37 replies to this topic

[Ace Selin]

Dawnstealer, on 22 June 2015 - 10:56 AM, said:

Yeah - Clan and IS mechs are pretty well balanced at the moment. The real problem with CW at this point mostly circles around the points that it takes forever to get a drop (which causes people to stop playing, which makes it a longer wait to get a drop, which causes people to...you get the idea), and there's nothing to fight for.

For the second one, you're just making a dot change color. There's no real reward beyond "gaining ranks," which are also kind of pointless beyond the one-time rewards associated with them. The planets don't vary, there's not enough maps, PGI picked the wrong gamemodes, so it's all just team deathmatch.

I'd say drop in the quick-game modes (Assault, Conquest, Skirmish) or maybe check back in a couple months. CW's still very much beta.

Up CW game rewards to double what they currently are. For people in units who hold planets the more planets you hold the more "something they get", make it a combination of cheaper modules/cheaper mechs/combined with unique mech variants only available from CW & you would get many more players and many more joining units for CW.

[Nightshade24]

Shad0wsFury, on 22 June 2015 - 04:36 AM, said:

So I'm a founder who played a lot in beta, but stopped shortly after launch mostly because I got bored waiting for content. I was happy to find a few weeks ago when I checked back in with MWO that CW was in beta, so naturally I wanted to try it out.

I'll admit, I'm not up on whatever the current meta tactics are, and my skills are a bit rusty, but I've been doing my best to work with my team (unless it's totally clear most of them are derping around independently, in which case I usually leroy my 4 mechs and move on).

Some things about CW have just baffled me though.

First is that the Clan and IS teams are fighting at what seems like equal numbers (if not equal weight, but I don't know what the clan drop weight is). Maybe MWO is balanced for this, but as a longtime BattleTech nerd, putting an IS unit against an equal numbered Clan unit is only something I would do to an inexperienced player who I wanted to teach a lesson to (that lesson being: "Don't F with the Clans"). Even putting an IS company (12 mechs) against a Clan binary (10 mechs) usually means doom for the IS unit unless there are other mitigating factors. In MWO, with things working a bit different from the board game, I think 12v10 would be a bit more balanced of a match. Has it been tried? Are there technological limitations or barriers to trying it?

Second is that despite the variety in maps (which has improved greatly since "launch"), there is little variety in game mode. Honestly this doesn't worry me much, because beta only had the Assault game mode, and Conquest and Skirmish were clearly added since I was away. I imagine different CW missions are in the works, but I'm surprised they're not available for testing.

Third is that there is little or no barrier to players joining CW. I've seen some other discussions about this, and how it might be implemented. Personally I think there needs to be a second--significantly higher--barrier to joining clan factions, like having fought for an Inner Sphere faction for a defined contact length and amount of drops. Maybe even disallow trial mechs entirely in CW, which would create a practical cbill barrier, but would also create a figurative pyramid of progression with the clans at the top (possibly not solving the problem).

Anyway, I don't have any world-shattering suggestions, just pointing out some things I noticed in CW in my few weeks back in MWO.

12 IS and 10 Clans in Lore is a definitely gruesome match up for the IS. however you forget that most technology the clans have the IS can have in MW: O on literally every forces that is required.

"my mad dog has double heatsinks... oh your catapult has that too.... well my mad dog also have a pair of LRM 20's instead of 15's!... oh your catapult does that as well... well I got pulse lase- oh... you got it too... at least you do not have an XL engine!.... wait you got that too? Well good thing I can survive 1 side torso exploding.... oh wait, you are a catapult... that's impossible for you... well at least I got ferro fibrous! in your face!.... oh... you have endo steel and jumpjets...." -mad dog cries-

A similar situation goes for most mechs.

The thing is, to make CW ballanced more at the very current momment, would be 12 clans verse 10 inner sphere. However this is a debate for another day, most can however say that at least 75% of the clan mechs are in the pool of hte 'worst' mechs in game atm... Mad dog, Gargoyle, Adder, mist lynx, Summoner, non ECM hell bringer, nova... etc...

But people have differnet views and opinions.

[Gladewolf]

.....like for instance...."your Mad dog" could have 4 LRM 15s for the same tonnage as that catapults 2 lrm 15s.....I suppose that's just an "opinion"...

[Lugin]

Not to mention the only Catapult that can move as fast as a Mad Dog is the Jester?
Or that the lighter LRM launchers allow for more ammo, more/better lasers, or other equipment?

[Crockdaddy]

Shad0wsFury, on 22 June 2015 - 06:10 AM, said:

I agree it is less of a tech advantage and more of a coordination advantage on behalf of the clans. Part of the problem may be that there are simply more people fighting for the clans, and that those people tend to be more experienced and/or resourced players.

It's a combination of the mechs and the players (and their coordination) that, in my experience, have tipped the balance in favor of the clans in CW.



LOL. The newest two posts in that thread are April 26th "we regret to inform our unit is no longer active" and May 7th (nearly two weeks later), "we'll remove your unit from the roster" and then nothing for the past six weeks. I think it's safe to say that there aren't many active Kurita units, going by that thread.

You missed out on CW Beta 1. Kurita was the most active House by a long shot. We in fact often had wars on 5 borders at the same time. What happened was the Battle of Tukkayid ... where everyone played 60 hours for the week. Then Beta 2 started IMMEDIATELY with no enhancements or fanfare the very next day. Can you say burn out? Then some EGO's spent large sums of Cbills and rumored even real world money to pay for a crap load of MERCunits to basically crush Clan Smoke Jaguar the first few weeks of Beta 2. Which essentially left everyone else with nothing to do within House Kurita. So the two primary drivers during the NA timezone for CW matches in House Kurita decided to take a tour of the inner sphere and clans (NS/NKVA)

Edited by Crockdaddy, 23 June 2015 - 06:42 AM.

[Anjian]

Shad0wsFury, on 22 June 2015 - 06:10 AM, said:

I agree it is less of a tech advantage and more of a coordination advantage on behalf of the clans. Part of the problem may be that there are simply more people fighting for the clans, and that those people tend to be more experienced and/or resourced players.

It's a combination of the mechs and the players (and their coordination) that, in my experience, have tipped the balance in favor of the clans in CW.

There are actually less players in the Clans, due to the higher entry costs of such. That is why the Clan factions offers considerably higher LP and cash rewards than IS (187,500 cbills right now with JF).

But as a result, these fewer players get much more matches, with faster queues and all. And these resulted in ---

Players with much greater CW experience both in the maps, the style of play, team coordination, optimization of mechs and decks.
Strong sense of familiarity and comradeship between Clan players, as they are constantly playing with the same people and which they get to know them better. This in turn breeds confidence they are fighting with a good team behind their backs.
Winning more battles accumulates greater rewards which leads to better resources to upgrade and optimize their mechs.

[Koshirou]

Anjian, on 23 June 2015 - 10:40 PM, said:

There are actually less players in the Clans, due to the higher entry costs of such. That is why the Clan factions offers considerably higher LP and cash rewards than IS (187,500 cbills right now with JF).

Where did you get this information? AFAICT, the rewards have been adjusted when the clans were basically inactive at the start of Beta2, and PGI has not bothered to revise them.

There may be more players technically affiliated with IS houses, but there quite obviously are not more active IS players in CW, much less even remotely organized ones. I would imagine that there are quite a few players who picked a house because they liked it, see a call to arms message, and... well... deer in the headlights.

[Anjian]

The reasons rewards are still like the way they are is because technically a lot more players are registered with the Houses. Whether they are actually playing CW or not. Head to the public queue and there are a lot of players with faction badges. Once in a while they might drop in CW. Or not.

We are also seeing a migration of experienced players to the Clan camp. Which is also another factor. These players are tired of seeing teams that seems predestined to lose with inexperienced players and trial mechs, tired of getting stomped, tired of being told they have to join a squad or a premade when they can't find any or enough to make one, tired of searching for teamwork when the teams they join in don't have any, tired of teams vaporizing once the merc teams go somewhere else. So, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, as the old adage says.

Combined to other factors I already mentioned, and you have a self feeding phenomenon.

[Lyoto Machida]

Wildstreak, on 22 June 2015 - 06:03 AM, said:

1 - Claimed by PGI that 12 v 10 or something else will not work so they went with changing weapon mechanics and everyone plays equal sides.

2 - Doubtful there may be any new mode for some time. 4v4 is being tested but not much else.

3 - And they leave very quickly.


Not that much of a barrier, some Clan builds that work are just as much as IS builds of equal weight.

Supposedly the list of active Kurita groups. Thing is even groups leave CW including now when there is an event going on that focuses on the PUG queue. After Tuesday, there will be a shift back to CW for some players.

Does anyone play CW still? Or is it still a ghost town?

[kesmai]

10 vs. 12.




i like the idea. Though it would change nothing. If i team up with 10 or 12 of ma buddies is not a difference. Maybe the matches would be a bit more challenging and take 5 mins more. So what?

[madhermit]

Issue is with the normal queue and CW queue. Clan mechs have to be balanced in the normal games where there is uneven number in clan mechs in each side. They would need to make a mechanism that allows different performance from clan mechs in CW compared to normal queue.

And that, if anything, sounds like bandaid fix to poorly designed game.

[Koshirou]

Lyoto Machida, on 23 June 2015 - 11:55 PM, said:

Does anyone play CW still? Or is it still a ghost town?

On the IS side: Ghost town, other than pugs.

[Vellron2005]

I believe the reason why PGI will never do 12 vs 10 is simple.. too much wee wee crybaby posts about how the Clans are OP or the IS is OP..

if the IS had more mechs to begin with, becose the clan mechs were stonger, it would make it legit that clan mechs were OP.. and then the IS would whine even more..

And then nobody would play IS..

and then PGI couldn't sell you grosely overpriced resistance packs..

Edited by Vellron2005, 24 June 2015 - 05:01 AM.

[Rushin Roulette]

GI Journalist, on 22 June 2015 - 03:18 PM, said:

In the meantime, people who are really interested can run 10 Clan against 12 I.S. in private matches and check the results.

We did that quite often in league fights (ISW) before the quirks were implemented and 10v12 was very viable. The clans had a higher W/L overall, but not overly overpowered. However with the quirks as they are now, 10v12 against clanners would heavily favour the IS side. As it is now the quirks allow the IS mechs to be viable against clans if both sides are equal in skill (12 pugs vs 12 premades will result in the same 9 out of 10 times no matter which side is which, so this can be ignored).

I invite any clanner complaining on how overpowered the IS mechs are, to change sides and come to any of the factions with a direct border to the clanners. Come play the "overpowered" mechs and you will notice, that your W/L ration will not get any better after playing the "underpowered" clan mechs. Maybe it is you and not the mechs which is at fault.

I have been mainly playing on the IS side, but have changed to the clans for a week during one of the last events... and those mechs are so much easier to play. I have no idea what everyone is complaining about. Not even the slow light mechs are really a down side as light mechs do not scout far from the main group in CW (mainly just to find out where and how many are comming from which gate then retreat to the main group). In battle just about all mechs are the same speed (excluding the heavier Assaults), so moving as a coordinated group is so much easier without the need of slowing down the fast mechs in the front to wait for the stragglers in the back.

[Appogee]

I play both sides, and Clan is still the easiest to win with.

Clan generally has better chassis (esp Crow, Bringer and now Ebon) and loadout potential due to weapon weight and range, but IS has some better variants (such as STK-5N) as well as the best Light chassis.

Edited by Appogee, 24 June 2015 - 06:44 AM.

[Koshirou]

I found Clan trials to be as powerful as mastered IS machines in the higher tiers (maybe not in the top tier.)

[Crockdaddy]

Lugh, on 22 June 2015 - 10:04 AM, said:

The math was already done in BT with something called BV. And you should be balancing matches based solely on that.

It's really really simple.

While I personally think BV is an awesome idea, how do we weight this inside of a FPS game? The mechanics are different. I can see relationships between the two ... but in the TT it is a die roll for random hits. In FPS a guy like PWNface or Heimdelight have coverage aiming skills (and lower DPS mice) and hit say 25% greater than the average player. So their BV for a given weapon might be multiplied by considerable skill. vs me for instance. You'd have to have some great math people working out the BV and the BV would have to dynamically adjust over time to real world situations inside of MWO FPS.

Anywho I do understand the BV argument I just think based on the differences it wouldn't work out well. Just my opinion.

I'd love to see a computed BV based on how effective weapons are in MWO.

Koshirou, on 24 June 2015 - 04:37 AM, said:

On the IS side: Ghost town, other than pugs.

In FRR and Steiner both factions have drops. Maybe you can go 6REX for a while? Clan Falcon is one of the better clans right now for drops.

[sdsnowbum]

Koshirou, on 24 June 2015 - 02:25 PM, said:

I found Clan trials to be as powerful as mastered IS machines in the higher tiers (maybe not in the top tier.)

So true.

"Out of the box" Clan mechs are good.

After weeks of dedicated grinding IS mechs can be as good.