21 replies to this topic

[Sinistrum]

I don't know if I am the only person to notice it, but the game seems to go through these cycles where any sort of bold plays, close up brawling, aggressive movement are all basically wiped out and the whole thing seems to turn into poking around cover, LRMs and sniping with most of your team just standing around. I've seen situations where an enemy mech was extremely close and my teammates didn't attack, did nothing. Even seeing two assault mechs walk in the opposite direction- as though they were scared off by one enemy mech.

Bonus points, picking the biggest most open maps and having your whole team pinned behind cover before they ever see the enemy.

I genuinely love this game, but it seems like it goes through these phases like this which make the game awful.

[Meep Meep]

80% of the games active base are low tiers who are very casual. You might see a t5 streamer in a t5 lance do a combined 200 damage and they laugh and redrop all the while talking about how this fit is better than that fit and wow why can't we have more lore stuff in the game etc etc. That they lost or were a detriment to the overall team never crossed their minds for a microsecond. Only a tiny portion of the top of t1 actually play the game competitively in quick play and they are some of the most unhappy players you will see. So expecting rational team based play with 23 randoms is stretching it a bit. Want better control over match quality? Pair with other good players and then you can more effectively influence the outcome of any given match. Only a handful of players can do that solo.

[Sinistrum]

Meep Meep, on 23 October 2025 - 04:19 PM, said:

80% of the games active base are low tiers who are very casual. You might see a t5 streamer in a t5 lance do a combined 200 damage and they laugh and redrop all the while talking about how this fit is better than that fit and wow why can't we have more lore stuff in the game etc etc. That they lost or were a detriment to the overall team never crossed their minds for a microsecond. Only a tiny portion of the top of t1 actually play the game competitively in quick play and they are some of the most unhappy players you will see. So expecting rational team based play with 23 randoms is stretching it a bit. Want better control over match quality? Pair with other good players and then you can more effectively influence the outcome of any given match. Only a handful of players can do that solo.

I take it then that it turns into find a lance worth of decent players and have a good time? or are there any other options?

[Meep Meep]

Sinistrum, on 23 October 2025 - 08:56 PM, said:

I take it then that it turns into find a lance worth of decent players and have a good time? or are there any other options?

The best option is to not worry about winning or losing and just play the game. This doesn't mean you play casually or don't play to win. It just means don't let losses influence your emotional state. Be happy with top damage and kills and green arrows because you can farm 1600 get 7 solo kills and still lose badly because the other 11 teamers all died in a fire. Grouping is to influence win rate.

[LordNothing]

happens every time there is an event. people have to adjust the way they play to try to clear the event faster, and almost every time it results in bad scores across the board. shooting yourselves in the foot. its contageous too. once half the team is doing it you need to do it too if you want to not die in stupid ways.

i prefer more aggressive play, but if you yolo you dont make any headway in the event either. save that for when your team is so infuriating you just want to get it over with and get a new batch of players. i finish events and then i dont want to play the game for months after that.

Edited by LordNothing, 24 October 2025 - 07:10 AM.

[Sinistrum]

LordNothing, on 24 October 2025 - 07:09 AM, said:

happens every time there is an event. people have to adjust the way they play to try to clear the event faster, and almost every time it results in bad scores across the board. shooting yourselves in the foot. its contageous too. once half the team is doing it you need to do it too if you want to not die in stupid ways. i prefer more aggressive play, but if you yolo you dont make any headway in the event either. save that for when your team is so infuriating you just want to get it over with and get a new batch of players. i finish events and then i dont want to play the game for months after that.

I remember one event I was so annoyed with another player for spamming the "enemy spotted" thing every two seconds I killed him. Then I killed the player that tried to kill me from the team, but his buddy got me.

Once this event is done I'm taking a break- I noticed things were getting weird again when playing my CGR-1A1 my damage started dropping off and the only successes I had were with LRM boats, which I do not enjoy playing.

Meep Meep, on 23 October 2025 - 10:38 PM, said:

The best option is to not worry about winning or losing and just play the game. This doesn't mean you play casually or don't play to win. It just means don't let losses influence your emotional state. Be happy with top damage and kills and green arrows because you can farm 1600 get 7 solo kills and still lose badly because the other 11 teamers all died in a fire. Grouping is to influence win rate.

Funny story, I have had that happen.
It's not the losing that bothers me. It's not even not killing the other team. It's the thumb-up-their-butt playing and risk adversion that annoys me.

Edited by Sinistrum, 24 October 2025 - 12:38 PM.

[feeWAIVER]

get a mech that's agile enough to get your shots in and get away, then it won't matter what the rest of your team is doing.

[pattonesque]

this is pretty common as the default approach for the average mechdad is to cower and hide and cringe away from the unbearable psychic burden of having to shoot at the enemy team

[Sinistrum]

pattonesque, on 24 October 2025 - 05:14 PM, said:

this is pretty common as the default approach for the average mechdad is to cower and hide and cringe away from the unbearable psychic burden of having to shoot at the enemy team

If you're not trying to kill another mech or capture an objective, you need to move to find one of those things. Pretty simple.
Paradoxically, it makes the game more stressful with that play style because instead of being decisive and aggressive, they'll let themselves get killed.

Strangely, the more I thought about it, I agree about the whole psychic burden thing but not in a tongue in cheek way. I think after playing as much as I have I've gotten really used to it, however, for someone that hasn't played this game as much it is a fairly stressful shooter. I love it, it's easy to forget that aspect of the game though.

What I think happens is when they don't play this game regularly, see an event and dive into it, they play super conservatively like that, stick together and basically wait to get lucky to kill someone through slap fights. Or, in a more tight map where they cannot do that, they spook when getting shot at easily- so they end up either doing stupid things like standing behind other players, running for cover the moment they get shot at, freeze when someone charges them etc.

Edited by Sinistrum, 24 October 2025 - 11:00 PM.

[Meep Meep]

Sinistrum, on 24 October 2025 - 12:33 PM, said:

Funny story, I have had that happen.
It's not the losing that bothers me. It's not even not killing the other team. It's the thumb-up-their-butt playing and risk adversion that annoys me.

Worrying about a complete strangers performance in a f2p game with no bar to entry is a quick trip to unhappy land. Casuals are going to casual and there isn't a thing you can do about it.

[twizzlebix]

Casuals are going to casual but it is still a team game, expecting your teammates to at least put in effort and try to win is the bare minimum that should be expected of them. It's okay to suck, it's okay to lose, it's not okay to park your *** behind cover and only begrudgingly interact with the core gameplay mechanic.

[mayakashiii]

It's worse on maps like Grim Plexus and HPG. These maps encourage the behaviour. Watch how half the team will camp in safety, especially when it's Domination. If you speak out about it they will claim "sniper" only for you to see how they've dealt 100 dmg in a 15 minute match on the scoreboard afterwards.

[pattonesque]

it's mostly fascinating to see how pubbies will constantly make the worst decision possible even when specifically told otherwise. Like, I'll tell my team that a push is coming from X grid square and that folks in Y grid square, if they turn and face it, will easily be able to repel it -- and the response of folks in Y grid square is to somehow set land speed records fleeing from the push before it even starts. They *choose* to lose in so many ways.

[Void Angel]

The game's feedback loop inadvertently encourages passivity in a number of ways. If you look at the conditioning model of learning, rewards/punishments that are delayed have less of an effect modifying behaviors. And the rewards for more aggressive play are often delayed. Take brawling v. long-range trading. Trading is pretty even: you exchange greetings; and it's pretty easy to see if you're winning the exchange, or if you've exposed yourself to more enemies than you intended. Brawling, conversely grants delayed rewards - but you dang well know when you've walked into someone's field of fire, or there's a Light in the back field.

This is one of the mechanisms, a major one I think, that drives these cycles of excessive passivity. It's worse when a new event opens up (right now, we have two of them,) because people try to stay in matches longer - and thus play to avoid taking damage more than to deal it advantageously. Blake preserve us if they see a compie on the other team...

So that's a lot of what's going on with passive play; it's really been going on for a long time, but every so often a new development (cough,Railsharks,cough) will kick it up to a noticeable degree.

[Ilfi]

Some good posts already, but ultimately it comes down to this:
You can't control what anyone else is running, or doing. You can only control what you run, and what you do. If your build is "risky", or requires a certain map (i.e. only good on Alpine), or requires teamwork to function (and you're not dropping with a team of three others to compensate), reevaluate that decision before you drop and you'll end up a lot happier.

[DaZur]

The standing around or distant LRM or range weapon placement is typically observed by lower tier players and or players looking to protect their stats.

IMHO the higher the tier and or overall skill of players seems to manifest in closer engagements and "brawling".

I call this the "don't scratch my paint" syndrome.

[LordNothing]

nah, im still seeing it in t2. it is not strictly the purview of the lower tiers.

Edited by LordNothing, 26 October 2025 - 09:22 AM.

[Meep Meep]

feeWAIVER, on 24 October 2025 - 03:16 PM, said:

get a mech that's agile enough to get your shots in and get away, then it won't matter what the rest of your team is doing.

If you primarily solo drop then this is what you want to do. Range, mobility, ecm. Pick any two of those attributes in a mech you like and you will start enjoying solo drops so much more. All three are of course preferred but adding in ecm greatly limits the mechs you can pick from even if its one of the more powerful items you can use. I mean seriously with ecm 80% of the players on any given team don't think you exist if you have no red box.

[a 5 year old with an Uzi]

pattonesque, on 25 October 2025 - 12:37 PM, said:

it's mostly fascinating to see how pubbies will constantly make the worst decision possible even when specifically told otherwise. Like, I'll tell my team that a push is coming from X grid square and that folks in Y grid square, if they turn and face it, will easily be able to repel it -- and the response of folks in Y grid square is to somehow set land speed records fleeing from the push before it even starts. They *choose* to lose in so many ways.

Chances are decent they simply aren't listening/have VOIP turned off for whatever reason, or are following one or two other guys who aren't listening. Nobody wants to be left holding the bag for the guys who are clearly not going to help hold the line. Possibly some perception of "the one asking for that turn and face is the one who wants me to be a speed bump, f*** that guy. He can be the speed bump." Heck I've heard what amounts to "you can't tell me what to do" over VOIP. They might remember the time that call led to a fight that went south, for whatever reason.

Negative perception and reinforcement is a STRONG force. Ever have to deal with customer survey metrics in retail? It's less fascinating when you realize how mundane things like that, "rugged individualism" mindset/fixed mindset/main character syndrome, so many other aspects of Internet psychology are at play here. This is "duh." tier.

Meep Meep, on 26 October 2025 - 09:31 AM, said:

If you primarily solo drop then this is what you want to do. Range, mobility, ecm. Pick any two of those attributes in a mech you like and you will start enjoying solo drops so much more. All three are of course preferred but adding in ecm greatly limits the mechs you can pick from even if its one of the more powerful items you can use. I mean seriously with ecm 80% of the players on any given team don't think you exist if you have no red box.

Tracks. Dante has been pretty enjoyable overall. Similar mechs are probably going to pay dividends.

Edited by a 5 year old with an Uzi, 27 October 2025 - 08:44 AM.

[lastchanceforaslowdance]

Sinistrum, on 24 October 2025 - 12:33 PM, said:

I remember one event I was so annoyed with another player for spamming the "enemy spotted" thing every two seconds I killed him. Then I killed the player that tried to kill me from the team, but his buddy got me.

Kind of surprised no one has said something here, but there is no circumstance where team-killing is acceptable. It's also impossible to "spam" the enemy spotted command. It is often used for the blip it provides on the radar even after LOS is broken. It also can be used to "spot" enemies without a lock. If you eventually make it to higher tier play, you are going to be inundated by "enemy spotted spam" and it is something you should get used to hearing and tbh something you should get used to utilizing yourself. Because it sure seems like you team-killed because you don't understand the game's mechanics.