17 replies to this topic

[Ace Selin]

This is relating to Faction Warfare.

Does anyone know the breakdown of people committing to each faction (%).

Is there a house where most people tend to choose (seems like Steiner / Davion to me).

Has PGI mentioned these stats?

(Personally im happy being a merc, but may choose a house due to FW (when it eventually comes around) has been stated will cater to the house loyalists first so id like to be a part of that action - im thinking Marik or Davion personally.)

[C E Dwyer]

Ace Selin, on 10 January 2014 - 11:03 AM, said:

This is relating to Faction Warfare.

Does anyone know the breakdown of people committing to each faction (%).

Is there a house where most people tend to choose (seems like Steiner / Davion to me).

Has PGI mentioned these stats?

(Personally im happy being a merc, but may choose a house due to FW (when it eventually comes around) has been stated will cater to the house loyalists first so id like to be a part of that action - im thinking Marik or Davion personally.)

Well what will happen is one house will start winning more than most, people in the houses they claimed unwavering loyalty to, will quit because they want to be in the 'winning' house, because they're shallow people, making the pvp even more unbalanced, and the end result will be that everyone loses.

If it gets to the extremes of Aion, houses will be locked, and people will be bribed to join others.

So I wouldn't worry about the present percentage of who's in what

[Ryoken]

Lets just all agree to put down the Davies. This is the Marie Sue faction by lore which no one likes. So let them sunny boys finally get some trouble. Lets help house Liao take back their lands from them.

[GI Journalist]

In the BattleTech universe Mary Sue is spelled "Michael Stackpole".

When he began writing House Davion as white hats and House Liao as black hats, it became easy for players to ignore that all of the Succession Houses are feudalistic in nature and deeply morally flawed. I happen to enjoy supporting a faction that is the best possible combination of Russian, Chinese, and the Last King of Scotland. I'm distressed and disturbed by those who ascribe American values to Hanse Davion, the Napoleonic conqueror of his era.

Yet all of the Inner Sphere factions pale in comparison to the Clans. The decendants of soldiers who abandoned their posts and let the rest of humanity descend into chaos, they have returned and believe in nothing more than might makes right. Now they want to waltz in with their fancy technology and take what is rightfully ours by right of blood spilled and treasure spent. If anyone deserves to eat hard light and hot death, it's them. I look forward to the factions competing to see who can do the most damage to them hurt them the most.

House Liao is fully behind this fight. We're in the rear of the formation, under hard cover, but don't worry. We support you. You can get out in front and always be confident that we will be here to pick up the pieces. House Liao isn't going away. On that, you can rely.

[Gaan Cathal]

GI Journalist, on 12 January 2014 - 04:52 AM, said:

I'm distressed and disturbed by those who ascribe American values to Hanse Davion, the Napoleonic conqueror of his era.

America is the Napoleonic conqueror of our era.....


And, given the Succession Wars, it's not that hard to see how the Crusader Clans came to the conclusion that the single biggest threat to the Inner Sphere was, well, the Inner Sphere.

[Ryoken]

GI Journalist, on 12 January 2014 - 04:52 AM, said:

House Liao is fully behind this fight. We're in the rear of the formation, under hard cover, but don't worry. We support you. You can get out in front and always be confident that we will be here to pick up the pieces. House Liao isn't going away. On that, you can rely.

Sure thing we smack em and rely on you covering our backs... *cough* this is why Atlases have backfiring Lasers and more rear armor then some Liao mechs frontal armor...

[Deadmeat313]

I've kept records of the faction spread of the last few hundred games I've played. I don't have the processed data to hand, but from memory the spread heavily favours Steiner and Davion.

Kurita are a wee bit weaker than they should be.

Liao are weak but really thats fine. We are few but . . . - well thats it really.

Marik are about the same level as Liao, which is NOT fine. They should be able to compete with Steiner.

The Free Rasalhague Republic are waay stronger than they should be. They are about on a par with the Draconis Combine.

[Strum Wealh]

Ryoken, on 12 January 2014 - 03:29 AM, said:

Lets just all agree to put down the Davies. This is the Marie Sue faction by lore which no one likes. So let them sunny boys finally get some trouble. Lets help house Liao take back their lands from them.

Clan Wolf is even more of "Mary Sue faction" than even the FedSuns.
Guess which among the Clans is the most popular...

Ace Selin, on 10 January 2014 - 11:03 AM, said:

This is relating to Faction Warfare.

Does anyone know the breakdown of people committing to each faction (%).

Is there a house where most people tend to choose (seems like Steiner / Davion to me).

Has PGI mentioned these stats?

(Personally im happy being a merc, but may choose a house due to FW (when it eventually comes around) has been stated will cater to the house loyalists first so id like to be a part of that action - im thinking Marik or Davion personally.)

At one point, a user by the handle "Nubnub" was posting all manner of interesting information, including (IIRC) a breakdown by faction affiliation by both raw numbers and percentages (with included graphs).

Though, Nubnub has been inactive for quite some time (since April 2012, as of this writing), so that information (if it is still available) would be extremely dated.

[Kyone Akashi]

Deadmeat313, on 15 January 2014 - 04:13 PM, said:

The Free Rasalhague Republic are waay stronger than they should be. They are about on a par with the Draconis Combine.

I have a feeling that will change once the Clans become available. Unfortunately, a lot of players seem to (ab)use the FRR as a temporary thing and will jump ship asap. At least that's what I got from the forums.

Speaking of which, the Clans will probably the most misrepresented faction in the game, with an overall member percentage far exceeding the resources they actually had in the canon.

[Strum Wealh]

Kyone Akashi, on 16 January 2014 - 07:27 AM, said:

I have a feeling that will change once the Clans become available. Unfortunately, a lot of players seem to (ab)use the FRR as a temporary thing and will jump ship asap. At least that's what I got from the forums.

Speaking of which, the Clans will probably the most misrepresented faction in the game, with an overall member percentage far exceeding the resources they actually had in the canon.

This is also true.

[Zerberus]

Approximately half of us do not even have a faction to choose from at this time, so I hioghly doubt that PGI has accurate statistics on player distribution.

I mean, sure, tehy can say "there are currently x Steibners, x davions, blabla... but for example probably half the FRR is waiting for the clans to be taken as bondsmen, lord knows how many thousands of Lone-wolves are in reality clanners, things like that...

[Ryoken]

Strum Wealh, on 15 January 2014 - 07:36 PM, said:

Clan Wolf is even more of "Mary Sue faction" than even the FedSuns.
Guess which among the Clans is the most popular...

In which universe is Clan Wolf more "Mary Sue" than the Sunnyboys?
Clan Wolf got nearly annihilated. Khan Ulric Kerensky got killed. Most of the Clan has become some Jade Wolf (Falcon Puppet). And the sorry remains fled into exile.

I would applaude if by lore Victor Steiner-Davion got killed. Most of the FedSuns would be conquered by house Liao, making it the Davion Confederation. And the sorry remains would have fled into exile at house Kurita.

But no!

We have Victor Steiner-Davion, who can take a gauss rifle round to his mechs head and walk away uninjured. (other ppl tend to at least loose limbs when that happens) In his freetime he decapitates Khan titled clan elementals and pilots of course the biggest all clan tech omnimech Daishi with personal weapon tweaks and has a whole Lyran Guard plus Comstar Division as personal unit. And this is just the icing on the ever growing, ever flourishing big pile of shitzeecake, that is the Mary Sue faction of house Davion.

So sorry, even the Wolfs are in no way even close to the Mary Sue factor of the Sunnyboys.

[Strum Wealh]

Ryoken, on 16 January 2014 - 10:38 PM, said:

In which universe is Clan Wolf more "Mary Sue" than the Sunnyboys?

This one, actually.

As much as Victor Steiner-Davion is a Mary Sue (or, technically, a Gary Stu), consider Phelan Kell/Ward/Wolf:
He is taken prisoner by the Clans as a mercenary; note that the Clans despise mercs as much or more than both the FRR and the Combine, and would have spaced him the second they got what they wanted to know out of him (or realized that he knew very little). Yet, he's spared because he happened to be related to someone that followed Kerensky into exile (much like every Clansman in existence).

He is then made the bondsman of the Khan of the Clan (that is, Ulric Kerensky - more on him shortly), instead of the warrior that captured him (that is, Vlad - who hated Phelan immensely), and then gets raised to warrior status for pulling his bondholder out of a fire. And then another Clan warrior (one Cyrilla Ward) commits suicide specifically so that he can get a shot at a bloodname (Really!? Seriously!?), which Phelan wins by besting a "volunteer" while piloting a frontline Assault OmniMech of his own (a Daishi)... and where he only survives his encounter with Vlad (who beats him down despite being in a lighter 'Mech) because Natasha Kerensky shoots the latter from behind.
(And, of course, there's also the whole "******** his hot Clanner girlfriend (Ranna Kerensky)" thing that's going on through pretty-much the entirety his time with the Clan...)

And then he becomes a Khan of the Wolves and runs off to the IS with the "good" (e.g. Warden) Wolves in tow, leaving the "bad" (e.g. Crusader) Wolves to make proverbial shady backroom deals with the Jade Falcons (instead of simply being completely Absorbed and integrated like any other Clan would have been under the same circumstances).

Then there's Ulric Kerensky...
Among other things, he manages to maneuver himself into the ilKhanship despite being one of the more oiutspoken and well-known critics of the Invasion effort (the very one a substantial fraction of the Clans had seen as their society's raison d'être for at least a century), manages to engineer the general defeat of the collective Clans at Tukayyid (all while making sure his particular Clan looks good while doing it... of course), manages to engineer the splitting-off the "good" Wolves from the "bad" ones, and generally manages to make himself and his allies look like sane and reasonable people surrounded by meatheads (other Clanners, including those Wolves who aren't among his allies).
Much of the above largely holds true for Natasha Kerensky (and, albeit to a lesser degree, her expy (Stacy Church) as well).

And let us not forget the Wolf's Dragoons (who technically fall under the umbrella of a part of Clan Wolf), who can pull exclusive 'Mechs (like the Annihilator and the Imp) out of thin air, as well as manufacture their own Clantech and use it without being bound by any of the Clan customs (so they can have their cake and eat it with silver spoons, too)... much like the wider Clan Wolf, who by rule (yes, actual BT rules!) holds a "very liberal" view of when to adhere to Clan Honor.

They get access to all of the "cool Clan toys" while also getting to undercut or outright ignore most or all of the prominent (and ostensibly important) Clan customs and rules (which were the primary limiting factors on the Clans' power) on an individual and organization-wide basis when it suits them. And, on top of that, most of the major elements associated with Clan Wolf (especially the Warden Wolves/WiE & the Dragoons, and even the Crusader Wolves (usually after taking a bit more of a beating than the other two) as well) are pretty much guaranteed to ultimately come out on top against anyone, including themselves (cf. Dragoon Civil War).

The Wolves, in their various facets, get all of the same perks of Mary-Sueism as the FedSuns plus all of the perks of being Clan with few or none of the drawbacks - which does, in fact, make the Wolves "more Mary Sue" than the Suns.

[Ryoken]

Strum Wealh, on 17 January 2014 - 05:21 AM, said:

This one, actually.

Gotta disagree, as you very well pointed out the Wolfes have a pretty cheesy story as well. But at least Kerensky dies and the clan ends shattered, absorbed and exiled. (Even if you try to call it cheesyness to survive all that, I counter that very few factions really get killed in total, so you hardly can call it cheesyness as it is applied to all factions.)

The sunnyboys on the other hand have a similar maybe even more cheesy story, have a definitely more cheesy main character Victor, and their realm keeps on growing and growing, becoming the goody goodness fighting of all those evil pro Katherine and pro Liao villians. And from your words I hear they are only sorry to not get their hands on more clantech, like the factions that acutally had to suffer from the clan invasion. But don't worry to much, lore of FedSun cheesyness has it that the sunnyboys soon will even develeop their own targeting computers...

So yeah, the Clan Wolf kinda is the Clans equivalent to what the FedSuns are to the Inner Sphere. And yeah the Wolfs Dragoons are definetively a good candidate for kings of merc cheese. But if you calculate it to the end, FedSuns wins the race for ultimate Mary Sue in BT lore. They simply are bigger and better than even Clan Jade Wolf, Clan Wolf in Exile and Wolfs Dragoons together.

[Kaox Veed]

I didn't pick FRR so I could join the clans, I picked them because I liked them. A happy side effect though is that at some point we might get to be part of the Ghost Bear Dominion And they get all the coolest mechs,

[Ryoken]

Kaox Veed, on 18 January 2014 - 05:54 AM, said:

I didn't pick FRR so I could join the clans, I picked them because I liked them. A happy side effect though is that at some point we might get to be part of the Ghost Bear Dominion And they get all the coolest mechs,

Hehe yeah when thinking about Clans and cheese, I also thought about Clan Ghost Bear. They also got a big portion of cheese all over them, with all their, "yes we are Clans, but we are so warden, we want to cuddle IS all the time" attitude. FRR on the other side are pretty cool. I mean - friggin Space Vikings - ! So it will be interessting to figure out if they are still kewl after the FRR+CGB merger?!? =)

I never understood warden clans anyway. I mean if one plays clans, then do it for real and turn crusader or leave it be.

[Kaox Veed]

I feel Ghost Bears were pretty Viking as well.

[Voidsinger]

Okay: My say.

As originally devised in the core universe (and we can say this is Jordan Weissman more than anyone), the Asian-dominated cultures (DC,CC) were the bad guys. Marik seemed Central European and very balkanised, Lyrans were very Northern Europeans, and Davion were very much the golden child.

In some ways, the early novels reflected this layout.

Turning points:
Draconis Combine - Heir to the Dragon, 3039 War. The 3039 war was without question a war of agression by the Federated Commonwealth. It lost some lustre. Heir to the Dragon as a novel represented the Combine as something more complex, where the Combine tended to be coloured by the Co-ordinator at the time. After that, it was smoother sailing for the Draconis Combine.

Capellan Confederation - This took some time. You feel after Sun Tzu was in charge that they are the perennial underdog. Mad Chancellors drove the reputation down, but you understand why they got into power, and how they stayed there. Michael Stackpole did a good job explaining this in the end of Lost Destiny with Candace's little speech.

Free Worlds League - Always had potential, but was kept in a near state of Civil War and rivalling factions.In many ways they were the state that wanted most for its own personality. Instead we had regions constantly doing their own thing, making it the multiple personality state of the Inner Sphere.

Lyran Commonwealth - Always had some treachery boiling, and the big industry player. Once again brought down by Stackpole with the Clans taken a large chunk, and with the persona of Katherine. Melissa Steiner-Davion may have been a great Archon, but she sucked as a mother, judging by the mess her children turned out as. Victor was saved more by the people placed near him, who covered his weaknesses.

The Federated Suns - Yes, they were the Sunnyboys at the start of Battletech. They couldn't do anything wrong. Until you start looking closer. 3028 War (started supposedly due to the whole HD twin thing), the unrest after the 4th SW. Then came the 3039 war which showed why the other factions feared Davion. Then, tarnishing the shiney, the Joshua Marik duplicity. And then along came Katherine. Once again. Michael Stackpole showed up their flaws after championing them in the Warrior trilogy.

Clans:

Wolf- Ulric was written as a character with insight. They out-crusaded the crusaders. A great deal of the favouritism came from the Kerensky bloodname. They were doomed to be brought low eventually. Phelan was the result of the merging of two fan favourites, Kell Hounds and Clan Wolf. Clan Wolf always had fatal flaws built in.

Jade Falcons - Now this was the cheesiest of all Clans. Initially seeming average to good under Stackpole, who can forget the "I am Jade Falcon" maneouvre and the full cheese of Robert Thursten.

Ghost Bears - Yeah, they do seem a little too much on the do everything right after the 3051 break.

Smoke Jaguars - The whipping boys of the Clans. Always written as the nastiest and most agressive.


The Inner Sphere factions though, took some time to shake off the descriptions Jordan Weissman seems to have given them. Writer-wise, yes Stackpole took some time, but he was in the end fairest to all factions.