527 replies to this topic

[Paramemetic]

Yes, just to be clear: the issue with turret warring is not that they are overwhelming our defenses with attacks right now, it is that it is, during peak time, not possible for Liao to push back. The way the queue is stacked, so long as there are more attackers queued than defenders, the defenders will always catch "defense" games. "Defense" games do not reduce the attacker wins number.

So what happens is, let's be very generous and say we start at 0% attacker wins for the prime time. 48 Davions queue up on attack. We muster 24 defenders. 2 matches drop, Dav wins one, Liao wins one, planet goes up 1 victory.

60+ Davs show up as peak time increases. We somehow get together 48. Dav wins one. Liao wins three. Attacker wins go up by one. 2 victories now.

This continues. Liao wins 3/4 of their drops, with 4 groups dropping, but Davs always outnumber, therefore Davs always catch attack, Liaos always catch defense.

Davs win on the night, despite losing most of their games. That is without even taking into account Turret Warrior Online, which I have graciously discounted in this illustration because Davions are no longer claiming it happens (despite groups still out there playing the Clan Wolf Strategy and claiming to "tie us up" when it takes them 10 minutes to crack a gate).

As for Liao disintegrating at the end of the night, that tends to happen when you win all of your matches (I have lost in CW maybe four times?) and yet your planet flips because if you win five out of six defense drops the attacker still gets one "win" point and you get nothing.

Assuming Liao defends 24 times on the day, and wins 75% of the time, they lose a planet every day.

That's not to say the game "isn't fair," or something. The actual gameplay is fair - good players win good games, bad players win bad games, but that's fine. It's just to say that the color changing mechanics on the map could use some work.

Davion is really, really good at having nearly six times the numbers of players that Liao has on during the peak time. I'll give them that - there are a lot of them.

All current active Liao commanding officers please contact me via PM. I would like to get a council thing going, we have a census we would like filled out. Dedicated Liao groups, please especially let us know, but Liao mercs, check in also. Thanks.

[Orkdung]

Quantity over Quality. 4TCR has been winning all its drops tonight too. Problem is when you have 2-3 Dav-Rats ghosting, not much you can do.

[PadreGrimm]

Paramemetic, on 27 December 2014 - 06:38 AM, said:

snip

I agree. I wish it was actual wins that counted. This dropping against no opposition is lame. It would be one thing if we just weren't defending, but when we are so short on man-power..............there's nothing we can do. Other than just playing to grind LP and CBills, we aren't actually accomplishing anything else.

[ShinVector]

Orkdung, on 27 December 2014 - 07:56 PM, said:

Quantity over Quality. 4TCR has been winning all its drops tonight too. Problem is when you have 2-3 Dav-Rats ghosting, not much you can do.

Funny you should say that.... Imagine these guys winning matches through ghost drops.

[Tunes of war]

Orkdung, on 27 December 2014 - 07:56 PM, said:

Quantity over Quality. 4TCR has been winning all its drops tonight too. Problem is when you have 2-3 Dav-Rats ghosting, not much you can do.

that is the main problem you have...

our operation "late christmas present" was actully a success the phoenix legion dropped yesterday on Maladar with 48+ people supported by german wolf dragoner... the davions are just to many... in total we made 29 wins and lost only 8 battles...

liao needs a big north american unit or a change in the cease fire times or you get eaten up...

Edited by Tunes of war, 28 December 2014 - 12:16 AM.

[BlakeAteIt]

Once again... Welcome to Liao!

[ShinVector]

Tunes of war, on 28 December 2014 - 12:10 AM, said:

liao needs a big north american unit or a change in the cease fire times or you get eaten up...

The truth is Davions = Zerg Swarm.

[Y4wn]

ShinVector, on 28 December 2014 - 12:33 AM, said:

The truth is Davions = Zerg Swarm.

true story.

[StillRadioactive]

Paramemetic, on 27 December 2014 - 06:38 AM, said:

Spoiler

Yes, just to be clear: the issue with turret warring is not that they are overwhelming our defenses with attacks right now, it is that it is, during peak time, not possible for Liao to push back. The way the queue is stacked, so long as there are more attackers queued than defenders, the defenders will always catch "defense" games. "Defense" games do not reduce the attacker wins number.

So what happens is, let's be very generous and say we start at 0% attacker wins for the prime time. 48 Davions queue up on attack. We muster 24 defenders. 2 matches drop, Dav wins one, Liao wins one, planet goes up 1 victory.

60+ Davs show up as peak time increases. We somehow get together 48. Dav wins one. Liao wins three. Attacker wins go up by one. 2 victories now.

This continues. Liao wins 3/4 of their drops, with 4 groups dropping, but Davs always outnumber, therefore Davs always catch attack, Liaos always catch defense.

Davs win on the night, despite losing most of their games. That is without even taking into account Turret Warrior Online, which I have graciously discounted in this illustration because Davions are no longer claiming it happens (despite groups still out there playing the Clan Wolf Strategy and claiming to "tie us up" when it takes them 10 minutes to crack a gate).

As for Liao disintegrating at the end of the night, that tends to happen when you win all of your matches (I have lost in CW maybe four times?) and yet your planet flips because if you win five out of six defense drops the attacker still gets one "win" point and you get nothing.

Assuming Liao defends 24 times on the day, and wins 75% of the time, they lose a planet every day.

That's not to say the game "isn't fair," or something. The actual gameplay is fair - good players win good games, bad players win bad games, but that's fine. It's just to say that the color changing mechanics on the map could use some work.

Davion is really, really good at having nearly six times the numbers of players that Liao has on during the peak time. I'll give them that - there are a lot of them.

All current active Liao commanding officers please contact me via PM. I would like to get a council thing going, we have a census we would like filled out. Dedicated Liao groups, please especially let us know, but Liao mercs, check in also. Thanks.

This is a credible explanation. Not sure if it's true, but I haven't seen anything to directly contradict it. Not quite sure how to TEST that in a controlled environment, but I'll try.

That said, +1 for the Liao council. MWO rewards coordination on all levels. Just as a 12-man on comms is stronger than 12 solos (micro-level play), a group of 12-mans who have representatives coordinating with one another is stronger than those same units working alone (macro-level play).

We want good fights. A strong, central leadership within Liao will provide better fights. Therefore we want a strong, central leadership within Liao.

Tunes of war, on 28 December 2014 - 12:10 AM, said:

Spoiler

that is the main problem you have...

our operation "late christmas present" was actully a success the phoenix legion dropped yesterday on Maladar with 48+ people supported by german wolf dragoner... the davions are just to many... in total we made 29 wins and lost only 8 battles...

liao needs a big north american unit or a change in the cease fire times or you get eaten up...

I can personally attest to their effectiveness, both in individual drops and in controlling the board. For the first time in a long time, we were forced to focus our primary attention on the Liao border. SPECIFICALLY because PHL played a very coordinated game on both the micro and macro levels.

Orkdung, on 27 December 2014 - 07:56 PM, said:

Quantity over Quality. 4TCR has been winning all its drops tonight too. Problem is when you have 2-3 Dav-Rats ghosting, not much you can do.

This, sadly, is not as credible.

Edited by StillRadioactive, 28 December 2014 - 04:34 AM.

[Y4wn]

StillRadioactive, on 28 December 2014 - 04:29 AM, said:

This is a credible explanation. Not sure if it's true, but I haven't seen anything to directly contradict it. Not quite sure how to TEST that in a controlled environment, but I'll try.

That said, +1 for the Liao council. MWO rewards coordination on all levels. Just as a 12-man on comms is stronger than 12 solos (micro-level play), a group of 12-mans who have representatives coordinating with one another is stronger than those same units working alone (macro-level play).

We want good fights. A strong, central leadership within Liao will provide better fights. Therefore we want a strong, central leadership within Liao.

Having numerical superiority might only be able to give you one ghost-win each time which takes roughly 14 minutes (10 minutes wait time + 4 minutes to get omega), which means that a faction can auto-win up to 2 times, by the time "normal" Attack-Defence game is finished.

Disregarding all this, having numerical superiority however has a second side-effect, which I personally find mostly advantageous for the faction with more people: The faction with more people will be put into a "Attacking/Counter-Attacking" Que if there is no full 12-man defending at the time they que up (they will most-likely find opponents match in the next 10 minutes". This puts the Faction with fewer people at a disadvantage because nothing is gained by holding territory in terms of faction-warfare. (Of course, defending is better for your personal Cbill gain because it's in most cases easier than attacking)

Edited by Y4wn, 28 December 2014 - 05:01 AM.

[Driftwoood]

Paramemetic, on 27 December 2014 - 06:38 AM, said:

This continues. Liao wins 3/4 of their drops, with 4 groups dropping, but Davs always outnumber, therefore Davs always catch attack, Liaos always catch defense.

Not sure your info is right here... as I understand it, teams alternate: attackers ATTACK first game, then must DEFEND that territory next game... is that not the case? has this changed?

Paramemetic, on 27 December 2014 - 06:38 AM, said:

As for Liao disintegrating at the end of the night, that tends to happen when you win all of your matches (I have lost in CW maybe four times?) and yet your planet flips because if you win five out of six defense drops the attacker still gets one "win" point and you get nothing.

I think it has more to do with the fact that #1: Liao seems to be a very small faction, and #2: we have a small North American contingent it seems... so in the hours before cease fire, the Europeans have to go to bed... cease fire for them is 5:20am

StillRadioactive, on 28 December 2014 - 04:29 AM, said:

That said, +1 for the Liao council. MWO rewards coordination on all levels. Just as a 12-man on comms is stronger than 12 solos (micro-level play), a group of 12-mans who have representatives coordinating with one another is stronger than those same units working alone (macro-level play).

Don't see what difference a council makes... we have peace with Marik, so only Davion border is in conflict... you have two planets to choose from, and since we don't have enough people to fight at both, you go to the one everyone else is at... that's all the coordination we need...


As for ghost drops... the numbers have been crunched and theoretically, regardless of how many opposing team players there are (doesn't matter if attacker or defender), if they have AT LEAST 1 more group dropping than your side, and your side has:

4+ units (48+ players) dropping = very few ghost drops, maybe 1 in 10-20 drops...

36-47 defenders means probably 1 ghost drop in every 6 drops...

24-35 defenders probably mean 1 ghost drop in every 2 drops...

Less than 24 (so only one 12 man group able to defend) ... 3 ghost drops in every 4 drops?

[Faith McCarron]

A council is nice, but I fail to see how it helps in any way against the Davion onslaught. The problem is superior Davion numbers. All available Liao's are fighting the Davions, a council cannot increase the number of available Liao pilots to match Davion.

[BlakeAteIt]

We only have one planet to attack or defend at a time, and we can't match numbers with JUST the Davions A/D those planets in the two hours before nightly CF. There really isn't anything to coordinate at that point. Just Drop -> Win -> Lose planet -> Repeat.

[Tunes of war]

BlakeAteIt, on 28 December 2014 - 06:25 AM, said:

We only have one planet to attack or defend at a time, and we can't match numbers with JUST the Davions A/D those planets in the two hours before nightly CF. There really isn't anything to coordinate at that point. Just Drop -> Win -> Lose planet -> Repeat.

does a merc realy have to tell you about the advanteges of a council?!

we mercs need a contact person or council to cordinate attacks and information where our help is most wanted... also a council can ask other units to join liao to support your battle... diplomacy to other factions is importent too so you can coordinate an massive blow from diffrent directions on your enemy... etc...

[StillRadioactive]

Y4wn, on 28 December 2014 - 04:45 AM, said:

Having numerical superiority might only be able to give you one ghost-win each time which takes roughly 14 minutes (10 minutes wait time + 4 minutes to get omega), which means that a faction can auto-win up to 2 times, by the time "normal" Attack-Defence game is finished.

Disregarding all this, having numerical superiority however has a second side-effect, which I personally find mostly advantageous for the faction with more people: The faction with more people will be put into a "Attacking/Counter-Attacking" Que if there is no full 12-man defending at the time they que up (they will most-likely find opponents match in the next 10 minutes". This puts the Faction with fewer people at a disadvantage because nothing is gained by holding territory in terms of faction-warfare. (Of course, defending is better for your personal Cbill gain because it's in most cases easier than attacking)

To the best of my knowledge, when matchmaker gets its first 12-man group, it then looks for a territory. It PREFERS to give that group an attack, but if the planet is 100% in that faction's favor or if all the attack territories are currently being fought over, it will give that group a defense.

For example:

A 12-man premade joins a queue, attacking a planet with 15 attacker wins and 3 other battles currently being fought. Matchmaker looks for a defender-controlled territory for that group to attack. It then picks an attacker-controlled territory for that group to defend and waits for an opponent to show up.

The same 12-man premade group then goes to a different attacking planet, one with 11 attacker wins and 3 other battles currently being fought. Matchmaker looks for a defender-controlled territory for that group to attack. Since there are 4 of them, and only 3 are currently being used, it assigns that group to attack that territory.

The same 12-man premade group wins and queues up again, this time with 12 attacker wins and 3 other battles currently being fought. Matchmaker looks for a defender-controlled territory for that group to attack. If all three are currently being fought over already, it has no choice but to assign that group to defend a territory and wait for attackers.

I hope that made sense. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how matchmaker works, but that's been the most reliably accurate way to look at it that I've come up with so far.

Driftwoood, on 28 December 2014 - 05:22 AM, said:

I think it has more to do with the fact that #1: Liao seems to be a very small faction, and #2: we have a small North American contingent it seems... so in the hours before cease fire, the Europeans have to go to bed... cease fire for them is 5:20am

Don't see what difference a council makes... we have peace with Marik, so only Davion border is in conflict... you have two planets to choose from, and since we don't have enough people to fight at both, you go to the one everyone else is at... that's all the coordination we need...

As for ghost drops... the numbers have been crunched and theoretically, regardless of how many opposing team players there are (doesn't matter if attacker or defender), if they have AT LEAST 1 more group dropping than your side, and your side has:
4+ units (48+ players) dropping = very few ghost drops, maybe 1 in 10-20 drops...
36-47 defenders means probably 1 ghost drop in every 6 drops...
24-35 defenders probably mean 1 ghost drop in every 2 drops...
Less than 24 (so only one 12 man group able to defend) ... 3 ghost drops in every 4 drops?

These are all very valid points, and I would like to highlight what I saw as I watched the queue numbers today. I'm probably going to get in trouble for doing your post-mortem work for you, but oh well.

PHL had the fight shifted 100% over to Maladar while they were on. The pugs followed them. We were forced to look at Maladar and ask "Do we fight this with everything and try to make the Liao border +1 today, or do we let it go and pick up Brighton to make it an even trade?" That planet was 60+/60+ for hours on end, meaning that there were really no ghost drops occurring, even by your calculations.

When PHL signed off, there was an immediate drop in player population on Maladar. It went from 60+ (we estimated it at around 100 for your side) to 50 and it stayed there for about 30 minutes... then it started to dip, and that's where things went sour for you.

Liao players then began waffling back and forth between Maladar and Brighton because they were unsure of which had priority. We saw the population go from 60+/60+ on Maladar and 0/0 on Brighton to ~25/~35 on Maladar and ~35/25 on Brighton. We kept our numbers limited so as not to ghost drop on you, and we put the extra forces on the Kurita border.

EDIT: I SAID WAY TOO DAMN MUCH. IF YOU DIDN'T GET IT IN THE 90 MINUTES IT WAS UP, I'M SORRY BUT I WON'T BE RE-POSTING IT.

That's what a council does. It's a force multiplier, and a massive one.

Don't expect any more of this information.

EDIT: For those who don't think EU/AU matter, please note that 48 Euros in Liao caused Jade Falcon and Marik to gain planets today, because Davion was tied up and couldn't hold them back from attacking Steiner until it was too late.

Your actions absolutely do matter, you just have to follow the train of cause-and-effect.

Edited by StillRadioactive, 28 December 2014 - 09:41 AM.

[elijah temujin]

Big Tin Man, on 12 December 2014 - 09:14 PM, said:

Please do, your turrets are boring us.

[hugs]

What did five fingers say to the face dav rat? That's right SLLAAAP!
Remember the word beta? Cause that's what cw is in.
At least your admitting your only fighting turrets
Cause we know every time you fight one of our units you get B slapped,
So enjoy your false positives rats, but remember your just renting
And we are coming to collect.

Oh and seeing as our esteemed chancellor is very creative in the torture department, I would just swim for it
While you have the chance, I hear Katrina is planing something you should watch the Steiner scum.

Now get out of our form and go eat someone else's cheese ya rat. Lol

[elijah temujin]

PadreGrimm, on 27 December 2014 - 08:35 PM, said:

I agree. I wish it was actual wins that counted. This dropping against no opposition is lame. It would be one thing if we just weren't defending, but when we are so short on man-power..............there's nothing we can do. Other than just playing to grind LP and CBills, we aren't actually accomplishing anything else.

It will be ...of course PGI is going to balance cw or the whole map will be yellow and with rat poop all over...not going to happen.
The word to remember people is BETA. And on that day we find out the loudest whiners are rats. Cause they can't pilot they can only swarm like rats....but we all know rats don't do well when they can't out swarm you. Lol so worry not my brave Liao brothers and sisters we have The Lord on our side....right padre?

[Faith McCarron]

The point though is that to play a chess game, you have to have the pieces to move in the first place. At this stage of the game, we don't. Period. Be it recruiting, drawing in mercs, whatever, we have to increase the numbers before anything is going to change on the roflstomp front.

[StillRadioactive]

Faith McCarron, on 28 December 2014 - 09:00 AM, said:

The point though is that to play a chess game, you have to have the pieces to move in the first place. At this stage of the game, we don't. Period. Be it recruiting, drawing in mercs, whatever, we have to increase the numbers before anything is going to change on the roflstomp front.

People aren't magical mind-readers, and sadly they're not all altruistic heroes who go fight for the underdog.

I told some people yesterday that Liao had a C-Bill bonus and they seriously thought I was lying for a while. If I was in a faction with a C-Bill bonus, where I thought low population was holding me back, and I really wanted to fix that... I'd be telling everybody!

I'd shout it from the rooftops!

I'd make sure that EVERYBODY knew it!

You have all the tools to get those pieces. You'll have to do the leg-work to actually find them though.

[poopenshire]

StillRadioactive, on 28 December 2014 - 09:25 AM, said:

People aren't magical mind-readers, and sadly they're not all altruistic heroes who go fight for the underdog.

I told some people yesterday that Liao had a C-Bill bonus and they seriously thought I was lying for a while. If I was in a faction with a C-Bill bonus, where I thought low population was holding me back, and I really wanted to fix that... I'd be telling everybody!

I'd shout it from the rooftops!

I'd make sure that EVERYBODY knew it!

You have all the tools to get those pieces. You'll have to do the leg-work to actually find them though.

The problem with Cbill bonuses and Mercs are these:

1. They will leave the minute the bonus is gone
2. They will leave the minute they realize the bonus is minuscule vs perm contracts
3. They will leave the minute they see your as organized as a baboon
4. They will leave the minute they see they don't matter and are considered in the Planning
5. You will beg them to leave the minute they realize farming damage and kills pays more then winning
6. You will beg them to leave the minute you see skill level of the average PUG looking for a payout
7. You will beg them to leave when they drop only in Trial mechs and complain non-stop about wanting to run Clans
8. You will beg them to leave when they ignore your alliances and do as they please

Want more? I am sure people can add to this list.