18 replies to this topic

[RedDevil]

Greetings,

Is there anywhere that is keeping track of each faction's active population that is available for us to see?

Cheers,
RedDevil

[Davers]

Nope. PGI doesn't share that information.

[RedDevil]

Thanks. It's been often said that CJF is the smallest Clan faction, but I was wondering what the numbers actually were.

[Mordin Ashe]

Population and active population are two very different numbers. CGB for example has low population but there are some serious workhorses within. I believe the same goes for CJF one way or the other. Serious numbers though? Even if we get the stats they might actually say very little. A lot of additional info would be needed to make the picture complete, such as quality of average CJF player (elo or KDR percentile perhaps?), number of players who drop at CW at least 15x a week and so on.
Statistics is one mean lady..

[FlipOver]

When are you people going to learn that statistics are like thongs.

They show everything except what really matters.

[RedDevil]

I am active in CJF, and we do amazing things with one to two drop teams in our clan, but I don't really have a feel for how the rest of the time zones are, or what sort of population the other factions are bringing to the table.

The population numbers are really all I'm interested in, as I can make the other inferences myself, and don't care about the stats.

Edited by reddevil, 18 March 2015 - 01:25 PM.

[mp00]

I am pretty sure PGI will never release those numbers as any info given to the community would be used as to start 500 threads on everything wrong with factions/community warfare/mech balance/drop balance/ the metric system/ daylights savings time/ ghost heat/ the overuse parsley on top of restaurant dinners/ elo and why april 1st should be urban mech day and everyone should be forced to use a urban mech on there first drop.

[Dawnstealer]

And even active population numbers could be deceiving. A better number to look for is how many 12-person drops are there, how many 8-person drops, how many actually play CW on the regular, etc. For example, I'm Steiner, but I rarely drop in CW.

[RedDevil]

Yes those are better numbers, but not what I'm looking for

[Dawnstealer]

Not that PGI will ever release these numbers, but maybe you could clarify the what and why of what you're looking for?

[Noesis]

You will also need to consider the TZ's for the player populations as a factor, especially as "potentially" these differing TZ's allow the influencing of the CW map and outcome of planetary conquest.

However the EU and Oceanic TZs are like a ghost town leaving only the US TZ as a relevant period when anything realistically occurs in CW.

[Exmortis]

Old topic, but I have a question and this is a relevant thread.

I'm looking to join CW, but I want to make sure that the faction (IS only due to my mastered 'mechs) has enough population, or at least active CW-playing population, to ensure that I get frequent games. I played a week's contract with Davion and had fun -- now I'm looking to really be a frequent CW'er.

So, two questions. Bear in mind my MAIN goal is to get the most _frequent_ CW action possible:

1. Does the size of the currently map territory matter when determining which faction to join, specifically in terms of frequency of finding games?
2. Does a small territory indicate that there's a low amount of players trying to conquer anything, that they suck, or some combination of the two?

To be clear: I don't mind if the faction I play with isn't particularly "good", or that they win all the time. I DO care that they're active and there's frequent games without having to wait forever between attacks/defenses.

So to sum it all up, which IS faction is the most busy and offers the most opportunities to drop?

[Leone]

You can always defend. However, if your looking to actually be on the offensive, classically that leaves you with The Draconis Combine or the FRR. Dunno bout recently though, as I've been spending alotta time on the Falcon/Steiner border. Hey! look at that, Hello Free Worlds League...

~Leone.

[-Vompo-]

The hold territories of any given faction don't necessary mean that it would be difficult to find games with that faction. I'm FRR so I should know. You could even say that the size of any given faction is largely determined which faction got rolled by big merc unit last.

You can visit FRR hub teamspeak server (Server address: FRRTS3.TK:9725 Password: Dragon) if you wish to drop in CW with FRR players. This would mean that you need to take a contract with FRR. There are one or more groups playing cw pretty much everyday during EU and NA drop windows.

[Exmortis]

Leone, thanks for responding. A few more questions if I may:

This is the current map, taken a few minutes ago: http://i.imgur.com/OtZLpL2.jpg

The FRR owns almost nothing. Does this mean that there's no players in the FRR or that they're all terrible? Is the map dynamic, shifting its borders as planets are conquered, or are the outlines permanent and planets are conquered and lost without the overall territory changing?

Quote

"You can always defend."

Right, but the same rule that 12 need to be assembled applies, just the same as attacking, correct? So I'm not certain how always being able to defend helps me get more CW games in, unless defending combines pilots from different factions, while attacking is limited to 12 of the same faction as yourself.

Quote

However, if your looking to actually be on the offensive, classically that leaves you with The Draconis Combine or the FRR.

Why is that the case?

Sorry for all the noob questions -- it's not like PGI has a helpful wiki to check or anything, so here I am.

Edited by Exmortis, 14 July 2015 - 10:25 PM.

[Exmortis]

*EDIT -- I think I just answered my own question. The Draconis Combine and FRR are BOTH merc units, and can fight anyone at anytime, assisting factions they aren't aligned with on a per-battle basis.*

My original post:

Vompo, thanks! Final questions:

Quote

You could even say that the size of any given faction is largely determined which faction got rolled by big merc unit last.

Big merc unit last? What? When choosing factions, all I see are the IS houses, the clans, the DC and FRR. Does this mean the DC and FRR can fight anyone, attacking or defending? If they're non-aligned groups which can join *anyone's* CW drop as if they were temporarily part of their pledged members, then that's really cool and I'm in. Is that how it works?

Edited by Exmortis, 14 July 2015 - 10:35 PM.

[Chafe]

A unit is a separate beast to a faction, think of it like a guild in a mmo, it can number from 1 - unlimited players and these will be the people that you probably play with most, there's units to cater to all tastes (casual, competitive, RP, etc etc), you don't need to join one in order to belong to a faction though.
Merc unit refers to a unit that will switch allegiances between IS houses and Clan clans. They take up temporary contracts with one house then swap to another after the contract expires; as opposed to a loyalist unit that sticks with the same faction permanently.
There's advantages to both, loyalist units will progress towards rank 20 with their chosen faction more quickly while merc's get lots of lower ranks with different houses (its a good way to get some free mechbay's). Merc's get variety as well, although if you only use IS mech's this won't be an issue for you particularly.
As to the defending thing, any IS player can defend any IS world from the clans regardless of faction but you can only attack on your own factions borders, similarly, only members of your own faction will be able to defend a world if its another IS house attacking you.
Hope this clears it up for you, I'm a liao loyalist personally so I can't tell you how active things are on the attack in the other factions. Best advice I can give you would be to join a halfway decent unit once you decide what you want to do, you'll find recruitment posts for all the main units that are looking for more player's in the subforums at the top of the CW forum and they'll help you to have the most enjoyable experience in CW.

*Edit - The state of the cw map has a lot to do with which merc units are currently with which houses, for example, I believe FRR was down to its last planet or so a few days back then 228 (large, competitive merc unit) joined them and they started expanding again. As it stands at the moment owning huge swathe's of map offers zero bonus to anyone other than more borders to attack on, its just an excuse to fight.

Edited by Chafe, 14 July 2015 - 11:00 PM.

[Kin3ticX]

RedDevil, on 18 March 2015 - 08:05 AM, said:

Greetings,

Is there anywhere that is keeping track of each faction's active population that is available for us to see?

Cheers,
RedDevil

Look at the tournament stats from the last event.

[TWIAFU]

RedDevil, on 18 March 2015 - 08:05 AM, said:

Greetings,

Is there anywhere that is keeping track of each faction's active population that is available for us to see?

Cheers,
RedDevil

Only thing you can see is your current Faction Numbers at the time you check. These will only be faction members involved in the attack/defend queue. These will rise and fall through out the day.