139 replies to this topic

[Jman5]

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.

Edited by Jman5, 14 February 2013 - 10:37 AM.

[Grimlox]

Snib, on 14 February 2013 - 09:59 AM, said:

Those posting that damage is the relevant factor lie as well. Example:

Spoiler

Our team did 2,681 damage, enemy team did only 2,072 damage. So our team did nearly 30% more damage than enemy team. However, the enemy team wiped us out and won with half their mechs still alive. That's how much total damage matters. Also individual battle results are meaningless without knowing the story. That screen might indicate that I don't have the much of a clue how to aim properly and kill a mech, or it might mean something else entirely.

Snib, on 14 February 2013 - 09:59 AM, said:

Those posting that damage is the relevant factor lie as well. Example:

Spoiler

Our team did 2,681 damage, enemy team did only 2,072 damage. So our team did nearly 30% more damage than enemy team. However, the enemy team wiped us out and won with half their mechs still alive. That's how much total damage matters. Also individual battle results are meaningless without knowing the story. That screen might indicate that I don't have the much of a clue how to aim properly and kill a mech, or it might mean something else entirely.

Well in all fairness the enemy team was able to completely ignore an Atlas D-DC (Disconnected) which would account for a large amount of damage if played properly.

I'm not disagreeing with you on the premise that overall damage is not the deciding factor, but your example wasn't the best and probably in the majority of games the team with more damage overall wins.

[Eric darkstar Marr]

Snib, on 14 February 2013 - 09:59 AM, said:

Those posting that damage is the relevant factor lie as well. Example:

Spoiler

Our team did 2,681 damage,
enemy team did only 2,072 damage.

So our team did nearly 30% more damage than enemy team. However, the enemy team wiped us out and won with half their mechs still alive. That's how much total damage matters.

Also individual battle results are meaningless without knowing the story. That screen might indicate that I don't have the much of a clue how to aim properly and kill a mech, or it might mean something else entirely.

See you only took a small snippet from my comment I even included an example such as yours. However I am glad to see I am correct about a certain base of players whining because they can not throw out damage and are trying to make excuses or in one case insulting.

So thank you for proving me correct. If you can not do at least 200 damage in a mech save for maybe a spider, and that is a maybe, I will give a person hey I am a new spider pilot but I know a few that can do upwards to 400 a game. I stick to my guns of if you haven't done 200 damage you have not helped the team you have hindered it by either wandering off and dying solo or you are just sitting on your thumb doing nothing. Also do not try the excuse of I was of capping in a conquest game on my Cicada 3M I still put out at least 200 damage and I am a fast capper. No I am not an elitist even if I am coming off that way I am stating what is obvious fact you either are putting in the work or you are being carried and could ruin a game for others.

[Snib]

Grimlox, on 14 February 2013 - 10:17 AM, said:

I'm not disagreeing with you on the premise that overall damage is not the deciding factor, but your example wasn't the best and probably in the majority of games the team with more damage overall wins.

It's just a game I played this week and that I remembered, didn't feel like digging through screenshots adding up damage values. According to this thread since nearly everyone on my team did decent damage they were doing well; in reality they all rushed out and died quickly, leaving me to play a game of cat (pun intended) and mouse in a 1 v 6 situation. Damage output is only half the story at best.

Anyway, I agree with your statement that usually the winning team will have more damage done. Battles are rarely balanced, usually one team fail cascades quickly.

Eric darkstar Marr, on 14 February 2013 - 10:21 AM, said:

See you only took a small snippet from my comment I even included an example such as yours. However I am glad to see I am correct about a certain base of players whining because they can not throw out damage and are trying to make excuses or in one case insulting.

I wasn't specifically targeting your comment - you didn't say either that damage is the be all end all. Wondering what your second sentence has to do with my post though? Neither did I lack damage output nor do I whine about it (if I'd whine I'd say I did way too much damage for too little result, but that was unfortunately a result of the type of hit and run warfare I was forced to do in that battle situation).

Edited by Snib, 14 February 2013 - 10:38 AM.

[Eric darkstar Marr]

Nonsense, on 14 February 2013 - 07:48 AM, said:

You can say that damage doesn't matter on an individual level and come up with hundreds of anecdotes describing situations where you did something awesome for the team and did little damage.

But...I challenge you to find many examples where you had 3 or more people on your team do less than 150ish damage and you still win (via destroying the enemy).

Face it, cap wins suck because they're kinda boring and don't give much XP/cbills. The vast majority of games end with one team destroyed. A few games end in conquest resource victories but even among those, a lot of mechs are destroyed to make way for that fast mech or two to out-cap the enemy.

Total damage doesn't matter on an individual level, but as a team you don't want too many individuals doing small damage....

I hope all you "damage doesn't matter" people understand why everyone thinking "damage doesn't matter" is dangerous psychology.

OKay I know what my stance has been and I stick to it but I needed to prove a person wrong.

[Dishevel]

Cataphract, on 14 February 2013 - 06:09 AM, said:

What matters is where the damage is placed. Now obviously a sub 100 damage round for anyone means they didn't do much but even a highly accurate player scoring 250 has done enough damage to core at least 2 Atlas. I agree on the match score part pointed by Asmosis. If match score ends up being a big part of your ELO rating then this games matchmaker is going to get astronomically worse.

Sub 100 damage if done all to the heads of enemy mechs could be fairly devastating to the enemy team.

[Khanahar]

Sometimes my lancemate and I will both run fast-movers in conquest mode and focus on nothing but capture, unless we already own all cap points. We usually end up taking out a few scouts along the way, but I've won games with that strategy and almost no damage done (his CDAs can drop a light with very few volleys if he nails the shots).

It's an extreme example, to be sure, but I wouldn't consider damage done the be-all and end-all of everything. CapWarriors, Taggers, unkillable CN9-D bullet soaks, Snipers, etc. all contribute to a win.

Also, as an important side-note, in one-sided wipes where your team mops the floor with the enemy due to superior focus-fire and such, it's highly usual that everyone has similar (and low) damage scores. Doesn't mean that your team did badly; quite the opposite. By contrast, hard fought games between thrashing newbies might well have some astronomical scores from the guys lucky enough to fight everybody last.

The only good metric of a player's skill is victory. Win/loss is the best metric of this, though it ought to give separate numbers based on each group size with which you have dropped.

[Inveramsay]

Dishevel, on 14 February 2013 - 10:56 AM, said:

Sub 100 damage if done all to the heads of enemy mechs could be fairly devastating to the enemy team.

That would be about three mechs then, not bad but how likely is it really?

5 x mech tonnage is a good guideline I think for minimum damage before being awful. Over 10 x mech tonnage is good and there is no point in going higher multiples as only lights would be able to do that. Generally though, 500 damage is good in most mechs and at least one kill and three or four assists.

[Elizander]

If you are drawing fire and forcing the enemy to waste shots at you while evading or if you are the hit and run type, 100 is usually okay if the other players in the team are good. The problem is that if all of you just deal 100 then you will lose. Just generally speaking, dealing around 300 damage is a safe contribution if you can do it, but high damage numbers are usually results of people staying alive long enough to deal it (unless you run up to an Atlas in an A1 and spam 36 SRMs until you overheat then you got like 200-300+ damage easy before exploding).

Edited by Elizander, 14 February 2013 - 11:35 AM.

[Eyecon69]

I feel so... soo emasculated by this thread... the only plus was when some one said for newbies try for 200...

[Shibas]

You are all just a bunch of lazy ******** that can't pull your own weight, mooching off of the sweat and hard work of the 1000+ damage players. Clearly if you wanted to contribute to the team all of you would be doing over 1000 damage. I can't believe anything less is an option. Surely "damage doesn't matter" was a joke added to appease all you "moochers." You terrible, terrible people.

[HurlockHolmes]

Depends massively on the roll of the 'mech that is being played, in my cent I am a quick striker that exploits enemies weakness, and act as a guard for assaults. I average around 600 on a match where both teams are pretty even, but the score wildly varies because you never know who you are going to get paired with.

When I made a sniper heavy (CTF-2x), The amount of kills I got skyrocketed whenever I would have a good team, I ranged 300-500 damage using it, while always much less than my cent, more of that damage was in places that meant a lot more.

So it entirely depends on the roll you play, because if skill went by damage, then all the most skilled players would be LRM boaters right?

[FerrolupisXIII]

i usually find myself thinking 200+ damage means you at least did some work.

I'll be the first one to admit that i drop below that mark sometimes. does it mean im a bad player? no.

Im an LRM pilot. i have some matches where i fire at targets all day long but my teammates kill them before i get much fire in. or, i solo an atlas by myself and look like a king damage wise but really only took down one (probably fairly stupid) mech. or, my least favorite, an enemy light decides to ruin my day and chase me all around the back field. that usualy puts a dent in my damage numbers. and my KDR sometimes.

also, consider this: not everyone runs a super high end gaming computer. not everyone gets 80 FPS every match while running ultra settings. they could be, like me, running a 4 year old laptop with a 2,2ghz dual core processor, 6 gigs of ram and a 512mb graphics card. my friends complain about running 20fps being a bug. i run at 15fps if im lucky and sacrifice a kitten to my CPU. before one of you says "buy a new one" that just isn't an option for me right now, nor for other people.

Also, if my teammates are doing well but we're missing bases in conquest, i happily roll off to a flank to go grab a base they're not near, while pot shoting LRM's over their way. i don't care if it lowers my overall score, it increases everybody's winnings.

so, no. while i do make expectations of players, i do not always judge them if they perform poorly. obviously i will be a little aggravated at that Atlas pilot that does 50 damage and falls over dead. but it happens to all of us.

[Treehugger]

Elizander, on 14 February 2013 - 11:35 AM, said:

If you are drawing fire and forcing the enemy to waste shots at you while evading or if you are the hit and run type, 100 is usually okay if the other players in the team are good. The problem is that if all of you just deal 100 then you will lose. Just generally speaking, dealing around 300 damage is a safe contribution if you can do it, but high damage numbers are usually results of people staying alive long enough to deal it (unless you run up to an Atlas in an A1 and spam 36 SRMs until you overheat then you got like 200-300+ damage easy before exploding).

I think this is a valid point. A player with a fast mech hitting the enemy from behind, constantly drawing their attention, can be extremely useful even if their damage isn't all that high.

On the other hand I do think that anyone with less than a 100 damage without a reasonable excuse (headshotted, dc, etc.) is a waste of space.

[Volume]

Damage is a very misleading stat, because some people pump ~200 damage into a heavily armor'd CT, but others will headshot a 'mech with 36 damage to the head hitbox, disabling it outright but with less "Damage done" than worse/inefficient players.

[Alois Hammer]

BDU Havoc, on 14 February 2013 - 08:13 AM, said:

The issue that I have is that all damage done indicates is that you shot the enemy.

It doesn't account for spotting.

It doesn't account for standing on the enemy base to split up the enemy.

It doesn't account for scouting.

It doesn't account for doing the dozens of other things that scouts do that causes disruption to the enemy, but doesn't do damage (or much damage).

That's because it's all focused on the typical "1337 gamer with teh mad skillz" mentality, where the only thing that counts are your recorded stats. You know, the same phenomenon that in other games causes wholesale noob slaughter since a dead level 100 and a dead level 1 both count as "kills" on the leader loserboard, and the loserboard is all that matters.

It has nothing to do with being a credit to/useful to your team, it's all about "Mine's bigger!"

[Nonsense]

Multiple people linked screenshots to "prove me wrong". Congrats, you found some examples proving that lots of noobs get carried by more competent teammates. The point was not the number of people doing less than 150ish damage...the idea is that as you increase the number of people doing sub-150 damage, you significantly increase your chances of losing.

You can be proud of carrying low-damage noobs, but in the context of the thread, those noobs are not necessarily a "credit to their team".

Come on...in any mech you should be able to avoid dying long enough to do 150 damage unless your team gets insanely stomped hard.

We're talking "usually" here...goals to shoot for, not individual exceptions.

[Viper69]

Kousagi, on 14 February 2013 - 06:53 AM, said:

Not sure you can really count that match as a win. Sure you cap'ed the point and got a pretty end of match screen that said victory, but you got a very tiny amount of Cbills and XP... I would call that match a loss for everyone.

I hope for your sake they have a annihilation mode then in the near future.

[Fyrerock]

Everyone has bad games, but what really gets me is the light and medium mechs that charge and die in the first few minutes of the fight, over and over again. When someone says that the enemy is heading towards lower city, why would a few mechs still head towards the lower cap. When your team looses a few mechs right in the beginning of the fight it is hard for the rest of the team to come back from that.

[Snib]

Nonsense, on 14 February 2013 - 12:26 PM, said:

Come on...in any mech you should be able to avoid dying long enough to do 150 damage unless your team gets insanely stomped hard.

Not disagreeing with that. As in any f2p game, most players are terrible. But getting too hung up on stats doesn't help, either.

What I mean is: They're not terrible players because they do too little damage. That's just a symptom. They're terrible players because they lack situational awareness and abstract thinking. They will solo rush into the open, get cored before even seeing the enemy, but will not understand why it happened and repeat the same mistake in the next battle. Things like that.