51 replies to this topic

[Tristan Winter]

Wolf Ender, on 13 December 2014 - 12:52 AM, said:

When an entire society is committed to this single minded purpose, has the cohesiveness to pursue it together, and the willingness to commit atrocities, they can be extremely successful like the Macedonians, the Romans, the Huns, the Caliphs, the Soviets, etc....

They do seem more like fascists than any other Clan, in their extreme disdain for weakness. And somewhat similar to Spartans in maintaining a ruling warrior caste with complete contempt for the lower castes that actually sustain them.

Battletech lore does tend to make a charicature out of everything, which makes it harder to appreciate all the different factions. But Smoke Jaguar seems like the perfect clan for meritocratic comp teams who thrive off destroying inferior opponents and being total ******* while doing so Unfortunately, those sort of players don't always bother too much with the lore.

[meteorol]

They really need to change the ruleset a bit to help factions with smaller playerbases.
What will happen when Smoke jags lost all planets (proably today)?

Edited by meteorol, 13 December 2014 - 01:10 AM.

[Wolf Ender]

Nicolai Kabrinsky, on 13 December 2014 - 12:58 AM, said:

the perfect clan for meritocratic comp teams who thrive off destroying inferior opponents and being total ******* while doing so

In my experience most players with low skill will always assume this about any player who is ultra-competitive. It's easy to look at the team that just roflstomped you in style and say "those guys are such ********."

My experience is that while there is a tiny percentage of dickheads WITHIN the ultra-competitive group, there are statistically just as many dickheads in the pool of regular joe six pack players. In my experience, a competitive player gives a lot MORE respect and honor to an adversary who displays equal level of skill or presents a real challenge.

Back in MW4 days, I ran with Clan Wolf in UTS league and I daresay they were the best group in that league. The only other groups who could really stand toe to toe with us on the battlefield was HRR (Hansen's Rough Riders) and maybe just MAYBE clan widowmaker on a lucky day. They were our most bitter rivals, but they gave us respect, and we gave them respect in-kind.

[Revorn]

As far as i know, you cant lose your Homeplanet, or Inasion Capitol. At least i thougth, Russ said something like this. Iam wrong?

[Ursh]

Honestly, most of the lore post 3039, as well as virtually all of the novels, are garbage.

You have highly trained warriors who have studied military tactics from birth, but then can't actually adapt at all to new tactics? One of these things is not like the other.

And also, the whole Wolf's Dragoons scouting out the IS and reporting back, are you gonna tell me they never sent a status report at some point in the forty years they were traipsing around the IS? So the clans just invaded blindly without really knowing anything? Even though we're talking about a fictional future, it's completely unbelievable to think that a finely tuned, highly trained military force would wade in blindly looking for a bunch of Solaris duels.

TL/DR- The lore purposefully handicapped the clans to make stupid mistakes, and the same IS houses that had led humanity to the brink of a new dark age were all of a sudden tactical geniuses, humanitarians, and the good guys. It's one of the reasons I stopped reading the novels, they were just boring and utterly predictable.

[Tristan Winter]

Wolf Ender, on 13 December 2014 - 01:12 AM, said:

In my experience most players with low skill will always assume this about any player who is ultra-competitive.

I wasn't saying all players who are competitive are rude of course. And I'm assuming you're not implying that I have low skill either.

It was just a tongue in cheek comment, not a critique of the MWO community as a whole.

[Von Blumen]

The issue really boils down to community size. CSJ just doesn't have it. Instead of straight attacking IS positions, some clan units decided to take advantage of a smaller force and hit our flanks while we tried hitting the IS. We do not have the teams to field defense and offense and so we get rolled on the map. SJR, JGx, and a few other small groups, supported by a few solo players, cannot stem the tide. We win the battles, but we are losing the war simply due to numbers. Math wins over lasers. Lore does not support what is going on here, and it shouldn't as this is CW. A land grab is happening and that is all there is to it. So be it and hopefully when the Beta is done things will be adjusted.

Edited by Von Blumen, 13 December 2014 - 01:33 AM.

[Telmasa]

Honestly I saw that today pointed out by a friend....and instantly I thought, is anybody even *playing* for CSJ?

From what I can tell reading this thread, I wasn't far off the mark.

[Grantham Besat]

So planets can be taken just because no one shows up?? You really need to trash the queue and go with direct unit controlled planet and unit controlled movements regarding what gets attacked and defended. This random pot luck of what you can attack and defend is BS as it the 24 hour day. I mean what you created needs a lot more people to work properly as it is you have made a train wreck that will sap your player bases moral. There are enough planets that a World of Tanks style map and drop ship movement system would have allowed even baddies to see their names on a planet. As it is the baddies nor the elites can its simply a mater of MM picking who sees the world the most.

[GRiPSViGiL]

Word was SJR was gonna switch to CGB...which I think is kinda weaksauce since they will win every game outside a bug loss. i don't mind the situation CSJ faction is in. I find this situation very compelling and it only fuels me to want to do what I can to either defend or fight back.

[ShadowWolf Kell]

CSJ was an extremely popular Clan back in GC during MW2 and NBT/ADL in MW2 Mercs. It wasn't until Twilight of the Clans ran it's course that things started to change.

A lot of people aren't taking into account that Tukyyaid is a long way off and it'll also derail what PGI is trying to do with CW. Don't expect it to happen any time soon. That said, CSJ is the ilClan and Leo Showers is the ilKhan until well past that point. Get used to it because it's going to be that way for probably a good two years if not more.

PGI also doesn't want to advance things too quickly because they have a ton of post Invasion IS upgrade mechs to unleash for MC. You can sure bet they're going to capitalize on that and extend it for it long as they can.

Lastly, who says they're going to follow the timeline verbatim? I'm sure with a bit of finesse they can easily turn the drive to Terra into a esport and I wouldn't be surprised if they have that in mind when it comes to assaulting Terra.

[Shalune]

Is this a problem? Yeah. But you're all oversimplifying it.

The issue is they're giving us exactly what a lot of people asked for: armies fighting armies. People spoke out about wanting unit size to matter, and so it does. We can't have it both ways. If games are limited to requiring defenders then all a side has to do to dominate everyone is let only their top unit fight in important battles (obvious example here is SJR). This means that even after the numbers naturally even out between factions due to queue times you're going to have a horribly one sided war in a different direction. Whoever has the best individual 12-man team can win every battle. That will end up being just as, if not more, uninteresting to see play out.

The worst part is that will make the problem even worse. Let's say SJR is attacking a DCMS world a couple months from now and the system above is in place. Well now everyone in the DCMS knows that when Smoke Jags attack a planet it's probably SJR. Nobody wants to play against them, so nobody queues up. The planet is un-capturable because a game never starts.

So what do we do?

Well, how about incentives for playing for undermanned and/or losing factions? Start ramping up the earnings or alter the loyalty rewards (once those are implemented) for these factions. Obviously we don't want to see wild swings in loyalty every 7 days to chase the latest income boost so we can make it so that you must have played for the faction for at least a week before the added bonuses are available. Perhaps also include a smaller, mounting bonus based off your loyalty level (assuming this resets when you switch back to a previous faction.)

The goal is to naturally encourage players to shift to losing factions who are only interested in earnings. As this is one of the big draws of CW over regular matches, I imagine a lot of folks will. Yet the delays will mean that you're more likely to make the switch for a couple weeks or a month, while also having a cost to them. Hopefully this will smooth out population transitions and create a shifting tide effect.

[Joseph Mallan]

I R O N, on 12 December 2014 - 09:30 PM, said:

none of you A holes are helping. you are all Ghost Bears. LITERALLY only one clan is CSJ. SJR and us are the only mercs. Not enough players.

Then I understand why you are getting attacked. Clanners hate Money Soldiers!

[Oderint dum Metuant]

GRiPSViGiL, on 13 December 2014 - 03:40 AM, said:

Word was SJR was gonna switch to CGB...which I think is kinda weaksauce since they will win every game outside a bug loss. i don't mind the situation CSJ faction is in. I find this situation very compelling and it only fuels me to want to do what I can to either defend or fight back.

haha that's quite amusing.

[Vyviel]

CSJ are in the same league as Liao in terms of lore. =P

[Sprouticus]

It is one planet guys, relax.

1) Smoke Adders has decided to go SJ. Due to RL issues we were missing from the ranks of SJ until 2PM (ish) central yesterday. We have 80+ members, with perhaps 1/4 that number being part of our comp play group. We are not (currently) at the level of QQ or 228, but I think we are certainly better than average at the comp level which puts us above most units.

2) We were very active last night. I went to bed @ 3:30 ET, but we had 12 for a good chunk of the night. We went 4-2 on turtle bay, with 3 of the wins being attacks and one defending on a counterattack. Now that we know the maps it should be even better. Our tactics the first few matches were.....not appropriate.



I do think lore hinders certain units (CC, CSJ, even DC to an extent). Luckily we have history as we played CSJ in NBT4 for an extended period of time (until CSA actually was allowed to become more active), so our unit history trumps lore. Who knows how it will play out in the long run (from a pure lore perspective CSA would make more sense alligned with CGB), but for the next few weeks at a minimum we will be CSJ.

[Vassago Rain]

But I thought khan Ignotus what's his face was the most elite robotwarrior ever.

And the steel jags, too. ggclose

[Lord Ikka]

What will be nice for SJ if they lose all but their homeworld is that they will only ever have to attack rather than attack and defend.

[Karamarka]

I know its lore but i hate the starting positions for the clans at the top. Wish it was more spread out, some just get clobbered from all sides haha

[RustyBolts]

I R O N, on 12 December 2014 - 09:30 PM, said:

none of you A holes are helping. you are all Ghost Bears. LITERALLY only one clan is CSJ. SJR and us are the only mercs. Not enough players.

I spent nearly 40 minutes in a cue this morning to help you defend Idlewind, but never got a match. And Yes, Ghost Bear is pulling an Inner Sphere on the Clans.