51 replies to this topic

[Heisenbug]

During the first one or two town-halls about CW, it was mentioned that they didn't plan on reseting the map when they switched from beta to production. However, that position changed in the last town-hall, suggesting that it may happen. Given what's happened since then, it seems certain that they'll reset the map as CW development appears to have a (very) LONG way to go.

(
The rest of this post is conjecture, feel free to educate me as necessary...

It seems that the changes made since CW started have only pushed the team players to evolve and get better, while the average pug team is just stagnating in it's skill level. Thus, many of the matches are more one-sided than ever, and as such the clans are just running ruff-shod over IS territory.

I wonder if part of this is because many of the units are only willing to play as clans given the innate superiority of clan mechs (*<- already sighing over the people who will argue this*). Don't get me wrong, the try-hards disproportionately support this game financially and should be given credit for that. But it appears that most of the try-hards prefer to play as clan and so the clans have a superiority in number of teams as well as mech quality.

Shouldn't we start considering that those playing on IS (vs. clan) units as the ones who are truly engaging in hard-mode of this game (rather than taking an innate advantage and beating up on a bunch of IS pugs)?

Maybe I'm off base, but maybe I'm not...
)

[Onmyoudo]

Before anything else, what Russ said was that he wasn't sure if the map would be reset or not - it would depend on player opinion, which is an opinion that at this point is guaranteed to be controversial. Either the Clans have to start doing all their work again, or Kurita and Rasalhague are crippled and hopelessly outmatched by sheer population. If the map is reset it will come with mechanic changes necessary to stop the entire thing just repeating itself, or it might as well have not been reset at all.

[IraqiWalker]

Onmyoudo, on 26 January 2015 - 02:10 AM, said:

Before anything else, what Russ said was that he wasn't sure if the map would be reset or not - it would depend on player opinion, which is an opinion that at this point is guaranteed to be controversial. Either the Clans have to start doing all their work again, or Kurita and Rasalhague are crippled and hopelessly outmatched by sheer population. If the map is reset it will come with mechanic changes necessary to stop the entire thing just repeating itself, or it might as well have not been reset at all.

If they reset, Kurita and FRR have the chance to seek Cease-fires/NAPs/Alliances alliances with other houses as well. More then than ever, since we all know how that song and dance goes. So if a reset happens, we're all probably going to show up geared up and ready to smash face. Why not have our ducks in a row beforehand?

[Thunder Child]

Okay, regarding the Cheap Shot at Clan Tech, Clans are no longer innately "Superior" to IS tech. Yes, the Timberwolf, Stormcrow, Hellbringer (ECM), and Direwolf are all stupidly powerful chassis. But match up a Summoner to a Cataphract, A Kitfox to a Spider, an Adder to a Jenner or Firestarter, a Nova to a Hunchie/Cent, hell, any Clan mech to it's IS equivalent, excluding the big four, and you'll find the Inner Sphere chassis can quite easily hold their own. Especially now that IS mechs have some pretty good Quirks (I still need to acquire them T-Bolts).

The reason some of the Clans have made major inroads is due to Merc Units flipping allegiances. The unit I belong to has recently just flipped BACK to CSJ, after a stint as Davion. And the scuttlebutt on the Forums is that a lot of the CGB mercs had jumped ship, jumped back, and jumped out again.

So, generally speaking, a lot of major territory shifts will occur when major merc units swap allegiances. Additionally, many of these "Try-hards" actually own a large number of IS mechs too, and will run IS contracts, just to get usage out of the rest of their chassis. So blaming "Try-Hards" and "Superior Clan Tech" is a poor excuse.

Put simply, the advantage will be to whichever faction has the largest numbers any given week, whether it be Clan or IS. Hell, look at the Davion and Steiner territories as an example. These guys own HUGE chunks of "friendly" territory. Perhaps the IS should cut down on In-fighting, and kick the Clanners out of the Sphere.

Please Note, I do concede that Four of the Thirteen currently available Clan Chassis are what could be considered "superior", and also, I believe the Invasion maps are terribly designed, as they don't encourage Tactical Movement and Objective Control. But many map ideas have been posted to that regard.

Also, I'm all for a Reset, once they FIX CW.

[Faith McCarron]

Heisenbug, on 26 January 2015 - 12:52 AM, said:

Shouldn't we start considering that those playing on IS (vs. clan) units as the ones who are truly engaging in hard-mode of this game (rather than taking an innate advantage and beating up on a bunch of IS pugs)?

Maybe I'm off base, but maybe I'm not...
)

My only point would be that we shouldn't necessarily tar all the clan comp teams with the same brush, for a couple of reasons.

1) A fair number of comp units are playing on both sides, and are playing IS at least part of the time. This comes down to being able to play all the mechs in their stable, following the money, and just pure variety.

2) Not all the clan comp teams have the same attitude. The game mechanics of CW right now force any clan unit to face drops of chaotic IS pugs. Some enjoy this, and some hate it. A lot of them would rather they have actual challenging battles. And then there are the ones who genuinely enjoy hopping the gate right off the bat and spawn ******. Publicly they may say otherwise, but give them the truth serum and they would tell you they really get their kicks from the tears of the pugs. There's no real way to tell the difference between the two.

Now, a reset wouldn't solve the problem of mechanics. A big one is that the way the clan fights are set up, with IS players from all factions being able to defend planets on the clan border, guarantees that the clan side is going to field a greater percentage of organized units while the IS side is going to field a greater percentage of faction mish-mash units that quite frankly don't stand a chance, especially in counter-attack mode. The problem is that the alternative means a smaller IS population of players on the clan border, which means more ghost drops. Neither is a solution that anyone really wants.

[IraqiWalker]

Thunder Child, on 26 January 2015 - 02:45 AM, said:

Okay, regarding the Cheap Shot at Clan Tech, Clans are no longer innately "Superior" to IS tech. Yes, the Timberwolf, Stormcrow, Hellbringer (ECM), and Direwolf are all stupidly powerful chassis. But match up a Summoner to a Cataphract, A Kitfox to a Spider, an Adder to a Jenner or Firestarter, a Nova to a Hunchie/Cent, hell, any Clan mech to it's IS equivalent, excluding the big four, and you'll find the Inner Sphere chassis can quite easily hold their own. Especially now that IS mechs have some pretty good Quirks (I still need to acquire them T-Bolts).

The reason some of the Clans have made major inroads is due to Merc Units flipping allegiances. The unit I belong to has recently just flipped BACK to CSJ, after a stint as Davion. And the scuttlebutt on the Forums is that a lot of the CGB mercs had jumped ship, jumped back, and jumped out again.

So, generally speaking, a lot of major territory shifts will occur when major merc units swap allegiances. Additionally, many of these "Try-hards" actually own a large number of IS mechs too, and will run IS contracts, just to get usage out of the rest of their chassis. So blaming "Try-Hards" and "Superior Clan Tech" is a poor excuse.

Put simply, the advantage will be to whichever faction has the largest numbers any given week, whether it be Clan or IS. Hell, look at the Davion and Steiner territories as an example. These guys own HUGE chunks of "friendly" territory. Perhaps the IS should cut down on In-fighting, and kick the Clanners out of the Sphere.

Please Note, I do concede that Four of the Thirteen currently available Clan Chassis are what could be considered "superior", and also, I believe the Invasion maps are terribly designed, as they don't encourage Tactical Movement and Objective Control. But many map ideas have been posted to that regard.

Also, I'm all for a Reset, once they FIX CW.

Actually, one of the main reasons the clans have managed to advance so quickly is the IS pugs dropping on the clan border, and sandbagging so hard, I almost quit CW multiple times now. They play like it's a regular pug match, and let the clan force push in, and then farm one of the drop sites, without moving to help their teammates. At. All.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 26 January 2015 - 03:03 AM.

[Thunder Child]

IraqiWalker, on 26 January 2015 - 03:00 AM, said:

Actually, the main reason the clans have managed to advance so quickly is the IS pugs dropping on the clan border, and sandbagging so hard, I almost quit CW multiple times now. They play like it's a regular pug match, and let the clan force push in, and then farm one of the drop sites, without moving to help their teammates. At. All.

QFT. Having been on the IS side more than once (I have an Alt account devoted to Steiner and Hunchbacks ), I know exactly what you mean. That said, it does go both ways, as we've also managed to roll Clan "teams" on occasion. I think, honestly, one of the main issues is this damned Counter-Attack thing. It should be scrapped. If it belongs to one faction, that faction should only run Defense, while the Attacker has to run Offense.

That said, we need more variety for maps and game types. Invasion is good and all, but what about some Objective Raids. Or some border skirmishes. Not EVERY planetary Invasion (at least in Lore) was about a group of Attackers Zerging some random Super Gauss Cannon (what IS it shooting at btw. So far, every Leopard class dropship has made it to the battle unscathed, and I'm pretty darned certain they aren't firing all the way out to the Jumpships....)

[Faith McCarron]

IraqiWalker, on 26 January 2015 - 03:00 AM, said:

Actually, one of the main reasons the clans have managed to advance so quickly is the IS pugs dropping on the clan border, and sandbagging so hard, I almost quit CW multiple times now. They play like it's a regular pug match, and let the clan force push in, and then farm one of the drop sites, without moving to help their teammates. At. All.

Agreed, and quite frankly, the problem is that they are just plain bad. I can't count the number of times I have gotten a defense match, seen the clanners push in and start farming, and the IS players simply are too bad to actually do anything. In these matches, I can usually pull 8-12 kills. The problem is that my team ends up pulling a TOTAL of like 14-15 kills, so it's my 12 plus 3 other guys killing one each. The rest of them stand there in the open getting LRM'd, or march to some kill box by themselves to trade shots for 3 seconds with half a dozen opponents before they die. If each of the other guys only my team traded even at a 50% rate with clans (which isnt very good), the match would be a 34-48 loss. That's bad but not THAT bad. Now if only a handful of them traded at an even rate, it would be a close match. But they're just too unskilled to do it.

[Joseph Mallan]

Seriously they are considering leaving the map as is? So once we leave Beta to "start" playing for real, all the BS shenanigans that have happened will stand? Really? That's just silly.

[Joseph Mallan]

IraqiWalker, on 26 January 2015 - 03:00 AM, said:

Actually, one of the main reasons the clans have managed to advance so quickly is the IS pugs dropping on the clan border, and sandbagging so hard, I almost quit CW multiple times now. They play like it's a regular pug match, and let the clan force push in, and then farm one of the drop sites, without moving to help their teammates. At. All.

Faith McCarron, on 26 January 2015 - 03:10 AM, said:

Agreed, and quite frankly, the problem is that they are just plain bad. I can't count the number of times I have gotten a defense match, seen the clanners push in and start farming, and the IS players simply are too bad to actually do anything. In these matches, I can usually pull 8-12 kills. The problem is that my team ends up pulling a TOTAL of like 14-15 kills, so it's my 12 plus 3 other guys killing one each. The rest of them stand there in the open getting LRM'd, or march to some kill box by themselves to trade shots for 3 seconds with half a dozen opponents before they die. If each of the other guys only my team traded even at a 50% rate with clans (which isnt very good), the match would be a 34-48 loss. That's bad but not THAT bad. Now if only a handful of them traded at an even rate, it would be a close match. But they're just too unskilled to do it.

I will disagree with you on this point, but only because I will not White Wash all PUGs like you just did.

PUGs
Pick Up Gamers are not teh problem.

NOOBs are the problem.

Quote

Defining 'Noob'
Contrary to the belief of many, a noob/n00b and a newbie/newb are not the same thing. Newbs are those who are new to some task* and are very beginner at it, possibly a little overconfident about it, but they are willing to learn and fix their errors to move out of that stage. n00bs, on the other hand, know little and have no will to learn any more. They expect people to do the work for them and then expect to get praised about it, and make up a unique species of their own.

[Faith McCarron]

You are technically correct, Joseph, but the problem is that 95% or more of all PUGs on the clan front for the IS are also noobs. If I get 1 solid PUG on my team every 4th PUG drop on the clan front, I'm lucky.

[Joseph Mallan]

Faith McCarron, on 26 January 2015 - 03:17 AM, said:

You are technically correct, Joseph, but the problem is that 95% or more of all PUGs on the clan front for the IS are also noobs. If I get 1 solid PUG on my team every 4th PUG drop on the clan front, I'm lucky.

I must be more generous/forgiving than you Faith, and Faulty Generalizations are a pet peeve.

[IraqiWalker]

Joseph Mallan, on 26 January 2015 - 03:14 AM, said:

I will disagree with you on this point, but only because I will not White Wash all PUGs like you just did.

PUGs
Pick Up Gamers are not teh problem.

NOOBs are the problem.

You are technically correct, and I apologize for the white washing.

[Lily from animove]

my opinion is, after balancing stuff and implementing the rest of CW (especially if they implement logistics) then we should have an reset.

[Basilisk222]

I think a reset is inevitable, and warranted. I'm unsure what kind of time frame PGI's thinking we'll be at terra and when that is reasonable, but i'm inclined to believe clans will be there *soon*. Showing that the ability of the IS despite it's *ahem* super thunderbolt can't keep the clans from taking planets.

Kurita is pushed back very deep, and the clans have more than made back what they've lost in very short order.

The map is likely to reset every few months, and I'm kind of hoping there's some kind of reward set for "place" in CW. in the form of items, mc, c-bills, or something else, with a caveat to receiving the rewards for the faction you spent the most time allied to, but we'll see, it's not likely for beta.

I think more modes and maps definitely more than not warrant a change. Especially since Snow map was really bad initially, I mean, it's still kind of bad, but it's much better now than it was.

[Lily from animove]

Kilgorin Strom, on 26 January 2015 - 05:32 AM, said:

I think a reset is inevitable, and warranted. I'm unsure what kind of time frame PGI's thinking we'll be at terra and when that is reasonable, but i'm inclined to believe clans will be there *soon*. Showing that the ability of the IS despite it's *ahem* super thunderbolt can't keep the clans from taking planets.

Kurita is pushed back very deep, and the clans have more than made back what they've lost in very short order.

The map is likely to reset every few months, and I'm kind of hoping there's some kind of reward set for "place" in CW. in the form of items, mc, c-bills, or something else, with a caveat to receiving the rewards for the faction you spent the most time allied to, but we'll see, it's not likely for beta.

I think more modes and maps definitely more than not warrant a change. Especially since Snow map was really bad initially, I mean, it's still kind of bad, but it's much better now than it was.

why? even if the clans reach terra it would be interesting to not reset it, CW is getting itneresting when the map is clsutered and finally everyone would have a border to everyone.

Edited by Lily from animove, 26 January 2015 - 05:54 AM.

[Basilisk222]

Lily from animove, on 26 January 2015 - 05:54 AM, said:

why? even if the clans reach terra it would be interesting to not reset it, CW is getting itneresting when the map is clsutered and finally everyone would have a border to everyone.

Because it's the point? Reaching terra and controlling it means we win. That's the goal. I mean yes it WOULD be interesting, but every member of the FRR would be long gone waiting for a reason to play, I mean if people get auto dumped into another faction so they aren't surrounded and stuck there's no issue, but I think I'm pretty solid stating it'd be really boring or frustrating to play if your faction gets obliterated.

Kurita, Stiener and FRR would likely be gone for several weeks/months before Marik, Suns, and Liao finally fall.

[HARDKOR]

How could you NOT reset it? I think they said that it wouldn't be reset just to make sure the lore addicts still play beta. It's only reasonable to assume it will be reset once beta is over, as the entire game will be(it better be) unrecognizable compared to day one of beta.

You can't have a contest where you change the rules all the time without starting over once you finalize the rules.

[IraqiWalker]

Kilgorin Strom, on 26 January 2015 - 05:59 AM, said:

Because it's the point? Reaching terra and controlling it means we win. That's the goal. I mean yes it WOULD be interesting, but every member of the FRR would be long gone waiting for a reason to play, I mean if people get auto dumped into another faction so they aren't surrounded and stuck there's no issue, but I think I'm pretty solid stating it'd be really boring or frustrating to play if your faction gets obliterated.

Kurita, Stiener and FRR would likely be gone for several weeks/months before Marik, Suns, and Liao finally fall.

Factions can't get obliterated. The Capitol worlds are only encircled, and can't be occupied. Meaning every FRR player can keep striking back at the clans, even when they are reduced to one world.

[Basilisk222]

IraqiWalker, on 26 January 2015 - 06:37 AM, said:

Factions can't get obliterated. The Capitol worlds are only encircled, and can't be occupied. Meaning every FRR player can keep striking back at the clans, even when they are reduced to one world.

I know that.

Noone is going to want to play in a faction when that faction can attack one planet over and over and over, and likely since they were walked over in the first place, make little to no progress in becoming any kind of power again.

Morale will drop, people will jump ship to other fronts, and the faction will be dead.

There's literal obliteration, and then there's figurative obliteration, sure capital worlds can't be taken, but at some point , the stagnanation will make them surrender.