104 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

Jaguar Prime, on 06 January 2013 - 03:59 PM, said:

Maybe my view of the game is skewed. I feel no player should score under 250 points of damage unless they are in a scout role. (and thats being very generous) When you are under that, you either did something stupid and died early or you have no idea of what you are doing.....

To be honest, after months of playing this game and watching in spectator. There are a large amount of players in this game who have no idea what they are doing. In game and when it comes to building loadouts.

Yeah your view is skewed. And I just finished a game where I scored 750 damage at long range. 3 kills, 4 assists. So an assalt Mech can do it's job from 700M quite nicely with a Gauss and ERPPC.

[Joseph Mallan]

Flyby215, on 06 January 2013 - 03:13 PM, said:

I reckon the "younger reflexes" are the very same who are "narrow"-minded and "computer desk warriors"... and we're probably the same ones who will be on your team slugging it out in the trenches (so to speak). Now granted, I'm not a "retired professional" by any stretch of the imagination; but I have played nearly every mechwarrior game, and at 1900 matches of MWO I've now got pretty good aim! You should be nicer to us!

or we might just have to put you in a retirement home. right guys? written super small so he won't see! woozle wazzle wee!!

You may also be unable to shoot an enemy poking his head over a hill at 700 M. Don't forget I slug it out once you young bulls limp in to fight after being Pounded at range. 1900 Matches... Right on par with my numbers.

All MW games but 4... So as long as desktop warriors wanna talk tough I will return the favor.

Best way to kill a knife fighter=Ranged fighting
Best way to fight a sniper=Up close fighting
Best way to kill me=In my sleep! (JK )

BTW not super small enough. LOL

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 06 January 2013 - 05:02 PM.

[Jaguar Prime]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 January 2013 - 04:52 PM, said:

Yeah your view is skewed. And I just finished a game where I scored 750 damage at long range. 3 kills, 4 assists. So an assalt Mech can do it's job from 700M quite nicely with a Gauss and ERPPC.

I never said an Assault couldn't do it's job at it's chosen range. My problem in an Assault pilot having his score doubled by a medium or heavy mech.

And I had several games today with similar totals in a Cataphract. (2x Gauss, 1x ERppc, 3x slasers) Also note, in some of those games I doubled the damage of Assaults on my team.

Jaguar Prime, on 06 January 2013 - 01:39 PM, said:

My problem is when a Heavy or Medium mech ends the match with twice the damage done of the highest scoring Assault. I blame the pilot, not pgi's version of the mech.

[8CH Trooper]

I pilot an Atlas 95% of the time(maybe I'm compensating for some thing) and I can honestly say that the Atlas is one of the few if not the only mech that is a true team playing platform, on it's own it's cannon fodder. I'm not talking about it in the support LRM role but it being part of a coherent mixed assault force. I am currently running a DC with ECM, 3 2SSRM, 1 AC/10, 2 LLasers, this an open field set up best at 200 to 400 meters with some cover if needed. With support, another assault or heavy and a couple of mediums this set up is hard to beat. I pug exclusively and there are times when I drop I get some team mates that obviously have being playing for awhile and it's not uncommon for me to get over 1100 in damage and then are times the team leaves me in cloud of dust in spawn and couple of minutes later, well lets just say that my stats aren't that good. Not everyone plays the game the way we want them to play it and that can be said about any online game, for me the one good game I get makes up for the 5 or 6 bad ones.

[Joseph Mallan]

Jaguar Prime, on 06 January 2013 - 05:14 PM, said:

I never said an Assault couldn't do it's job at it's chosen range. My problem in an Assault pilot having his score doubled by a medium or heavy mech.

And I had several games today with similar totals in a Cataphract. (2x Gauss, 1x ERppc, 3x slasers) Also note, in some of those games I doubled the damage of Assaults on my team.

That would be the Pilots fault not the weapons of choice.

[Ted Wayz]

Depends on the mech and the match. If I have the right load out on the right map then you will see me smartly lead the charge. But right now it is a crapshoot as to what map you will be on.

I have a feeling this may change in the future, but until then you will see assaults be cautious in certain situations.

[ArmandTulsen]

It's not that assaults hang back, it's that everybody else moves faster and pretends that it's a race to the front line. Should everybody move at the speed of the Atlas, the battle line will be that much stronger.

I play Atlases almost exclusively and I can tell you that in the majority of drops everybody is itching to get out there ASAP. Naturally, I get left behind and eventually make my way to the fight.

Edited by ArmandTulsen, 06 January 2013 - 10:27 PM.

[Wraith05]

Atlas is my favorite mech to pilot. I will usually go straight for the battle when I can (all weapons at 270 or lower range). But what I've found to work best is to let your lights and strikers start the battle. Then wade in and draw fire/start obliterating things. If the enemy team does what most pilots do when they see an assault they will stop firing on your friendlies and focus on you giving your friendlies a nice reprieve.

That said as an assault you do have to be careful what battles you wade into. Unlike a lighter, faster mech you can't just disengage once you are in the thick of it. Most everything can outrun you. So you really do need team support if going up against 2+ enemies.

[kragmoor]

we have giant torsos overheat faster and move at the speed of of rock, if we come in first we die. so no... if you are actually moving slow enough that we can manage to be the first in a fight you are doing something wrong

[Elkarlo]

To the Main Topic:

The Problem is that lot of people have wrong Builds on an Assault, most Assaults ( except the AWS-8Q)
have in reality less Heatsinks than a Heavy Mech. The Heatsinks determin the DPS a Mech can dish out.

So they have the choice of putting less weapons of one range in and more Heatsinks, or make an enormous Alphastriker.
Most infamous build today is the 6 PPC Stalker ( which is great fun to play ) or the 4srm6 6mpuls Stalker.

What you don't see a lot are the Multipurpose Builds, mainly thanks to ECM.
An Assault Mech is meant to stay about 100-200 behind the Frontline ( the Heavy and Med of YOUR team) give Firesupport,
close holes and repell any attemp of breakthrough. For that he needs shortrange (0-200 Meters) and Mid-long range ( at least 400 Meters range) Weapons installed.

He can't dish out the DPS of a Heavy Mech, but he can swap the Firing ranges, observe the Battlefield and can make a Push ( when he sees that there are 2 vs 2 Mechs are battling, he can go in help finishing of one and then the 3 will dispose the last, then the Team is in an Advantage.

A Heavy Mech can do the same but an Assault can contribute his longrange Firepower all the Time to the Battle and then go to Shortrange lend the other Mech's his Armor etc. But for that he needs to be close to the Frontline.

Meds and Heavy's on the other Side can profit from the lingering Assaults as they can fall back and draw the
Enemy into the Assaults. So they need to watch the Map and stay near the Assaults. Assaults can't keep up with you,
so don't run away. Btw 70% throttle allows to save lot of Leg Armor. So go only to full Speed when in Combat.

So back to the opener: Lot of Assaults are wrong builds:
The first thing most Atlas Pilots do is ripping out the LRM20, and putting in a SRM6 in it's place.
It's the stupiest thing to do. Converting to Dual Heatsinks, putt 12 of them into your Engine and use
the spare tonnage for Ammo and an AMS, that would be a smart thing to do.
Reason: You don't increase your DPS in Close Combat only by putting more SRM6 into your Mech, when i am sitting in my D-DC i am driving very often against other D-DC with 3xSRM6 i got 2x SRM6. When we go into Brawl most often i will win.
Simply because i can fire the 2x SRM6 more often. And don't have to watch my Heat so closely.

On the other side, i am very often at 400 Meters from the enemy, i only have 2 M-Lasers that would do effective Damage at this range, but i kept my LRM20 in... so suddenly i got a good support weapon and i fire them even over Keyboard and not Mouse, in the Time i close in so that i can support the Team with SRM and M-Lasers effectivly. So i average about 500 Damage and 6 Assists/Kills in the D-DC. ( of course i have my 1k Games and 8kills/assist games but i am speaking of average).

And as i said, the LRM don't reduce my close combat DPS much, only my Close Combat Alpha, which can't be great on an Atlas. Stalker can have big Alpha but then the DPS is even lower as he needs ages to cool down. So every of my Stalker Build have either Longrange Energy or Longrange Missles and the other Weapon system on long/short.
Nothing is nicer than having a Hunchback rushing you after you fired for some times LRM's only to find out that you have 6M-Puls and 2 SRM6 installed and you cutt him into half with your Close Combat Alpha of 66 Damage.

And thats how you should play and Build an Assault to win the battle. Stay about 100-200 Meters ( depending on Weaponslayout) behind the Frontline, eliminate Breakthrough, make Push's against weak Points and keep the Enemy under Pressure with your Long range Weapons and then go on your Shortrange Array.

Staying way back with Shortrange Weapons hiddin into a Maze only helps the Enemy to kill your Team
( and thats what the OP was complaining about). An Assault not contributing to the Combat is a win for the
enemy Team, but the Team shouldn't run away from the Assault, as most Assault run with 50 KPH as most don't have XL Engines installed.

[Roadbuster]

TheGunBunny, on 06 January 2013 - 12:26 PM, said:

I'm getting really tired of assaults hiding in the back of the group. You are the ASSAULT mech, go assault. Love in spectator mode where you are in a stalker that hasn't taking ANY damage and is 700 meters from the front line with no LRMs in his load out. You can take a little bit of damage unlike us Dragons and hunchbacks. GET in there.

I agree with your point that mechs (not only assaults) often stay in the back and WAIT for something to move into their view.
They don't try to position to support their front line with long range fire.
Another problem is targetting. If you have LRM support mechs, at least try to keep something in target. Every second mech I watch in spectator doesn't target the mech it's fighting. Nobody will know that you are fighting it and nobody will come to help you. Also you don't see if it's already heavily damaged in some area. I often tell people that certain mechs have weak CT or legs,... but I get ignored. I've seen pilots fire at the legs of a mech with red CT.

Khobai, on 06 January 2013 - 12:34 PM, said:

If Assaults could actually tank damage then what youre suggesting might work... right now Assaults basically have to cling to cover because they get no lag shielding and their torso sections are huge which makes coring them very easy. Worse yet is light mechs can absorb way more punishment than any Assault mech thanks to lagshielding and ecm. Lights can often run past an entire enemy team, get shot at by all of them, and run away with only yellow armor. Ironically its actually better to "evasion tank" with lights. Send your lights in first to distract the enemy then have everyone else push over while theyre distracted... The problem is MWO uses tabletop armor values which are based on random hit locations. In tabletop your center torso is only supposed to get hit 20% of the time. But in MWO your center torso gets hit way more often than 20% of the time (probably more like 60% of the time) which means the tabletop armor values used in MWO end up being very inadequate for protecting your center torso.

That's a valid point. People need to understand that you can't compare TT to a FPS. In the TT game the dice decide by luck, but in MWO you have direct control over your actions.
That a mech gets destroyed fast when it gets focus fired is normal. PGI already doubled armor values. The problem are some of the loadouts like 6x SRM6 A1 Cats, AC20 Cats, LL+SRM6 Stalkers,...
They deal too much damage in a short ammount of time, at least at the moment. As far as I know PGI is working on a mechanism to reduce the efficiency of boating.

GODzillaGSPB, on 06 January 2013 - 12:55 PM, said:

They need support, too. I usually play this game as an assault mech wingman. So, in addition to the TS call: MEDIUMS, to their flanks! But...slghtly behind them. *gg*

That's also very true. You'll often see an assault mech going for an attack, suddenly a light mech pops up on the edge of the map and the whole team runs off to chase it, leaving the assault back as easy target for the opposing team.
Assaults can dish out alot of damage, but they require someone to keep light and medium mechs off of them.

[Merky Merc]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 January 2013 - 04:52 PM, said:

Yeah your view is skewed. And I just finished a game where I scored 750 damage at long range. 3 kills, 4 assists. So an assalt Mech can do it's job from 700M quite nicely with a Gauss and ERPPC.

I've done that with heavy's and mediums, and the other team doesn't get an assault that I have to deal with while you try to be the 100 ton sniper. Perhaps you should use a K2 or Phract.

[Hauser]

Roadbuster, on 07 January 2013 - 02:18 AM, said:

They deal too much damage in a short ammount of time, at least at the moment. As far as I know PGI is working on a mechanism to reduce the efficiency of boating.

That's just to counter boating streaks. Haven't heard about anything to counter boating in general.

[Roadbuster]

Hauser, on 07 January 2013 - 02:36 AM, said:

That's just to counter boating streaks. Haven't heard about anything to counter boating in general.

Then they better look at some of the other weapons too. SRM6 Cats and AC20 Cats are worse than GaussCats, now that Gauss Rifles are more fragile. (There are other mechs and builds too, but these are the most obvious)
Yesterday I've seen a SRM6 Cat take out an Awesome while running past it in the tunnel on Frozen City. It just turned to the side, shot, killed, and didn't even slow down. There was little that Awesome pilot could do.
Your best defense? Either stay out of range if you're fast enough, or have better armor and higher alpha/DPS and brawl it out.

[Snowhawk]

Khobai, on 06 January 2013 - 12:34 PM, said:

The problem is MWO uses tabletop armor values which are based on random hit locations. In tabletop your center torso is only supposed to get hit 20% of the time. But in MWO your center torso gets hit way more often than 20% of the time (probably more like 60% of the time) which means the tabletop armor values used in MWO end up being very inadequate for protecting your center torso.

Höh...? As far as I know they doubled the armor in MWO....
E.g. In the tabletop a Hunchback has 16 armor points on the arm. Here in MWO you can use up to 32 armor points....

[Yogsothoz]

Assaults can't step up. They are too busy walking backward as soon as they make enemy contact so the other team can steamroll over the top of them.

[Joseph Mallan]

Merky Merc, on 07 January 2013 - 02:25 AM, said:

I've done that with heavy's and mediums, and the other team doesn't get an assault that I have to deal with while you try to be the 100 ton sniper. Perhaps you should use a K2 or Phract.

Or maybe I'll just keep killing everyone from a million miles out or soften you up for the coup de grace if you can get close. K2 don't have that kind of love and attention to detail.

How about you don't tell me how to kill you... and I won't tell you how to die? Kay? Cool.

[Ursh]

Experienced atlas pilots in a pug know that their teammates are probably worthless cowards who won't support them if they commit. This leads to Atlas pilots not wanting to commit to a brawl with pugs that they can be relatively confident will abandon them.

[Agent 0range]

really this should be titled "Don't leave your team mates to die share the load" because that is what the OPEN is talking about and this applies to all. as to some of the builds people are talking about, being overly focused on one range is a bad idea. assault mech full of lrms with no close back up weapons are bad the are just a walking ammo bin waiting for a raven to pop them. as others have said a mixed build that has some focus in one range is best. my atlas is 2U/ac5s for that long range punch and srms and meds to back it up. best damage so far is over 1200. easily averaging 600 a game.

[Hellboy561]

Just gonna throw this one out there as its been happening all too often as of late. Friendly Fire.

I don't mind the LRM boats (or just mechs with LRMs really) staying back to utilise their range, but please, Please, PLEASE pay attention. I'm piloting the largest Mech' on the field, and alot of the time i find myself getting LRMd in the back from my own team who just don't know when to stop firing and swap targets. It gets a bit irritating.
Because it takes me an age to move around I will be towards the back of the fight at the beggining of the round, but when i get there you'll know.

Basically to the OP, and everyone else out there:
Once the assaults enter the fray, this isn't your cue to leave, its your cue to move around the back on them to support them, i don't mind if you hide behind me a little bit, thats fine its what i'm here for.

But remember we all need each other, without the intel i don't know where i'm needed. I can't make an informed decision before i move out into firing position. So scout for me, you do your job and i'll do mine.

P.S. on a completly different note, is anyone gettiing annoyed with lighter mechs thinking they can run the dance so running off ahead only to get dead super quick and being no further support to the team. All i need to know is where they are, once you've done that, please come back to us. Lead them towards us.

Ursh, on 07 January 2013 - 04:32 AM, said:

Experienced atlas pilots in a pug know that their teammates are probably worthless cowards who won't support them if they commit. This leads to Atlas pilots not wanting to commit to a brawl with pugs that they can be relatively confident will abandon them.

This is entirely true, I PUG and i find all the time that i'll get abandoned by my team once i reach the fight.

Edited by Hellboy561, 07 January 2013 - 05:34 AM.