4 replies to this topic

[Black Fish]

I just thought about it, since Clan players are a minority (generally there are more IS players waiting in queue than Clans) IS players are forced to play where the Clans are, and while everyone probably prefer attacking this result in more attacks for the clans and less for IS...
So basically, even if both forces would have been completely balanced (which is not the case), Clans would still conquer more planets...
It's probably not the most urgent problem CW has, but it's a flaw that needs attention at some point.
What do you think?

[Spare Parts Bin]

I find defending or attacking against decent IS opponents fun and challenging but HATE playing against 7-12 premades( ie true teams). Mixed PUG on PUG is fun.

[Moebius Pi]

... are you -certain- that the Clans are a minority? I mean, sure, a higher soft paywall given the initial costs of clan mechs to make drop decks (though with IS it can still be a ******* just due to upgrades), and usually worse pugs due to bad Clan Trials, though they don't seem to outright lack activity as a whole, so much as folks from one clan migrating to the rest.

I say this given Marik is effectively dead, Liao pretty much in similar dire straights, the FRR consistently lacking numbers. There seems to be a resurgence in Davion, Kurita never seems to hit hard times and Steiner looks consistent, but I dunno... Wolf and Falcon seem -excessively- populated, with the Jags dwindling that the Ghost Bears getting hammered after inter-unit drama. This is from casual observation mind you; I'm curious about the hard numbers as much as they matter with CW being so stagnant and the amount of faction hopping going on.

Honestly it seems more like "IS has the most pugs due to the better Trial mechs and lower initial costs to cobble a drop deck, Clans have the most organized/competitive groups" in my experience. Go figure, you'll get more skilled players going that route because they'll have the c-bills faster to build competitive drop decks, and right now it's still the Clans dominating the meta-mech tiers hardcore. Both of those factors are going to skew it heavily.

As is, it's a bit of a vicious circle that tends to hold true: Pugs defend, organized units attack is the general and common assumption. Pugs -want- matches without long queue times so hop into any old active planet they can (because the waits are ungodly, and queue prioritization on groups knocking you back sucks), end up being put together in mixed groups and then... run into the organized 8-12 mans who are on attack.

Rinse, wash, repeat until the pugs and small crews get fed up and move on.

It's difficult to get an attack queue going relying on one faction in a smaller group/pugging, easy to get a defend queue. It's only exacerbated when you don't get nearly as much cross-Clan and cross-IS infighting as you'd expect and keeps hinging on fighting IS vs Clan with some rarer exceptions. Really, the game mode itself is borked. It has turned into a sort of unofficial, half-assed Ranked ladder with the most common activity appearing to be pug farming due to its basic structure with some entitled groups being entirely blind to the situation they're in and trying to reinforce that.

It basically doesn't, and cannot appeal to the majority of MWO in its current state and only signs its death warrant when the current faux-ranked state stays in place.

I'd say it's not the most urgent problem either, but a symptom of much greater underlying problems; it may as well be built on rotten wood and duct tape, and certainly is anything but inviting to casual players or pugs. When that's the bulk of the game's overall population, you've got some very big problems to surmount. Catering to a -tiny- minority just isn't viable, it's and outright waste of resources and time; they need to do some bold and big, not tiny and incremental to renew interest instead of helping it continue to limp along and placate the remaining folks.

There's a reason why a lot of folks in competitive units/groups basically want to push out/block pugs/solos from it (beyond overall tunnel vision and pure elitist douchery that usually entrenches in any pvp game); it isn't very supportive of them and hemorrhages them back into the solo/group queues like mad. Right now it's an echo-chamber at best in a downward spiral.

Much like the "pugs defend; organized groups attack" mindset, it's fairly ubiquitous with the "the side with the most pugs loses" followup especially during big events; the side with the most pugs is the easiest to not only farm, but to skew the results with via that farm and quick matches.

You may see more IS waiting in the queues, but that's just it. They're waiting for a match. If you go by the debacle that was Tukk, the wait times were ridiculous on the IS side, but Clan side was getting instantaneous drops due to that, and just stopped playing when they got their rewards freezing the numbers. Pug life in CW is... well, kinda like a goldfish jumping out of it's goldfish bowl and into a blender. Sure, there's some initial calm in the new clean water, but that quickly ends once the puree button is hit.

Honestly, the game mode needs an overhaul and needs to stop pretending it's a ranked ladder/leader-board if it wants to draw new players in and stop grinding and spitting out the current players like a millstone with burnout and player loss due the mode just not being that good. It seems to lose more in the long term as a given than gain (and is doomed to only sink further if it keeps on like this). It's bad enough it has been doomed to a slow cancerous death from the ingrained structure; it's only compounded by a lot of the remaining unit-based BS going on.

Hell, even Russ stated he wants to get that sort of e-sports vibe going in the game, but right now it's poorly setup to actually get that rolling without 3rd party league events. A group and solo leaderboard would be the cat's meow for that, but who knows if that will ever be seen. I know I'd be supportive of it, even if it was introduced before any further major CW changes.

If it's to thrive it needs some serious rejiggering to get the majority of the game involved and playing, instead of being a wasteland of stubborn casuals and farming competitive units playing musical chairs like it's a ranked matchmaker mode. Really, they should just make a ranked ladder mode for the folks wanting the competitive angle, and overhaul CW from the ground up to be more reflective of a campaign feel (AI ghost drops with drop ship attacks, AI infantry, tanks, Mechs etc. along with planets having a tangible effect on a faction or unit).

As is, to address the problem you're seeing Black Fish, I think they need to do some -serious- work to the entire shebang before it can tackled. There have been so many threads with suggestions on how to adjust this, from bandaids (that really just won't do enough to matter) to near complete overhauls. As is, most of what has been put on the table is the former. I doubt we'll see the latter at all, and if we do, not for quite a long time given the work and resources involved.

Honestly, there just isn't a lot of confidence currently that PGI even intends to give it some major love in the foreseeable future with their proposed road maps; some additional minor features, but none of them truly seem to address the real problems going on. Even the 4v4 will just be a small scale repeat without some matchmaking considerations tossed into the equation to make it enjoyable for a larger segment of the population to play. There's just a bit too much duct tape going on, and not enough replacement of the underlying structure.

I can hope that I will be proven wrong, but man... I -almost- wish it was excised entirely for major face-lift instead of left behind to only sink the hopes of pugs and more who give it a whirl as it is.

/End Ramble

[Khereg]

The Tukkayid event proved beyond a shadow of a doubt there are many more IS players than clan players. If you weren't around for that, queue times for IS were awful (45 minutes plus at times) while clans were insta-dropping over and over. It was so lopsided PGI even allowed free and instantaneous switching from IS to clan to try to balance things out. I would assume the imbalance has continued since then to today.

However, the primary force behind planet exchanges are active, skilled units. Generally speaking pug v pug works out at roughly 50% win rates per side, but units tend to win 80+% of the time (also shown via the Tukkayid event), which means they consistently flip sectors on planets (or hold them on defense) and have more of an effect in flipping planets. These units have generally had more participation on the clan side than IS for whatever reason (especially Jade Falcon and Wolf), and thus you see clans advancing.

I wouldn't call this a "flaw", but just the inevitable outcome given the circumstances.

A lot of what Moebus Pi says is true also - there's a lot of decline in CW participation since Tukkayid (on both sides), but I think the units still carry a lot of weight in the planet exchanges.

Edited by Khereg, 12 October 2015 - 01:16 PM.

[xe N on]

CW has players at all?

Wow. Didn't know