42 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

Roadbeer, on 05 January 2015 - 11:06 PM, said:

As one of the people who suggests where we focus House Marik's attention, I can tell you that the Steiner front wasn't considered a problem until it was entirely too late to do anything about it.

By the time it became a problem, we were completely ALL IN in attacking and defending on the Davion front, and it wasn't until it was all over that we noticed that there were twice the number of wins done in the final hour than in the few hours leading up to it.

It was brought to my attention and I weighed the risk and didn't foresee a final hour push. It's not Steiner's fault, they gave more than enough notice to what was going on, It was the fault of myself and the others who suggest when and where to focus.

Bluntly you made the right call - You traded worlds with davion yesterday; you probably couldn't have rolled them back in that timeframe and would have almost certainly not taken Old Kentucky from Davion.

Sometimes you need to decide on priorities and take the hits you're going to take to land the objective.

[Abivard]

One of the biggest problems about stopping last minute zerg ghost drops on worlds is the inability to see the planet players queues when in a match or while waiting in prequeue.

While a couple 3rd party apps monitor the planet's segment win count (the red ticks of attacker) I am unaware of any that can monitor the number of players in the queue.
This is often why the multi company ghost droppers try to time their first wins to be at the same time, so that the planet count will go from zero straight to 3 or 4 attacker wins.
This sudden swing to 3 or 4 wins is often the first clue the defending Faction, who is almost always heavily engaged somewhere else at the time, has that the Ghost Drop zerg has started.

So in conclusion, until PGI fixes things, Someone make an app that monitors players in queues please, with a little bell when a sudden influx of players occurs would be nice.

Edited by Abivard, 06 January 2015 - 09:00 AM.

[Joe Decker]

The whole CW Info is heavily delayed anyway. As long as there is no Live Update with a short Delay of a few Seconds, the Problem will persist.

Best would be to have a total Number of Wins per Day. But I guess PGI wants to hold on to their complicated and flawed Territory System with Deadline. In that Case a fair System with Territories held over a certain Time would fix the Problem. So for a Territory you own less than an Hour you should get nothing for.

Edited by Joe Decker, 06 January 2015 - 09:55 AM.

[Kjudoon]

Joe Decker, on 06 January 2015 - 09:51 AM, said:

The whole CW Info is heavily delayed anyway. As long as there is no Live Update with a short Delay of a few Seconds, the Problem will persist.

Best would be to have a total Number of Wins per Day. But I guess PGI wants to hold on to their complicated and flawed Territory System with Deadline. In that Case a fair System with Territories held over a certain Time would fix the Problem. So for a Territory you own less than an Hour you should get nothing for.

hey Joe, we could make it like a big game of conquest. You earn points for the amount of time a unit occupies a territory till the other team captures it.

Hey..... that could possibly work!

Give 1 capture point for every territory held per hour to the side that occupies it for the most time that hour (31 minutes). The side with the most capture points at the end wins. Ghost drop spam in the hot zone won't mean anything in the last hour, and force players to start dropping early to capture planets and hold territory as long as possible.

The catch would be if you only gave points while a team is doing 'garrison' duty on a territory and holding it with a 12man. Boring, but if you paid some Cbills for it, allowed access to training grounds and the mech lab, I'm sure many would be interested in playing garrison forces.

Example:

Planet with 15 zones would pay out 15 points per hour when a territory is occupied for 31 minutes by a team.

At the cease fire 23 hours later, you tabulate and know who won the planet.
Victory would be attained from 173 of 245 victory points.

A point per territory per hour is earned.

An interesting thought and forces groups to commit to a planet or battle or front instead of bopping back and forth.

Edited by Kjudoon, 06 January 2015 - 10:16 AM.

[Lucun]

Abivard, on 06 January 2015 - 08:59 AM, said:

One of the biggest problems about stopping last minute zerg ghost drops on worlds is the inability to see the planet players queues when in a match or while waiting in prequeue.

While a couple 3rd party apps monitor the planet's segment win count (the red ticks of attacker) I am unaware of any that can monitor the number of players in the queue.
This is often why the multi company ghost droppers try to time their first wins to be at the same time, so that the planet count will go from zero straight to 3 or 4 attacker wins.
This sudden swing to 3 or 4 wins is often the first clue the defending Faction, who is almost always heavily engaged somewhere else at the time, has that the Ghost Drop zerg has started.

So in conclusion, until PGI fixes things, Someone make an app that monitors players in queues please, with a little bell when a sudden influx of players occurs would be nice.

Well, ghost drops for 12 mans happen after a 10 minute wait on defenders. Normally the queue count updates once a minute. Also, the queue count includes all those in queue and in game, so you really shouldn't be missing any updates if you actually check frequently rather than being lazy.

[Lily from animove]

and this the issue of CW all is quite pointless except the few matches shortly before ceasefire.

[Abivard]

Lucun, on 06 January 2015 - 10:13 AM, said:

Well, ghost drops for 12 mans happen after a 10 minute wait on defenders. Normally the queue count updates once a minute. Also, the queue count includes all those in queue and in game, so you really shouldn't be missing any updates if you actually check frequently rather than being lazy.

I can not check frequently and also play matches. It sounds as if you do not actually play CW? Or me and and everyone I play with is missing a trick.

When you are in prequeue or in an actual CW match, how do you see how many players are in each planets queue?
I spend 95% to 99% of my time playing CW in a match or a prequeue for a match.

Please enlighten this grunt on how you do it.

[Lucun]

Abivard, on 06 January 2015 - 10:25 AM, said:

I can not check frequently and also play matches. It sounds as if you do not actually play CW? Or me and and everyone I play with is missing a trick.

When you are in prequeue or in an actual CW match, how do you see how many players are in each planets queue?
I spend 95% to 99% of my time playing CW in a match or a prequeue for a match.

Please enlighten this grunt on how you do it.

If you are in queue for a long time... maybe they don't need you at that planet? Longer queues means too many on your side or not enough opponents or that all bases already have a match. You should allocate yourself elsewhere where more players are needed (resulting in a shorter queue). If you are already in a match, why the heck do you want to defend against ghost drops? You are already contributing to your faction correctly. It should be someone else who is not in a match to drop there rather than being idle in queue for a long time trying to play at one planet all the time.

If you want to prevent last minute ghost drops, wait outside of queue watching for a sudden 12 attackers on your planet and then queue up for that sweet instant queue.

Edited by Lucun, 06 January 2015 - 10:45 AM.

[Abivard]

Lucun, on 06 January 2015 - 10:40 AM, said:

If you are in queue for a long time... maybe they don't need you at that planet? Longer queues means too many on your side or not enough opponents or that all bases already have a match. You should allocate yourself elsewhere where more players are needed (resulting in a shorter queue). If you are already in a match, why the heck do you want to defend against ghost drops? You are already contributing to your faction correctly. It should be someone else who is not in a match to drop there rather than being idle in queue for a long time trying to play at one planet all the time.

WTF are you rambling on about?

You made the bold statement that it is possible to constantly monitor queue numbers on worlds and I asked you how as 90% of my time is spent in match another 5 to 8% in queues and all of us who actually play CW know you cant see the list of worlds or player numbers unless you are staring at the faction map and not playing.

[Lucun]

Abivard, on 06 January 2015 - 10:47 AM, said:

WTF are you rambling on about?

You made the bold statement that it is possible to constantly monitor queue numbers on worlds and I asked you how as 90% of my time is spent in match another 5 to 8% in queues and all of us who actually play CW know you cant see the list of worlds or player numbers unless you are staring at the faction map and not playing.

I'm pretty much saying why the F do you want to monitor queues while in game? So what if you see there is a ghost drop on a different planet? You are already in a game defending. Also, since you want to prevent ghost drops, why queue up when you should wait for the attackers to queue up first? You cannot predict ghost drops, but you can monitor for em OUTSIDE of queue and then queue up to counter it. As ceasefire nears, just wait for sudden ghost drops.

Edited by Lucun, 06 January 2015 - 10:54 AM.

[Abivard]

Lucun, on 06 January 2015 - 10:51 AM, said:

I'm pretty much saying why the F do you want to monitor queues while in game? So what if you see there is a ghost drop on a different planet? You are already in a game defending. Also, since you want to prevent ghost drops, why queue up when you should wait for the attackers to queue up first? You cannot predict ghost drops, but you can monitor for em OUTSIDE of queue and then queue up to counter it.

Are you a solo pugger?
You must be. That explains your total lack of comprehension that there is more going on then fighting a round of invasion mode someplace convenient to you alone.

[Lucun]

Abivard, on 06 January 2015 - 10:54 AM, said:

Are you a solo pugger?
You must be. That explains your total lack of comprehension that there is more going on then fighting a round of invasion mode someplace convenient to you alone.

I do unit drops. We always look at queue count first to see where we're needed and almost always get near-instant queues which is quite very convenient (unless we're ghost dropping). PUG drops take to darn long due to groups having higher priority.

Edited by Lucun, 06 January 2015 - 10:57 AM.

[Abivard]

Lucun, on 06 January 2015 - 10:57 AM, said:

I do unit drops. We always look at queue count first to see where we're needed and almost always get near-instant queues which is quite very convenient (unless we're ghost dropping). PUG drops take to darn long due to groups having higher priority.

But I take it your 'unit' does not coordinate with other units in your faction? Or units in other factions even?
Because that is what my posts are directed at, inter-unit and factional coordination of CW, not playing individual stand alone games of invasion mode between pub games.

[Roadbeer]

You two need a hotel (or another thread)?

[Lucun]

Abivard, on 06 January 2015 - 11:02 AM, said:

But I take it your 'unit' does not coordinate with other units in your faction? Or units in other factions even?
Because that is what my posts are directed at, inter-unit and factional coordination of CW, not playing individual stand alone games of invasion mode between pub games.

If you see ghost drop attempts near ceasefire (since this was what your initial post was about), go defend against it. Why do you even need to coordinate with your faction to do a simple defense? Alas, no, my unit does not coordinate with our faction like a good number of other Steiner units. We do what we want (except attack our FedSun allies).

Roadbeer, on 06 January 2015 - 11:09 AM, said:

You two need a hotel (or another thread)?

Only if it has room service! But yeah, good point... derailing thread here.

Edited by Lucun, 06 January 2015 - 11:16 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Abivard, on 06 January 2015 - 10:47 AM, said:

WTF are you rambling on about?

You made the bold statement that it is possible to constantly monitor queue numbers on worlds and I asked you how as 90% of my time is spent in match another 5 to 8% in queues and all of us who actually play CW know you cant see the list of worlds or player numbers unless you are staring at the faction map and not playing.

That's where a central command on coms is useful. You've got 1 guy in the faction teamspeak who doesn't drop - he just watches queues and gets reports from the organized units on how fights on different worlds are going. This way he knows often only 10 or 15 minutes into matches how they will likely play out. He is also watching the queues for population shifts so units just coming out of drops or just coming online can be directed to where they are most useful.

This is why larger coordinated units (or factions) seem to work just fine with multiple borders and others don't. Comes down to organizational skills.

[TripleEhBeef]

Alexander Steel, on 05 January 2015 - 11:56 AM, said:

I'm not sure why you thought making a thread and complaining about the attack would stop it more than say getting 12 people together to actually fight the attack off. If Marik had put as much energy into stopping the attack as they did posting and complaining about the attack the world would have been saved. <_<

This is 100% a case of "You have nobody to blame but yourself."

Unfortunately as a solo player, pulling 11 other people together to defend a world is a bit difficult with no in-game faction chat or pugger party system, particularly at a time when most active players are signing off to go to sleep. Spent a good 15 minutes or so in drop queues on the Marik-Davion front to try and let people know Nestor was under attack. Couldn't get a match.

Fact is, posting on the forums was the only avenue I had to say "HEY MARIK GUYS, THOSE FISTERS ARE TRYING TO SNEAK BEHIND US!".

But OK, my griping's over.

So let's look at this as a way to suggest improvements to CW. Because having games where you play against nobody does take the "Community" out of Community Warfare.

A suggested above, a revised scoring system that takes into account activity during all time periods is needed. I think we can all agree on that.

There was also the suggestion to have some way of seeing planet statuses while in drop queues or in game. Right now I'm thinking of that big expanse of black space in the pause menu. Why not turn that into some sort of "dashboard" where you can see a "Coles Notes" version of the CW UI while you're in game?

Picture this:

The left side of the screen has the current drop queue statuses for all the worlds you can attack and defend. Clicking on one would show the current Win/Loss and planet status (similar to what you see when you click on a planet now) in the centre. If we get faction/unit chat in the future, those windows could be on the right. The existing blue buttons could be relocated to the top right or something.

Now, when you select a world, you can click Attack/Defend and jump to the drop queue when the match you're currently in is complete. Thus, you could even be in normal queue game then jump to a CW queue once the game is over. Add in functionality so a group leader can set his whole group to jump to CW, and you're done.

[Alexander Steel]

MischiefSC, on 06 January 2015 - 01:55 PM, said:

That's where a central command on coms is useful. You've got 1 guy in the faction teamspeak who doesn't drop - he just watches queues and gets reports from the organized units on how fights on different worlds are going. This way he knows often only 10 or 15 minutes into matches how they will likely play out. He is also watching the queues for population shifts so units just coming out of drops or just coming online can be directed to where they are most useful.

This is why larger coordinated units (or factions) seem to work just fine with multiple borders and others don't. Comes down to organizational skills.

Or you just check your planets after every drop. Once something starts to flip it will be obvious.

[HBizzle]

MischiefSC, on 06 January 2015 - 01:55 PM, said:

That's where a central command on coms is useful. You've got 1 guy in the faction teamspeak who doesn't drop - he just watches queues and gets reports from the organized units on how fights on different worlds are going. This way he knows often only 10 or 15 minutes into matches how they will likely play out. He is also watching the queues for population shifts so units just coming out of drops or just coming online can be directed to where they are most useful.

This is why larger coordinated units (or factions) seem to work just fine with multiple borders and others don't. Comes down to organizational skills.

This is how Mercstar does it. Its really not that difficult.

[Roadbeer]

HBizzle, on 06 January 2015 - 09:33 PM, said:

This is how Mercstar does it. Its really not that difficult.

Same with Marik, we have excellent lines of communication between House Loyalists and our Mercs.