". Can't do that, sure we can, 2 blobs is better than 1 blob, and by damned, IT WORKED WONDERS! Match scores accross thee team were 400+, and all but 2 got a kill!!!

[VeeOt Dragon]

despite what most meta and T1 players will tell ya bracket builds can be effective. for me it usually biols down to some kind of mid to long range weapon with a cluster of MLs just-in-case. for instance all my LRM and TBolt Builds have some MLs for back-up. same with ballistic builds

i have tried the brawler style of play and its just not for me. i mostly prefer a Mid range set-up.

[Swamp Ass MkII]

I found to actually building, and running bracket builds. Been working on more and more. Some a great, others not so. Then others still, can't alpha or you melt the spot your standding in. And maybe your team?