Massed vs formations

General discussion about Game Play

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Doncommie
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Massed vs formations

Postby Doncommie » Sat Oct 18, 2008 11:42 am

Originally I thought formations were superior to a blob of multiwinians but I am having a lot of second doubts about them. When heavily using formations I frequently lost to massed multiwinians which seemed the opposite of what I was expecting.

I believe that grenades give a large advantage to massed multiwinians. A grenade against a mass is only likely to kill a couple but against a formation they can be lethal, wiping out up to half of the entire formation in one go. The massed group can dodge easily but the formation makes no effort at all. It also looks like masses throw grenades way more often than formations.

Is there really much use to formations, except against viruses? I'm playing games without using them at all and not having any problems.
RabidZombie
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Postby RabidZombie » Sat Oct 18, 2008 12:36 pm

I always use a combination of them when attacking or defending.

The biggest thing about formations is to not let get to close to their target, and never have them facing away.
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Feud
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Postby Feud » Sat Oct 18, 2008 5:01 pm

They are pretty good for holding choke points, like a radar dish.
Cyan.
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Postby Cyan. » Sat Oct 18, 2008 5:30 pm

I agree that formations are not really helpfull. Sure you can use them to block choke points, kill spawns, place them on a mountain or micromanage them in the beginning, but attacking at large with your formations is not a smart idea in general.

So in an, even, large batle I rarely use them. Like you said grenades just seem to powerfull sometimes.
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Postby mehoo462 » Sat Oct 18, 2008 9:25 pm

formations alone aren't that hot.

They are best for optimizing firepower of very large mobs. When you have a LOT of multiwinians, some of them will get into the fray and throw grenades and shoot lasers, others will run away or meander around. Use a formation to make sure you get more DGs focused on the fighting. This way you've still got a mob lobbing grenades, and a more solid line of laser shooting guys giving some backbone to the masses.


Small formations are completely useless. Formations alone are dubious. The best use of formations is when you've got enough guys to create a large formation and still have a bunch left over to lob grenades.
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Postby Qjet » Sun Oct 19, 2008 2:52 am

ive noticed this behaviour a few times so i figured i would mention it

I don't fully understand how MW decide if they are going to throw grenades / fire rockets

however it seems that when that when those conditions arrive in formation, they patiently wait till formation ends, and THEN do it. The really fun part about this is that more then one of them do it at once... typically 4-6 will do it at once... which is quiet frankly hilarious. Especially with rocketwinians.
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Postby TheRileyDuo » Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:55 am

Maybe Introversion can work out some AI where the formation MWGs can still run away from grenades, but they run at formation speed (2/3 normal speed). I find that I stop using formations becuase when a grenade is thrown at them, they just sit there and take the full force of it.

That beeing said, you can never defeat a formation on a higher elevation than you with just un organized multiwinians, because grenades are heavily affected by elevaion.
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bert_the_turtle
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Postby bert_the_turtle » Sun Oct 19, 2008 10:30 am

With a single right click, you can cancel your formation when a grenade is thrown at it. Chances are they'll even throw grenades back.
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Postby supersheep » Sun Oct 19, 2008 6:21 pm

A tactic I've been using against formations is to formation up your MWs, march them into the other formation and when they're about 1/3 inside the max formation firing radius, right-click and undo the formation. 90% of the time about 5-10 of your MWs will throw grenades right into the heart of the enemy formation, killing most of them.

I've beaten formations twice or three times the size of mine using this method.

Grenade throwing behaviour in MWs is really hard to figure out - but a change from formation to massed seems to "wake up" the algorithm.
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Johnis
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Postby Johnis » Sun Oct 19, 2008 6:24 pm

thnx supership for the info . forums is great to learn things also .
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Shwart!!
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Postby Shwart!! » Sun Oct 19, 2008 8:00 pm

Comment (as somehow it's not been mentioned here): Formations never fire grenades/rockets. That is intentional.

Shwart!!
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Postby Robo Pope » Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:01 pm

Yes, Sending Multiwinians out of formation mode (after being in it) "wakes them up" and they throw a multitude of greandes.

The way i know this is that on the Great tree (King of the hill) a yellow formation and blue formation where firing at eacother with no clear outcome ( standing in the outer ring of the tree score zone) so I launched an airstrike on the Yellow commander, the bombs blew him up and imediatly all the yellow MWG's started lobbing greandes at the blues, the blues gunned down all the yellows and then where anhilated by the grenades.

so yes, moving them in and then disbanding them is a good tactic.
Doncommie
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Postby Doncommie » Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:51 pm

Shwart!! wrote:Comment (as somehow it's not been mentioned here): Formations never fire grenades/rockets. That is intentional.

Shwart!!


Which is a huge disadvantage.

Massed
* PROS *
- Can't be flanked.
- Move faster.
- Use grenades/rockets which sometimes change the tides of battles.
- Avoid grenades.

* CONS *
- Less laser firepower.
- Don't arrive at the same time.

Formations
* PROS *
- Arrive at the same time.
- More laser fire power.
- Powerful when above enemy.

* CONS *
- Don't use grenades/rockets.
- Can be flanked.
- Highly vulnerabile to grenades.
- Move slowly.

Overall I think massed is superior except when on a hill. Using grenades/rockets, higher movement speed, lack of vulnerability to flanking and being resistant to all but lucky grenades make them far better.

Formation may be better in rage and shields but that only randomly and rarely occurs.
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xander
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Postby xander » Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:41 pm

Doncommie wrote:Overall I think massed is superior except when on a hill. Using grenades/rockets, higher movement speed, lack of vulnerability to flanking and being resistant to all but lucky grenades make them far better.

Formation may be better in rage and shields but that only randomly and rarely occurs.

You continue to believe that massed DGs are superior. Just try to take my spawn points -- I will chew you up with my formations. There are times when formations are far superior to a mass of DGs. There are times when a mob is superior to a formation. Part of playing the game is knowing when to use what resource.

xander
Doncommie
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Postby Doncommie » Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:52 pm

Such as?

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