I didnt read through the thread in detail but i have been noticing alot of 'do this do that/stay hidden/stay moving' that kindof implies you must keep doing it no matter what, sorry if i am taking that out of context but to be productive about it I just wanted to add a tip or two about the hologram and how I use it often and to touch on behaviour and playstyles a bit that can be applied to the SS as well, apologese if someones already mentioned this.
this applies to anything really with games, games that have things like holograms just give you an extra tool, i always play rogue/stealth/sabotuer type classes as often as i can and im finding it alot of fun with the sharpshooter as i think it relies on dissuading aggressors while supporting your team with ranged sabot/slug fire which is a healthy mix of straight up combat and mindgames - but I think the original SS motto quote describes it best. Infiltrator is the other mech I play a lot for fast stealthy hit and run, and all my mechs use Hologram or Radar jammer and heavily invest points in the Movement tree with an emphasis on reducing radar detection, but anyway - to the point;
- exploit peoples tendencies to 'expect behaviour' or predict patterns in your playstyle.
When you do something often enough, people catch on, you can use this to your advantage when changing it up or making it look like you're not at all, the biggest one is when people habitually build expectations of others simply by looking at their scores or the overall score of their team, and these expectations are further built on as they play against you and start picking up on your habits. Rank and file you are categorized from the beginning and it is well worth understanding that and exploiting it to your opponents dismay.
When you're dropping holograms all the time, regular players will expect this tactic from you more often, while its risky, you can use yourself as a 'hologram' instead to change it up, note that a hologram mimics your torso movement but not your overall movement, staying still and simply turning in an odd direction ive managed to successfully fool a few people with even while directly looking at them. Like the trick with dropping your turret within your actual hologram you can confuse the hell out of people doing things like this by dropping it beneath yourself instead of the 'actual' hologram, making yourself the obvious target and your hologram the less-obvious one, some peeps are inclined to think the less obvious is the real target which is not always what happens.
Opening fire paints you on the map pretty quickly, so some players are reluctant to immediately fire if they suspect a hologram if they're in an awkward/open position, gives you a small but valuable window to line up a boosted sabot/slug shot nicely even in close quarters as they have a 'second take' moment walking toward you.
Ofcourse, it wont work every time, but in short, i find that most people espescially the experienced ones are habitually looking for patterns in behaviour and playstyle and tends to work better against experienced players, and its well worth keeping this in mind, the 'well i dodge left all the time, this time ill dodge right' is a basic example of this, this particular way of using the hologram can be another trick in your repertoire to further to build on the confusion and add an element of trickery for any skill level player.
- Not one playstyle is going to work for every situation, so the idea of constantly moving may not always be suitable for a given situation like I outlined above, SOMETIMES, standing can still mess with peoples heads and gives you an opportunity, the tips and tricks offered though are still valuable and certainly worth considering, what im trying to say is 'dont stop there'. They can be regarded as guides rather than rules, including what I say here, as you can take these guides and apply it to every situation of every type of skilled player and still fall into the usual debates of 'well theyre newbs, wait till you play against a REAL team' etc.
Most people build expectations to predict playstyles and opponents descisions in those frantic moments of CQC or ranged duels so that what theyre thinking is decided within the few short seconds of a fight and doesnt turn into one of those terrible animes where theyre talking to themselves in a profound kind of way about how their opponent tricked them with some long-winded deeply rooted philosphical diareha, their decisions are already made up for them on the given situation, if they dont know the player(s), its russian roulette at that point, but they atleast still have strategies to fall back on that MAY work.
Try to be creative with how you use the tools given to you, and be an opportunist even if someone on the opposition calls you a backdooring cloaking hacking dodging cowardly running two-faced fuzzy bunny for whatever reason.
An example of that is deliberately leading persuers into other mechs that will engage them for you hopefully without them realizing or simply being forced to stop and engage the other mech, letting you recoupe and possibly net both kills (this is more for DM though). When you're playing in a team though, dont let your team pick up your mess, keep in touch with em, the Z shortcut is great in a pinch for letting your teammates know you need help instead of just leading persuers right onto them, but you should be working with them regardless.
on a side note; SamSlades example of actually getting in close to exploit the lack of splash damage is a great use of thinking outside the square as well, people dont expect snipers to be hugging you and its true that most players frequently push their mechs into overheat in the frantic tangle of CQC, ive done this before espescially with people using shields to repair in and the slug rifle is actually really reliable here.
Edited by Woobins, December 18 2012 - 08:09 PM.
7
