I just had match in Caustic Valley. The opposing team had an Awesome, a couple of Atlants and 4 (!) Stalkers, all of them crammed with LRMs. So it was pure LRM-hell.
What is the best way to deal with LRM-boats? - Get closer than 180 metres.
What did my team do? - Sniping and rock-hugging until the missiles had done their work.
And this happens almost every single game.
The LRM-buff would not be half that bad, if people were not so shy to get in close combat. Most people seem to be unable to adapt their tactic to a situation. All they do is sniping. The only time they get more aggressive is when they are leading like 8-4.
I was running my Catapult C1 pretty effectively over the weekend and the only time I really got owned was when on Forest colony, a Spider 5d and 3 Embers managed to sneak behind the lines and tear me appart. It was a really great execution and I congratulated them on it. I doubt though that they would have ever been able to pull it off with heavier/slower mechs.
Recently, maybe due to the new LRM mechanics, the best tactics have been either a) snipe from cover until the LRMs are close to empty and then charge or risk splitting up the group and hit them from 2+ flanks at once. The former requires patience which pays out, especially when impatient enemies begin feeding themselves to your team one or two at a time. The later works well vs. the "stalker blob of doom". I think the second one is also the reason why Arty is seen so often on the field; find a blob, stay outside of 1000m, drop a strike when you have enough enemies in one place, collect compoents at your leisure.
The times when a charge really pay out are when you have either 1) a lot of inexperienced enemies who panic when charged or are simply not paying attention 2) the enemy team is sufficiently "softened up" beforehand 3) your hand is forced because there is no escaping the LRM rain 4) you are confident you can win the race to get the superior position 5) you can take your enemy by surprise with your charge.
I have seen tons of Atlas led charges end in total failure. Lighter/faster forward scouts pull back to the group, sometimes dropping UAV along the way, while chipping away at the enemy. At some point he lands in the middle of the group and ends up dying horribly to focused fire. After that the group focus' fire on the next in line, the charge ends up loosing momentum and the agressors get picked appart while backpeddaling to cover. One in 10 such charges really works as intended and then it is just a total stomp, well earned I might say.
All this tells us, there is a time to charge and there is a time not to charge. Camping/sniping/charging are not always going to be the best tactic in every situation. You have to think, observe, and choose the best tactic to fit the situation.
I've had countless matches of frustration as a medium mech pilot waiting for my allies to do something. Anything. About 90% of the games I lose are because my allies sit back on a ridge, jumpjet, take a crapload of damage from the other team, and shoot off one ppc until they die. As a blackjack pilot, I have been forced to lead a charge because nobody else will move.
A rule of thumb when I play. Never lead a charge before 5 minutes into the game unless you are really, really sure that you have overwhelming firepower. So unless you have 3 atlases. Don't. If you see a big group of your allies charging in, you charge in after them. Even if it's bad tactics, you need to protect them from their own stupidity. Or maybe they see an opportunity that you can't see from your angle.
Pop-tartin till the day I die. Please, unless you are a pro, don't imitate a target at a gun range and soak up damage like a sponge. I have sooo many matches of mechs dropping like flies before the enemy team can even get within 500 meters.
A lot of medium mech pilots like myself desperately depend on heavies and assaults not camping in one place the entire match. Remember, your mech has legs for a good reason.
OK, archiving the OP, for real this time, because update!
Spoiler
This is for all the Atlas missile boats who don't realize that 60LRMS 40LRMS and two medium lasers (not a random example) is not a worthwhile Atlas build. This is for all the light 'mechs who refuse to poke their noses over Coward's Ridge in the Frozen City. This is for all the snipers who refuse to focus fire because that would require them to leave cover and assume the risk of actually taking damage.
This is for everyone who's just starting out to learn a role or the game itself - and doesn't know any better than to be guided by their fear.
Contrary to the line from Dune, fear is a necessary part of a rational mind. It focuses the attention and drives the mind toward survival. But like anger, or fire, while fear makes a useful servant, it is also a fickle friend - and a terrible master. Timidity is both the mindset that allows fear to become too important a factor in judgement, and the actions taken as a result. It is in the latter sense that I say, "Timidity is not a tactic."
The people doing the things I mentioned aren't Bad, Selfish People, in most cases. They're just allowing fear (not just of getting their 'mech shot up, but of failure to help the team) to govern their actions to an unwise extent. The guys milling around Coward's Ridge (the ridgeline halfway across Frozen City that contains the dropship wreck) don't want to be the "first one over" and die - not simply because it looks bad on the scoreboard and ends the match for them, but because dying without effect harms the team. This is a rational fear, but by listening to the fear too much, they've embraced bad tactics. A bad plan put into action now, and executed with violence of action, is better than the perfect plan executed too late. If it seems like nobody is going to take the plunge, by all means stay on our side of the ridge; but pull back to the buildings so you can have some cover instead of getting caught in the open if the other guys man up - and for the love of decency, if your Atlas is going to take the plunge - go in with him.
Scout 'mechs are sometimes the same way,
Spoiler
and the near-invulnerability some (but not all) people experience when exploiting the netcode has contributed to the bad tactics exhibited by lights. But just as bad as confidently charging the enemy team (and finding out that guy with 50 ping <em>does</em> know how to shoot at lag shields) is the Edit:Yay, the netcode is fixed!
following the timorous practice of hiding behind the Atlas until after the fighting starts. Now, hiding behind a 'mech whose armor tonnage is more than half your total battle weight would seem like a good idea on the surface - but that Atlas needs you to get out on the flanks and find the enemy before they come rolling through the tunnel behind us while everyone else is nervously eyeing Coward's Ridge.
Even that "fire support" Atlas [edit: LRM boat] (unless he's just experimenting) is making his poor loadout choice based on the principle that using the heaviest 'mech with lots of ammo as a fire support variant seems like it would be safe and able to win long-range duels due to its toughness. But in practice what this means is that he's taken up a slot that a Stalker could have filled better (and with more firepower) and not capitalizing on his chassis' primary benefit - it's a Fracking Atlastm, and people almost have to shoot at it first if it's on the front lines. Since it takes forever to kill an Atlas at long range, people will just focus on your lighter companions, and you'll tend to experience sub-optimal win rates - even if you yourself do well.
Spoiler
<span style="font-size: 12px;">Edit: with the buff to long-range beam weaponry, this point requires some revision and clarification. It is now quite plausible to fight with an Atlas in long-range combat, because ERPPCs and the like are now viable weapon systems. It is still, however, a bad idea to "boat" an Atlas with LRMs, since the Atlas simply cannot mount enough LRM launchers to make missiles it's sole significant armament (leaving aside the current state of LRMS; they'll be fixed, don't worry.)</span>
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.
Timidity is not a tactic.
Spoiler
<span style="font-size: 10px;">Edit: the Atlas example in paragraph 1 had 2 LRM 20s, not three (you can't get three on any one location.) Edited for accuracy. Also for hot-button words which bypass the higher brain functions of self-appointed experts who don't really read.</span> <img class="bbc_emoticon" alt=" " title=" " src="https://static.mwomercs.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/tongue.png" height="13" width="13"> <br></p><p><br></p><p><span style="font-size: 10px;">Edit again: Although matchmaking 3 will break weight class matching if it has to, it always tries to match by class first - none of which changes the fact that a Stalker will outperform an Atlas D-DC as a missile boat regardless. To be clear, my D-DC's primary armament at the time of this writing is 20 tons of missile launchers (plus Artemis,) but I still have 12 tons of heavy beam weapons to back them up. Supplementary Edit: the dang ECM hardpoint lock kinda borked the build IO was using - however, the problems with boating LRMs on an Atlas remain.</span><br></p><p>
Edit: Hey, everyone! Here we are again, with a supplementary treatise for this microguide! So, once more into the breach for...
Appendix I: The problem with camping (25July2013)
Recently, I've seen a lot of the sort of behavior that this guide encourages people to avoid. Upon reflection, aside from the points covered above, I suspect many players aren't understanding the tactical implications of staying in one spot for too long.
On the surface, it seems like a viable tactic: you set up your ambush, and wait for them to come to you. Wait for them to come just far enough into your trap, then smash their forward elements before they can react, gaining a decisive advantage. Sounds fun, and it's totally do-able... If you're a premade team with voice chat and experience playing with this tactic. Good on you, and well done, but this guide is dealing with the Pug/small group solo queue - by all means take what you can from it, but it is not for you.
In the solo queue environment, camping is a hazard, because you lack the communication and control that a voicechat system provides. While it can work, it is more likely to result in your being located and either bypassed to cap, flanked, or harassed to death. I'm not writing this to tell you not to set up ambushes - if you're feeling it with your team, by all means talk to each other and plan it out! But if you're not deliberately coordinating the ambush, I offer you these words of caution: camping is dangerous. It's not that the risk can't outweigh the reward, but understand that it is risky for a variety of reasons:
Camping cedes the initiative to the enemy. A commonly-cited principle of self-defense is that most fistfights are won by the first punch. Similarly, the first side in a match to have a major portion of their tonnage killed or crippled is at a major disadvantage. By staying in one place and waiting to see what the enemy does, you're allowing him that first swing. Sure, he might miss, or start too slow so you can counter-punch - but he gets to decide where and how to hit you, and you have to respond. The opportunity to make the first mistake is yours.
Camping muddles your forces' ability to react to enemy actions in a concerted manner. One of the ways a PUG communicates is by actions. When you are on the move, even without VoIP, you are all moving together, aside from the scouts (hopefully, but that's another thread.) This means that you're all going the same direction and doing the same thing. This means that people who aren't sure of the total situation can take their cue from those around them; that in turn makes it easier for players to act in concert with one another. If you stop moving, your pilots' minds will wander; they'll start looking in different directions, moving around, getting impatient... They'll start making their own plans. So while the enemy who hits you from the flank is acting in concert, your teammates are at least momentarily unsure of what to do - and the enemy gets in that first good punch.
The side that takes effective action wins. This touches on both the previous points, but it bears repeating. Whether in politics, videogames, or the very serious arena of modern war; the side that acts effectively wins. The best generals throughout history (yes, even Sun Tzu) desired the initiative, and suffered when they lost it. And it is very difficult, for reasons including those above, to take effective action from a static, defensive position - take a moment when your next match starts, and keep track of how long it takes everyone to get moving.
To be clear: fine art of the ambush should not be lost to MWO - nor must you always be charging randomly around the battlefield just for the sake of "doing something." I'm not telling you to never stop moving, or advocating any sort of "lemming bull-rush tactics." But you must realize that the lack of command and control inherent in the solo queue environment makes stopping and standing in place extremely hazardous - you should only do it if you have a specific plan, and have actually used your words to tell everyone what's going on.
If only I were better at convincing random PUGs that they need to be a little more aggressive...when one Jenner stands up to an Atlas two BJs and a Summoner, not a lot of good happens.
I had a match where I was given the opportunity to point out that when the Locust is taking more risks and dealing more damage than heavies and assaults, something is wrong.
It's not about convincing PuGs, though - it's nice, but you have to accept that it's not always going to happen. I just spam "stay together, focus fire, and keep moving" at the start of the match, then just be sure I'm relaying information to my team when I have the time. As a light, you can't lead with your feet like you can with larger 'mechs, because people expect you to be off away from the group. However, if you can tell your team where the enemy is and what he's doing, the team is more likely to make a concerted response than if they each just watch their own piece of the battlefield huddled behind cover like sheep in a thunderstorm.
Sometimes it amazes me how often people tend to try to follow me when I run off in my Spider-5D... and I look down at my radar, and I see the trail forming behind me, and I'm thinking, "Are they following me, or is this coincidence?"
I still don't know the answer to that question, but this happens very often... I hope it's not just me going the wrong direction to scout... lol
Sometimes it amazes me how often people tend to try to follow me when I run off in my Spider-5D... and I look down at my radar, and I see the trail forming behind me, and I'm thinking, "Are they following me, or is this coincidence?"
I still don't know the answer to that question, but this happens very often... I hope it's not just me going the wrong direction to scout... lol
Lol the stream of people following you does not necessarily mean you are doing it wrong. "Chase the lone light" is a well known (and documented) factor/phenomenon regarding PUG psychology. Nine times out of ten, you'll draw a quarter of their team. Why? Any one of these:
They think the lone Spider is an easy kill. After all, you aren't going to blow their face off with a gigantic alpha like the DW they've been trading PPC and Gauss rounds with. The perception of less danger is not necessarily true, but it is a matter of perceptions regardless
There is strength in numbers. When you are there behind enemy lines, you have no backup
"OMG he's going to spot for lurms. Kill it with fire!!!1!!"
etc...
You can actually use this to your advantage. If you tell your team what you are doing and draw a bunch of their mechs, your team can push at that moment and face much less firepower. Requires a semi-competent team, though.
Soo many sheep players in some games just following the blue triangles irrelevant of speed differences between the mechs. But alternately, in other games too many independent wolves who think they know better.
As a Medium pilot with impatience and a love of brawling setups i totally agree about timid teams camping bad spots.
if you camp you need to have a defensive position, setup a crossfire and wait it out. If you are camping and pop-sniping. make sure you learn the concept of 'winning the trade' and don't expose yourself to counter snipers.
Also playing with various groups lately comprised of fairly experienced players, but who aren't a 'team' as such really shows the difference between a good plan and sticking to it, OR the need to abandon plan to the situation and adapt. EG last night the group started as the former and often plans failed, until we got used to each others play styles and then the tactical adaptation began when situation warranted, then the win streak started.
Overall I think the Timidity is a factor of Experience, pugs vs groups (eg. mostly pug players don't expect the group to help in a charge, and hence never make the charge) and the fear of dying first.
Personally I like being the one who gets in fast, brawls the group throws up a UAV, shreds some 500 points of armour and dies while dropping a suicide arty. While my team sits in fire support position shooting at all the guys chasing me. 12-1 wins with me dead is fine my me.
I have found that you have to balance aggression and timidity (patience). Charging into four or more enemies when you are alone is foolish. I have brought down a mech or two, on multiple occasions when I was the only one left and I circled around the map using terrain to my advantage.
To win you should choose the terrain and control the tempo of the match if needed.
People have bitched to me about playing smart when they get themselves killed. By knowing when to be timid, I have helped my team.
The toughest thing about this game, IMO, is communication. Yes, the built-in C3 and sensor functions are awesome and do a great job of replicating the old BT double-blind system, but it's impossible to type specific information in the middle of combat so TeamSpeak becomes pretty much essential.
That said, most players (like myself) mostly play pick-up games and don't know their comrades. So, they're usually left guessing and reacting to what they have to assume are good judgment calls from the other friendly players. As an amateur student of psychology and the BT universe, the most interesting thing about this game to me is the human dynamic. Should you follow your two badly-damaged medium 'mechs over the hill and support their charge or flank around solo and try to divert attention, keeping their firepower in play longer?
Regardless, teamwork usually necessitates following a leader. When there is no leader, you either lead or you follow. You can determine whether you're leading or not simply by counting the players following.
Sometimes you have to support bad leaders/players. Just as in most real-life situations, even if you have the worst leader conceivable, it's in your best interest to prop him up and MAKE him succeed despite himself because your success (and the organization's) is tied to his.
Getting yourself killed and then cursing at your teammates is not productive. It's just distracting to your own allies and will only help to ensure that you died for nothing, rather than sacrificing yourself for a winning team.
Void Angel, this is a great post/discussion thread. Thanks for taking the time to write this up.
Thanks! I wrote it to try and alleviate some of the frustration I often felt watching people do things that I knew from long experience with other games was tantamount to suicide - and the only way to help myself was to put out a guide so at least the people who were interested could be exposed to the discussion. I didn't need to convince all the people - just enough of them.
I have found that you have to balance aggression and timidity (patience). Charging into four or more enemies when you are alone is foolish. I have brought down a mech or two, on multiple occasions when I was the only one left and I circled around the map using terrain to my advantage.
To win you should choose the terrain and control the tempo of the match if needed.
People have bitched to me about playing smart when they get themselves killed. By knowing when to be timid, I have helped my team.
There is never a time to be timid, just as there is never a time to be reckless. There are indeed many times that you don't want to default to berzerker face-rushing, but that's not what this thread is about - either way. What I'm dealing with here is excessive caution to the point of what psychology calls "maladaption." Maladaption occurs when a person is harmed by a behavior - say, excessive sunbathing - but still cannot or will not stop. Players are too often (even after the shakeup of the Clan Invasion) huddling together like a flock of sheep, each waiting for someone else to make a move - while the wolves prowl the edges of the herd and drag them bleating into the night, one by one.
As I pointed out in the original post, recklessness is the courage of the fool - but in no way are timidity and patience synonymous.
I think its humourous that the person who made "Follow the Fracking Atlas" also wrote "Timidity is Not a Tactic", seeing as most of the time, it seems to be heavy and assault mechs that are timid the most. Before I take them down a peg, I will acknowledge that all those light mechs, grouped up with timid heavy and assault mechs, are a problem. Its one thing to be that annoying light from far away that is actually causing the timidity by firing off their LL/ERLL, but peeking aroud the corner as a light mech, armed with one to three medium lasers, isn't a good use of your abilities. Back to the point, heavies and assaults, coming from a medium pilot, I'm waiting for you to move. If you move up, I will follow. The reason I'm not being that first person is because you guys have more armour, more firepower, and a larger profile. Smaller mechs behind you are extra guns shooting your enemy, and as long as you have enough guns on your side, you, pushing, can quite often force a retreat. I will follow an Atlas, a Battlemaster, a Dire Wolf, a Highlander, even a Thunderbolt and Cataphract, but you guys have to make the first move.
Worth noting, I have a BJ-1 in my hanger. It has two AC2s, with 450 rounds, and enough heat efficiency that it will never overheat by firing them, not even on Terra Therma. I can chainfire for a constant barrage, and that can go on for literally minutes. I used to use this, back before my hiatus (started in January), because of all the shake it causes, and because its a constant distraction. It works well for that, but now, everybody is more timid than ever, and I can lock down an entire lance, and keep them holed up in one spot for minutes at a time, all on my own. I've done that. My Blackjack is a 45-ton mech, and one well-placed alpha strike can take me down. Those AC2's really don't do that much damage in the time it takes for you to take me down. You don't have to fear much from me, yet most players do. Its the same with that occassional mech that is firing like one LL or the single LRM10 - it won't do much damage, you don't have much to fear. You've got to move, you've to take the hits and move. When I use that Blackjack, one of three things happens;
1. I keep those mechs at bay until my teammates decide to walk through and mess up their face.
2. A player with some guts takes the few hits in the face it takes to wreck me.
3. I keep them at bay so long that other players on their team end up attacking me.
When number one happens, I am winning. When number three happens, I took a few enemy players out of participation while my teammates waged a separate fight that they ended up losing, and would've lost anyways if I weren't holding people at bay with my AC2s. When occurance two happens, I lose, the enemy team wins. Replace "AC2" with "LL", or "LRM". When you and other teammates taken out of the game by the threat of relatively weak firepower, they've won. They've taken you out of the game, and it becomes something more like 11 v 8, with the odds against your team. I can with regularity take a lance with a collective weight of 200 tons out of play, if only for a few minutes, with my 45-ton, tissue-paper Blackjack. Remember, that Spider with that one ERLL only does 9 damage total, .9 for every tenth of a second. You probably have two to four weapons that eclipse that. Those AC2s I have? A Small Laser does more damage than that. Don't be afraid to take damage, because as the adage goes, you have to spend money to make money. I'm not saying to drive headfirst into the platform above the volcano on Terra Therma without at least checking the resistance, but when the damage you'd face when you go around the corner is miniscule, please consider going around the corner.
Edit: Just to make my point about being timid in a light mech, which shouldn't really need to be touched upon, I'll tell you what I just saw in a match. A Jenner on my team attempted the steps forward, fire, walk backward technique, trying to score some damage. It walkedinto an AC40 Jager and two PPCs. Little guy got wrecked in an instant.
I didn't want to quote the whole post as I have a very broad point to make that isn't necessarily aimed at, but instead inspired by your post. The timidity that people have stems from, in my opinion, two factors:
1. There is a stats page. On that stats page is listed your KDR. For some reason, people care about this number. I think this is a very poor mentality to have when playing video games, but I fear I am in the minority.
2. Weapons converge quickly and fire accurately. This is a stark contrast from tabletop where shots have certain percentages to hit certain parts of a target. The end result is that BT on a table turns into a vicious brawl where 'Mechs with barely any armor and a missing arm are still up and fighting because damage rarely gets loaded all onto one spot. I don't really care if some people think that is unrealistic (it isn't) - because it makes the game much more fun. It also makes you less risk averse. Sure my Raven has had all the armor on its Left Leg stripped, but if my enemies can't effectively pinpoint attacks on my leg, I'm more willing to have make a wild run across a street to get into a better spotting position for those sweet, sweet Arrow IVs.
And therein lies the divergence. MWO uses a lot of basic concepts and data from the tabletop. As the logo at the top of the forums indicates, it is a BattleTech game. If you are going to give weapons the damage that they (roughly) have in the boardgame, but not give them the same (in)accuracy - you cannot rightfully be surprised when you find that you are not capturing the feel of combat that you get from the original game. This horse has long been dead and beaten into an unrecognizable state, but I still believe that weapon accuracy needs to be hobbled. Not so much that I can't deliver crippling blows at close range - but certainly so much that I cannot deliver pinpoint alphas to the CT of a Cataphract some 600m down range. With some decent gunnery a pilot can put down an enemy 'Mech that still has more than 60% of it's "health". I want to see games where it is rare for a 'Mech to go down until it goes below 30%. Imagine how much more important maneuvering (and possibly teamwork?) would be if weapon accuracy wasn't as reliable?
I would not be surprised if some people took issue with my stance and argued that MWO is not a tabletop game and should not play like one. In preemptive response: I do not think you belong in this community. I do not mean that as an inflammatory remark. I genuinely think you have come to the wrong place. As stated, it says right under the logo: a BattleTech game. We're not here for SpaceRobots: Online, or Hawken, or MAV, or CAV, or Robotech, or Macross, or Fang of the Sun, or Gundam, or Chromehounds, or Steel Battalion. People are playing this game because it says "Mechwarrior" and "BattleTech". That means something. That meaning is why there is a playerbase. I don't see why anyone would be dismissive of something so essential to the game's survival.
Spare me. Has every game in the Mechwarrior series also "not been Battletech" because damage could be effectively loaded onto one place? Hardly; you don't own the definition of "Battletech/Mechwarrior," and it is genuinely presumptuous of you to set yourself up as a gatekeeper for who "belongs" in this game. I came to this game because it was Mechwarrior - and I've stayed because it's an enjoyable Mechwarrior game, despite its flaws and the rocky road in development. You do not speak for me, or anyone like me, and you do not have the right to tell me in my own thread that I "don't belong." Stop trying to hijack my thread, and go jump in a lake - you can take your high horse with you.
On-topic, while weapon accuracy does have a detrimental effect on gameplay, accuracy alone isn't responsible for the poor battlefield practices that this thread tries to address. The idea that the mere existence of a stats page has a noticable impact beside the c-bill reward system is a silly assumption that I shall not dignify with a rebuttal.
PS: I've met quite a few guildies that aren't Battletech fans at all - yet another unfounded assumption shattered, if only anecdotally.
Spare me. Has every game in the Mechwarrior series also "not been Battletech" because damage could be effectively loaded onto one place? Hardly; you don't own the definition of "Battletech/Mechwarrior," and it is genuinely presumptuous of you to set yourself up as a gatekeeper for who "belongs" in this game. I came to this game because it was Mechwarrior - and I've stayed because it's an enjoyable Mechwarrior game, despite its flaws and the rocky road in development. You do not speak for me, or anyone like me, and you do not have the right to tell me in my own thread that I "don't belong." Stop trying to hijack my thread, and go jump in a lake - you can take your high horse with you.
On-topic, while weapon accuracy does have a detrimental effect on gameplay, accuracy alone isn't responsible for the poor battlefield practices that this thread tries to address. The idea that the mere existence of a stats page has a noticable impact beside the c-bill reward system is a silly assumption that I shall not dignify with a rebuttal.
PS: I've met quite a few guildies that aren't Battletech fans at all - yet another unfounded assumption shattered, if only anecdotally.
Players have been complaining about the pinpoint damage in Mechwarrior games for almost two decades. The complaints have been diluted and diminished in the past because prior MW titles have had single-player components with long campaigns. It was easier to overlook the problem because the players that just wanted to feel like they were part of the universe could get that itch scratched with the solo component. MWO has no such component. There is only PvP, and PvP always brings out the difficulties and nuances of balance. It shows you things you don't see in a single-player or even co-op environment. This argument is certainly not exclusive to MWO.
I don't know how to couch this diplomatically. Even prefacing it by saying I did not intend for it to be inflammatory, it still is. And that's okay. I'm okay with people being upset. It shows they care and that means a lot. But I'm not going to change my tune for you or this thread. I don't want to play this game with people that aren't fans of the setting. If that is unreasonable, then I am unreasonable. As for my "rights" to say such things.... this is an internet forum operated by a private business. There are no protected speeches here, only what the moderators and admins deem punishable. I'm not here to derail. I'm here to engage because I like the points you make and the way you make them.
On-topic? No, weapon accuracy it isn't alone responsible but I feel it's too important to gloss over. If you pick and choose mechanics of the boardgame that you want to represent, you will get a game that creates a certain amount of dissonance when looking at the balance of gameplay. If your intent is to add some dynamic elements to the gameplay and recreate the vicious slug matches that the setting is known for - weapon accuracy would need to be addressed. It's the keystone. The game is about shooting 'Mechs and until you get that part right, the rest won't feel right either.
I think its humourous that the person who made "Follow the Fracking Atlas" also wrote "Timidity is Not a Tactic", seeing as most of the time, it seems to be heavy and assault mechs that are timid the most.
It's a logical progression - being an Assault pilot who remembers he has armor, I get a lot of frustration out of situations where I see an opening, but my team falls back under a withering hail of fire from a single Medium Laser when I try to exploit it. To be fair, however, the reason you see Assault and Heavy pilots dithering more is that they know they're less able to escape the scary green laser pointers than their lighter, faster companions. So, for the reasons I outlined above, they're more susceptible to the problems with the game's reward system, and will sometimes simply sit back and hide at the first sign of incoming fire - and it always turns out they're right, because after all, the team died first, so it's their fault, not his. ~_-
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PACoFist, on 24 March 2014 - 01:49 AM, said:
risk splitting up the group and hit them from 2+ flanks at once. The former requires patience which pays out, especially when impatient enemies begin feeding themselves to your team one or two at a time. The later works well vs. the "stalker blob of doom". I think the second one is also the reason why Arty is seen so often on the field; find a blob, stay outside of 1000m, drop a strike when you have enough enemies in one place, collect compoents at your leisure.
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