mech strategy - should i stop

[Delandra]

Hi all,

The seeker and defensive AI make the mechs travel a specific path.
This means that two mechs may occasionally [often] occupy the same square
and travel in lock-step, allowing two mechs to attack the same opponent.

If the mechs start separated and the first mech is slowed down by engaging other mechs
then the following mech eventually catches the first mech.

As other mechs are introduced to the arena the delay between the lock-lock stepped mechs increases
until there is a straggler. Once the straggler is engaged/defeated then the first mech has no additional advantage.

The mechs do accrue VPs and so become good targets.. but until they separate they are difficult to win against.

I have been using this feature often. Is it fair and should I stop?
Does it turn people away from entering the arena?

Interested in peoples opinion..

thanks
Del

[Diarri]

Hi Delandra,
I appreciate you asking about it. I guess, if it's not against the rules, no one can actually tell you to stop, and, as well, there's no way of stopping anyone else using this strategy (I have to admit I didn't even know it was because of AI). If you're asking about personal experience, I can say that yes, it's turning me away from the mech arena. I had many times stopped myself from sending mechs in this situation, knowing that they can only be a cannon-fodder and loss of money/resources/Sven points.

[Delandra]

when these last mechs die i will try something different

[give someone else a chance to gangup on my mechs ...]

Del

[Grumpy Old Drunk]

I went to try mech combat and was warned to not bother until this doubling up exploit/bug/feature was sorted out. I will wait

[Zoorland]

For actual years I put Defensive AI on my Thumper mechs on Charlie. That's not an exaggeration - years. In all that time I never saw them clump up like they do now until the most recent December Mech Event. This new behavior is, well, new. And baffling. I doubt Coops would intentionally make a change like this, yet somehow it's happening now and it didn't before. Now, this has been a possibility forever with Seeker AI, it just takes a lot more work to get them to stack as you have to keep withdrawing/re-entering until you get one to literally land on top of the other. But the very first time I ever saw it happen with Defensive AI was when my own two Thumpers grouped up on Charlie in the first few days of the last Mech Event.

Still, the Defensive AIs do act like that now, and yes, anyone could match that strategy if they so chose. We could do it now to try and counter your mechs (I tried for a while but our mutual Defensive AI seemed to keep our two groups from ever actually meeting in battle so I gave up on it). Even if you stop there's no guarantee that someone else wouldn't just start doing it.

So should stop? Eh. I'm not the person to ask questions like that because in general I'm a self-righteous ass and I'll always say yes, but I can at least throw this in - it does discourage me from entering the arena when your (or anyone's) mechs are stacked like that simply because I am not in the business of throwing away mechs. Because while it absolutely is possible to win against stacked mechs, it is also very, very unlikely, and anything I drop is almost certain to die a wasted and hopeless death.

[Delandra]

Coops? Has there been a change in the defensive AI ?

Can they be changed to have a random movement instead of always doing the same movement based on the current square?

The stacking up appears to be way too easy now ..

thanks
Del

[Delandra]

i have removed one of my mechs from each of the arenas.. so no more stacking of defensive AIs for me..

now i have to workout a different strategy ...

cheers
Del

[aRJay]

Stacking isn't an unbeatable problem at the moment, but it is a discouragement, when it will be an issue is if all the Staff mechs stack themselves at the next event.

[Coops]

Folks... There is NOTHING NEW here, no changes, no magical elves or mysteries. If Mechs with the same AI and dropped from the same account are left unattended and are not attacked or bothered they WILL eventually fall in step. Always been that way its just simply many players are currently NOT playing because they want to see what I do with the VP points system.

This has led to a lone grouping of mechs in some of the Zones. This happens ALL the time, we see it often, should you not have spotted it before no harm no foul you just 'ain't been there' to see it.

There is no bug there is no issue there is nothing to resolve - Get on with it guys enter the mech zone and kick Delandra's ass that's all there is too it.

Coops

[PrimeMcNee]

Indeed this is how mechs behave if they don't find opponents or bump unto walls.

In a way the community helped Delandra team up her mechs, because you all didn't drop enough mechs to counter this.
So like in RAID combat: If you can't beat it on your own, team up and go for it!