139 replies to this topic

[Lege]

Damage to armor is irrelevant, now critical damage means something.
Having said that, if your under 200 damage you probably didn't help your team win.
Depending on if your in a light or an assault that number changes.
If you did 60 damage and killed a light ecm mech early, you probably just won your team the game.
If your in an assault mech and did less than 400, you probably didn't help much.
Raw damage doesn't mean much, if you hit every piece of armor and got all the armor to red, then you didn't really do anything.
Now if you did 50 damage to the right rear torso of a hunchback, killing the hunch, you just helped your team out.

[M4NTiC0R3X]

The basis of the poll varies greatly from game to game. At times you will see a player who is so dedicated to the plan they rush in and simply get blown to pieces immediately.. However.. that one death may not have been in vein. Let's say:

Frozen City: one lance in tunnel ready for flank another lance on ridge ready to push forward.. of course the enemy is tightly packed, sitting still, patiently awaiting even the slightest movement to crush with all 8 focusing fire.....

Then...

In your team a somewhat stupid [but dedicated to the plan sometimes, let's not forget] assault 'mech charges the ridge and is blown up within about ooooh... 10 seconds. Well.. within that 10 seconds the lance from tunnel has significantly damaged the enemy rear, and the best part... as soon as they turn to do something... BLAMO... you do the hokey pokey! 'cos your team (thank goodness they can aim!) just wooped some seriously occupied as$.

But.. I think a minimum of 200 damage. Who knows though... I've seen spiders that are such good shots it only takes them 200 damage to kill 5 - 6 enemies through JJ headshotting. AND, in other matches I've seen lrm boats do all the work and generate 1500 or more dmg! I mean really though, the poll even varies on which weapons you're using once you get down to flat tax. Say you had an ERPPC, a couple medium lasers... you got 4 enemies torso area down to yellow did 250 dmg... but not a single kill (damn you skilled enemy pilots or my terrible aiming skills, or worse.. lag!)

Edited by M4NTiC0R3X, 14 February 2013 - 05:22 PM.

[Alekzander Smirnoff]

I have in serveral matches done less than 50 damage, but those matches I was booking from point to point to point in conquest and won it for the team. I was also the last guy standing. Depending on game mode it doesn't really matter what you do as long as your doing something that helps.

[Moonsavage]

Three words... Combat Loss Groupings.

You can do 100 damage to each enemy mech and not hurt them... you've made 800 damage but your team still loses.
OR
You can focus fire on the damaged sections of a mech and your team kills it much quicker, then you're 8 v 7.

I often kill mechs 1v1 with less than 120 Dmg - So 240 Dmg spent killing 2 mechs definitely helps my team
BUT
Wtf is going on when my team mates get 400-500 Dmg yet no-one kills anything???

It's all in the aim.

And let's not forget that TAKING damage is as beneficial to a team as delivering it, if the team can capitalise on the distraction to focus down a mech.

[Pihb]

Make a funny comment in chat and you are worth it to me. Sorry, you can't treat people bad because they don't live up to your expectations in a video game.

[Phenakist]

dealing damage and being top of the board is great and all but it doesn make you the best member of that team. Role Warfare.

[Alexandrix]

Speaking entirely for pug games,premade stuff brings it's own set of variables.All of this is really just thrashing about back and forth.At the end of the day,every situation is different,with it's own set of variables.Can one be a credit to his/her team but have low damage/kills/assists? yes,of course. Can one do 500+ damage but have it spread all over the enemy team and not kill anyone? yes,of course.

We all have off games and get splatted early sometimes for whatever reason,or spend the game going back to prevent a cap,or running to cap for our team.Whatever the case may be.It happens.

Would it be nice if every team mate took down their counterpart on the enemy team? yea,it would.Especially for lights.Med/heavy/assault I can handle taking out your counterpart if need be....but if you are a light...please be able to take down the raven 3L you just gave the enemy team

Anyways,all that said,if I can manage to do 500+ and take 3+ enemy mechs down.....is it really to much to ask that the other 7 of you try to 200 damage and kill 5 enemy mechs amongst you? lol

Yea,I don't think 200 damage is an unreasonable number to ask for from any mech.Except maybe those poor poor spiders.

[Khobai]

In general I'd expect someone to do at least 50+(3*tonnage) in damage. So a Commando should do at least 125 damage. An Atlas should do at least 350 damage.

But also it depends where they hit. Someone could do 108 damage but get 3 kills from headshots.

Edited by Khobai, 14 February 2013 - 05:44 PM.

[BunnyWabbit]

250 minimum on non ecm carrying mechs 300 minimum on ecm carrying mechs except the spider which is 200 minimum. Assaults should really do at least 325 imo. If your under 250 you probably didnt do anything. Even with the trial mechs you can make 250 easily.

This is just the truth. If your learning I expect you to do under but if youve played over 20 matches those are my minimum standards. You can also do under as long as you get an unassisted kill then you have done your part.

[Stargoat]

Really, it should be what the player is /capable/ of... in a real-game situation, there are so many conditions that could lead to a player getting many more or less damage out than they 'should', and not all 'mechs and builds are equal in damage capability, or accuracy.

Is it fair to compare LRM boat that outputs 800+ damage consistently to a skirmisher that gets ~300 but lands each shot in a critical component?

[Kahoumono]

it depends on how long that sub 100 mech survived. Being a distraction sometimes better than doing minimal image. I used to stick around even when I had the 4fps bug, just to be a pest for the other team. Its fun to watch the opposing team get all out of shape while trying to chase the easy kill.

[Wispsy]

Jman5, on 14 February 2013 - 10:06 AM, said:

Base captures aside, anyone under 200 damage, I consider to have been carried. You either died way too early, or you simply couldn't do decent damage.

While you could perhaps argue that lights don't have very high damage, When you're in a Heavy/Assault there is simply no excuse.

Lets do the math here guys. Say you are a dual AC/20 Catapult. That's 5 shots to get 200 damage. If you can't connect on a mech 5 times over the entire course of a game, don't try to tell me how accurate your shots are. You either sat around doing nothing or missed way too much.

Now look at the assaults where you've get 80+ damage alpha strikes. 200 damage is less than 3 alpha strikes. If you can't do that trivial amount of damage, then why are you even playing an assault? All you have accomplished is giving the other team a free Assault mech.

So lets stop pretending that damage is meaningless. If you are sitting on a 40+ damage loadout and you participated at all in fighting, you should be at hitting 200 damage at a minimum.

So tell me...this anecdote fits perfectly, not that long ago I had a match with 2 1shot headshots on a heavy and an assault and a clean back core on a cataphract, I also stole the final bit of another kill. I had something around 170ish damage and the game lasted under 3 and a half minutes, was I being carried? I would like to point out I was in a Jenner, both headshots were done before the team even arrived and the cataphract was jumpsniping at them from slightly further away when they turned up.

So....why would I have been more useful if I had sprayed my lasers multiple times over a random mech, managed 200+ damage and killed an arm and a side torso in total? Yeah...

Damage is only a good indicator of worth when the whole group is not very good at hitting where they aim, so you can see who actually hit the enemy more often, no matter where it was (or who got ammo explosions). If all 8 people on your team are at the top of their game in accuracy then nobody on the whole scoreboard will break 300 dmg barring ammo explosions.


Edit: Also you would not believe the amount of times I do not even need to fire....just run up to some assault and make sure he sees me going behind him. He will turn and just get cored from the back by 2/3+ teammates, I get no damage as it would be pointless me wasting a shot (6Medpulse is hot ok) on that completely clean and fresh frontal armour yet the Atlas has just died without hitting a soul also. Am I useless? Should I have stayed infront of him and all of us got 100-200 each shooting off armour and components on the random whilst being shot back at?

Edited by Wispsy, 14 February 2013 - 06:48 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

this whole poll is based on a flawed premise.

That damage is any kind of truly accurate measure of performance. It CAN give some of the picture. But it ignores the fact that many mechs, if doing their ROLE correctly, will cause little direct damage of their own.

[Cato Phoenix]

I agree with Jman's assessment.

If you are in a mech that's supposed to do damage to the other team than I want you to do at least 100 damage. I generally get irritated at the atlases and stalkers who can't land with one or two alphas. Even surrounded and hammered, I can usually approach something like 100.

I understand there sometimes are manueverability issues with the assaults, but still, I see Atlases with sub 50 damage all the time.

[Paul McKenzie]

Everyone seems to be knee jerking against damage being important. They are certainly wrong, anytime you choose not to do damage when you could have, you are making the wrong decision and wasting your mechs potential. It's impossible to know who will engage that mech later in the game and every point of damage you do to it does help and unless you are running too little ammo, sneaking under ecm is the only viable reason not to take a shot and get your weapons recycling. The idea of anything heavy and up doing under 200 damage is pretty sad as well. There is never a situation where you did what you were supposed to in a heavy+ mech and ended at 100 damage. Thats barely enough to eat through any armor. You have to put the damage out before it can be effective and you shouldn't be making decisions that limit your output.

[Sigifrid]

100 should be minimum, barring certain extenuating factors, such as capping or holding off the cap.

[Thorqemada]

100 points of damage is the threshold, the more the better but less is not enough.
In Groups with many pinpoint accurate weapons the average damage is often as low as around 150 and in teams with much SRM or LRM it can be around 400.

[Fitzbattleaxe]

If you don't like pugging, join a group. Yet another one of these threads isn't going to suddenly make everyone who doesn't live up to your standards quit playing.

[Wispsy]

Paul McKenzie, on 14 February 2013 - 06:54 PM, said:

Everyone seems to be knee jerking against damage being important. They are certainly wrong, anytime you choose not to do damage when you could have, you are making the wrong decision and wasting your mechs potential. It's impossible to know who will engage that mech later in the game and every point of damage you do to it does help and unless you are running too little ammo, sneaking under ecm is the only viable reason not to take a shot and get your weapons recycling. The idea of anything heavy and up doing under 200 damage is pretty sad as well. There is never a situation where you did what you were supposed to in a heavy+ mech and ended at 100 damage. Thats barely enough to eat through any armor. You have to put the damage out before it can be effective and you shouldn't be making decisions that limit your output.

So when in a cataphract 3D I headshot 2 people whilst jumping up at the ridge I was useless? (Did not get to shoot at anything else, the game was over in 2 minutes, I am often not the only jump sniper if I am playing jump sniper...). Good to know pros like you can do 200+ damage a game and kill nothing and be counted more useful then me! Of course I can also shoot once, get an ammo explosion and instant 300 damage right there! Without killing them......

[Ghogiel]

Even when my entire team is slaughtered in 2 seconds without breaking 100, I still need to do 200 at a VERY MINIMUM, or I have played like a scrub as well.

Simple as. It's 200 or I played like a scrub.

Anyone who says it isn't, is any mixture of these;
mostly playing easy mode, where you can do **** all and still win most games
plays a spider
thinks machine guns are critseeking!
is actually doing less than 200 damage.