20 replies to this topic

[Bearded Coffee Monkey]

Ok, there are clans and factions and Inner Sphere and all manner of ... STUFF to absorb.

I'd like to join the Ghost Bears ('cause I like polar bears) but I don't want to tie myself down to ... something(?), if it will affect my game choices.

Like "Oh, you like energy weapons? Oh, you totally should have joined House Atredies 'cause they get a plus to energy beam distance", or Wolf can only use these six types of mechs or some such nonsense.

Or if I pick Ghost Bear, join a match and someone is like "Who are you? I don't remember you applying to join our clan?"

I just want to build my mech and make with the pew pew. All these "politics" are freaking me out, man.

[Stonefalcon]

Faction only applies to community warfare. If you just drop solo or in group drops that aren't CW then you have nothing to worry about.

If I played clan and wanted to drop solo that's fine, i will drop into a match with mixed IS and Clan. If I wanted to drop into a CW match then I can only attack/defend worlds my clan wants me to and I can only use Clan mechs and tech and vice versa for IS factions.

[Xione87]

Let me help you out here:

First of all, there are Factions (the clans and IS houses) and Units (like guilds/corperations in other MMOs).

You are free to join any Faction ingame as long as you are not under contract with a different Faction already (in which case you have to break your contract). Joining a Faction will not, in any way, influence the mechs or weapons you can use in the regular public matchmaker queues (solo/group/12man).
However, you will be limited in what mechs you can take in Community Warfare / Faction Warfare (CW), clans take clan mechs and IS takes IS mechs here.
Also don't worry about people wondering why you're in their faction, it's open to all and generally the more the merrier

Then there are Units, which are MWO's "guilds" so to speak. You can either set up one yourself or join an existing one by invite. Units are generally under a temporary or permanent contract to a Faction and they're a good way to find some people to play CW with.

TLDR: If you're only playing public queue, don't worry about Factions and pick any you like. If you want to play CW, also consider which mechs you have and/or want to use.

Edited by Xione87, 27 September 2015 - 12:26 AM.

[IraqiWalker]

InkTank, on 26 September 2015 - 11:38 PM, said:

Ok, there are clans and factions and Inner Sphere and all manner of ... STUFF to absorb.

I'd like to join the Ghost Bears ('cause I like polar bears) but I don't want to tie myself down to ... something(?), if it will affect my game choices.

Like "Oh, you like energy weapons? Oh, you totally should have joined House Atredies 'cause they get a plus to energy beam distance", or Wolf can only use these six types of mechs or some such nonsense.

Or if I pick Ghost Bear, join a match and someone is like "Who are you? I don't remember you applying to join our clan?"

I just want to build my mech and make with the pew pew. All these "politics" are freaking me out, man.

There are ZERO faction specific bonuses. Every bonus is on a mech. The choice of faction only affects what planets you can fight for, or against, in COMMUNITY WARFARE

Btw, your choice is never final. You can switch whenever you want.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 27 September 2015 - 04:26 AM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

And check these out too: https://www.youtube....tNUCKmcC0Q7pKJQ

[Robot Kenshiro]

Sadly having a faction doesn't mean much unless you are a fan of the lore. I myself altho a fan of the franchise can't seem to choose a faction. One. CW is crap. Two. Factions are just as bad as CW. offering little in return to be part of a faction. I'm rather very disappointed in factions and CW when it got released. As much as its been developed and done imho I'd take it offline. Redo the whole concept and re-release it with better options. Rewards. Incentives to join faction. I would like to see bonuses from faction choices in and outside of CW.
Sorry rambling here. Just frustrated with factions and CW.

[Nightshade24]

InkTank, on 26 September 2015 - 11:38 PM, said:

Ok, there are clans and factions and Inner Sphere and all manner of ... STUFF to absorb.

I'd like to join the Ghost Bears ('cause I like polar bears) but I don't want to tie myself down to ... something(?), if it will affect my game choices.

Like "Oh, you like energy weapons? Oh, you totally should have joined House Atredies 'cause they get a plus to energy beam distance", or Wolf can only use these six types of mechs or some such nonsense.

Or if I pick Ghost Bear, join a match and someone is like "Who are you? I don't remember you applying to join our clan?"

I just want to build my mech and make with the pew pew. All these "politics" are freaking me out, man.

Currently no matter what faction you join. No matter if it's a 1 week contract, 1 month contract, or a loyalist full time contract.

It does NOT affect you in game besides what happens in Community warfare, a game mode where a win will contribute to capturing a planet for your faction and a lost is the opposite. Currently owning planets rather in specifics or how many you own do NOTHING currently and what faction you join does not restrict anything to you besides your Mech selection FOR that game mode and it does not affect your regular matches of Assault, Conquest, Skirmish, or private. Only the Invasion and Counter attack modes on CW.

If you are a clan in CW then you only able to use clan mechs
If you are a inner sphere (house and free rasalhague republic) then you are in inner sphere mechs.

That is as of current.

There are plans to really improve CW- it is in beta and new-ish. We know that using certain mechs will matter in CW and possibly resources and such are involved.

Planets may do something- lower cost of repairing/ rearming certain weapons and mechs as well as overall costs- such as if you are ghost bear your medium laser and all missiles (more or less) cost less for the planets you already own and if you get a certain stiener planet then gauss rifles and autocannons will be cheaper or what ever, or get a smoke jaguar planet and get lower cost pulse lasers or what have you, That or gain access to mechs your faction doesn't own or inherit such as Clan Ghost Bear now allowing you to use the Centurion because you got a few Facilities the FRR use to make them for eg. May still be expensive-ish to repair it but you now can access it in CW

Repair and rearm will eventually come back into the game and possibly using the Factions favourite mechs- for eg Clan Ghost Bear with current mechs in game would be the Nova, Gargoyle, Mad Dog, Executioner, and Adder (-ish) may possibly get a repair cost discount, while using very rare mechs that the faction does not normally own such as the Ebon Jaguar, Shadowcat, Direwolf, etc may be neutral or cost more to repair, etc.

Other ideas is that Loyalty Points (these points fill bars up for said faction and give you rewards such as MC, C-bills, cockpit items, mech bays, etc. you can loose LP if you attack that faction) is that you get an LP boost for using the factions famous mechs and such- for eg executioner for ghost bear. and no bonus if you use the others such as ebon jaguar.


We do not know to much in detail what will happen, but something more engaging and dynamic will occur eventually for CW and factions will be involved in CW for some things possibly relating to weapons, mechs, loyalty points/ c-bills/ exp, etc.

For now: you are pretty free and the normal trio of game modes on the normal public matches are free from CW stuff.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

Might be obvious but i'll still point it out.

For community warfare:

If you join a clan faction, you can only pilot Clan mechs (currently only omni'mechs) and vice versa, Innersphere can only pilot Inner sphere mechs (battle'mechs) this will change soon since Clans get a couple of battle'mechs soon.

[Spare Parts Bin]

I am a member of the 77th Assault Cluster Clan Cloud Cobra ( which is a Guild ie. A part of Knights Wardens) and a member of Clan Jade Falcon ( a Clan).

I enjoy both MWO and CW but would like to see ownership of Worlds mean something.

[Spike Brave]

Several people have touched on the subject, but haven't directly stated something important. As long as you don't select a permanent contract, you can change your faction. I prefer to be identified as a Lone Wolf from a role play standpoint. Now lets say there is a CW event. I'll chose a contract based on the criteria of the event and of the shortest length possible to complete the event. After the contact completes, I go back to Lone Wolf. So if you want to identify as Clan Ghost Bear, but are worried about losing a bonus or other game play related stuff, just enter into a contract with CGB that isn't permanent.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

That's right.

Long before CW came around, there was some talk of your faction choice affecting maybe the prices of certain faction-specific mechs or weapons, or that rewards might be made in some faction-specific such items. Etc. But it seems that never materialized. (FTR I took about a 16-month break JUST before the Clan invasion and CW began, and only came back around the beginning of August this year.)

So right now, all that it matters is what loyalty points rewards you'll receive for a CW match. Playing in the 12v12 queue, you could quite literally BE a House Attreides pilot and it wouldn't matter one single little bit.

In CW, if you belong to one particular faction then it matters. But you've got a good idea, I think. Stick to lone wolf or merc corps, and when an event pops up that interests you, then take a one-week contract for the event. OR, you COULD just occasionally hire a new contract to whomever and rotate. If you check the rank structure, you'll see that there's a MECH BAY reward with the second, sixth, and tenth rank in each faction. Rank up to TWO with one faction, then move on to the next. Repeat. Grab all the rank 2 mech bays, then back to the first one to start on that rank 6. Go around again. There's a LOT of mech bays (and C-Bills, GXP, etc.) to be gained that way. The lasting effect is nil, except that it helps you along without costing you any IRL $$$.

TL;DR- you get it, you've got it, so go get some.

[zudukai]

the only thing not mentioned, is the little symbol changes in game showing your currently active faction.

this has no baring on anything unless you are inner sphere, then that means you die worse. (sarcasm)

[Bearded Coffee Monkey]

Is there a listing somewhere that say what mechs go with which faction?

[Raubwurst]

On the screen where you select your 'Mechs you can filter by "Clan" or "Inner Sphere". There you can see which 'Mechs go with which faction.

I am not sure if there is something which indicates you the belongings on the store.
Only thing I can think of is, that IS-Mechs are more greenish (if not changed) and clans are more grey from their color.

If you are ingame with one you see it on the HUD-color.
Yellow HUD is IS and blue HUD is clan.

Anotherthing would be to look at the weaponry. All ClanMechs have weapons which begin with a "C", like "C-ER-LargeLaser" or something like that.

[zudukai]

InkTank, on 27 September 2015 - 11:40 AM, said:

Is there a listing somewhere that say what mechs go with which faction?

well, "historically" yes, there is, but it has no baring on MWO.

however, i am not familiar with such a list. Sarna.net does list faction relations in most of the battlemechs variants tree/family.

[Spike Brave]

InkTank, on 27 September 2015 - 11:40 AM, said:

Is there a listing somewhere that say what mechs go with which faction?

For right now you can use clan mechs if you're aligned with a clan and Inner Sphere mechs if you're aligned with one of the Great Houses. They haven't done anything like Dragons for only the DC.

[Bearded Coffee Monkey]

Raubwurst, on 27 September 2015 - 12:00 PM, said:

Anotherthing would be to look at the weaponry. All ClanMechs have weapons which begin with a "C", like "C-ER-LargeLaser" or something like that.

Ah! There we go. So is a C ER Laser better/different from an ER Laser?

[Spike Brave]

InkTank, on 27 September 2015 - 01:24 PM, said:

Ah! There we go. So is a C ER Laser better/different from an ER Laser?

Different from. When in the Mechlab mechs only display tech that can go on them. So clan stuff for clan mechs and IS stuff for IS mechs. The inventory screen is displays all the stuff you own so you'll need to pay attention to whether or not is says clan. As a rule of thumb clan stuff weighs less and has better range, but tends to run way hotter and spread damage.

[Raubwurst]

InkTank, on 27 September 2015 - 01:24 PM, said:

So is a C ER Laser better/different from an ER Laser?

There are propably hunderts of pages of discussion about the question "are clan-technologies in mwo better/imbalanced"
You will get your own opinion after you have played a bit with both technologies. Generally it is like Spike Brave said:

Spike Brave, on 27 September 2015 - 01:50 PM, said:

As a rule of thumb clan stuff weighs less and has better range, but tends to run way hotter and spread damage.

The Clan-Equipment is different from the IS, both have their advantage and disadvantage, you will have to try both and see which suits you better.
The rule of thumb from Spike Brave may sound like they are a lot better than their is-counterpart, that is because you underestimate heat quite often and there are some further disadvantages for clans, like some equipment which cannot be changed on a 'Mech and thus less possibilites.


//Sidenote @all: Please let the discussion if clan or is is better (especially through the quirksystem) out of this thread

[Anachronda]

Yes as noted, weapons with a C before their names are Clan weapons (C-ERML, C-ERPPC, C-ERLL, etc). But you don't have to worry about it because when you buy weapons, as the previous posters said, only the ones compatible with that type of mech will be shown.

And as some have pointed out, although lore says some Houses/Clans prefer a certain mech, in this game it does not matter. You only need to get Clan mechs for Clans or Inner Sphere for the houses of the Inner Sphere. That's only for Community Warfare - you can buy any mech you want to use for regular drops.

If you feel like delving into lore, SARNA's Battletech Wiki is a good place to start, but it has little bearing on this game, really. Kind of a rabbit hole and easy to get overwhelmed. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Glad to see you managed to get into Ghost Bear, BTW.

Edited by Anachronda, 28 September 2015 - 03:13 AM.