46 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

It would be helpful in my opinion to have some solid advice for PUG players in an easy to find place. Here's what little I've got, hopefully some of you will have a lot more.

I've played PUG from my start and learned a lot of painful lessons the hard way. For whatever reason some people have no interest in teamspeak and enjoy PUG drops. It would be good to make those lessons public and share them so that others trying to get into the game don't get quite as frustraited.

To clarify, I'm far from a great pugger. I've died a lot as I've worked through trying to find what mech will work best for me. A lot of expense and irritation along the way on that as well. Hoping to get some good advice from some more experienced PUG players.

1: Don't run off alone. Don't do it. No matter what. You'll think you have a good reason, a plan, some idea or another. You're wrong. Don't do it. Just don't. Ever.

2: Don't boat *unless you know what you're doing* You can't always count on your 'team', so it's a good idea to design a mech that stands well on its own. For example, I switched from a Catapult with a guass and 4ML to one with a 300XL, 2x UAC5s and 2LL. Why? Range convergence. From about 700 meters to point blank all my guns do their job. While I miss being able to gauss like a boss the UAC5s and LLs let me pour it on no matter where my target is. Some people do alright with trick mechs (all PPCs or all AC20s for example) these are going to be totally hit or miss on success. If you do well with it, great. If you're not doing well then focus on guns with comparable ranges. Don't count on LRMs, they're most useful as a team weapon.

3: Use chat from the getgo. Start all matches with 'Anyone have a plan? Any premades?' You get a response, follow the plan. If not, suggest something that works. 'Take high town' or 'rush to the boat'. Something simple. Have a simple plan or even just grid location you can convey to everyone. Be polite and if there is a premade, just fall in. If someone else recommends something, just go along. Don't waste time arguing, besides you might learn something.

4: Don't chase. If you're a light or a medium designed to chase and kill other lights and mediums (SSRMs, etc) that's one thing. If not then just stick with the group. Shoot whoever your team mates are shooting. Running off chasing a possible kill is how you get passed around like the last pack of smokes in the prison yard. Stick together, focus your fire but don't seperate from the group and you'll end up with more kills and more wins in the long run.

5. Don't brawl. Brawls work best with coordination. If it turns into a brawl and your team is all right there (high town is a good example of this) that's one thing. In general though you're at a disadvantage in a brawl, especially against premades, they'll consentrate fire on you. Sometimes your teammates will pull back and you'll suddenly get overrun. Brawls are bad odds for a lone wolf.

6. Stick next to cover. Get used to the maps and where you can run for LRM cover. Sometimes you'll get NARCed or TAGed or just targetted and the other team will have a few missile boats and the heavens will open up and rain fire upon you. The moment you hear the missile warning, get behind cover. Don't wait, don't take 'one more shot', get behind cover. In fact, get behind cover and change locations. If there's a premade on the other team they'll be waiting for an opportunity to concentrate fire on you. Wait until fighting starts up with them and others or you're going to end up dying before you even see everyone shooting at you.

7. You're probably going to die a lot. Look at what happened after you get steamrolled and what they did. Don't just learn from your victories; sometimes you win because of luck or some skilled players. Look at what the winners (if it was you or the other team) did and learn from that. Where did they go? What order did they cap in? Where did they set up their defenses, or where did they rush through? Simple, general directions are best. Things you can throw out in chat and try to chase your fellow PUGs into.

Any other good suggestions? From premades who can say what they do and do not like in pug behavior or other pugs with tricks that have helped them.

Edited by MischiefSC, 25 January 2013 - 12:43 AM.

[orion0117]

Don't be a bully giving commands. It's one thing to have a plan and communicate it to the rest of the team, I'll follow. Bullies screaming at the PUG players, no matter how good their orders are, won't get far.

[Vlad Ward]

From someone who mostly does premades these days:

1) Yeah. This is generally a good plan. Except in Conquest mode. Blobbing in Conquest is dumb. Once you lose map control, it doesn't matter how impregnable your phalanx of Atlases is.

2) I'd change this to "Don't boat LRMs". In fact, just don't even bother using LRMs as a PUG. LRMs are a team weapon. You need a spotter to work with you in order to be more useful than a paperweight.

Using weapons with the same optimum range is ideal. This way, you're never wasting tonnage on a weapon that you can't fire while at X range from the enemy. If you're using short range weapons, make sure you have a solid engine in your Mech so you can close to firing range. If you're using long range weapons, then stay the heck back and take advantage of that range.

3) "Plan?" has quickly become the single most annoying phrase on the planet. Never walk into a match and ask this. Offering a plan is one thing. Asking a bunch of people who probably have about as much idea what's going on as you do to magically concoct one on the spot is rude. Feel free to suggest a plan yourself, but never try to phrase it as an order. People don't like that.

PUGs are more enjoyable with friendly banter on chat.

4) This is solid. Stop chasing Jenners.

5) Honestly, I highly doubt many premades give enough damns to call focus targets in 4mans. That said, I honestly have to encourage brawling. Practice is the only way anyone gets better at anything, and Brawling uses a wide array of skills that come in handy in this game. You have to aim at moving targets, disperse incoming fire, keep an eye on your own leg movement, and make sure you know where both your enemies and your allies are at all times.

6) Cover is awesome. I really must stress, though, focus fire in the pug/4-man queue is exceedingly rare in my experience. It may seem otherwise, but that's usually due to the loadouts more experienced players are using right now. My stalker, for example, can rip most non-Assaults in half with a single volley, and rip Assaults in half with two. Going from full health to "Hey, didn't this Mech come with arms?" in the blink of an eye may feel like focus fire, but generally it's just a good Mech.

7) Yeah. Avoiding death is a good plan. The first team to lose a Mech will almost always lose a match. Domino effect and so on. Playing safe is playing smart. As long as you have a gun and one good leg, you're a hell of a lot more useful than the smouldering wreck around the corner.

Edited by Vlad Ward, 24 January 2013 - 11:02 PM.

[The Cheese]

Use your minimap and your tac map. They WILL help you to win games. Knowing the location of your team and your enemy WILL keep you alive for longer. Information is the most powerful weapon we have.

Your minimap is like you car's rear view mirror. You should be looking at it every few seconds. You should do it without thinking. You should look at it whenever you hear a blip. You should look at it when you're in combat.

All's quiet? Look at your tac map. Your team might be moving without you realising it.
About to go into battle? Look at your tac map. Your team might not be charging in with you.
Heard a blip, but nothing's on your minimap? Look at your tac map. You might have a Gauss Phract about to snipe you.
Not sure where to go? Look at your tac map. You can learn a huge amount of information based on where your team is (and where they are not).

I cannot stress enough how important the maps are. If you're not using them, you're a burden on your team and disadvantaged as an individual pilot.

Edited by The Cheese, 24 January 2013 - 09:56 PM.

[Cerlin]

All great advice here.

When it comes to communication I find being NOt a **** is fantastic. And giving plans in question mode works like 90% of the time for me. As soon as someone takes commander and says "DUMBASSES GET TO F5 NOW!" literally no one goes. So yeah, negative questions rock.

[MischiefSC]

All excellent advice.

Be polite and friendly in chat - don't pretend you're in charge. That's excellent advice. I would add 'respond if you're going to go along with a suggestion'.

Check maps, make sure you don't get left behind. Make sure you know where everyone is.

What else?

[Bad Karma 308]

Please recite the pugger's creed with me:

Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me, for I may not support. Don't try to issue me commands, I may just ignore you. Just pretty much leave me the hell alone.

[Jacmac]

Lots of interesting ideas, you'll never beat a good voice coordinated team as a solo player though.

In B 4 the players with the one-off example of when they did beat a premade all by themselves.

Edited by Jacmac, 24 January 2013 - 10:49 PM.

[Wraith05]

Jacmac, on 24 January 2013 - 10:47 PM, said:

Lots of interesting ideas, you'll never beat a good voice coordinated team as a solo player though.

In B 4 the players with the one-off example of when they did beat a premade all by themselves.

Do examples of being in a voice coordinated team and losing to pugs count? =(

Seriously though best advice I can give to pugs is stay close enough to each other to respond to threats. But not close enough to get into each others way.

Other than that if you see 2 or more people firing at a mech that isn't a light feel free to join in. It will die faster which means less fire going your way.

Oh and if you are really feeling frisky, chat with each other best you can.

[Jacmac]

Wraith05, on 24 January 2013 - 10:57 PM, said:

Do examples of being in a voice coordinated team and losing to pugs count? =(

You don't know that you lost to a bunch of solo players, only PGI knows for sure.

[Chowda]

Watch and learn how other people pilot in Spectate mode. Look at the mech/loadout, pilotting skill, etc. Finding a good pilot is hit or miss, but the lessons learned are worth the spectating.

[Wraith05]

Jacmac, on 24 January 2013 - 11:01 PM, said:

You don't know that you lost to a bunch of solo players, only PGI knows for sure.

Was more meant as a smartass comment. But we really shouldn't let this convo devolve into pugvspremade.

Lets keep some helpful pug advice going!

[MischiefSC]

It's not about pug vs premade. It's just advice for pug players.

Some excellent advice, especially about Spectate mode. I've ended up in the design I have now based on that. I also saw a Cataphract with 3 x lb10xs today and seemed to do very well. Close to medium range it was a beast with chain fire. I bet it did well against lights too. Gives me ideas to apply to how I play. I'd hated the 10x before from my Centurion but this gave me some new respect for it.

[N0MAD]

Great intentions here no doubt BUT how many casual pug players do you think come to these forums?

[Vlad Ward]

N0MAD, on 24 January 2013 - 11:14 PM, said:

Great intentions here no doubt BUT how many casual pug players do you think come to these forums?

Apparently plenty. GD can't go a week (and it's usually much less) without the new "Premades are evil" thread de jour.

Edited by Vlad Ward, 24 January 2013 - 11:24 PM.

[MischiefSC]

I lurked here a bit before I even got the game. In chat a lot of pugs seem to know what's on the forums. If nothing else it would be good to have something directly useful on the topic on the forums instead of just people offering e-snuggles or comparing the size of their e-peens. This way if someone says 'Go read the fourms, you'll learn something' what they'll learn isn't 'everyone who plays here is a complete and total *******'.

Some of us, yes. Certainly not all.

[Rift Hawk]

I used to drop a lot of the time by myself. Then realized that a lot of the guys on teamspeak with me also played this game. So we started running premades and a lot of the time we end up winning.

I'm sorry to say but voice is far better than chat. We focus fire everything we shoot at and stick together. We always know where we are going and what the plan is.

One thing I will say to hopefully add some useful advice in this thread is this :

If you see combat, don't run away from it. If you don't see combat, don't run off solo trying to find it. These two things are probably my biggest issue running premades in this game. The 3 guys and myself in teamspeak will constantly end up with 5-8 kills and we all end up with 300-1000+ damage and the rest of our team has less than 80 damage each. Every single time I see this happen, it is because of the four solos playing like the game is single player. Remember that you have a team and they are your biggest asset in this game. There is absolutely NOTHING more important than your team.

Stick with them. Watch what they are shooting at and shoot the same thing. The faster one mech goes down the less damage it can do and the better your chances of winning are. Keep in mind that K:D ratio means absolutely NOTHING in this game. If someone else gets the kill, who cares ? Thats not what the game is about. The game is about working as a team to achieve victory. If that means you didn't get any kills, it doesn't matter. At least your pulling your own weight and doing some decent damage. That is truly what matters.

[St0neFire]

N0MAD, on 24 January 2013 - 11:14 PM, said:

Great intentions here no doubt BUT how many casual pug players do you think come to these forums?

i do, thanks for the great advice, i suck, get hammered, but i enjoy, this is helpful information ....

I just don't understand how i can hit another mech like 20x with lb10xac or ultac5 and still just get 47 damage ...

Edited by StoneFeyer, 24 January 2013 - 11:49 PM.

[The Cheese]

MischiefSC, on 24 January 2013 - 11:12 PM, said:

I've ended up in the design I have now based on that. I also saw a Cataphract with 3 x lb10xs today and seemed to do very well. Close to medium range it was a beast with chain fire. I bet it did well against lights too.

That is a hell of a fun build to play. Letting off an alpha on a passing light's legs can really ruin their day.

[M E X]

Bad Karma 308, on 24 January 2013 - 10:37 PM, said:

Please recite the pugger's creed with me:

Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may SHOOT AT YOU ! Do not walk beside me, for I may not support. Don't try to issue me commands, I may just ignore you. Just pretty much leave me the hell alone.

It is even worse than you thought ... not only that pugger many not follow you, they may even fire on you it you stay in front of them, especially in the first seconds after the drop !