9 replies to this topic

[Mauricio Gomes]

I noticed that in CW the Clan Wolf is creeping more and more on Davion territory...

It is a question of the teams (ie: Clan Wolf has better players or more organized units) or it is related to the technology inbalance that I see people mentioning all the time in the forums?


Also... Clan Ghost Bear is tiny why?

[Spheroid]

The answer is both.

In regards to Clan Ghost Bear their territory was cut off in the initial "race for terra" and as such many people left for greener pastures where battles are more numerous.

The capture mechanic is completely different now so there is little incentive to minimize frontage or flood a specific planet with greater numbers. Territorial gain is simply a side effect of seeking areas of greatest money and point farming which is sad.

[Ano]

The short answer is 'maybe, maybe' but that's not helpful.

I'm not a CW expert -- I've played quite a bit in the past couple of weeks but hardly at all before that. But, I've never let a lack of expertise stop me from opining before so...

1. CW could be unbalanced
There's a lot of back and forth in the forums about exactly *how* it's unbalanced and in whose favour. The popular clan mechs have big alpha builds that work in CW and decent range. The best-for-CW IS mechs (which seems to be Thunderbolt 5SS, Wolverine 6K, Stalker 4N and one of the Awesomes, plus a selection of lights based on the mechs that I've seen recently) have quirks which can close the baseline laser range gap and may have a heat advantage in some instances. I'm hoping the usual 'nerf clans', 'no, nerf IS' argument doesn't break out here.

I couldn't tell you which is which. I've been playing clan since I started recently, but mostly in PuGs or LFG-based groups. Whether someone takes charge, whether people are focused and listening, whether the opposition is a PUG facing similar challenges or an organised group seems to have been the deciding factor in the matches I've played.


2. Your faction could suck.
While there are loyalist units that stick to one faction near-permanently, there are probably a lot more merc-styled groups that move from faction to faction and from clan to IS every few weeks. That allows them to use different mechs, play against different teams and earn faction rewards from all of the factions. Depending on where some of these units are currently playing, Davion could be under the hammer at the moment.


3. If you're playing solo and you answer the call to arms alerts, you've a decent chance of facing a premade group
Because of the way the queue system works, it does seem that answering a call to arms will quite often put you and 11 other randoms against an organised group. While that's not guaranteed stompage, it's a lot more likely.

Edited by Ano, 27 November 2015 - 09:06 AM.

[Tarl Cabot]

Another way of looking at it, is you are more likely to face a unit if you are defending vs if you are attacking a planet. Another is Clans rarely attack other Clans. Unfortunately unless it is a roving merc unit, IS pugs rarely attack cause that would mean sitting there first to build up then possibly having a ghost drop. Clanners are happy to oblige our desire to defend.

Another is aggressiveness. With the current event, many of the players on both sides are treating the CW like it is the regular queue while lacking the experience of how the flow of battle works for each map.

There is then the tech. C-XL (hai, it is locked for omni) gives most omni the speed to move quicker to overwhelm a force or run through a gauntlet, while at the same time providing the ability to survive the loss of a side torso (symmetric pay load). IS forces will use primarily STD engines, esp for heavy/assaults. The currently IS preferred mechs payload would not change much while their speed would increase if they could use an IS-XL engine with the confidence of not dying with the loss of a one side torso. For the non-preferred IS mechs (non-laser vomit), a lighter/durable IS-XL engine would increase their speed (to make contact and evading) while being able to equip a better payload.

Again, with the current event, many IS players are dropping with non-preferred/non-CW optimized mechs. A primarily LRM battlemaster/atlas /shudders while the Clans are dropping with a few ECM mechs each wave? Except for a few mechs, CW is about laser vomit. Clans have their C-ERML (1-ton/1-slot) that are closer to IS-LL (5-ton/2-slot) than they are to IS-ML.

[ice trey]

You'll notice that the Falcons and the Wolves have cut a pretty big chunk out of the map. Many larger units went to these two factions. You notice that a lot of pugs gripe about getting stomped in CW, that's because they're always dropping "Where they can get a match", in other words, the Clan/IS border... as the IS.
So the Falcons and the Wolves get easy matches mopping up disorganized IS pugs, and can forever stay on the offensive. The only way the Inner Sphere can take worlds is if they ATTACK a clan held world, which requires not only A unit, but several (Or one really big one), to repeatedly attack and hold a clan world. The inner sphere players are more spread out than the clans are, and - just like with the clans - they require that their entire force be from the same faction before they can attack a world.

...so since there's just not enough of them to make solid 12-mans unless they're from a big unit, they pug at the clan border, losing them more matches.

Thus, you have what you can see here.

During the first round of CW, the Dracs were getting absolutely stomped since everyone went Davion/Steiner and the Clans. Then we got a C-bill bonus for fighting for us, and some major units switched to us. Kurita, which NS had formerly been holding the line almost single handedly, swelled up in numbers and pushed the Jags back almost to oblivion. Of course, Jag numbers dropped, and it became hard to find a match.

In this case, the IS numbers will never drop, and the Clans will almost always have things easy 9/10 times, they'll go up against random pugs. So long as the only driving force to play CW is to "Earn free Mechbays", there's really not going to be any drivers to keep players with one faction but C-bill farming. If C-bill farming is what you're after, Jade Falcons and Wolves are where it's at.

Edited by ice trey, 27 November 2015 - 10:17 AM.

[Memnon Valerius Thrax]

Disable Merc ''**** around'' ship and the Factions are more balanced.
Atm CW is dominated by Mercs and if pgi cant change that, it has never an end.

And ofc new nub Players going always to ''cool'' factions.
For Clans: Wolf and Falcs
For IS: Steiner and RH

That means you can find alot of nuby nubs in that Factions.
Clan Wolf has the worst players of all Clans, but MS carry this Faction rly hard.
The Bears or jags has only few Players, but these Gamers are Elite. But you need no Elite Gamers to take a planet. you need only mass with ez mode High Alpha Meta.

Edited by Memnon Valerius Thrax, 27 November 2015 - 11:09 AM.

[Surn]

Davion has some of nicest, roll playing people... But they are awful at CW.

Most dont have the correct mechs, tactics or strategies. Some do not listen to orders. I can not count the number of CW matches the inner sphere has lost by having 1 or 2 davions running off doing their own thing.

It is a stereotype at this point, but it is consistently shown to be valid.

CW basics, the inner sphere has 2 advantages: A few mechs with extreme ERLL range and duration and additional tonnage.

To use the tonnage advantage, everyone needs a good heavy or assault in the first 2 waves, everyone must then ball up and attack as one unit to maximize force multiplier. We are talking 2.5 tons per mech...so 1 mech frakking up will destroy the entire advantage and leave us at a disadvantage.

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

Memnon Valerius Thrax, on 27 November 2015 - 11:09 AM, said:

The Bears or jags has only few Players, but these Gamers are Elite.

[purplewasabi]

CW is not for casual drops, its highly competitive and if you participate willy nilly, which I assume most people are for the event, you will only end up frustrated. I'm afraid you'll have to do some proper homework prior to jumping in.

Edited by purplewasabi, 28 November 2015 - 01:31 PM.

[Nerdboard]

The CW map is pointless. Whether or not a factions holds much territory or not does not influence how the matches play out. It does however influence which planets you can attack and might indicate on how much active players a faction has.

The Clan territories are large simply because both Clan Wolf and Jade Falcon had a couple of huge units which wanted to attack planets. Organized groups tend to win matches and if you attack with tons of players you get ghost drops which will make taking a planet slightly easier (this means you sometimes get back part of a planet without actually fighting for it because there are not enough defenders/attackers there to challenge you).

To finally answer your question: I think Clan Wolf has a few more organized units than the Davions. There are also technological differences but you can use those to the advantage of both IS and Clans if you play it right (imho Clans are a tiny bit 'easier' but not by much). In the end all that does not matter, it comes down to whether the 12 players on your side are better than the 12 enemies in each match or not.

Also people just dont seem to care much for the Ghost Bears. No clue why.