777 replies to this topic

[Cold Darkness]

Void Angel, on 11 December 2016 - 10:18 PM, said:

You underlined a space up there, too. =D

oh snap. you are right. oh well, have to live with it.

@ evilgoof

no hard feeling man, some people (like me) simply missed the end of the fun discussion.

[Void Angel]

Evil Goof, on 12 December 2016 - 02:17 AM, said:

I noticed that there were a couple of replies on here after my initial apology to Void.

In case anyone has missed it, I was wrong to go off, try and derail and especailly wrong to attack Void Angel with inults and assumptions.

I have deleted a good deal of my posts that were tossing insults and were nonconstructive to Void Angel in efforts to clean up the nonsense in the thread a bit.

Meh - I did point out that you bumped the thread. The only people who skipped straight to the argument were people who had read it before. =)

[Autofire55555]

This guide fills me with determination! Gets hit by machinegun bullets.

This is a good guide. I can see why it got so much flak, though. Basically, if you've been running an LRM boat-Atlas for ages or hiding behind Coward's Ridge, and you think that this is a perfectly valid strategy, it's possible for some people to get...upset? I dunno.

I suppose I could critique Void's argument style by saying that he came off as a tad...? Well, he wasn't necessarily going to change the minds of any of the people carrying straw men. I do agree with most of Void's points, though. (all dem straw men doe! I gave up reading all the posts by page 6-ish.)

Anyway, good job, both on the guide and the rebuttals. I'll remember this guide next time I go into the battlefield. Happy hunting!

EDIT: Oh, and I especially liked the part about how people are trained into this state of "Being scared to take risks" mentality. It makes a lot of sense, and, as a game designer, that kind of thing is exactly what I try to think about...but this time around, I never even noticed it until I read your guide.

Some excellent games can teach us important concepts without words, but then there are times (like now) where this teaching mechanism backfires. Yes, pilots need to know where they're getting hit, but especially LRMs are portrayed as being far too threatening. (And they are...if there are enough of them. But getting a big warning for 5 LRMs is kinda overkill.)

Edited by Autofire55555, 08 January 2017 - 09:16 AM.

[Void Angel]

(how do I keep losing notifications...?)

I'm glad I was able to be of help to you, particularly from a design perspective. I find that I get more out of games - or, in this case, less frustration from my fellow players' behavior - if I figure out why things work like they do. There's always a reason; even if I keep on getting unpleasant results from time to time, if I can still fit that unpleasantness into a framework of meaning, I can deal with it more effectively. This guide was simply the outworking of that method of processing frustration. =D

The reason I was so confrontational in my arguments was the fact that my opponent was arguing from ignorance and emotion. Given his extremely confrontational style, and subsequent outrageous misrepresentations,iIf he's just throwing out misquotes from Sun Tzu (which is really what annoyed me) without understanding them, I'm not going to get through to him with sweet reason; to that end, I argued with him - but for those in the audience who might have been deceived by his thinking.

[Tesunie]

Void Angel, on 16 January 2017 - 11:04 AM, said:

(how do I keep losing notifications...?)

Yeah. I get this two, particularly on older threads. I don't get any notifications anymore from my LRM guides I've created. Unless of course someone quotes me there. Those notifications I still get...

I suspect there is a limit to the number of threads you can "watch" before it starts to secretly remove some off that list... Just a theory I have is all...

[Void Angel]

I'm pretty sure that they're just getting lost when I'm inundated by posts on a whine topic I forgot to unfollow - it's easy to lose a response in a deluge of 30 trollish comments and bad arguments.

Try unfollowing and then following your guides again - I get notifications on all of my guides, I just miss them sometimes.

[Tesunie]

Void Angel, on 16 January 2017 - 07:51 PM, said:

I'm pretty sure that they're just getting lost when I'm inundated by posts on a whine topic I forgot to unfollow - it's easy to lose a response in a deluge of 30 trollish comments and bad arguments.

Try unfollowing and then following your guides again - I get notifications on all of my guides, I just miss them sometimes.

I have several threads I have saved as a bookmark, simply because they don't produce notifications anymore... And they are all older threads.

So, either or could be the issue.

EDIT: I have, and it didn't seem to correct the issue.

Edited by Tesunie, 16 January 2017 - 07:54 PM.

[Void Angel]

Shoot tech support an email - both my guides are pretty old, and I still get notifications for them. I got both the quote notification and the reply notice for your last post, for example. I'm sure they'll have your issue looked at by Top Men. Top Men.

[Old-dirty B]

hey void, thanks a lot for this excellent guide - for the time and effort you put in to, very well written. It really addresses behaviour i often see in QP and which gets really frustrating after so many rounds of the same stuff... But too bad though that the people that benefit the most from this guide most likely never will find or see it. Lets hope they will, if appropriate i will forward it where possible.

Btw, one thing that i thought was missing from this guide as it focusses on having the initiative, not being passive and so on. Just as the "learn to scout" section (ideally for lights but not solely) i think there should also be a "learn to charge or push" section (ideally for assaults but not solely) which focusses on seizing the right moment or opportunity to show decisive actions by leading or initiating a push or charge - motivating others to follow up. In my opinion, this is the epitome of taking the initiative and ultimately decides most battles.

I see it (not) happening so very often, where for example the light lance or a few others create great opputinity with a diversion, attack from the back or flanks and turn around half of the enemy team, often even pull a few away from the main group. Ideal moment to charge or push the main group which will then be surprised and can often be overrun, but rarely does it happen that the team grasps this opportunity because those that are "ought to" or ar able to charge simply hold back afraid getting hit or do not understand their role on the battlefield and then sooner or later the "favour" is returned because our team simply or merely is split up.

Cheers, B3R3ND

Edited by B3R3ND, 17 January 2017 - 06:10 AM.

[Void Angel]

Thanks! I'm glad you found the guide useful.

The omission of rushing techniques was deliberate: you'll note that I avoid giving more than general examples of tactics throughout the entire piece. This is because tactics change, while principles remain constant; my aim was to explain those governing principles of the game that make much of the static camp-and-hide behaviors that you see in many matches a bad idea.

My other guide, Follow the Fracking Atlas, deals more directly with general principles of cooperation - while I still avoid trying to establish specific tactical doctrines, more material in that guide deals with best practices and cooperation, including committing to the push.

Edited by Void Angel, 17 January 2017 - 11:48 PM.

[MacClearly]

Despite my earlier idiocy, this thread needs a bump because more folks need to read the guide. Game play is getting worse and worse.

Maybe Void Angel can also write a guide on why everyone splitting up and going their own way is really stupid...

[Void Angel]

Heheh. I'll have to look into it.

PS: what idiocy?

[Leone]

Actually, you are incorrect. A firing line spending their alphas onna hard to hit light is a very valid tactic that'll save the team far more armour than sending the assaults in first.

~Leone.

[Void Angel]

Probably, no one told you to take point in a Locust, so I'm rather confused as to what your point was.

However, Lights are generally best used to harass the enemy; if you know what you're doing, you can fight the enemy team in such a way as to require them to split their attention to deal with you. Occasionally, you're going to have to take damage - but you don't want to expose yourself to more fire than you absolutely need to. You just need to be willing to take the risk, and mitigate it as best you can when you to take incoming. What you should not do is camp behind the big 'mechs and block avenues of approach as you try to poke from the same rock as everyone else, or sit in the back of the group and refuse to look around the battlefield. Seen all of that done, and it's incorrect - because Lights are the only ones fast enough to do the scouting and survive. But, sorry Leone, I wouldn't try to play the bird on a wire against the enemy team unless I was pretty desperate to save a tactical situation that was going south in a hurry - and I'd usually be a better distraction by slashing at them from the sides and rear, possibly drawing their own fast movers away.

Yet all that is beside the point of this guide, since it deals with attitudes and best principles rather than specific tactical recommendations.

[Void Angel]

Again, nothing in this guide told you to do any of that, so what's your point?

[Burning2nd]

Dont know what your talking about... Never seen this problem...

It take me about 42 seconds to be behind the enemy team... Some time its just takes longer to find someone to single out...



Dont slip up ladys... Im hunting you

[MacClearly]

Void Angel, on 13 February 2017 - 05:34 PM, said:

Heheh. I'll have to look into it.

PS: what idiocy?

Oh shoot, Evil Goof is my alt and this is my main account.

[Void Angel]

Lol! I don't keep lists of people I'm mad at in the forums other than my ignore list - got some banned people there, which makes me feel vindicated from time to time. =D

[Tesunie]

MacClearly, on 14 February 2017 - 01:38 PM, said:

Oh shoot, Evil Goof is my alt and this is my main account.

Void Angel, on 14 February 2017 - 01:49 PM, said:

Lol! I don't keep lists of people I'm mad at in the forums other than my ignore list - got some banned people there, which makes me feel vindicated from time to time. =D

I always treat every person as though they are a different person for every thread I meet them in. Keeps hurt feelings from remaining hurt I find.

Only people who I don't do this with are people on my ignore list, which are there for a reason. At the same time though, even those people I will give reasonable doubt to and hear what they have to say. I just refuse to respond to them... because I don't wish to spark an incident needlessly...

Also, I know so many people from the forums, I wouldn't be able to keep them all organized anyway...

[MacClearly]

Tesunie, on 14 February 2017 - 01:54 PM, said:

I always treat every person as though they are a different person for every thread I meet them in. Keeps hurt feelings from remaining hurt I find.

Only people who I don't do this with are people on my ignore list, which are there for a reason. At the same time though, even those people I will give reasonable doubt to and hear what they have to say. I just refuse to respond to them... because I don't wish to spark an incident needlessly...

Also, I know so many people from the forums, I wouldn't be able to keep them all organized anyway...

People that I can disagree with and stay civil stand out to me.

Void Angel, on 14 February 2017 - 01:49 PM, said:

Lol! I don't keep lists of people I'm mad at in the forums other than my ignore list - got some banned people there, which makes me feel vindicated from time to time. =D

Wait!!! I was forgiven no????