HERE, you say....
"But, if you fly/merge poorly and present me with a shot, well, I may pass on it, but not without a twinge of guilt, and a disinterest in the rest of the fight. For me, that fight is already over, and you lost... Who cares about the fight to follow? You blew it on the merge." which means you "may not" and most likely 'will not" as in your belief it cheapens the fight by ignoring a shot to end it. ....or am I reading that wrong?
Ah, OK, my fault for not being clear enough. I can see how that could be misunderstood.
By "may" I mean I would pass on the shot, but that by passing on it I may give you the wrong impression on how I feel about it (i.e. you may think that I see your merge as appropriate/legitimate/etc...). I wouldn't take the shot simply because it isn't/wasn't in my "plan" (I never enter a fight expecting that my opponent will make it so easy to beat him, although I always suspect he'll be looking for a quick way to beat me).
"I may pass on it" might be better replaced with some version of "luckily for you, I'll pass on the shot"?
So, for clarity, I would pass on taking that shot 100% of the time. But, I'd feel guilty about it because it would allow you to think that you were fighting in an effective manner, or that our "fight" (boy, I hate using that word in a non-ho-allowed description) was at all realistic or "honest".
By passing on that shot, I'd consider myself "guilty by association" to reducing the overall quality of fights in the game. I'd pass on it (and do so gobs and gobs and gobs of times), but feel I was in the wrong for doing so. I'd consider it cheating, or more accurately maybe, allowing my opponent to cheat on me without my saying anything about it. All legitimacy to the fight will be gone for me by that point (the merge).
No I can't. By allowing the HO and "most" people using it as their main move, it's like telling me the first 10 moves your going to make when we play a game of chess. I'm already ahead and feel like I cheated. Without the HO it will force players to try AND use other move thereby putting me in a position to have to guess more about what I should do to get the upper hand in the fight. With the HO enabled I already start almost every fight with the upper hand.
I agree that putting yourself in harms way is stupid, however that doesn't seem to apply to most players these days. A vast majority of players will take that chance, push the odds, roll those dice just for the kill and it is their main,number one, favorite move. In most cases I'm sure they will even admit it is a poor percentage move if you ask them, but the need for the "kill" out ways the need to avoid the HO for them. Better cartoon pilot like you and mtnman know how to avoid the HO and exploit those that use it. I just think it has become a crutch for many new players as it does work to get kills, so why bother to learn any other moves.
I don't see evidence of the prevalence of this when I play. Sure, some guys go for it. Some don't know any better, some don't care, etc... The best way to teach them there's a better option is to show them it doesn't/shouldn't work that well. If it works, why
wouldn't they continue using it? If players are dragging the "non-ho" mentality into the game, they're making the HO more effective (and therefore probably increasing its prevalence) than it should be, simply because they're not defending against it adequately.
As a personal example of that... I had (occasionally) people train with me where (when I'd start out with a basic merge to appraise their skill) they'd ask "guns cold on the merge?". I'd always respond with "What??!! Heck no! If you feel like shooting at me, or think you can hit me, feel free!". Why would I do that? Simple... I knew that they could try to HO me as often as they wanted, and there was no way in heck they'd come away from our session feeling like that was going to be an effective option when it came to fighting a skilled pilot. I had guys try it on me, repeatedly, and of course it didn't work. The beauty of it is that
they proved to themselves that it didn't work, because they tried it, and it didn't work. Then I showed them some tactics that
do work. The ones that didn't try it were still left with the knowledge that they could try for it if they desired, but that I wasn't fazed by it and was very confident that it wasn't a tactic that would work on me...
Had I told them to go with a "cold merge" they'd have been left thinking that there was a reason I'd asked for no-ho's... Why could that be? Was an HO-pass a chink in MtnMan's armor? One that could be exploited if they didn't realize quick success with the more complex methods I taught? And if it works on MtnMan, will it work as well on others? Is it the easy answer to winning in the MA?
In that light, by "allowing" it, I was dissuading them from using it, while, had I disallowed it, I might have encouraged its use (later). Beyond that, had I taught them guns-cold merges I'd have been doing them a disservice when it comes to MA-fights. If I'm going to teach them, I want to do it right, rather than show them a gimmick or method that will only work under certain circumstances. I'd have made them more susceptible to being HO'ed in the MA, and contributed to the "HOing is effective" theory.
To the "first 10 moves" comment I'd say the same thing about the non-HO-allowed merge... Dive to the deck, pass side-by-side, and pull up... The non-HO merge is one of the most "scripted" fights possible.
