110 replies to this topic

[Onebullit]

I didn't read the entire first post yet so if this is already mentioned, ignore it.

I use an alarm to warn me from enemies that want to close in on you.
But you have to place it right so it won't shoot at everything.

The alarm is my MG Turret.
If placed good it will only warn you when you need to be warned.

Edited by Onebullit, April 02 2013 - 09:26 AM.

[Guiotine]

LG_Bongo, on April 02 2013 - 06:56 AM, said:

Some ideas I would like to share:
1. Double fire should become second nature, it maximizes damage output and frees the mind from thinking which gun should be used now. When sabot is ready, zoom in and double fire.
2. Do not jump when in combat. Ever. Use boosters only to relocate or reach higher ground.
Not sure whether it was mentioned:
3. When facing good SS, take a shot and relocate right away. He'll be waiting for you to come around that corner, the idea is to come around completely different corner and catch him off guard. SS duels like this are the most entertaining IMO. It becomes flanking and guessing competition.
4. When in tight space against SS, use hologram to make him waste his sabot shot. Place it next to you so when he comes out first thing he sees are two SS, 50/50 he'll waste his shot on the wrong one...

Thoughts, opinions_

Excellent, I added it to the OP

Onebullit, on April 02 2013 - 09:25 AM, said:

I didn't read the entire first post yet so if this is already mentioned, ignore it.

I use an alarm to warn me from enemies that want to close in on you.
But you have to place it right so it won't shoot at everything.

The alarm is my MG Turret.
If placed good it will only warn you when you need to be warned.

There are mentions of the turret in the OP, not sure if some were in the context of an alarm though. Added to the OP.

Thank you both for the contribution

[LG_Bongo]

This post is not strictly related to SS tips and tricks, it is a reflection on SS role and what people think of it. Bear in mind this is a point of view.

I started noticing an increasing number of SS haters. I usually see comments like "f*g", "g*y", "noob", "camper", etc. My favorite so far is "All people playing SS should die in real life"...full of emotion this one.

My natural response would be: "if Hawken is too hard, try Tetris", but this leads nowhere. So why do people hate SS_

I find most SS haters play CQC mechs like Bruiser, Rocketeer or Berserker. For them Hawken is about jumping head first into the fight and exploding everything around them in a hectic onslaught. It's fun, no doubt. So when their mech suddenly explodes with message "Downed by Sabot", they get frustrated. This way of playing is quite mindless however, since little tactics is involved, it becomes more about reaction and finger twitching skills then anything else. Of course one can argue that CQC is THE ONLY RIGHT way to play Hawken but I think Hawken designers had something else in mind.

Presence of SS on the field adds elements of awareness and realism. Suddenly you have to become more AWARE of where you are and what you are doing. Suddenly the game becomes more REAL then arcade like, since you constantly need to think before jumping. It shapes your combat behavior. You begin to seek cover. You are more careful about where and when you fight. Coordinating with your team becomes a necessity. Now take SS away and what you get is a typical CQC shooter, instead of interesting and tactical game. If CQC shooter is what you want and Hawken is not it, so you complain, let's face it: this game might not be for you. If you get "Sabot downed" all the time, you are not paying attention.

So to all SS haters out there: I invite you to read the OP carefully, play SS for some time and understand how tricky and non-trivial it can be. I choose to believe that Hawken is more then CQC mess, but rather a tactical game, and the role of SS is making it so.

Now all that said, I have to agree that campers, loners, kill thieves are annoying. So to everyone playing SS I would recommend following several game-play standards. This way your SS will annoy people less.
1. Support your team by weakening your opponents, not by finishing the almost dead ones.
2. Don't camp, follow your team. Sitting in one spot and surveying one location renders you useless to everyone.
3. If you see SS on enemy team, it is your job to counter him. Make him worry about you, this will relieve your team from worrying about him.

Edited by LG_Bongo, April 02 2013 - 11:29 AM.

[Kryptic57]

This was a really good read, but where is the Reaper version

[Onebullit]

Kryptic57, on April 02 2013 - 12:54 PM, said:

This was a really good read, but where is the Reaper version

Guiotine's fingers are probably exhausted from typing the first post.
The Reaper imo is more usefull in cqc, the SS too but when it's needed.
Also, i don't optimise the Reaper like the SS (offensive tree), and go for the Armor and Speed tree instead.
For the rest, i think you can use the tips given on this thread for your Reaper too.

[Kryptic57]

Yes but I think it's different enough. For example which is the better choice the AM-SAR or the Hawkins RPR_ Going by stats it would seem that the AM-SAR is actually stronger. Personally I haven't been able to pick a clear winner between the two. Also the KE-Sabot seems like it would benefit far less from improved secondary tree/upgrades but again it's hard to tell.

[Taerkasten]

LG_Bongo, on April 02 2013 - 11:25 AM, said:

I started noticing an increasing number of SS haters. I usually see comments like "f*g", "g*y", "noob", "camper", etc. My favorite so far is "All people playing SS should die in real life"...full of emotion this one.

Well is not only the SS receiving hate, it's everything on the game, theres people than hate every mech, when someone uses a scout the next quote is "Damn with the scout" and if theres a raider or any other mech the complain will continue, and soon the technician will be on the hate list

This is a game, the purpose is entertain and having fun, so the only thing than the person than gets frustated with the game is an heart attack and a bad time.

[WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW]

LG_Bongo, on April 02 2013 - 06:56 AM, said:

Some ideas I would like to share:
1. Double fire should become second nature, it maximizes damage output and frees the mind from thinking which gun should be used now. When sabot is ready, zoom in and double fire.
2. Do not jump when in combat. Ever. Use boosters only to relocate or reach higher ground.
Not sure whether it was mentioned:
3. When facing good SS, take a shot and relocate right away. He'll be waiting for you to come around that corner, the idea is to come around completely different corner and catch him off guard. SS duels like this are the most entertaining IMO. It becomes flanking and guessing competition.
4. When in tight space against SS, use hologram to make him waste his sabot shot. Place it next to you so when he comes out first thing he sees are two SS, 50/50 he'll waste his shot on the wrong one...

Thoughts, opinions_

Addressing your points:

1) I agree.

2) I disagree. Learn to give your jump button a tap that will cause your mech to hop for a fraction of a second. This is most useful when you are forward dashing because upon stopping your dash normally, your mech will go through an animation that disables firing. By hopping to stop your forward dash, you can fire immediately.

Overall though, jumping (and hovering) are highly situational and are more about mind games. E.g. I had once cornered two mechs - one of them was a Raider. I was able to kill the non-Raider mech with the help of my ally, but my ally died shortly thereafter, leaving me and the Raider alone near a corner in a CQC situation, both with about 200 HP. I slammed myself into the Raider to minimize the distance between us and jumped literally on top of him, hovering above him. He was disoriented and I was able to kill him without dying.

3) I agree. Also, most times, when fighting an SS, it is inadvisable to wait for him to pop out in order to react - you will lose the reaction game because when he dashes out of cover, he is completely focused on twitch-firing at the first sight of an enemy. If you can get into a position he does not expect and wait for him to pop out, then feel free to wait.

This is, in the end, a mind game, specifically in CQC.

4) I agree to some extent. It depends on how well the SS evaluates you as a player. In any case, having your back turned while being beside your hologram is a dead giveaway if you are alone - however, it may buy you a fraction of a second to escape by side-dashing or otherwise obstructing his LOS.

My own tip for other SS in CQC:

If you are in CQC and are not able to outplay your opponent normally by peekaboo (or you know you will not be able to), it is a fair idea to take control of the fight by charging into your opponent and fighting within breath distance, i.e. you and your opponent are close enough to jump on top of each other.

So long as you are the one forcing your opponent to react and turn toward you while keeping your own crosshairs on him, you have control of the flow of the battle and can fight with a deceptively small advantage. Doing this, you can buy yourself a small amount of time to attack with your Slug and wait for your Sabot to reload.

However, at this point, the battle will almost certainly be decided by the accuracy of your next Sabot round, especially if your opponent has health equal to or greater than yours. Hence why this is a desperate tactic.

[Onebullit]

Kryptic57, on April 02 2013 - 08:17 PM, said:

Yes but I think it's different enough. For example which is the better choice the AM-SAR or the Hawkins RPR_ Going by stats it would seem that the AM-SAR is actually stronger. Personally I haven't been able to pick a clear winner between the two. Also the KE-Sabot seems like it would benefit far less from improved secondary tree/upgrades but again it's hard to tell.

That's a good question.  I personaly like the Hawkins RPR, AM-SAR is a index finger hater imo.
Anyway, when you reach lvl 25 you realy want to use the Slug rifle!
You need to focus on making your mechs faster and stronger (body), you will benefit more from the defensive and the movement tree.
There are many topics on, how to optimise your mechs the best way possible here on the forum,
but i don't have the time to search right now.

[WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW]

LG_Bongo, on April 02 2013 - 11:25 AM, said:

Now all that said, I have to agree that campers, loners, kill thieves are annoying. So to everyone playing SS I would recommend following several game-play standards. This way your SS will annoy people less.
1. Support your team by weakening your opponents, not by finishing the almost dead ones.
2. Don't camp, follow your team. Sitting in one spot and surveying one location renders you useless to everyone.
3. If you see SS on enemy team, it is your job to counter him. Make him worry about you, this will relieve your team from worrying about him.

1) Dead enemies do not deal damage - finishing off enemies is usually a good thing. The principle is to focus fire to bring down enemies as quickly as possible in order to minimine their damage output. Although it may be good to do this in order to increase the public's opinion, it is optimal to kill enemies as quickly as possible.

2) I completely agree. This only works in newbie games.

3) Side note: This depends on how good the enemy SS is. If he is a mediocre player, do not worry as much, because often such an SS will be hanging back and camping and sniping - and as such, falling into case 2, i.e. being mostly useless.

[Un3thical]

We don't need any more sharp shooters as it is
they just ruin the fun for me.

[mechpilot6666]

Game must have changed alot if SS's are being considered a fun ruiner, used to be kind of an easy class to blow up and an extremely hard one to master....

Also defeating the holo decoy trick just takes a round from the secondary, no need to waste a Sabot on it. Just a tip for defeating a tactic.

Miss blowing all of you up just a couple more weeks until I'm back on a computer that can run a game. Then I will see how awesome they have made my already awesome SS.

[LG_Bongo]

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, on April 02 2013 - 09:00 PM, said:

2) I disagree. Learn to give your jump button a tap that will cause your mech to hop for a fraction of a second. This is most useful when you are forward dashing because upon stopping your dash normally, your mech will go through an animation that disables firing. By hopping to stop your forward dash, you can fire immediately.

This is awesome, I had no idea you could do that.

Overall, however, I find jumping is an act of desperation, since SS is more effective at a distance.

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, on April 02 2013 - 09:53 PM, said:

1) Dead enemies do not deal damage - finishing off enemies is usually a good thing. The principle is to focus fire to bring down enemies as quickly as possible in order to minimine their damage output. Although it may be good to do this in order to increase the public's opinion, it is optimal to kill enemies as quickly as possible.

This is an interesting point, I do agree and I think overall strategy here should depend on situation. Few more things I would like to mention.
1. Health has an effect on player's combat behavior. You have to agree that player with low health is more likely to retreat or adopt defensive tactics (unless he really does not care about dying or is really superior to his opponents). So in many cases you can safely assume that almost dead mech is on the verge of running away which makes him less dangerous. Consequently putting more mechs in this situation, by cutting their full health is demoralizing.
2. Damage dealt to almost dead mech is often smaller then full health one. So in the spirit of maximizing the damage, finishing off is not optimal.
3. Very often a low health mech is a result of concentrated fire, meaning it will be dead very soon anyway. If you finish him, players who were aiming and firing at him will need to find their next target. There is a delay before they do that, during which enemy has the advantage.

Edited by LG_Bongo, April 03 2013 - 06:46 AM.

[Guiotine]

Updated with a new layout thanks to LG_Bongo

[PatchouliKnowledge]

Being someone who focused on SS since Alpha (because I don't like moving much), I have to throw this on the first post...

Be aware of your surroundings. It doesn't matter what place you are, how high, how low, remember all the vantage points.

Second a sniper who stays in a spot where he will only be spotted from the area he's aiming for is a bad camper, that's the usual Shotgun + Sniper tactic. If you are aware of the map, you'll notice even the slightest movement 500m away, zoom in and shoot (if it's an enemy). It helps being twitchy on the zoom.

Third, hologram can be overrated, know how to spot what is a hologram:

1) The name of the hologram is very dark in red instead of bright red
2) The hologram will never give you a hit
3) The hologram isn't a wall
4) The hologram does not twitch at all

What does 3 mean_ Learn to spot actual "anomalies" in the hologram, I've seen people drop a hologram then walk back away from it for a bit, thinking that they aren't seen...welp, think again.

Also I've noted a few changes since Alpha, it's not very rare with the newer units that a single slug + sabot fire from my lvl 5 sharpshooter (I started OBT late :I ) would lose almost 4/5ths of their HP, try softening up targets with 1-2 slug rounds (depending on target, others can't be softened up with slug rounds...not at my level anyway) first before going for a kill to lull them in a sense of false security.

Oh and if you spot anything running away, do try to secure that kill. A dead player waiting for respawn is much safer than a player that got under cover and is repairing.

I'm still trying to get a modest amount of points so I really don't know what optimizations can go with each style...Somehow I'm not even sure how good they are seeing I've been racking up "Underdog" points lately, guess all that Alpha practice carried over. (killing a LvL24 mech on my lvl 5/6 SS is just ridiculous, even more when I take out my Lv4 recruit)

[mechpilot6666]

I know this is a necrobump but I was wondering if any of this still holds true. I haven't played since last decemberish.

[Zaxik]

mechpilot6666, on February 19 2014 - 01:30 AM, said:

I know this is a necrobump but I was wondering if any of this still holds true. I haven't played since last decemberish.

SS atm is all about standing still as far as possible and mashing both mouse buttons. You really don't need anything else to succeed.

[LG_Bongo]

mechpilot6666, on February 19 2014 - 01:30 AM, said:

I know this is a necrobump but I was wondering if any of this still holds true. I haven't played since last decemberish.

Overall the game play didn't change. Tactics described above are still valid. Few noticeable tweaks:
1. Armor was nerfed. Fights are quicker.
2. No vertical offset while walking or flying. Bullets fly straight. (of course Sabot becomes very inaccurate past certain distance)
3. There is an internal that allows to dodge in air.

[mechpilot6666]

Yeah been playing with it for a few hours the past couple days. Kinda liking it but I do miss the old style. I would love if my fuzzy bunny Damage boost ability would work also. Throwing out 10-12k damage a match without it I cant wait to see what happens with it.

[AsianJoyKiller]

Zaxik, on February 19 2014 - 06:50 AM, said:

mechpilot6666, on February 19 2014 - 01:30 AM, said:

I know this is a necrobump but I was wondering if any of this still holds true. I haven't played since last decemberish.

SS atm is all about standing still as far as possible and mashing both mouse buttons. You really don't need anything else to succeed.

Sounds like you play a bad SS.