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I especially would like to salute especially those few pilots I had the chance to duel with 1on1 during the tournament in honorable combat! Your tenacity, ferocious determination and piloting skill shown through and it was an honor to fight you all.
To all the Dragon aficionados--rejoice! May people never doubt our steeds again.
To the coordinators at PGI--thank you for your efforts in both setting the tournament up and the long hours you put in running the servers. Thank you.
As for the competition itself, I would like to say a few things:
I felt that the format this time around was far better than the last couple of tournaments we have had. Unlike the first one that rewarded quality far above quantity and the second one which had goofy scoring--this third one definitely came closer to showcasing true skill and ability unlike the others. It also wasn't perfect as who would of thought heavy mechs need to carry tag and spot targets? I didn't. Regardless... Why do I feel it took more skill:
a. Your team had to win the match. If they didn't--then you couldn't possibly get all 8 kills/assists. It was paramount that you tried your hardest to make the enemy die. No longer could you run in, touch every enemy and then either suicide in a blaze of glory or quit the game. You had to stick it out and preferably, if your really wanted the game to count--survive til the end. This alone had a huge impact on how it was played. I liked this the best.
b. Tagging with a big mech is HARD! You had to get close to the enemy and expose yourself long enough for the missiles to hit. Yes, you could tag them at the last moment before they hit but still, it required you to reach far outside your comfort zone and put your mech at risk to the enemy.
c. Spotting was also hard and required exposure when you normally wouldn't.
d. 10 best games played. You couldn't play all weekend and expect to come in first just due to racking up points. You had to perfect your game. You had to do it again if you felt you could do better. Sure, people get lucky but to get lucky ten times in a row? Not nearly as likely.
Now, with those points said, there are some things I did not like and feel PGI could have done better/differently...
a. Tag/Narc... doesn't belong on Heavy Mechs. Maybe lights, but not heavies.
b. LRM spotting after an LRM nerf? This required luck more than anything. Not to get an assist--but to get players on your team with LRMs! I remember many a game sighing to myself as I looked at my teammates, asking them if they had missiles only to get a no from them. This alone was a big problem with the tournament and did not reward skill so much as it was more dependent on the luck of the draw.
c. ELO bracketing or lack of. The tournament grouped everyone together in one group. However, some of us have very high ELO scores (or at least we /think/ we do). Who knows. In the future, it might be good to have PGI bracket us within our ELO category and compete against like-ranked warriors. This may or may not be possible but it is worth considering. At the high end of the ELO ladder the battles can be very intense... or not so much. When they aren't, it is when you get a lot of rookies on a team versus a lot of good or above average players. This typically results in being rolled and isn't fun for anyone--both the winners and the losers.
d. Perhaps in the future base points on a combination of match score / kills / assists / damage done (to a lesser degree) and if you team won/lost. I think having a mechanic in the system that requires you to influence your team to victory will prevent a lot of farming that we have seen in the past. Probably also contain a heavier weighting towards match score as well.
e. I'd love to see a 1on1 tournament of some sorts. Long gone are the days of honorable dueling. It was a time-honored tradition back in the day in both Mechwarrior 2 and 3 that Warriors would test themselves versus others with only their mech and weaponry and noone else. If not a tournament, a ladder perchance. I know Mechwarrior has /always/ been about team play in leagues, but a great number of us from the old days value the thrill of the duel above all other. It is an amazing test of a pilots stamina and focus. This of course would require pre-arranged games, a lobby or ability to drop solo versus a solo combatant...
and, with that said...
f. A tournament of teams, say 4 man or 8 man.
I'm sure I'll think of more ideas later but those suffice for now.
I had a blast; it was fun, intense and exhilarating at times. Other times, it was frustrating, trying and defeating. In the end, though, I had a great time and I hope everyone else did too.
Oh, and a little bit about Clan Star Adder, otherwise known as CSA:
We are a long-time clan dating back to 1997 and fought in Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries through every single iteration afterwards including Mechwarrior 3 and 4. We fought in ADL/NBT/M3CL etc. and held titles in all of them. We're older farts (some of us) that like having fun in giant robots. We've been known as CSA/JF in Mechwarrior 2 and 3 and in Mechwarrior 4 we fought as Wolf Clan in NBT/ADL.
We are an invite-only Clan with a rigid Trial of Entry requirement through blooded combat. We do, however, have open Clan night every Wednesday and Friday from 9 PM EDT to 3 AM EDT and beyond and can be found on the North American Comstar TeamSpeak server for these occasions. Info for them is here:
http://mwomercs.com/...ful-info-links/
Feel free to stop by and drop with us if you'd like someone to group up with and check us out on these nights.
Our forums are at http://hpg.clanstaradder.com
I'd like to shout-out to our long-time friends in the original Clan Hells Horses, dating back to 1996 run by Dark Delaurel and Mr_Humble. It's been a long road but it is awesome to still have old-school clans and guys around.
And lastly, I'd like to shout-out to anyone and everyone I've known over these years in the Mechwarrior community. Not just the Warriors, but also all the league admins that have dared to put up with us like The Joker, Di Kerensky, Viking, Dark Phoenix and others I may have missed. This niche group is a home like no other. We, the fellow players and warriors--we ARE MechWarrior.
Thanks everyone. I look forward to battling again.
Edited by Mister Blastman, 26 March 2013 - 09:57 PM.
) as I could only put in about 30-40 games during the weekend, and while I had a lot of good games well you need those perfect games to win and you can't get them by playing so little. The winners must have put in hundreds of games to get those 10 perfect games, and with only 2 days time to get them, it feels like a hardcore no-life-for-the-weekend contest again. No chance for those who can't play so much. They should really run these contest for a whole week.
