22 replies to this topic

[Hillslam]

Request:
Please add an indicator to the inner sphere map showing potential defenders as to what phase a planet is currently in: Counterattack or Defend.

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That way we can know what phase the planet is in before we accept the nag request to defend it that keeps popping up in the UI.

After 11 counterattacks in a row trying to defend planets in our faction I and a couple others personally walked away from CW. I don't mind CA. I don't want one game type non-stop with no way to vary the drop experience. I would like to play all the game types in CW.

Heading off the inevitable forum troll responses such as:
"Blah blah blah, balanced mech, blah blah, law of averages, blah blah, the invasion mechanic works thusly, blah blah, beta."

• I know how the mechanic works.
  
• This is nothing to do with IS vs Clan
  
• Attackers get to choose the drop they do by the very act of attacking a planet.
  
• To have a chance of a drop wait within your lifetime you have to go where the activity is. You don't REALLY have that much freedom of choice for play.
  
• It shouldn't be some obtuse thing you infer from looking at the planet attack history and ticket levels.
  
• Its not about balancing loadouts, its about giving a varied and enjoyable CW game experience.
  
• One game type over and over and over is not enjoyable.

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This is a legitimate feature request voiced by several players in chats and voice comms. Didn't see it listed in the town hall, nor a thread post on it, so creating this one.

Thanks.

Edited by Hillslam, 18 December 2014 - 07:54 AM.

[Jacob Side]

It's pretty easy to know. If the planet has 6 or more attacker wins you're going to be on a counter attack.

[Lily from animove]

Jacob Side, on 18 December 2014 - 07:55 AM, said:

It's pretty easy to know. If the planet has 6 or more attacker wins you're going to be on a counter attack.

not always, when you a ein the queue and the planet drops form 6 to 5 then you are not getting what you thought you get as you queued.

Edited by Lily from animove, 18 December 2014 - 07:57 AM.

[Hillslam]

Jacob Side, on 18 December 2014 - 07:55 AM, said:

It's pretty easy to know. If the planet has 6 or more attacker wins you're going to be on a counter attack.

Thanks for the response, but I am not sure that is true. I believe we dropped on counterattacks on planets with well under 6 tickets.

In fact I am pretty sure it happened on Turtle Bay at ~2 tickets multiple times.

EDIT: just got 2 PMs from friends telling me they definitely dropped counterattack on 1-3ticket planets. Could also be a map refresh / state problem with the map UI?

Regardless it should be clearly stated, not inferred.

Edited by Hillslam, 18 December 2014 - 08:00 AM.

[IIIuminaughty]

calm down buddy a patch coming later on today

[DEMAX51]

Jacob Side, on 18 December 2014 - 07:55 AM, said:

It's pretty easy to know. If the planet has 6 or more attacker wins you're going to be on a counter attack.

Lily from animove, on 18 December 2014 - 07:56 AM, said:

not always, when you a ein the queue and the planet drops form 6 to 5 then you are not getting what you thought you get as you queued.

For the love of god, that's not true. And Lily, you should know better, because I directly responded to you in another thread with this exact post:

Quote

First off:

A Counter Attack can happen any time the Attacking Faction has at least one win on a planet. If the Attacking Faction has 11 wins, all defenses on that planet will be Counter Attacks until the Defending Faction wins a point back.

A Counter Attack is triggered when the Defending Faction has 12 players queued up to Defend before the Attacking Faction has 12 players queued up to attack (i.e. the first team with a full 12 is going to Attack/Counter Attack). It has absolutely nothing to do with the number of wins the Attacking faction has on the planet (except in cases as noted above). Russ confirmed this on Twitter.

Second:

When you're in a lobby, as soon as your whole team is shown in the lobby, there is a Header Bar at the top of the lobby window that tells you if you're Attacking, Defending, Counter Attacking, or Holding Territory (which is defending as the Attacking Faction). This means you have at least 1 full minute to edit your drop deck accordingly, which you can do directly in the Lobby.

(Note: This process may change soon. You may want to watch Russ' town hall meeting on Twitch tonight to hear about future changes.)

Finally:

When a Defending Faction successfully Counter Attacks one point is removed from the planet's Attacker Wins.


I am 100% positive about this information, and I hope this helps you all understand Counter Attacking better.

I hope that clears it up for you. And I hope that also explains why, the way the current matchmaker works, the system CAN'T tell you if it's a true Defense or a Counter Attack until you're in lobby.

[Hillslam]

IIIuminaughty, on 18 December 2014 - 07:59 AM, said:

calm down buddy a patch coming later on today
<funny pic>

lol Thanks naughty that gave me a laugh. Not greatly upset. But it is an issue.

DEMAX - thanks for that information.

Sounds like its a map refresh issue then. The map SHOULD be able to show you given it has knowledge of the planet queue tallies at any point in time, pre-lobby. Or at least a course grained version with the edge-cases of the 5-6 flip not handled but as it is now it has to be be inferred, and thats uinintuitive combined with the lack of CW manual or instructions.

After all, thats EXACTLY what players will be figuring out in their heads when they look at the numbers attached on a planet coming in the next patch. Why not bake it in to the UI?

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EDIT: to PMs - its not about the dropdeck, its about trying to give customers some control over match variety in CW.

Edited by Hillslam, 18 December 2014 - 08:09 AM.

[DEMAX51]

Hillslam, on 18 December 2014 - 08:05 AM, said:

lol Thanks naughty that gave me a laugh. Not greatly upset. But it is an issue.

DEMAX - thanks for that information.

Sounds like its a map refresh issue then. The map SHOULD be able to show you given it has knowledge of the planet queue tallies at any point in time, pre-lobby. Or at least a course grained version with the edge-cases of the 5-6 flip not handled but as it is now it has to be be inferred, and thats uinintuitive combined with the lack of CW manual or instructions.

After all, thats EXACTLY what players will be figuring out in their heads when they look at the numbers attached on a planet coming in the next patch. Why not bake it in to the UI?

Did you even read my post? It has nothing to do with the number of Attacker Wins. The only thing that defines whether you'll be truly defending or Counter Attacking is which team gets 12 guys together first (unless there are zero or 11 wins on a planet already).

And because the matchmaker doesn't know which side will get a full 12 first, the system has no way of knowing whether it'll be a normal attack/defense or a counter attack / hold territory map.

[Hillslam]

I read it. Read mine. No need to be rude.

If the MM at any point in time knows it has x built defenders and y built attackers on a planet's queue, it CAN show an indicator of A% defense missions and B% counterattacks.

It also knows the moment the defense team or attack team reachs 12 first. and could SHOW that on the map. Hence my comment of it being a refresh issue.

I write software for a living, and do exactly this sort of realtime data presentation on dashboards all the time.

EDIT: spelling

Edited by Hillslam, 18 December 2014 - 08:20 AM.

[DEMAX51]

Hillslam, on 18 December 2014 - 08:18 AM, said:

I read it. Read mine. No need to be rude.

If the MM at any point in time knows it has x built defenders and y built attackers on a planet's queue, it CAN show an indicator of A% defense missions and B% counterattacks.

I write software for a living, and do exactly this sort of realtime data presentation on dashboards all the time.

EDIT: spelling

At most it could give you a prediction, but that could very easily be wrong, and if the system told players they were " 80% likely to Defend" or something, and then at the last second said "oops, you're actually Attacking," people would probably be even more upset about it than they are now.

[Hillslam]

That's entirely possible. People get upset all the time. Irony acknowledged.

But it could give you the state it is in, accurately, at the moment you click to enter the queue - with the acknowledged caveat that it may change.

I also beleive what we're hearing is Russ conveying 2nd hand knowledge from his tech team. Because CEOs don't write queuing algorithms. And what I know about development is that every request brought to a team lead is "impossible" unless its something the architect/Sr Devs have already considered or already know how to do. Otherwise the kneejerk response is: "impossible". Until its possible.

I know its possible because Miner and I submitted a match making algorithm to PGI, as in *the code* to do it, along with the analysis of how it worked, for the knapsack problem as it then existed back in 2012. Granted alot has changed since then, but everything I mention is doable.

Has the dev team painted themselves into a corner? Possibly. Likely. Is it impossible? No.

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And after all, every feature starts as a request.

Edited by Hillslam, 18 December 2014 - 11:08 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Lily from animove, on 18 December 2014 - 07:56 AM, said:

not always, when you are in the queue and the planet drops form 6 to 5 then you are not getting what you thought you get as you queued.

If that is true, then knowing what state the Planet is/was in before hand, via the Map, means nothing, if it can change while your queued...

P.S. +1 to the OP's suggestion though.

[Almond Brown]

Hillslam, on 18 December 2014 - 08:18 AM, said:

I read it. Read mine. No need to be rude.

If the MM at any point in time knows it has x built defenders and y built attackers on a planet's queue, it CAN show an indicator of A% defense missions and B% counterattacks.

It also knows the moment the defense team or attack team reachs 12 first. and could SHOW that on the map. Hence my comment of it being a refresh issue.

I write software for a living, and do exactly this sort of realtime data presentation on dashboards all the time.

EDIT: spelling

I thought the state of Attack/Defend was entirely dependent on the outcome of the previous Match on that Planet. If Defenders win, any Defense would stay as such. If attackers has won last, the next Defense would be a Counter-attack.

[Hillslam]

if that's the case then its extra easy isn't it?

[Hillslam]

Nope.

Post patch report - it already tried to drop us in 3 CounterAttacks in a row on 3 completely different planets with 3 completely different sets of scenarios/situations/borders/etc requested by the UI to come DEFEND.

That makes 15 in a row counterattack.

As expected, the new info gives you nothing in the way of usable information in order to control what your drop is.

Might as well just make an attack deck and go attack empty planets all day long. At least that way you KNOW what you're getting.

I will try a few more times to see if there's a discernable pattern, but I will not be dropping on one more counterattack until I see a few defenses in a row.

This feature is sorely needed.

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EDIT: friends report same issue: counterattacks all day long. solo, 2man, 4man and 7man. Big variety of planets, all contested.

Edited by Hillslam, 18 December 2014 - 08:31 PM.

[xe N on]

As IS player I favor 2 drop decks, one for attack, one for defend. In the case of Clans I could imagine it is not necessary to distinguish between attack mech and defend mech. However, IS heavier mech tends to be slower then clans, a slow Atlas is not an good choice for attacking.

Therefore, there needs to be either an indicator whether there is an ongoing attack or defend. Or there needs to be a drop deck selector, that allows to save certain setups.

I'm simply to lazy to switch the mechs every time by hand!

Edited by xe N on, 18 December 2014 - 11:38 PM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Even if it is possible, they simply cannot allow people to know if they are attacking/counter attacking or defending/holding territory before the game forms. Defending is way more fun, and much easier in a pug/solo. If they allow you to know, who other than organised groups will ever choose to attack?.. would break the system completely.

I know if im dropping solo in CW im praying for defense every time.

[Widowmaker1981]

xe N on, on 18 December 2014 - 11:35 PM, said:

a slow Atlas is not a good choice for attacking.

Actually, an atlas is not a good choice full stop. King Crab, Banshee and Stalker are all much, much better mechs (and IS using bad mechs is why there are so many Clan OP threads. If every IS player was focusing on super quirk gods (TDR-9S/5SS, BNC-3M, etc) the threads would be .. either not there or reversed)

[xe N on]

Widowmaker1981, on 19 December 2014 - 01:28 AM, said:

Actually, an atlas is not a good choice full stop. King Crab, Banshee and Stalker are all much, much better mechs (and IS using bad mechs is why there are so many Clan OP threads. If every IS player was focusing on super quirk gods (TDR-9S/5SS, BNC-3M, etc) the threads would be .. either not there or reversed)

And every quirk nerf you should buy 3 mechs, basic 3 and master at least one? No thanks.

Who knows which mech become overquirked next time?

Edited by xe N on, 19 December 2014 - 07:28 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

xe N on, on 19 December 2014 - 07:20 AM, said:

And every quirk nerf you should buy 3 mechs, basic 3 and master at least one? No thanks.

Considering you can buy 3 IS chassis for the cost of 1 clan chassis roughly, my sympathy in that regard is lacking. The quirks might get the values tweaked, but in the vast majority of cases it will not change much, based on the 2nd round - that fixed some obvious silly mistakes (like not quirking the K2 for PPCs) but almost every mech kept the same quirks and got values tweaked - im willing to bet that the TDR-9S is going to remain an amazing ERPPC mech, even if they reduce the heat quirk a bit, for example.

If you are stubbornly using the same mechs, regardless of what is quirked, then.. well imo you give up your right to complain about inter faction balance. You have the options available and choose to not use them. Not like everyone doesnt have mechs in their stable that used to be good and now dont get used. My poor, poor Highlanders for example.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 19 December 2014 - 07:29 AM.