SethAbercromby, on 26 April 2014 - 05:51 AM, said:
Being able to work autonomously does not necessarily mean to separate from the team. It means that the lance is capable of attaching and detaching from the team to keep the 'Mech composition low, but effective. You also assume that any lance isn't allowed to interact with the others. That light hunter to guard the catapults sure, that would be important, unless those catapults also stick with their lance as well, instead of isolating themselves. Regardless of how the lance is composed, they will always have a strong deterrent of larger 'Mech(s) that can provide the necessary cover fire, a spottrer that makes sure it hits all targets, or maybe even a light hunter of their own. And a full lance of LRM boats that knows squat about min range will be able to tear any attacker apart (when someone breaches your ranks, just move apart far enough than when they enter the min range of one, they will leave it of another). Assuming that everyone is stupid only continues the cycle of PUG mistrust. Also, a full lance of scouts will often chose to act as a wolf pack to kill isolated targets. that light hunter will prove effective when acting as a vanguard.
Second, your assumption that it will be a 12 v 8 is wrong on a basic level. Most tactics require at least small parts of a group to split from the rest. If only 2 split, it's a 10v8, right but those 2 will get annihilated by the 4, which will allow to start a flanking maneuver, splitting the main force and allowing the 8 to push. If 6 split up, that lance might get some trouble but suddenly its a 6v8 on the other side. You see how your comparisons don't really reflect how a match progresses (unless it's skirmish)?
Actually, what you said was:
SethAbercromby, on 25 April 2014 - 02:49 PM, said:
When 3 individual lances can operate autonomously, they can act much more effectively and when the time comes to link forces, they will already know [emphasis added] how each player responds to pressure and how to communicate most effectively within their lance and team.
This indicates that those lances are fighting and learning about each other before ever joining up with the rest of the team. You're still rolling the dice by insisting that randomized formations somehow learn to cooperate with each other via a few minutes of combat - likely against impossible odds. Saying, "well, what if your light hunter happened to be in the right place to fight a light wolf-pack?" doesn't exempt you from my criticism that randomized groups
A: are still likely to be outnumbered by anyone they meet who is actually grouping up like they should be, and
B: will not be magically able to "learn how each player responds to pressure," within that timeframe, anyway. Nor will randomly shuffling your lance composition produce reliably better teams than actually using your mind organize yourself properly. My objections stand. Insisting on staying within a
randomly assigned lance team instead of organizing yourselves logically is counterproductive - the dubious benefit of following around the light-colored arrows is far outweighed by a group's superior weight of fire.
You also said, this:
SethAbercromby, on 25 April 2014 - 05:07 PM, said:
3 well-coordinated lances that can spread the enemy forces and engage multiple objectives at once can beat a clustered mess any day. Communication is, of course, vital for success with this method, but is not impossible in PUGs. A lot of players just want someone else to call the initiative and call the shots and/or is open to communication. [again, emphasis added]
This last is just flat-out wrong. The level of communication you're asking for
is impossible in a PuG as a matter of practicality. You might get a group, once in a blue moon, which is both willing and able to type and cooperate with each other to this extent, but they is the exception that proves the rule. You can't make a rule of thumb based on exceptions.
What you're expecting here is for random players to play and communicate as though they were premades. It makes a nice dream, but unfortunately it won't happen. The complexity of encouraging people to try and act as autonomous lance combat teams will cause failures and bad tactics - such as lances trying to operate as autonomous combat teams - and I cannot endorse it.
Edited by Void Angel, 26 April 2014 - 03:32 PM.