304 replies to this topic

[Ngamok]

Tichorius Davion, on 13 February 2013 - 12:48 PM, said:

Well if we sit around drinking some IPA's it could be more fun. -shrug-

[MischiefSC]

Znail, on 13 February 2013 - 12:51 PM, said:

That is the problem with Conquest, assuming you want more then team death match. Capping doesn't win you the game and thus is mostly unimportant. I see that you like TDM and by extension Conquest. But there is no basis at all in calling TDM the more tactical mode. You are perfectly free to think it's the more fun mode, but to call it more tactical does not make sense. You still have to fight the enemy in Assault, but the fact you also need to consider the bases adds complexity to the game.

How does the fact that capping wins the game makes it less important to scout or find the enemy as that is the main means to preventing them from capturing your base? The problem with your posts are that they make no logical sense at all. That the enemy can sneak around you to your base does not equal scouting is not important but the other way around as you need to keep an eye out to prevent them from doing so.

You have talked about those less then 60 seconds so much that I had to actually time it. It takes 150 seconds to capture the base. This time is reduced if there is multiple mechs capturing. But to get less then 60 seconds so would you need at least 3 mechs and that is almost half the enemy team that you just happened to fail to notice what they were doing. If that isn't a failure of scouting, then what is?

The point is that a lone light capping will take quite a while to do so and even a slow mech can react to that and move to prevent it. Only if there is a large number of mechs capping so will it be too fast for slow mechs to react. But that is why you need 1 or 2 mechs to keep an eye on the other paths that your main group are not using. That way so will there be no large group of enemy mechs getting to your base.

Depends how many people are at the base but 150 seconds sounds right too.

The problem with how capping works is that it trumps all other tactics. Positioning and scouting all play second base to the cap.

The really critical part for me is that because a lot of people really hate the capping mechanic in Assault many ignore it on principle. Do not mistake this for not understanding the tactic of standing in the square with you while my team comes running back or, conversely, trying to get all of you to chase us away from your base while I sneak back to cap. It's not that I don't understand the tactic.

It's that most people don't like it and thus refuse to participate. If you go stand on the cap point for 150 seconds and nobody comes back it's probably for 1 reason and 1 reason only:

the other team absolutely hates the capping mechanic but has no other choice but to play the game anyway. Rather than spend the time not fighting (which is why they're playing the game) to run back and play chase the light they rush in for 60 seconds or 150 seconds or whatever depending on how many people are on the base worth of combat before the match ends.

So you've made win/loss worthless to these people since you've made winning based on something they hate. The result is devaluing their game experience. They have no choice at all but to play either Conquest (which I like) or Assault (which I don't). If capping isn't your thing then you get to pick the lesser of two evils.

A big problem is that Assault implies that it's the mode for fighting. It isn't. Conquest is the fighting map. Most people though play assault for combat because they feel like it should involve, you know, fighting.

Hence the rage on it.

I want to make this absolutely clear though. A big part of the drama in these threads is driven by the false argument that people just don't understand the painfully simple mechanics of base capping. This isn't the case. It's that they are so simple as to make any other use of tactics irrelevant and that everyone has absolutely no choice but to play with them. If there was a TDM or more complex base capping mode (attack, asymmetrical assault, etc) you'd get none of this complaining.

The real solution in the interim seems to be to get people to play conquest if they want to fight or dig a more tactical game. Assault is based on very simple tactics, either rush or camp, with combat being best avoided if you can. If that's what you want then great. Everyone will be happier when people who don't like that mechanic have an option to play something else.

[ferranis]

The amount of elitist douchbaggery in this thread is still too damn high. I thought they would learn from the hate against their 'advice' they give other players but oh well...

All there is to say is that a cap win in the first 5 minutes is not fun for the mayority of players and it doesnt matter if you are on the winning or loosing side.

So how about we just lock the bases for the first 5(or more/less) minutes and fix that problem?

[Davers]

The capping mechanic is in to give more value to speed and maneuverability. Lots of people try to slander base capping and belittle the players that do it. This has led to the increasing number of Heavy/Assault mechs and the decline of medium mechs.

I hope they do put in a TDM mode. Then you could have the 8 Assault Mech teams play that and 8 Light Mech teams play Conquest and hopefully we will see more balanced teams in Assault.

[PwnStars]

IceSerpent, on 13 February 2013 - 09:42 AM, said:

So, you want to shoot stuff, but instead of shooting whatever mechs are trying to cap your base you decide to wander off in a random direction and complain on the forums about it being boring?

That's a little much, I think. He's not wandering off in a random direction, he's sticking with his team. I can't tell you how many times I've had a superior position (eg. my brawler alpha-ing another assault's back, or a good sniping position), but found myself alone as my teammates went and chased after squirrels. Of course, your enemy will instantly charge you the moment they realize you're alone. So then, the obvious tact here is "stick with your team then".. .but... now I gotta defend? I'll admit, I like to play tactically - as in catching other mechs by surprise and tearing up their behind. However, it's hard to do either without competent players on your team.

Quote

If you really wanted to shoot something, you would be actually trying to find an enemy to shoot at, right? And that "base is being captured" warning tells you exactly where those enemies are...

Rushing to defend your base (in a PUG) can be basically only done by mediums and lights. Sending heavies and assaults means you lose way too much time and firepower. Also, I've called numerous times in certain PUG matches for lights and meds to go defend... not one responded. Great.

Lastly, obviously both teams are scanning for each other - who plays just to run half a lap around the map to the other team's base? ECM and smart movement on both sides can conceal movement until it's too late to turn back on your current course (aka the enemy base). And yes, I've been in matches where either we had zero scouts or they all died scouting (and didn't even lockon an enemy) which let the enemy team's lights have a field day with everyone's backs, so we would have lost anyways.

Also to the person who said that people are mad about losing, I really don't think that is it at all. I get frustrated because I play this game to shoot big guns and blow things up - and honestly, the gameplay should be trying to funnel mechs into combat as much as possible. Flanking routes, buildings, hills, etc. great, they provide strategic advantage in combat. The only outlier? Base rushing.

Capping the enemy's base to strategically make the enemy have to disengage is legit, it's great and I'm always thankful for lights that realize this. Like other posters have mentions, I believe a cap-timer (maybe for the first 5 minutes, not too long - but not too short an enemy team can walk there and then sit there and still cap) would relieve the pressure of having to start marching off into the distance so you can counter baserush just in case. I can't tell you how many times I've spotted the enemy across the map, but we we're already halfway to their base and probably wouldn't have been able to make it back before losing. I guarantee everyone that if there were a cap-timer, then both teams would immediately start heading towards each other the moment they had visual.

[Mercules]

MischiefSC, on 13 February 2013 - 12:17 PM, said:

In Assault all other tactics, movement and positioning is trumped by the cap rush. If you do anything other than either base sit or cap rush you're risking that the other team did one of those and you are, automatically, going to lose.

Wrong. Others in this thread have pointed out very easy ways to spot and stop a "cap rush". I almost never encounter a cap rush but that could also be that I am proactively preventing one. If you are regularly losing to a "cap rush" then there is something very wrong with your tactics.

I understand while pugging not everyone is going to get it. I can see that form the fury of the people in this thread that many of them don't get it. You want to fight? Find your enemies and fight them. Don't wander around and wonder why no one came to fight you.

Josef Nader, on 13 February 2013 - 12:21 PM, said:

None of the counterarguments are invalidating my earlier point that base capping is a tactic for people who care more about winning than actually playing the game, and that's why it gets so much hate. It's basically saying to the other team "screw you and your desire to shoot robots. I'd much rather just increase my numbers without actually trying for it and rob you of gameplay."

I'll counter it. I don't care about win/loss. I like to win but I don't do certain things, "Just to Win". Do I cap? Yeah, because 90% of the time it results in someone coming to fight. The 10% when it doesn't just leaves me shaking my head and checking the forums the next day for the inevitable, "Stop Capping." thread.

Most of the time I will spend long enough on your cap to make you nervous and then leave so I can be the one ambushing the returning mechs instead of being ambushed by them. Even so, if I can tell no one is coming it would be silly to give up my tactically advantageous position. I mean if you don't come I win. If you don't come your fight ends and you want to fight,right? All the incentive is on you to come stop me. That is pretty powerful.

Josef Nader, on 13 February 2013 - 12:29 PM, said:

Your ability to win a game centered around shooting giant robots should be centered around your ability to shoot giant robots. Winning should be an extension of your ability to shoot giant robots.

Your premise is wrong. MWO is a game about Mech COMBAT. Combat does not = shooting. Shooting is a subset of Combat, not the other way around. In many combat situations shooting is not the preferred way of dealing with an issue. I know... shocker. Obtaining an objective, like say capturing a base, is the point of combat. If you shoot all the defenders you have captured the base. If you captured the base... well... mission accomplished.

You play to shoot stuff.

I play to outwit and challenge my opponent. Sometimes that means shooting them, sometimes that means flanking them and having a buddy drop LRMs on them from behind a ridge while I target them for him. Sometimes that means hitting them with 3 PPCs before they even see me. Sometimes that means moving around them and forcing them to make a decision, do I return to base or continue to fight and hope I can finish these guys off in time to get back there. Anytime I make them make a choice they can make the wrong one and give me an advantage.

[Mystere]

Mazgazine1, on 13 February 2013 - 12:56 PM, said:

The reason no one wants you to cap is because IT OFFERS NO BENEFIT.

IT does not get you extra CBills, and only a small amount of XP, so why do it??

But I'm after male nerd rage tears, and capping creates rivers of them.

Ngamok, on 13 February 2013 - 01:02 PM, said:

Where can I get those?

[Ngamok]

I buy mine 2 doors down at a local liquor store. They are $4.99 a pint. They are imported from England so you might have to check around.

Try this:

http://www.beermenus...anana-bread-ale

Edited by Ngamok, 13 February 2013 - 01:30 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Mercules, on 13 February 2013 - 01:16 PM, said:

Wrong. Others in this thread have pointed out very easy ways to spot and stop a "cap rush". I almost never encounter a cap rush but that could also be that I am proactively preventing one. If you are regularly losing to a "cap rush" then there is something very wrong with your tactics.

I understand while pugging not everyone is going to get it. I can see that form the fury of the people in this thread that many of them don't get it. You want to fight? Find your enemies and fight them. Don't wander around and wonder why no one came to fight you.

What you're missing though is exactly why people don't try to counter caps in pug games.

They hate it. They'd rather spend 60 or 90 more seconds shooting before the end of the match that participate in something they hate. If you pug then you've got some people like this on your team in most drops.

So when someone wins via a cap rush they didn't win because they 'outwitted someone'. You do that in Conquest by winning on caps with only 1 or 2 guys left against 5 or 6. You won because the other team just didn't care and is playing the game to fight.

The mechanic is a problem because there is no way around it and people erroneously think that Assault is the game mode for fighting. This is incorrect. Assault is NOT the map for fighting. Conquest is the fighting map. It's also the mode for complex tactics.

In Assault the cap trumps everything. It's the only tactic that truly matters. Scout the enemy? So what. He's either A) at his base or B ) not at his base. If he's at his base, attack him. If he's not at his base, rush to his base with as many mechs as you can to cap him before he caps you. If it's close, send someone back to run in and out of the cap area to slow his cap so you cap first.

You took high ground and fortified its three entry points? Doesn't matter. Scouted the enemy to gather what their makeup of units is? Irrelevant. You lured the main enemy force away from its LRM boats who you then attacked with your lights? Stupid of you, just run cap.

If you like Assault maps then great. My main complaint isn't that it exists, it's that people pretend that capping in Assault involves serious tactics. It doesn't. It prevents serious tactics and winning in caps generally means you won because the other team hates the capping mechanic and doesn't care. Not that they don't understand it but because they have been forced to play it so long that you've succeed in making winning or losing pointless to a good sized section of players.

That's a problem. Not something to brag about.

I'm not worried about a solution. PGI will introduce new maps and modes. Probably sooner than we think (March I think?) I just want to make it clear for all the 'L2P N00BZ' sort out there that your victory by cap is not an example of you outwitting anyone. It's an example of how much most people just don't care about winning or losing on Assault, because they hate the mechanics of it.

Win via caps on Conquest if you want to outwit someone. That takes skill and planning. Especially when you're out-numbered. Capping on Assault is just capitalizing on someones apathy. Yes, you won - because nobody else cared. It's a win I guess but don't expect a pat on the back.

[Jman5]

Quote

What you're missing though is exactly why people don't try to counter caps in pug games.

They hate it. They'd rather spend 60 or 90 more seconds shooting before the end of the match that participate in something they hate. If you pug then you've got some people like this on your team in most drops.

I feel like I'm in some sort of bizarro world here. By having ONE GUY (YOU) take the most minimal of scouting actions, you force the other team to fight you. I thought you wanted a fight? Is it really that hard to open your eyes at the start of River City? Or peek into the cave in Frozen City/Forest Colony?

This is bordering on absurdity if you refuse to do anything but get your entire 8 man team to force march down one attack avenue all the while staring at your feet.

It's not hard to scout a cap rush and react in time.

http://mwomercs.com/...68#entry1888368

[Mystere]

Ngamok, on 13 February 2013 - 01:29 PM, said:

I buy mine 2 doors down at a local liquor store. They are $4.99 a pint. They are imported from England so you might have to check around.

Try this:

http://www.beermenus...anana-bread-ale

Thanks! I found a few not too far away from work ***and*** home.

[Mercules]

MischiefSC, on 13 February 2013 - 01:30 PM, said:

*snip*

Stop calling Base-Rushing "Capping". It isn't. It is a very stupid and good way to gamble on a loss because it is all eggs in a basket.

That is your issue. You are arguing a different topic.

You are also wrong because Base Rush is very easy to stop. You see... either they travel in one big mob and you meet them with your mob, or they are not and you pick them off. What is the key here again? Knowing where they are. So no, Base Rushing does not trump scouting, because once you know their path you intercept. The thing is this only works if you actively search them out right off the bat. You can't run up to the Caldera, peak over, and then mill about until a Hunchback and Stalker decide to push over alone a couple minutes into the game and then go, "Oh, they are at our base!" You can't sit around behind the dropship and then suddenly wonder if they went cave.

Protecting your base does not mean camping on it. It means figuring out where your enemy is, and cutting off their routes to the base. You know what is really bad at doing that? Slow mechs. You know what is really good at doing that? Mediums & fast Heavies. Look at the match composition. This could be why people are complaining, yet again. Slow... slow... slow... I mean the maps are not that large and if my friend in a non-ECM Atlas can walk to your base, not avoiding a fight and cap it... something is wrong.

[Bryan Kerensky]

I think someone made a topic about how it was hard to stop base rushing in river city? Simply be aware of your base at all times and don't go all out rushing to one side of the map without your base in the back of your mind. It's an error and regardless of how justifiable it is, it can be prevented easily and should be addressed by anyone playing assault as it is, a win condition.

[Mercules]

Jman5, on 13 February 2013 - 01:49 PM, said:

I feel like I'm in some sort of bizarro world here. By having ONE GUY (YOU) take the most minimal of scouting actions, you force the other team to fight you. I thought you wanted a fight? Is it really that hard to open your eyes at the start of River City? Or peek into the cave in Frozen City/Forest Colony?

This is bordering on absurdity if you refuse to do anything but get your entire 8 man team to force march down one attack avenue all the while staring at your feet.

It's not hard to scout a cap rush and react in time.

I know.. I do NOT get the claim that it is this hard. Nor the, "I just want to fight." First part of ANY fight should be "find the enemy and assess them". Then you try to fight them on ground favorable to you. You still have to FIND THEM to fight them.

[Teralitha]

Esplodin, on 13 February 2013 - 05:42 AM, said:

I've been seeing a lot of pre-match "don't cap noobs" in all chat lately, as well as here on the forums. Like it or not (and I don't particularly like it btw) it is a win condition of the mission, such as we have available at this point. Most of us that have been playing a while have plenty of GXP and C-bills, so the limited rewards argument is kinda pointless unless you are new.

The answer why hit me last night as my pug got steamrolled while we were arguing about it in all chat. (BTW, thank you for actually holding targets long enough for my LRMs to kill two and make the rest look like they were in a fight - you guys were awesome!) Put enough of a negative stigma on the "race to cap" and you don't need to upgrade your engines for the 4 man Atlas Steiner patrol, or take lights that are less effective now in melee since you can hit them.

I think it is time to finally finish leveling my spiders and do NOTHING but base caps until the opposition learns that this is a game of balance between tonnage, speed, and heat. If you don't want to play all dimensions of this game, fine. I'd rather take 300ish xp and 25K c-bills over the bigger rewards for rockem sockem robots because it also comes with gallons of man/woman/transgender tears.

Maybe the "only carry AC20 and Gauss" teams will reconsider their builds. Probably not, since whining about a built in mechanic is easier then having a strategy for it.

If you enjoy taking away other peoples fun by using the useless base capping feature... then you are a griefer.

[SI The Joker]

Teralitha, on 13 February 2013 - 01:54 PM, said:

If you enjoy taking away other peoples fun by using the useless base capping feature... then you are a griefer.

... and if you enjoy taking away other people's fun by forcing them to be mindless battle droids... then you are a griefer.

[Mystere]

Here are a few relevant quotes from the master himself:

"If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him."

"If his forces are united, separate them."

"Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected."

[Hammerhai]

And then of course this:
My Team got blown away. 2 lights make it to the enemy base.
My timer is ahead, game is in the bag. The enemy start taunting us as cowards, knowing they are in the poo poo. The other light responds to taunts and rushes off to fight. BOOOM. TYVM Sucker. Is that any way to treat a Newb? Who was griefing whom exactly here?
Rule of thumb:
IF you are the light
AND your team is down 2 mechs
Cap is the first option. Stepping on base may at least pull off the lights off the assaults.
L2P you sore losers all.
Jeeez.
It is a game tactic and has its' place

[Ngamok]

Hammerhai, on 13 February 2013 - 02:10 PM, said:

And then of course this:
My Team got blown away. 2 lights make it to the enemy base.
My timer is ahead, game is in the bag. The enemy start taunting us as cowards, knowing they are in the poo poo. The other light responds to taunts and rushes off to fight. BOOOM. TYVM Sucker. Is that any way to treat a Newb? Who was griefing whom exactly here?
Rule of thumb:
IF you are the light
AND your team is down 2 mechs
Cap is the first option. Stepping on base may at least pull off the lights off the assaults.
L2P you sore losers all.
Jeeez.
It is a game tactic and has its' place

This is different than what others are saying. Your team fought the other team. What people don't like is when an entire 8 man team is trying to be sneaky and base rush and avoid the fight altogether. Fighting and going for the cap is one thing. You are down and want to win by cap. Skirting the edge of the map under ECM with the intent to cap and leave is another.

Mystere, on 13 February 2013 - 01:50 PM, said:

Thanks! I found a few not too far away from work ***and*** home.

Yea, I'll be getting a few tonight because now I made myself thirsty for a few.

[Esplodin]

Teralitha, on 13 February 2013 - 01:54 PM, said:

If you enjoy taking away other peoples fun by using the useless base capping feature... then you are a griefer.

Winning is OP. If using a win condition for the scenario is griefing then sign me up. I look forward for crushing your dreams and drinking the sweet, sweet sorrow.

Seriously though, you should probably rethink the Atlas with the standard 100 engine and max weapon loadout and 50 heatsink design of your mech.