4 replies to this topic

[Name115734]

I am just curious on the majority of people's play style out there.

Would you rather attack or defend?

I love the attack, I will constantly be looking for a way to flank or catch a enemy by surprise. Others I know would rather sit back until the enemy hopefully makes a bad move, IMO this usually ends up in giving the enemy the initiative and having to fight wrong footed.

What are your opinions?

Please keep it civil, as I would like this to be a honest tactical discussion, not a flame war. If It becomes so I will ask the mods to close it out. If you can't add something constructive keep it to yourself.

Edited by No Remorse, 03 January 2013 - 07:55 AM.

[Apoc1138]

I tend to suggest a cautious advance strategy - e.g. don't go too far from base too early in the match, but a steady advance with a couple of scouts if possible searching out where the enemy are and what they are doing, scouts do not engage directly early on, just gather info, when we know where they are and what they are doing we do the opposite

so if they are advancing, we take up defensive positions that encourage the enemy in to a bottleneck where we can focus on one target, or we advance from 2 sides, also hopefully allowing multiple of our team to focus on a single enemy whilst minimising their ability to do the same

in PUG matches I tend to follow the team or just suggest a rough direction and then shoot at the same target someone else is... when I get a chance to type I'll let everyone know what I see or what I intend to focus on in the hope it's useful to others on my team

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

You can defend in Assault since they will have to come anyway unless they want to just sit there and run out the clock. Most enemy teams won't camp(they'll zerg), so you can row up a defense line and just wait.

Conquest however is basically just a zergfest. Go to whatever base has the enemies and kill them all. There is little reason to defend while your team gets ganged and killed off elsewhere. The points almost never determine the outcome of a game unless a last few enemies are cower capping, in which case you should still win by spreading out to hold more. The main problem with this mode is that the maps are simply too small to properly support 5 bases. There's no reason or benefit to spreading out and capping/defending like there logically should. AB from WoW this is not.

[Mercworks]

The big advantage in Defending with PUGs is that it's almost impossible to keep people together if you attack. Invariably, one of your scouts runs off in a completely different direction, and another Kamakazees the enemy forces. Defending forces people to stay in the same general area. Also, if you have any farmers, at least then the enemy might waste some time shooting them instead of the active combatants. (Note to Farmers everywhere, if you're going to do it, at least move your mech into the objective area so they have to kill you to cap. It doesn't cost anything now that repairs are free, and it makes you moderately less of a D-Bag.).

[The Exiled]

defence is easier in most games, while teamwork is always key, and the team with the best team work will normally win. However when you have random game it is easier to get some sembalance of team work if your team opts to defend. You don't have to travel far, can always be in range of the base and are more likely to be able to focus fire on the first target to come into range.

Attacking really sorts the teams into good and bad, it can still be hard to coordinate effectively while defending, players still move forward getting in the way of others on their team preventing them from shooting allowing the attackers to focus them down, add into that the difficulty of maintaining unit order while trying to attack shows which teams have reallly started to demonstrate second nature teamwork over those that pull teamwork together kicking and screaming by the hair.

In 8v8 i have won many more games defending than attacking, the lost games were from teams that just totally outclassed my team, the rest probably should defend more but just arn't disciplined enough to play the waiting game and lose heavily in an uncoordinated rush, even if they do come as a blob. Personally i am looking forward to the time i can actually attack successfully in 8v8 but that is probably some way off atm, unless the defender is utterly horrible