777 replies to this topic

[Hackett]

Void Angel, on 28 February 2013 - 07:23 PM, said:

That's not really following my advice. =) You were playing a long-range sniper build and charging into close quarters with it. Long range builds necessitate long-range play to a certain degree. What this thread tells you is to not sit back and refuse to maneuver simply because you are "a sniper." You need to move from cover to cover in order to project your presence onto the battlefield by way of charged particle injection. If you charge in with only 3 heat-inefficient PPCs... Well, you've got more armor, but your firepower is the equivalent of a Cataphract jump-sniper. It might take longer for you than him, but you'll both get stomped flat in a brawl.

Being a long-range assault also allows you to beat on people at long range knowing that they'll have to back off before you do - unless you're too exposed. People know that they're not going to like slugging it out with you, so you can trade cover for battlefield presence in order to force the enemy to hunker down in their holes (or expose their back to your brawlers in the main fight to charge you.) Like most tactical decisions, it's more art than science... But it may help you to know that I'm currently using an Atlas D-DC with 20 Artemis LRM20s, an ERPPC, and a Large laser. =)

Yeah, a lot of that initial strategy was me being new to the game (plus my last mech game was mechwarrior 2: mercs, where I could single handedly take down multiple lances of clan mechs in my Mauler).

So I agree with you, with the caveat that the 'charging ahead' element of not being timid has to be done smartly and with good positioning & coordination. Three supports and an atlas leading the charge over the ridge into a crossfire of heavies and assaults alpha striking from cover isn't likely to end well.

And, to defend the venerable AWS: 3 erppcs + 19 dbl heat sinks can be somewhat heat-efficient. And deadly on wide open maps like that new alpine one.

Edited by Hackett, 01 March 2013 - 07:29 AM.

[Void Angel]

Hackett, on 01 March 2013 - 07:28 AM, said:

So I agree with you, with the caveat that the 'charging ahead' element of not being timid has to be done smartly and with good positioning & coordination.

Well, of course! In fact...

Void Angel, on 18 January 2013 - 03:44 PM, said:

At the end of the day, you should be cautious up to a point - recklessness is the courage of a fool, after all. But you have to keep in mind that, just as you don't go to a knife fight without expecting to be cut, you can't go to a 'mech fight and not expect to be blasted apart and melted down into commemorative paperweights from time to time. The most important thing you can do is cooperate with your team, no matter what your build - maneuver for a flank shot with your sniper/missile build; being a "light killer" doesn't mean you can't scout so long as you stay close by the main body. If you can't focus fire from your position, you need to move, and if the big 'mech(s) are engaging, go in with them. Don't be stupid, but don't let fear (or tactical tunnel-vision) restrain you from helping the team. As one of the Fracking Atlas pilots, I do not mind dying a horrible death as long as the team backs me up - because teamwork, not fear, is the true key to survival.

People are gonna overextend and make mistakes, but the whole takeaway from this thread is that you want to make those mistakes learning how to actually fight with and engage the enemy - because hiding and playing it safe reach diminished returns really fast. =)

As far as the 3-ppc Awesome, well... With 19 DHS, you've gotta be using something like this. With the Cataphract, You have a little less armor, substantially more maneuverability, and only a 2-point difference in heat efficiency on a 100-point scale. The difference in efficiency seems a bit low to make up for the tonnage difference (and despite the current fluctuations, Matchmaker III does try to match weight classes.) If I was going to build a 9M around that weapons loadout, I'd build it like this. The XL engine allows more internal heat sinks, giving a much larger heat efficiency, and the additional speed will enable me to keep away from close-range Heavies and (especially) Assaults. Sure, you die once you lose your side torso, but you're mobile enough to spread the damage (larger engine means faster twisting,) so it's not so much of a risk as it would be with a slower 'mech - and even with a standard engine, once you lost both side torsos, you're out of guns anyway.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

**** me I just had two games in a row with the timid.

First was frozen city, and we had 5 Atlas on the team who just hid behind the drop ship. I did 400 damage and they just waited around. Eventually i just let the other team kill me while i tried to run out of bounds.

Next game, Caustic, I cap their base and spent 3 minutes with half their team chasing me around, while the whole team sat in the crater. One guy who tried to lead a charge went over and killed someone then got ganked as our team sat in the crater some more.

STOP BEING SO DAMN TIMID AND FIGHT.

[Atomic Funk]

Cmon Angel, no need to get snarky , I actually agree with you about the topic. After a couple hundred rounds of the game in a light, getting shot almost every time because the lack of team play, you get cynical about wanting to help the masses progress beyond the basics of moving from point a to b. It got to a point where I spent more time calling out advice and moves than I was paying attention to my own performance. Myself, I do much more than hide, but on occasion it is necessary, so maybe I'm just touchy about being branded as a coward (sic). I heard that term once too often when this game started out, because everyone else knew exactly what I was doing wrong, and made sure I knew it. Your not one of those kind of guys are you?

I like what Splinters, Hackett and JayZ said about the subject. The game played as a team is so much better than the Pug play, because (in my opinion) the general drops in most cases have become such a free-for-all thats its really hard to have a good time playing on a drop-in basis.

[Void Angel]

The whole point of establishing a baseline of good tactical behavior is so you don't have to be calling out instructions. In fact, too much specific communication will yield diminishing returns in many cases, as players suffering from post-modernism get offended at the implication that someone else's opinion might possibly be superior to their own. Get people on the same page, and you'll still have the newbs and The Stupid show up - but their influence over the outcome of matches will be far less.

I've seen this work in reverse playing WoW. I started as a Horde player on a PvP server. When you're outnumbered more than 5 to 3, you learn to fight - or you turn in your spine for an Alliance card. So up until the Alliance guilds on our server started getting raid gear that outclassed anything we could get from PvP (long story,) our PuGs would routinely stomp Alliance PvP guild premades, because everyone generally knew what to do.

Fast forward a couple expansions, and WoW was really taking off. Tons of people were coming into the game, the faction imbalances had been corrected - and the massive influx of players to whom "hard core gaming" meant "playing through a whole game of Madden without pausing" diluted the player culture to the point where that baseline of skill was simply lost. The skilled players migrated to Arenas or (much later) rated Battlegrounds, and pugging a Battleground was often an exercise in frustration.

Now, I'm not playing prophet here - there were a host of factors that drove WoW PvP which are simply absent here, and the past is never a sure predictor of the future. I only bring up the anecdote to point out that player cultures can be changed - and I'd much rather be where I started in WoW than where we are a lot of the time in MWO.

Edited by Void Angel, 01 March 2013 - 05:54 PM.

[CMGrendel]

I tried scouting all day today with pugs.

People don't read chat, they are busy, don't read English or don't care.

People who do care are already in groups or already have a better idea which necessitates ignoring the scout.

[Ursus_Spiritus]

+1 for the thread.

[Splinters]

Angel, I would propose an alternate which is to join a group and learn tactics that way. Trying to teach 7 other guys tactics while in a live game over typed chat is typically unpractical unless you don't want to play and just help others. It's a noble decision if you do, but I'd rather move them to a House, Clan, Merc group, etc. and have them work learning group tactics there where they will be in TS3 and can talk about what to do without taking their hands off the controls.

It's a more controlled environment and it will produce more consistent results than a drop here or there where someone tries to lead and followers are maybe up for it.

I don't think we should leave any MW behind in terms of tactics, but they need to make an equal effort to join those who want to play the team game. Forcing a PUG to become a team player in a random drop just doesn't sound like an effective use of my time or the PUG players.

Just my $0.02.

-S

[Void Angel]

It's not an either-or propositon, though. And since I'm dropping solo or with my drop partner exclusively, how good a merc corp's players are isn't helping me any. What I'm trying to do is assist the player culture in developing good default practices. "What to do when you can't stand to talk to another human being," as it were. I'm not trying to explain all of this in a drop - I just tell people to "stay together, focus fire, and Follow the Fracking Atlas^tm."

Outside of matches, I can post topics in the forums in order to raise awareness of the tactical issues involved so that they can at least hear about sound practices. Basic teamwork is not the province of those who join organized drops - that's the whole point of my anecdote about WoW. Now, there's not two separate pools of players fighting only each other here, so I don't expect to see PuGs ever routinely stomp partial premades. But that doesn't preclude getting everyone we can on the same page with good tactical practices. Even if some players choose to ignore the forums, the people who do read can demonstrate tactics in-game, and success will help get others on board. It's like it was in WoW: you don't have to get all the people in the Battleground to follow the plan - you just have to get enough of them.

[Void Angel]

CMGrendel, on 01 March 2013 - 06:09 PM, said:

I tried scouting all day today with pugs. People don't read chat, they are busy, don't read English or don't care. People who do care are already in groups or already have a better idea which necessitates ignoring the scout.

Scouting is hard, and heaven help you if you're skilling up a non-ECM scout. You have to sort of take care of yourself and go with whatever the team is doing. It's annoying, but even if it doesn't seem like it, getting the team those sensor contacts is still important.

[1453 R]

Quote

go with whatever the team is doing

This right here is advice that needs shouting from the rooftops in its own thread. Realistically? It doesn't matter if The Team picked a tactically disadvantageous time to push, is using an unfavorable route, or otherwise doing something less than intelligent. Really it doesn't - because if You-The-Player decide that your team is a bunch of idiots and you're going to make the right decision like a pr0, then the end result is as follows:

-Your team is doing something less than intelligent, -1
-You're off by yourself without enough armor or firepower to make any real difference in the fight when you do decide to join it.

The former only magnifies your team's boneheaded decision by leaving them at a force imbalance they might not otherwise have suffered, while the latter means you're unable to actually do anything about the boneheaded decision you're protesting with your absence. The enemy will just eat your team, then use your blown-off arms to pick their teeth clean afterwards.

The armed forces advise that even a bad plan is better than no plan, because sometimes a (note the emphasis here) Coordinated Act of Decisive Aggression from a group of fighters caught in a bad situation can turn that bad situation around and win the day. If you're there to pitch in and help out, then even if the original plan sucked, maybe your firepower will be just enough to let your team tip the scales back in their favor and win out. It's happened before, it'll happen again, but only if people realize that they can't Call of Duty it up and carry their entire team to victory from a 6-to-2 deficit. Not happening, ever. So don't even try. Stick with the plan, even when the plan is crap, because it's still a better option than shooting solo in virtually all cases.

[Void Angel]

That's much of the point to both the threads in my signature. =)
You don't have to do exactly what they're doing, but you do have to adjust your tactics to be effective based on what's happening around you - including most definitely your team.

[Pierce Rossignol]

I have an Atlas build with 2 LRM20's and an AC/20, with 2 MPL's CT so I can keep fighting when zombiefied. When I run it I throw heavy long-range ordnance on my way to the fight -- it's a slow build, made slower by careful use of avenues of approach and key terrain -- and by the time I get there I can smash the wounded mechs with the AC/20.

When I'm firing missiles in the early part of a round, you can bet your *** I'm using cover. I get *****ed out by pugs and newbs on chat when I do this and I end up doing what they're doing because even a bad plan, when followed, is better than no plan.

It does me no good to get to the fight when I'm cored or have weapons disabled from damage. If the rest of the team were smart, they'd stick with me so that THEY would get to the fight in one piece, too. There are avenues of approach that provide defilade on every map. It's just that most players aren't trained to recognize them, so they get ****ed off and whiny, thinking you're chickening out, when you do. (This is why I love playing in a merc corps for former / current military IRL.)

The Atlas's job is to absorb punishment, not to die needlessly. There's a huge difference.

[Void Angel]

Which is a point I've made throughout the thread. Right now I'm using this Atlas as my 'mech of choice (when I'm not flagellating myself playing my Spider.) It's a dedicated long-range 'mech with just enough close firepower to avoid helplessness at short ranges. It works Awesome (it's a sort of pun, you see...) but I'll still get The Stupid jabbering at me if I point it out. So I just tell them to "Stay together, focus fire, and Follow the Fracking Atlas," and then go take up a good firing position and proceed to fight - the PuGs kind of figure it out when I'm throwing 40 missiles downrange and following it up with the odd charged particle injection, and since half of them are long-range builds anyway, it typically works out.

Edited by Void Angel, 04 March 2013 - 02:17 PM.

[Noobzorz]

LarkinOmega, on 23 January 2013 - 12:33 AM, said:

All those quotes support Void's position. Please don't try and reframe an argument that you do not understand.

I want to be clear that I am liking your paraphrase, as neither of them define what they mean very explicitly, and as such it's difficult to know if Rej is, in fact, a master bruiser and brawler who is not afraid to take damage, but not to the ludicrous extent angel is talking about, or if Rej is a total pansy who is always last to die on his team and takes 0 damage until that point, or if they actually have similar play styles but different nomenclature that is leading to this argument, etc.

But lolol. Brilliant.

Edited by Noobzorz, 04 March 2013 - 02:45 PM.

[MadPanda]

Poor little Timmy must be sad not to be a tactic.

[Void Angel]

Noobzorz, on 04 March 2013 - 02:43 PM, said:

I want to be clear that I am liking your paraphrase, as neither of them define what they mean very explicitly, and as such it's difficult to know if Rej is, in fact, a master bruiser and brawler who is not afraid to take damage, but not to the ludicrous extent angel is talking about, or if Rej is a total pansy who is always last to die on his team and takes 0 damage until that point, or if they actually have similar play styles but different nomenclature that is leading to this argument, etc.

But lolol. Brilliant.

I'm hardly advocating a "ludicrous" amount of aggression, or even brawling at all, per se. What I am advocating is decisive action - instead of just sort of scattering out and playing sniper tag no matter what.

Honestly, I was more annoyed with "Rejjie's" horrible mauling of Sun Tzu more than his outpouring of nonsensical verbal diarrhea.

[1453 R]

Heh...well, with the introduction of consumables, we now have a new barometer to test with. Ahem:

"If the only way to get you out from behind your favorite rock is for your own team to drop artillery on said rock, you may wish to spend some time reflecting on why they would feel inclined to do that."

Really, folks...the message is simple. Just:




...sorry, Void. Couldn't help meself

[Kmieciu]

1453 R, on 07 March 2013 - 09:00 AM, said:

Heh...well, with the introduction of consumables, we now have a new barometer to test with. Ahem:

"If the only way to get you out from behind your favorite rock is for your own team to drop artillery on said rock, you may wish to spend some time reflecting on why they would feel inclined to do that."

Really, folks...the message is simple. Just:




...sorry, Void. Couldn't help meself

Yep, that looks like him.

[Raso]

1453 R, on 07 March 2013 - 09:00 AM, said:

"If the only way to get you out from behind your favorite rock is for your own team to drop artillery on said rock, you may wish to spend some time reflecting on why they would feel inclined to do that."

IDK I can very much see them just packing in tighter and hugging one and other for comfort.