19 replies to this topic

[Orgasmo]

Just finished playing a few rounds on the new map released today. It really is different from the rest in terms of scale and pace. The first two drops on the map were disasters for our 4 man, due to poor positioning and unfamiliarity with the terrain. On the third drop we had more success, learning from the previous mistakes. While we still lost the third round, we stomped the other team without taking a loss. One of the lights on their team broke off from their main group and went to cap, and we weren't able to get back in time after wiping out their main group. Anyways, I will provide some tips based on my experience with Alpine:

- Long range snipers and LRM boats really shines on this map. There are tons of open areas for long distance engagement. If you don't have long range builds on your team, you are going to get your *** handed to you on a plate, period.

- Lights are also a must, given the size of the map. It is easily three times as large as previous maps. Having lights on the team ensures you can spot the enemy early, and enables your team to take up better positions in advance. In addition, you need lights to drive enemy lights off of your base, as other weight classes simply do not have the speed to do so.[

- If possible, travel on high grounds. There are some pretty steep hills that prevents the enemies from shooting back below. Hills are your only cover in this map.

- If you are in a brawler without long range weapons, you are not completely useless, but you must exercise a greater degree of caution. I suggest bringing mediums for brawling as they can cover distance much faster than heavies and assaults, vital when crossing open ground. Move from cover to cover and do not allow yourself to be exposed for long.

- Base capping is much more common than other maps, and you should keep that in mind when you move out of defence range of your base.

- The map is great of high heat builds due to low temperature, but you should still keep an eye out for heat.

Feel free to share yours.

Edited by Orgasmo, 19 February 2013 - 10:44 PM.

[Adridos]

I've had just 2 rounds on the map so far, both losses, sadly.

The thing I'd like to recommend is that people should watch their backs, because this map gives the flank a new meaning altogether. It is entirely possible for enemy's gauss build to sneak behind your own team and start dropping you from behind. The problem is that since he is really hard to spot, hard to get to (LRMs are useless against such a target, if he knows his stuff) and he will most likely engage you when you're fighting his friends.

[John MatriX82]

Big map, nice, but with a big problem. With my details settings, I can't literally see mechs far in the distance.. I can only guess their position if they get targeted or if they shoot at me.

I can't see them even with the zoom module, and this is a BIG trouble. I should try to raise environment from med to high, but if I do, I lose something like 20 fps and my card (combined with the resolution) can't stand that setting. And I'm speaking of a GTX 560 over an i5 3570k (but I play 1920x1200 resolution, unfortunately). I play good everywhere else but in this map I'm as useful as a paperholder.

I do believe devs should address this, because it's a LOD issue. They may need to add a separate slider for mechs and environment, so that you can keep ambient at medium and have the mechs to high so you can see them in that map.

[EarlGrey83]

I think this map brings lots of changes to the metagame. But before all, don´t forget it´s a 12v12 map, and we will see how good it is after that gamemode is introduced (hopefully arround next month).

At the moment, changing your builds for this map seems to be not worth the drawbacks when playing the other maps. I guess after the next dessert map goes life it´s time for new builds (that are more heat neutral).

To get back on topic, ERPPC, Gauss, maybe ERLL and definately LRM are rocking this map right now, wich is great imho.
´d suggest for everyone to get AMS back on your mechs, because ECM lights will run arround alone to flank or cap, and D-DC are only big targets for PPC snipers, at least if they insist to mount SRM and AC20.

[Elizander]

In other Alpine news, 70 kph is still too slow for this map. If you've been waiting to see what the point of having a 90 kph Pretty Baby, 100+kph YLW/D or 100+ kph Dragon is, this is it!

I've seen Atlas pilots just give up and camp one node.

[Raso]

I really need to reword my Hunchback 4SP. It's fast, with it's STD250 engine, but centurions and trebuchets now blow it out of the water in terms of speed. Maybe it's time to upgrade to Centurion with a PPC and some LRM..... Maybe an Awesome?

[Gregore]

I think you are all full of ****, there is only one map, and it is river city night. over and over and over and over again. Is it never day time in this place!?!?!

[Raso]

Gregore, on 20 February 2013 - 08:49 AM, said:

I think you are all full of ****, there is only one map, and it is river city night. over and over and over and over again. Is it never day time in this place!?!?!

I've also experienced this poor map cycling. It wouldn't bother me so much if I could pick my mech after I know what map the stars have fated me to play on. After being sent to Arctic Valley 13 times in a row I'll load up a beam boat that runs a tad hot only yo be sent to Caustic Valley 10 times in a row (or until I change my mech then I'm sent to River City at night as punishment for not sticking with it).

I guess what I'm saying is I hate River City at Night by and of it's own virtues but most of the other maps I hate as a result of my inability to pick the right mech for the right job.

[NebuHSV]

One point i have figured out: when you are on top of the hills and the enemy is on the foot, you can't bring your torso down to get a good aim.

I went down with my Atlas to shake the enemy group up a bit, and wondered why there where no supporting fire from my mates above me. Melted down to ashes an right back in spec mode i saw them dancing around the cliff trying to get a clear aim an don't be able to get the torso mounted weapons down to hit the goal...

[KillerLeo]

I have played it 3 times as assault. 2 conquest one assault. We won 2 conquests by points even when everybody was getting *****, because me and a few tothers decided to play smart cap bases and defend them. The one i remember was the first:

I went to cap nearest base northwest, and main grp went to the other side. (i said that i wanted more to back me up but well u know how pugs are). The main fight was where the main grp was holding the base they capped. So we had 3 bases they 2. I stayed to defend the one i capped, at my speed it was useless trying to cap another or getign back to assit inthe main fight, despite 6 large lasers. And glad i did, a lone trebuchet was comng my way to cap my base.....and i melted him with some nice large laser love. Min group was getting ***** by then. Opened my map and saw one of ours a commando running around the middle doing God knows what, open teamchat told him go to sigma (dont remember...one further north of my position) figuring all the enemies were ****** my teammates. He listened and capped, by then we lost the place our main grp was defending but still had 3 bases and a laaarge resource advantage....the rest was a waiting game. Strategy. Period.

The only Assault mission in Peaks i played we lost. I was assault in a brawler loadout....so i figured i could stay and guard the base since if a light mech sneaked and capped while everyone was 3 km away would mean a stupid defeat...so i proceeded to say so to my teammates...only one acknowledged. I found a nice cover to lie in ambush, and then the fight breaks out...my seven mates get ***** violently by their full team..no one ever came to cap..my team only managed to kill 3, and then a short while later i got 5 mechs assaulting my base....and myself. That whole time i got flamed by teamamtes asking me WTF i was doing that it was a stupid idea defending the base.

[Royalewithcheese]

On Assault, a defensive strategy can be pretty powerful if the entire team does it. You can set up a pretty effective defense along the ridge near your base, and enemies will have to expose themselves to a lot of fire to get to you.

Edited by Royalewithcheese, 22 February 2013 - 06:31 PM.

[Straylight]

John MatriX82, on 20 February 2013 - 02:27 AM, said:

Big map, nice, but with a big problem. With my details settings, I can't literally see mechs far in the distance.. I can only guess their position if they get targeted or if they shoot at me.

That's not just your settings. Player draw distance it capped 1.5Kish. Not an issue usually on the other maps, but a bit more, uhm, apparent, on Alpine.

Elizander, on 20 February 2013 - 07:47 AM, said:

I've seen Atlas pilots just give up and camp one node.

Given how quickly the scoring system moves in relation to the map size (only fast Lights have any real chance of responding effectively to a node cap they're not already near), I propose that a defensive posture is the correct strategy for an Atlas on Alpine.

Gregore, on 20 February 2013 - 08:49 AM, said:

I think you are all full of ****, there is only one map, and it is river city night. over and over and over and over again. Is it never day time in this place!?!?!

Funny you should say that. I haven't seen RC Night once since the patch. Come to think of it, I haven't seen Forest Snow either. My map rotation so far has been about 50% RC day, 30% Caustic, and 20% Forest, Frozen and Frozen Night combined. I've seen Alpine exactly once.

I'd very much like for the game to lock a player out of a certain map for a while after he's played on it to force the system to use different ones. The system isn't generating enough randomness of map selection on its own, so it needs some help.

Royalewithcheese, on 22 February 2013 - 06:30 PM, said:

On Assault, a defensive strategy can be pretty powerful if the entire team does it. You can set up a pretty effective defense along the ridge near your base, and enemies will have to expose themselves to a lot of fire to get to you.

I agree, but unfortunately "defense" is fairly antithetical to "pug". And so is "strategy".

If you really want to get someone in a pug to play D at a base, you might consider legging them as soon as the match starts...

[Hebdomas]

NebuHSV, on 20 February 2013 - 09:47 AM, said:

One point i have figured out: when you are on top of the hills and the enemy is on the foot, you can't bring your torso down to get a good aim.

Ran into this when the team decided it would be a great idea to take the high ground (and to their credit it is in most games) and soon discovered we couldn't hit with our torso weapons. Seems mechs have decent elevation with torso weapons, but torso gun depression (to borrow a tank term) isn't so great.

[Tesunie]

Raso, on 20 February 2013 - 08:54 AM, said:

I've also experienced this poor map cycling. It wouldn't bother me so much if I could pick my mech after I know what map the stars have fated me to play on. After being sent to Arctic Valley 13 times in a row I'll load up a beam boat that runs a tad hot only yo be sent to Caustic Valley 10 times in a row (or until I change my mech then I'm sent to River City at night as punishment for not sticking with it).

I guess what I'm saying is I hate River City at Night by and of it's own virtues but most of the other maps I hate as a result of my inability to pick the right mech for the right job.

Maybe it might be time to try to make a mech for any map? Most of my mechs are designed to work no matter the map they land on.Some maps they are better at than other maps, but they can hold their own no matter what map they are on or situation they get in. Just a friendly suggestion.

[Vincent Lynch]

use heat view to be able to detect the enemy at distances of over 1000 m without having to resort to sensor modules and similar stuff. you can switch back to normal view as soon as you know where the enemy is.
either carry long range weapons OR be fast. doing both is not required.
even with the current size of the map, a sniper placed on the mountain in the center will be able to fire at and damage enemies on most of the map.
there are enough low hills to set up ambushes, especially if you have a mech carrying ecm with you. let a scout lure the enemy to you.
on conquest, this is actually the one map where splitting up your team makes sense. if you split while the enemies stay together, they won't have enough time neither to find and kill you all nor to cap enough to win. if they split too, you will have great fun with duelling.

EDIT: also, on this map it might actually make sense for assault mechs to stay at the base or at a cap point to defend it.

Edited by Vincent Lynch, 01 March 2013 - 08:01 AM.

[Hackett]

In my last match on this map I had a hunchback, stalker, and atlas coming up to our base, via one of the main roads.

No cover whatsoever, and I was standing 1000m+ away with my 3 ERPPC AWS 9M. For the first half of our fight, I was pummeling them at max range (advanced zoom module actually was worth it for once), and their LL return fire wasn't doing any damage. It almost felt unfair.

They eventually coordinated and rushed me. But I dealt massive dmg before I died and the rest of my team finished them off easily afterward.

Most fun I've had in mwo thus far, facing 3 mid range brawlers, who slowly figured out how to take out my annoying AWS sniper.

Edited by Hackett, 01 March 2013 - 08:50 AM.

[StalaggtIKE]

I love the inclusion of this map. Why? Because it got me out of my comfort zone. All of my builds were optimized for brawling. Now I've been trying other things, even giving LRM a try. Simple fact is your build must become more diverse. Until new larger maps are introduced this map rotation will continue to be awkward. The sooner we can go through this transition of a balanced large and small map selection, the better things will be.

[Splinters]

This map has a lot of potential tactics, but what is interesting in assault is where does the battle take place.

Typically most groups meet up in E5 and the team that starts in the north-east side usually has the high ground and if they have good arm sniping weapons/LRMs, they will have an advantage. I've noticed that F6 is the best mountain for arm-based snipers and LRMs as they can see most of the battlefield and choose where to engage.

I have had more success from the higher ground at sniping and brawling, but it is possible to win at assault from the lower side. One way was to base-camp and let the enemy come to you. Once they come to your base, they are off the mountaintops and everyone's torso and arm weapons are available. Fighting in E5 tends to lean towards the high ground holder.

Flanking also seems possible but unlikely with the exception of 100+ kph mechs that can go up the main road and behind the enemy. Otherwise it just takes too long and your spotted way too early.

I haven't played 8-man, but so far on pugs and 4-mans E5 tends to be the central conflict point. F5 is the other one if the NE team pushes hard down the hill to brawl. Personally holding F6 seems to be a great linchpin location to watch for flankers and shoot at enemy mechs in all directions.

-S

[Buzzdee]

I really would love to see the heat map for alpine

[Boulangerie]

Vincent Lynch, on 01 March 2013 - 08:01 AM, said:

EDIT: also, on this map it might actually make sense for assault mechs to stay at the base or at a cap point to defend it.

This seems like it would actually be a pretty workable tactic. The Assault mechs I have seen have tended to enjoy using all that long range weaponry they have packed on, but if you are running a brawler type Assault (maybe a d-dc), you might actually be more of a credit to team staying near the base until you have gathered more intel on the enemy team. If your team has spotted the entire team and they are all moving out into the middle of the map, without any light cappers, the brawling Assault can then move up and rendezvous with the rest of the team (perhaps with them retreating to a more defensible position to faciliate the inclusion of the assault mech into the group).

Edited by Boulangerie, 05 March 2013 - 01:31 PM.