777 replies to this topic

[Saiyajin12]

Rejarial Galatan, on 15 March 2013 - 02:37 PM, said:

<rolls his eyes> Those who know when to fall back, may lose the fight, but, ultimately live to win the war. While, yes, this IS a game, and no harm is done by making my own scrap metal monument to my mech WITH my mech, the tactics of knowing when you are out gunned and to back the heck down and shut down are just as valid if not MORE valid than running to die when the fight is lost anyway. See what I mean? I cannot begin to tell you the times I have found a quiet corner of the map to power off when I realize I am but 1 Atlas against 4-5 other mech's. This happens because of my style of play, and how I view my job as an ASSAULT pilot, and the twitch shooters mentality that pervades most fights from the console kids that play, of: run into middle, fight, die. Will I brawl you to death in my Atlas? If I have to, because you are in my way, but, more often than not, if I can take the win by being smarter than a fight, I will not.

Your sig speaks against your choice of tactic here. The irony is over 9000

Only times I've shut down my mechs other than from overheating, is by accident at the start of the game when somehow while typing, it still accepts the button commands and shuts down.

Had a game yesterday where my poor jäger lost both arms and the lasers I had in my side torsos, it was just me and a stalker that had also lost all it's weapons against a dual ppc dragon. We were screwed in other words, but I opted attempt to ram the dragon to death instead of running away and shutdown in some corner for 4 min and wait for the time to run out.

Edited by Saiyajin12, 25 March 2013 - 11:32 AM.

[Saiyajin12]

Rejarial Galatan, on 18 March 2013 - 08:42 PM, said:

Hey Abivard, check this out:

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”
―Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory:
1 He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
2 He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
3 He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
4 He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
5 He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“Ultimate excellence lies not in winning every battle, but in defeating the enemy without ever fighting.”
― Sun Tzu

Do I really need to copy all these into this again? Sun Tzu himself states quite clearly that it is better to win with out ever fighting...


actually void, i see no reason to fire a retort at you, as we see things very very differently. All that matters is this: you play MWO your way, I will my way. IF we are teamed, I will watch your back. You can or do not have to watch mine. THAT is all that matters here.

We are 2 distinctly different people, with 2 distinct back grounds, and takes on what should or should not happen. I am not you, nor you me, but, I suspect you knew that already.

edit: blasted color/copy codes

Sun Tzu advocates the base race is what you're saying then? Seriously, you find it enjoyable to base race? Then strip all the weapons from your mech, and just plop the biggest engine possible and do that. Or play a racing game or something? In this game as it is now, you are rewarded for engaging, and not rewarded for shutting down in a corner waiting for the game to be over.

[Void Angel]

Saiyajin12, on 25 March 2013 - 07:38 AM, said:

Actually, you can win by not fighting if both sides base race on assault! 100%, nay 120% fun for everyone! Had a couple of games where no one even got shot once, just traded bases. Best games, ever?

No one wins capture races.

Saiyajin12, on 25 March 2013 - 12:03 PM, said:

Sun Tzu advocates the base race is what you're saying then? Seriously, you find it enjoyable to base race? Then strip all the weapons from your mech, and just plop the biggest engine possible and do that. Or play a racing game or something? In this game as it is now, you are rewarded for engaging, and not rewarded for shutting down in a corner waiting for the game to be over.

Don't even respond to him; he's not listening to what you say - he's skimming over it looking for a keyword to trigger his next talking point. Just ignore it and it will go away for a while again.

[Rejarial Galatan]

YueFei, on 23 March 2013 - 11:46 AM, said:

If you can win a match without firing a single shot at the other team, lemme know. [REDACTED]

I have. Marched an AS7-D with a K model Catapult from one base to the other on Forest Colony a while back, we both took the base, won the match and fired 0 shots, met with 0 resistance. bye bye now.

Edited by Hayashi, 26 March 2013 - 02:04 AM.

[Void Angel]

/sigh

Void Angel, on 25 March 2013 - 12:18 PM, said:

he's not listening to what you say - he's skimming over it looking for a keyword to trigger his next talking point. Just ignore it and it will go away for a while again.

Sometimes, I hate being right.

[Hayashi]

Sigh.

If there's someone you cannot stand, someone who is saying what seems to be nonsense to you, you can simply disagree. There's no need to start a war on the thread.

All posts that still have disagreement on content have been kept. All posts I can see that have personal attacks have had the offensive content nuked; I tried as far as possible to reduce any editing to a minimum. There is no rule against being wrong - indeed sometimes it's very hard to tell who is right or wrong for sure, but there IS one against getting personal.

At this point, I will suggest that players who are perturbed use this function to permanently ignore players they cannot find anything to agree with. It's not very well documented, so sometimes people aren't aware this is possible. Do try it if you wish to. Or if you can, to either not reply to, or reply on a content basis, to content to which you disagree. Just don't start a flamewar in here.

There's too much content in this thread that it would not do it justice for it to be locked down.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Edited by Hayashi, 26 March 2013 - 02:40 AM.

[Abivard]

Not sure I cared to be lumped with REJ as I have never agreed with him, but whatever.

It is not easy nor even feasible for an atlas or assault mech to commit to a push and then suddenly disengage, they are not maneuverable the transmission sucks, that is a lot of mass to bring to a stop and go into reverse.

Do not bail on your assaults when it is time to push because you become timid at the thought of taking fire. They are going be focusing on the big boys, those shots hitting you are probably stray shots. This is your chance to shine, your chance to take out that light on your assault mechs rear while everyone is NOT looking at you., focus fire on their DDC, get ECM close to their LRM boats.

For the Assault pilots remember you can get into trouble easy and it is harder to get out, but never getting in there at all is going lose the fight. Don't rush ahead, don't hang back to far, don't wander off, your not Uber-Mech, your a big fat slow assault mech that draws everyones eye like mega cleavage!

If the Atlas is doing non-stupid things, just follow him and work together, better a little aggression then a lack of it.

Edited by Abivard, 26 March 2013 - 02:28 AM.

[Void Angel]

Well; here we are again with another installment. I elected not to start another post simply because of the positive discussions that took place in this thread - but I'm seeing a lot of people start up with the hiding tactics like the Bad ol' Days, so I'm editing an addendum onto the original post.

[L Y N X]

Void - do you know what a firing line is? Do you know what kiting is? Do you know how to setup and execute an ambush?

'nuff said, if you don't then you can Google them. You are a bigger ***-hat than I am, and it takes one to know one. ;P

[1453 R]

Dude.

Seriously.

These are pug drops we're talking about here. 'Proper ambushes' are hard to set up - when it happens in a pug match it happens by sheerest accident. There's a marked difference between kiting, retreating, and running like the poor, doomed chicken-man you are. And firing lines are great, in the instance that you can actually form a coherent firing line and not just a gaggle of jackoffs all vying for the same 'primo' sniperhole so they can be the one to get off that first crushing PPC salvo that will kill the other guy, win the game, save the princess, clean up the Internet and abate world hunger.

If you solo drop and you haven't encountered a team slowly being whittled down into useless weakness because they just flat refuse to start up their throttles, then you're either very, very new or have been given a gift from the Heavens themselves. It's the reason I kick my throttle on and GO in the very first moment of every match, as soon as the game will possibly let me, while the rest of the folks are standing around staring. Sometimes I'll pull folks along in my wake since I look like I know what I'm doing, and by sheer dint of being moving and in a group when they engage, we get better positioning and gain the edge.

Sure, sometimes I also end up alone and in pieces, but that happens to everybody anyways. You can't not fail horribly in this game from time to time, all you can do is try and minimize your own bad practices. Such as standing around waiting to get shot and pretending to yourself that you're setting up an ambush all sneaky-like and stuff.

Edited by 1453 R, 26 July 2013 - 10:48 AM.

[Void Angel]

1453 R, on 26 July 2013 - 10:47 AM, said:

These are pug drops we're talking about here. 'Proper ambushes' are hard to set up - when it happens in a pug match it happens by sheerest accident.

Thanks, Laser.

7ynx, on 26 July 2013 - 10:24 AM, said:

Void - do you know what a firing line is? Do you know what kiting is? Do you know how to setup and execute an ambush?

'nuff said, if you don't then you can Google them. You are a bigger ***-hat than I am, and it takes one to know one. ;P

I do. In fact, I likely have boots with more time in service than you've spent in school, not that either of us can reliably test that assertion over the internet. Please keep your responses on topic and polite; if you have any reasons to object to what I'm advocating in PUG environments, please feel free to give them to me - throwing out newbie terminology, suggesting Google, and calling names is not helpful. Continue to troll and you will be reported. 'Nuff said.

Edited by Void Angel, 26 July 2013 - 04:47 PM.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Having read through the entirety of this thread, I come up with two major things.

First off, thank you, Void Angel. A lot of what you're saying throughout the thread I agree with entirely, and the rest of it- well, while I don't neccessarily agree, I don't specifically disagree either- comes across as more of 'thinking points' than anything else. Regardless, pretty much all of the actual tactical suggestions you made here (and in the Follow the Frackin' Atlas thread) were well worth making.

Second, it's hard to get respect and a proper set-up as fire-support, particularly currently. After the initial glut of C-bills I got from starting out, I picked up a Cicada and modded it into a build I like to call the 'Torch'- max armor, XL 280 engine, ERLL and 4 ML. This has been... okay to use, though I suspect I don't have the raw dexterity to properly wield it. It is neat to be able to core things from behind now and then, though, thanks to laser focus fire, and I often draw off three or more enemies when I charge into the back of the enemy ranks- not that anyone on my side ever seems to take advantage, but oh well.

That's not really the point, though. I went on from there to pick up a 4G Quickdraw, which I utterly retooled with a standard 240 engine, 5 Jump Jets, maximum armor, and a pair of ERLLs and an LRM-15- a build made to imitate something I created for the miniatures game that I called the Flare. (Initially 7 jets and an LRM-10, but I find the increase in firepower worth having to jump twice sometimes. The original from the minis game uses an XL engine to go a solid step faster and can't hang more than five Jump Jets, and is forced to stick with an LRM-10). I constantly remind people to lock targets for LRM bombardment, which usually gets one of two responses.

1)'Okay!' followed by later questions as to why I wasn't bombarding their target. (Usually because something came in close or I had a direct LOS on something worth shooting at, such as an enemy bombadier catapult's arm.)

2)'LRMs are for cowards, play for real.' Alternately, 'Sure, so you can sit back in safety while I take all the damage.'

This leaves me in a (for me) confusing spot. While I tend to do my best work in MW games as a slow brawler or a fire-support 'mech, it's sometimes hard to get a firm grip on what, exactly, I should be doing. If I close in- particularly with all the poptarting and ERPPCx2+Gauss or AC/40 cheese going on- I tend to faceplant, right and properly cored within a few seconds (and I'm not sure if this is more to do with using the Quickdraw or some kind of hitbox issue the game has). If I hang back, I can't find targets (paritcularly when Coward's Ridge is in the middle of the battlefield or if we're on River City) and often get jumped by Spiders and Jenners, neither of which I can ever seem to deal with no matter what I'm driving.

I think the overall point, though, is- how do I find the right pace to go at, the right range to be seeking? Should I be shifting more armor to the frontside of my torso and just accepting that light mechs will ruin me unless they're Ravens? How far do I push? Should I actually be sticking with the main mass of mechs, despite that I always seem to die right away when I'm there, no matter what I'm piloting?

I'm trying to be more 'direct' fire support than 'indirect', but performance overall is terribly inconsistent, so I'm never sure which games to take lessons from and which to write off as having been a bad set of circumstances.

....and seriously, why do I seem to only take damage to my center torso four out of five games? That one I -really- can't figure out.

[Void Angel]

Because of the pinpoint damage meta. =) When they only have to hit you three times with their PPC/Gauss alpha strike for a kill, it's not uncommon to get it all on one torso. Could also be that your 'mech has a big CT hitbox. As for balancing engagement ranges, for LRMs - I feel your pain. I'm also impressed that you're trying to actually use LRMs intelligently rather than just hiding somewhere and unlimbering your missile racks blind.

LRMS are in a kind of murky place right now, however. Because of the way LRMs interact with cover, ECM, and AMS, it's best to launch a large alpha strike in one volley - problematic for a Quickdraw, since you only have 10 tubes on that side torso for the G (this is why your LRM15 shoots one big and one smaller volley when you fire.) I personally dislike using less than 20 total LRMs per missile alpha, simply because their damage is pretty low compared to how much they spread.

LRM 'mechs work best when they play peek-a-boo with targets who are in the open. You need a direct line of sight to get the best effects, but if you can do that from just around a corner (or from just around the Fracking Atlas) so much the better. Since people hate getting bombarded from over the horizon, they're going to target you if they can afford it - this means your involvement is a sort of dance. I cut my teeth in a Hunchback J missile 'mech back in the day; what you have to do is find the balance point between exposing yourself to get good effects and getting shot because "Lurmwarrior! Kill it with fire!"

Other than that, you want to use as much ammo as you can effectively use, and use your missiles as much as you effectively can. Your dps/hardpoint is low with LRMS, considering the scatter of the damage, so you want to keep on pounding as long as you can get good effects. Use Artemis; use TAG, and stay close enough that your team can support you (you can trigger their attention without actually damaging them by sweeping a medium laser across their back really quickly ) and keep intelligently refining your tactics.

[Cold Cash]

Had an interesting exp on alpine which highlights this thread perfectly.

Started upper alpine and whole team stood on the ridge and sniped, because the 3 stalkers where ppc boats and woudnt move.
Even though it was a cap game.
After i asked what the team was doing with no response and the other team moved to 3 caps, i starting haranging the team to move upper eps so we could at least contest the game(i was in a ac20 2 LL highlander 3 streak) I started forward and 1 stalker and some mediums decided to follow, by this stage in the game the other team had 3 assaults + mediums in uppers canyon lmao(before we even got off ridge ffs) because of this they coudnt terrain hug to hide from our fire and we slowly ate them up. We downed 4-5 mechs there and i started to move forward to cap eps from upper, the whole frakking team followed(at this stage frustration is starting to get the better of me and i let the team know thats a stupid idea), so i back track towards base incase they try flank and run straight into an opposing stalker and a heavy coming up canyon between eps and base ridge(which the team had handily abondoned to follow me upper eps) i kill the stalker and teammate fells the heavy.
I move back to ridge to cover base since the whole team is moving to eps and then it happens. One of the ****** stalkers which had sat on the ridge at the start of the game for 8mins team kills me with his whole lance loling??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
I could understand if i was a complete ******, i could understand if i played like a *****, but tking me because i actually suggest good tactics that lead us to win 2 major engagements and the eventual game is mind boggling and frankly really sad state of affairs.

[Infrasound]

Stalker can do support and wubs, although the broadside of a barn on the side haha... :>

i said wubs

[Void Angel]

Cold Cash, on 27 August 2013 - 06:17 PM, said:

Had an interesting exp on alpine which highlights this thread perfectly.

Started upper alpine and whole team stood on the ridge and sniped, because the 3 stalkers where ppc boats and woudnt move.
Even though it was a cap game.
After i asked what the team was doing with no response and the other team moved to 3 caps, i starting haranging the team to move upper eps so we could at least contest the game(i was in a ac20 2 LL highlander 3 streak) I started forward and 1 stalker and some mediums decided to follow, by this stage in the game the other team had 3 assaults + mediums in uppers canyon lmao(before we even got off ridge ffs) because of this they coudnt terrain hug to hide from our fire and we slowly ate them up. We downed 4-5 mechs there and i started to move forward to cap eps from upper, the whole frakking team followed(at this stage frustration is starting to get the better of me and i let the team know thats a stupid idea), so i back track towards base incase they try flank and run straight into an opposing stalker and a heavy coming up canyon between eps and base ridge(which the team had handily abondoned to follow me upper eps) i kill the stalker and teammate fells the heavy.
I move back to ridge to cover base since the whole team is moving to eps and then it happens. One of the ****** stalkers which had sat on the ridge at the start of the game for 8mins team kills me with his whole lance loling??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
I could understand if i was a complete ******, i could understand if i played like a *****, but tking me because i actually suggest good tactics that lead us to win 2 major engagements and the eventual game is mind boggling and frankly really sad state of affairs.

I do hope you took a screenshot to send to support. On the other hand, while I understand very well the temptation to rage at The Stupid, it's nearly always a bad idea. Unless you do it to goad them in the right direction in an emergency, it's not worth it - it makes people mad, and this reduces their ability to think complex thoughts. Seriously; they did research.

As for the team following you... actually, I've found that to be a very good idea in Conquest - one of the reasons I seldom bother to play that mode. As long as you send the lights off to cap and find their main body, the group that stays in a group and just goes around killing their 'mechs wins. The basic pug tactic works just like Assault, but people will resist using it a bit more because the cap system seems to reward splitting up.

[John Buford]

I also had a match which defines this topic. Assult on River City and my group spawns at the Citidel up at the Airstrip. Of all the Mechs there on the Raven, Spider Jenner (me) and some Heavy which I think was a Dragon.even moved off our base. Kind of sad whenits the four of us trying push though Upper city with no support. Needless to say we had to pull back quickly when our heavy took alot of fire and we had to retrete back arcoss the river while everyone else tried to hide and snipe from our base area.

[Void Angel]

It's frustrating, because not only is it not fun for you, it's a great way for the team to lose. I'll wager they all just sat there, and didn't even declare their intention to base camp. It's a very bad way to play.

[John Buford]

Yup it was frustrating they did exactly what you think. One of the things I think about when I am playing is the military quote of "Fire and Manuver," found out it works pretty well in MW:O.

Edited by John Buford, 30 August 2013 - 02:42 PM.

[Xandre Blackheart]

Knowing when to fire at the enemy from defilade, and when to charge across open terrain to reach an advantageous position is a skill that comes from experience. You can yell at the n00bs all you want, but they aren't going to learn it any faster.

It's when I see what should be experienced players misjudging that option that I want to pull my hair out.

If you're going to gain an advantage from moving, then you should time your movement, and ask for covering fire. Damn people, we've ALL at the very least watched movies. Lack of communication is the major problem you will see in any MWO game, and most of the things that enrage people with a modicum of situational awareness come from this lack of comunication.

Edited by Xandre Blackheart, 30 August 2013 - 11:25 PM.