Post by vonpaulus on Jul 29, 2020 1:51:15 GMT -5
I am in low champions and I usually maintain a 55-60% win rate. I don’t claim to be an expert pilot, nor do I consider myself any kind of savant when it comes to equipping and upgrading bots and equipment. My clan isn’t very active and I work rotating shifts and have a family so I get very few chances to squad up.
What frustrates the hell out of me is when my teammates do things that don’t help the team win. Personally speaking I’d rather come in 6th place and contribute to a winning team than coming in first on a losing team.
1. Winning is more important than personal honor:
Roughly speaking I average 1500 HPs in wins and 1000 HPs for a loss. With my level I am awarded about 400 HP for being on a winning team. So most of the differential is based not on individual performance but on winning or losing. In fact it makes sense to sacrifice a big chunk of personal HPs in order to secure the win bonus.
There are many rewards in the game based on accumulating HPs or HPs in wins. The best way to accumulate HPs is to win. That win bonus is given to all 6 members of the team so you owe it to your teammates to help them get the win too.
2. Know what game you are playing.
There is a huge difference between tactics in BR/Dom and TDM. In the beacon games killing reds is a side issue, in TDM field position is a side issue. In BR/Dom speed and time management are crucial, in TDM patience is a virtue. Applying TDM tactics in BR/Dom hurts your team. In TDM applying BR/Dom tactics hurts your team. Here is a very good link to tactics for beacon games. war-robots-forum.freeforums.net/thread/41205/beacon-modes-work
If you don’t like or or not good at a particular game mode then don’t go into quick match and inflict your weaknesses on a team of blues trying to win the game. I hate TDM with a passion, my main hanger is built around brawling, so I’d rather wait 2 minutes for a match of BR/Dom than get into a TDM via quick match with a 10 second wait time.
3. Don’t get greedy
It is more important at the start of a game to grab the center beacons than the home beacons. If you’re piloting a Ravana or Phantom and burn your special ability to grab a home beacon before other blues you aren’t helping your team. You make it harder to grab a center beacon because you have to slow down, stop or go out of your way and wait for the beacon to turn blue, and in the meantime switched on reds are closer to the center beacon(s). Plus you need to wait out your cooldown timer to get the ability back again.
Let the less fast bots on the team grab the home beacons while you grab the important ones.
The same applies for kills. If you see a badly wounded red, don’t go out of your way to chase it for the kill. You may be giving up good beacon/battlefield position for a small bonus to your personal HP.
4. Manage your hanger
I know that when you get a new bot you are really keen to try it out. It is even more tempting when you pull 2 shiny new high meta bots out of crates and you have got some new high meta boomsticks to go with them. However your old 1.12 silver bots with 1.12 silver guns will help your team win more than shiny new 1.6 meta bots with 1.6 meta guns.
Be patient, upgrade your bots/weapons first then put them in the field. Don’t introduce too many new bots at a time. It takes some practice with a new bot to develop the way you prefer to handle it, trying to learn 2 or 3 new bots at the same time is a disservice to your teammates.
5. Know when you are the whale and when you are the minnow.
The way the matchmaker works is not a simple mix of getting 6 players at roughly the same level and putting them in a team. To give a simplified explanation:
If you are a 100 rated player the matchmaker could put you in
- a 50 rated game where your team has 1 x 100, 1 x 75, 2 x 50, 1 x 25, 1 x 0 rated players
- a 100 rated game where your team has 1 x 150, 1 x 125, 2 x 100, 1 x 75, 1 x 50 rated players
- a 150 rated game where your team has 1 x 200, 1 x 175, 2 x 150, 1 x 125, 1 x 100 rated players.
In the 50 rated game you are the whale, in the 150 rated game you are the minnow. You cannot play the same way in both situations. It’s pretty easy to tell if you are the whale or the minnow early in a game based on how easy/hard it is to damage reds and how badly they hit you.
When you are the whale: It is your job to carry the team. Your teammates are less experienced than you and have lower level equipment than you. They need your help. If you are playing BR/Dom and have a personal stat line of 3.4M damage (2M more than the next closest blue), 12 kills and 0 beacons you are the reason why your team lost. Don’t blame your team mates, they were the ones trying to win the game while you ignored the win condition of the game.
When you are the minnow: Your job is to stay alive until the end. Protect beacons, make yourself hard to kill. The reds will see your health bar, but they won’t know you are a squishy target. Provide support to your team mates by using Lockdown, suppression, healing and the like. If you try and push into the center of the melee you will be cut down quickly and leave your team a player short.
6. It is not a sin to play negatively.
Playing positively is playing to win. The HP system rewards you for playing positively e.g. for killing reds, for taking beacons etc. Playing negatively is playing to not lose, to prevent the other team from winning. Playing negatively is not rewarded by the HP system, but can be just as important as playing positively in the right circumstances.
Playing negatively is best when you have a lead on tickets and not a lot of time left. An example from a recent game was I had dropped my Arthur on Moon Base after clearing up a red raid on our A beacon I noticed that we had a ticket lead and about 3 minutes left in the match. So I waddled my Arthur up to the B beacon where I had a good field of fire down to the A beacon and sat there. I knew that the only way the reds could win the game was if they 4 or 5 capped us. By parking my nearly full health Arthur on the B beacon it allowed the rest of my team to do their stuff, but meant the reds had to do a 4 or 5 bot rush on me to even have a chance of a win. If I walked off the beacon it could have allowed a beacon stealer like a Loki, Pursuer or Nightingale to get reds back into the game.
I could have gotten far more personal HP if I had gone chasing reds to kill or beacons to turn, but by playing negatively I did my bit to help the team win, even though I accumulated zero HP in those 3 minutes.
7. Have a plan on how to deal with specific threats.
Some threats like a Ravana, Ares or Leech need no special equipment to deal with, just solid tactics. Know what those tactics are and develop the skill to use them.
Other threats like Lokis or highly leveled French Mings need special equipment, bots or pilot skills. Hoping your team mates can deal with them is not a plan.
We all know Lokis are a late game beacon stealing threat, so have a late drop bot in your hanger that can take care of a Loki (or Pursuer or Nightingale) for your team. For a maxed French Ming you probably won’t have the complete solution yourself but you can have bots that provide a partial solution that can help your team take it down.
For example I run a Rayker in my hanger as a late game drop. It’s agility and glance ability allow it to pester and help my team take down Mings. It is also fast enough to catch Lokis and all the guns are low enough to be brought to bear on a Loki in stealth mode.
8. Every Bot is expendable.
This applies more to BR/Dom than TDM. You have 5 bots and a Titan, most games you’ll time out before you bot out so achieving your win condition is more important than having your bot survive.
Do you hear me Ming pilots? I am talking to you. Also people who drop Flux or Trebuchet Behemoths in BR/Dom games. Sitting back at long range racking up kills and damage does nothing for your team if your opponents can keep a 3-2 beacon advantage going all game.
An example was on Factory. The reds had popped 2 Mings up, both with the big tasers. I jumped in my Arthur and pushed down the home beacon flank. Both Mings floated back to keep me out of 500m range, but I crab walked down the side and they kept floating back and soon enough I had them both backed into the corner at the map limit. Another red then joined in on beating down my Arthur, and it died before reaching the red home beacon, which is what I knew was always going to happen. But what I had done was to tie up half the red team in their home corner for about 3 minutes and in that time the blues went from 2-3 down on beacons to 4-1 up.
Another example was on Springfield. The reds had 3 Ravanas holding the center beacon, and they were doing a good job crushing our attempt to take the center beacon. I waited for 2 of my teammates to come up in position for the next assault and just before they started going in I started flight in my Nightingale and flew to the red’s A beacon. This caused the highest level ravana (after the game I saw it was 2.12 with 2.12 weapons) the one that had done the most damage to our last assault to peel back and chase me, burning all his disco balls to keep pace with me. I was able to get onto the red home beacon and hold it long enough to turn it white, forcing the ravana pilot to come all the way back to turn the beacon red again, which on Springfield is a long way. In the meantime my blue buddies had been able to take the weakened defenses and hold the center beacon.
In BR/Dom you can afford to trade bots for battlefield position. Either taking by beacons or by forcing reds to send a large amount if resources away from the critical beacons. This doesn’t justify Leroy Jenkinsing yourself into the middle of a crowd of reds, they’ll take the quick cheap kill and won’t even break their stride.
9. You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.
Have an appreciation of what each bot in your hanger is capable of and know when is the appropriate situation to bring them out. Many people have a pre-programmed list of when they’ll drop each bot, which is OK. Me, I prefer to drop according to the situation. I usually drop a Nightingale first, but on Canyon I’ll bring out my Fenrir as a first drop and try to wedge him under the bridge and force the reds to come out to play in the open to deal with it. If my team has 3 titans up already I’ll often hold my Arthur back because when you’re the last titan on the field you can do some serious damage.
Knowing the ticket count and battlefield position allows you to choose the best bot for the situation. Sometimes you may want more speed and agility, other times more defensive staying power.
edit to add:
10. Fire for effect
It’s easy to think of effects you apply on reds purely on how they affect your personal duel with that red. However with a bit of situational awareness you can multiply the value of effect by using them to your team’s advantage.
One example is that I use Death Mark on my Loki. While the Loki”s individual firepower is insignificant, I don’t use DM for anything my Loki is engaging. What I do is keep my eyes open for what my blues are engaging, especially Titans. When I see an MG Arthur open up on a red Ming I’ll toss a DM onto the Ming. Another example is using LD ammo on my beacon runners, which I use to lock down red phantoms before they get into beacon circles and to get red Ravanas to burn a disco ball earlier than they had planned to. The aim is to leave the reds either out of the circle and/or vulnerable to blue Phantoms and Ravanas.
Also be aware that having an Ares or Leech activate it’s ability often causes the reds to vacate the vicinity
11. They’re streets not parking lots
One particular bugbear of mine is when blues block paths. I like my Rayker, but there have been many times I’ve lost it because a ‘friendly’ blue walked up behind me and blocked off my escape path. Spider bots are much better at moving sideways and backwards than regular bots, but the principal applies to all. Be aware that the blue who popped out from behind cover may well want to pop back in, so don’t fill in behind it and force it to stand in the open with its pants around its ankles.
If you do want to stand and shoot on a narrow path, (For example the raised ramps on Yam) try to stand to one side of the path so that any blues behind who want to advance can do so.
What frustrates the hell out of me is when my teammates do things that don’t help the team win. Personally speaking I’d rather come in 6th place and contribute to a winning team than coming in first on a losing team.
1. Winning is more important than personal honor:
Roughly speaking I average 1500 HPs in wins and 1000 HPs for a loss. With my level I am awarded about 400 HP for being on a winning team. So most of the differential is based not on individual performance but on winning or losing. In fact it makes sense to sacrifice a big chunk of personal HPs in order to secure the win bonus.
There are many rewards in the game based on accumulating HPs or HPs in wins. The best way to accumulate HPs is to win. That win bonus is given to all 6 members of the team so you owe it to your teammates to help them get the win too.
2. Know what game you are playing.
There is a huge difference between tactics in BR/Dom and TDM. In the beacon games killing reds is a side issue, in TDM field position is a side issue. In BR/Dom speed and time management are crucial, in TDM patience is a virtue. Applying TDM tactics in BR/Dom hurts your team. In TDM applying BR/Dom tactics hurts your team. Here is a very good link to tactics for beacon games. war-robots-forum.freeforums.net/thread/41205/beacon-modes-work
If you don’t like or or not good at a particular game mode then don’t go into quick match and inflict your weaknesses on a team of blues trying to win the game. I hate TDM with a passion, my main hanger is built around brawling, so I’d rather wait 2 minutes for a match of BR/Dom than get into a TDM via quick match with a 10 second wait time.
3. Don’t get greedy
It is more important at the start of a game to grab the center beacons than the home beacons. If you’re piloting a Ravana or Phantom and burn your special ability to grab a home beacon before other blues you aren’t helping your team. You make it harder to grab a center beacon because you have to slow down, stop or go out of your way and wait for the beacon to turn blue, and in the meantime switched on reds are closer to the center beacon(s). Plus you need to wait out your cooldown timer to get the ability back again.
Let the less fast bots on the team grab the home beacons while you grab the important ones.
The same applies for kills. If you see a badly wounded red, don’t go out of your way to chase it for the kill. You may be giving up good beacon/battlefield position for a small bonus to your personal HP.
4. Manage your hanger
I know that when you get a new bot you are really keen to try it out. It is even more tempting when you pull 2 shiny new high meta bots out of crates and you have got some new high meta boomsticks to go with them. However your old 1.12 silver bots with 1.12 silver guns will help your team win more than shiny new 1.6 meta bots with 1.6 meta guns.
Be patient, upgrade your bots/weapons first then put them in the field. Don’t introduce too many new bots at a time. It takes some practice with a new bot to develop the way you prefer to handle it, trying to learn 2 or 3 new bots at the same time is a disservice to your teammates.
5. Know when you are the whale and when you are the minnow.
The way the matchmaker works is not a simple mix of getting 6 players at roughly the same level and putting them in a team. To give a simplified explanation:
If you are a 100 rated player the matchmaker could put you in
- a 50 rated game where your team has 1 x 100, 1 x 75, 2 x 50, 1 x 25, 1 x 0 rated players
- a 100 rated game where your team has 1 x 150, 1 x 125, 2 x 100, 1 x 75, 1 x 50 rated players
- a 150 rated game where your team has 1 x 200, 1 x 175, 2 x 150, 1 x 125, 1 x 100 rated players.
In the 50 rated game you are the whale, in the 150 rated game you are the minnow. You cannot play the same way in both situations. It’s pretty easy to tell if you are the whale or the minnow early in a game based on how easy/hard it is to damage reds and how badly they hit you.
When you are the whale: It is your job to carry the team. Your teammates are less experienced than you and have lower level equipment than you. They need your help. If you are playing BR/Dom and have a personal stat line of 3.4M damage (2M more than the next closest blue), 12 kills and 0 beacons you are the reason why your team lost. Don’t blame your team mates, they were the ones trying to win the game while you ignored the win condition of the game.
When you are the minnow: Your job is to stay alive until the end. Protect beacons, make yourself hard to kill. The reds will see your health bar, but they won’t know you are a squishy target. Provide support to your team mates by using Lockdown, suppression, healing and the like. If you try and push into the center of the melee you will be cut down quickly and leave your team a player short.
6. It is not a sin to play negatively.
Playing positively is playing to win. The HP system rewards you for playing positively e.g. for killing reds, for taking beacons etc. Playing negatively is playing to not lose, to prevent the other team from winning. Playing negatively is not rewarded by the HP system, but can be just as important as playing positively in the right circumstances.
Playing negatively is best when you have a lead on tickets and not a lot of time left. An example from a recent game was I had dropped my Arthur on Moon Base after clearing up a red raid on our A beacon I noticed that we had a ticket lead and about 3 minutes left in the match. So I waddled my Arthur up to the B beacon where I had a good field of fire down to the A beacon and sat there. I knew that the only way the reds could win the game was if they 4 or 5 capped us. By parking my nearly full health Arthur on the B beacon it allowed the rest of my team to do their stuff, but meant the reds had to do a 4 or 5 bot rush on me to even have a chance of a win. If I walked off the beacon it could have allowed a beacon stealer like a Loki, Pursuer or Nightingale to get reds back into the game.
I could have gotten far more personal HP if I had gone chasing reds to kill or beacons to turn, but by playing negatively I did my bit to help the team win, even though I accumulated zero HP in those 3 minutes.
7. Have a plan on how to deal with specific threats.
Some threats like a Ravana, Ares or Leech need no special equipment to deal with, just solid tactics. Know what those tactics are and develop the skill to use them.
Other threats like Lokis or highly leveled French Mings need special equipment, bots or pilot skills. Hoping your team mates can deal with them is not a plan.
We all know Lokis are a late game beacon stealing threat, so have a late drop bot in your hanger that can take care of a Loki (or Pursuer or Nightingale) for your team. For a maxed French Ming you probably won’t have the complete solution yourself but you can have bots that provide a partial solution that can help your team take it down.
For example I run a Rayker in my hanger as a late game drop. It’s agility and glance ability allow it to pester and help my team take down Mings. It is also fast enough to catch Lokis and all the guns are low enough to be brought to bear on a Loki in stealth mode.
8. Every Bot is expendable.
This applies more to BR/Dom than TDM. You have 5 bots and a Titan, most games you’ll time out before you bot out so achieving your win condition is more important than having your bot survive.
Do you hear me Ming pilots? I am talking to you. Also people who drop Flux or Trebuchet Behemoths in BR/Dom games. Sitting back at long range racking up kills and damage does nothing for your team if your opponents can keep a 3-2 beacon advantage going all game.
An example was on Factory. The reds had popped 2 Mings up, both with the big tasers. I jumped in my Arthur and pushed down the home beacon flank. Both Mings floated back to keep me out of 500m range, but I crab walked down the side and they kept floating back and soon enough I had them both backed into the corner at the map limit. Another red then joined in on beating down my Arthur, and it died before reaching the red home beacon, which is what I knew was always going to happen. But what I had done was to tie up half the red team in their home corner for about 3 minutes and in that time the blues went from 2-3 down on beacons to 4-1 up.
Another example was on Springfield. The reds had 3 Ravanas holding the center beacon, and they were doing a good job crushing our attempt to take the center beacon. I waited for 2 of my teammates to come up in position for the next assault and just before they started going in I started flight in my Nightingale and flew to the red’s A beacon. This caused the highest level ravana (after the game I saw it was 2.12 with 2.12 weapons) the one that had done the most damage to our last assault to peel back and chase me, burning all his disco balls to keep pace with me. I was able to get onto the red home beacon and hold it long enough to turn it white, forcing the ravana pilot to come all the way back to turn the beacon red again, which on Springfield is a long way. In the meantime my blue buddies had been able to take the weakened defenses and hold the center beacon.
In BR/Dom you can afford to trade bots for battlefield position. Either taking by beacons or by forcing reds to send a large amount if resources away from the critical beacons. This doesn’t justify Leroy Jenkinsing yourself into the middle of a crowd of reds, they’ll take the quick cheap kill and won’t even break their stride.
9. You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.
Have an appreciation of what each bot in your hanger is capable of and know when is the appropriate situation to bring them out. Many people have a pre-programmed list of when they’ll drop each bot, which is OK. Me, I prefer to drop according to the situation. I usually drop a Nightingale first, but on Canyon I’ll bring out my Fenrir as a first drop and try to wedge him under the bridge and force the reds to come out to play in the open to deal with it. If my team has 3 titans up already I’ll often hold my Arthur back because when you’re the last titan on the field you can do some serious damage.
Knowing the ticket count and battlefield position allows you to choose the best bot for the situation. Sometimes you may want more speed and agility, other times more defensive staying power.
edit to add:
10. Fire for effect
It’s easy to think of effects you apply on reds purely on how they affect your personal duel with that red. However with a bit of situational awareness you can multiply the value of effect by using them to your team’s advantage.
One example is that I use Death Mark on my Loki. While the Loki”s individual firepower is insignificant, I don’t use DM for anything my Loki is engaging. What I do is keep my eyes open for what my blues are engaging, especially Titans. When I see an MG Arthur open up on a red Ming I’ll toss a DM onto the Ming. Another example is using LD ammo on my beacon runners, which I use to lock down red phantoms before they get into beacon circles and to get red Ravanas to burn a disco ball earlier than they had planned to. The aim is to leave the reds either out of the circle and/or vulnerable to blue Phantoms and Ravanas.
Also be aware that having an Ares or Leech activate it’s ability often causes the reds to vacate the vicinity
11. They’re streets not parking lots
One particular bugbear of mine is when blues block paths. I like my Rayker, but there have been many times I’ve lost it because a ‘friendly’ blue walked up behind me and blocked off my escape path. Spider bots are much better at moving sideways and backwards than regular bots, but the principal applies to all. Be aware that the blue who popped out from behind cover may well want to pop back in, so don’t fill in behind it and force it to stand in the open with its pants around its ankles.
If you do want to stand and shoot on a narrow path, (For example the raised ramps on Yam) try to stand to one side of the path so that any blues behind who want to advance can do so.
