29 replies to this topic

[Lorian Sunrider]

So during the course of this event (which I enjoyed greatly, thank you PGI) it was my first time diving back into CW with any intensity since Tukayyid. My unit is a merc group and we rotate through weekly contracts so members can grind out for those freebies with each faction. For this event we were Jade Falcon.

My question to all of you was how was your CW experience. Mine was fantastic, a few long wait times but ultimately because despite dropping solo the entire time I didn't lose a single match. In fact, the closest game I think I played was 48-38.

A large part of it was team cohesion. Several people in every match were active via coms and we coordinated well. Several of the more active posters on this forum were some of them.

My question is how much of it is Clan vs IS and how much of it was coordination. I've not done CW as IS for quite some time so I'm looking for others opinions.

[Kyle Travis]

Can't agree more - only had one game where we got stomped as PUGS and that was not "tha"t bad (we still killled about 25). Very little wait - lots of fun - sad to see it go back to normal once the event finishes

Always IS (Steiner) and one more game to get prety much all the prizes (took about 9 CW games total)

about 60 : 40 wins versus losses

[Bishop Steiner]

Lorian Sunrider, on 30 November 2015 - 08:58 AM, said:

So during the course of this event (which I enjoyed greatly, thank you PGI) it was my first time diving back into CW with any intensity since Tukayyid. My unit is a merc group and we rotate through weekly contracts so members can grind out for those freebies with each faction. For this event we were Jade Falcon.

My question to all of you was how was your CW experience. Mine was fantastic, a few long wait times but ultimately because despite dropping solo the entire time I didn't lose a single match. In fact, the closest game I think I played was 48-38.

A large part of it was team cohesion. Several people in every match were active via coms and we coordinated well. Several of the more active posters on this forum were some of them.

My question is how much of it is Clan vs IS and how much of it was coordination. I've not done CW as IS for quite some time so I'm looking for others opinions.

Very hit and miss

2 days ago, I ran CW in the late morning/early afternoon, with mostly Euro Players. Only 4 matches, 2 wins/2 losses. All were long, well fought games, no stomps or stupidity involved.

That night, I ran 4 more matches, 2 on my Clan acct, 2 on my What Mech Challenge Acct. All losses, and all because the players played like the usual PUG tactic in Quickplay: Find some terrain, hide behind it, peek and snipe. Then blame the loss on "OP Clans". Mind you, 3 of those instances of hiding and sniping we were the ATTACKING team. Try to give tactics, try to get them to budge, then finally just gave up and tried to maximize my own score so it wasn't a total waste.

In all 4 matches, my team failed to get double digit enemy Kills. That was during USA primetime.

Yesterday, I played a few CW early, and got the same mentality as the night before, all losses, all total wastes of time.

In the evening, I teamed up with another WMC member, and we played a few matches, and got some very fun close matches, and one that was a defeat but a pretty awesome one where it was 46-46 when the timer ended, and I was one of the last 4 mechs trying desperately to get a kill in.


So my experience?

If I got teams that were not timid, win or lose, we had great matches.
If I got the usual, afraid to get their electrons scratched gutless players on my team? All losses, all stomps, and a total waste of time.

I really wish their was some way to test IQ and well.... testicular fortitude before people were allowed into CW.

Hide and Peek fails the majority of the time in Quickplay... and 100% of the time in CW.

[Votanin FleshRender]

I completed almost all of the secondary CW challenges before getting the premium time for the 2 wins.


Most games, pugs vs pugs, we lost 25ish-35ish to 48, even one game I dropped against a 5-6 Emp group (think they took it easy on us, or were sleep-walking through it...I dunno, I've encountered 4 mans from Emp that my CW team would lose 8-48 to), so the games were somewhat competetive. Had guys trying to coordinate over voip, but it just seemed like clan pugs were just, better, usually.


The 12 mans I encountered were the usual laughingstocks roflstomps.

[Bobzilla]

Long wait times (last night wasn't too bad), matches weren't too bad, 2 stomps out of 5 matches. Both times where larger premades other 3 games where even, 1 win 2 loses.

[Sandpit]

Mine has been pretty pleasant thus far. When I've dropped in CW I haven't had any extremely long wait times. The matches themselves were fun and competitive with the occasional lopsided game. I still think their entire mechanic and process for CW is a lot more complicated than it has to be.

If I had any advice for PGI at this point regarding CW it would be K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) Most of CW is nothing more (in regards to planetary control and such) is essentially a spreadsheet of data concerning who owns what planet. Don't overthink this aspect. A planet has 100% ownership. Whichever faction controls 50% has ownership of said planet.

Attack or defend.
Stop with all the counter-attack and such. Again, you're overthinking this. Attack or defend. If 4 factions own % of the planet, any of those factions can choose to attack or defend. First one to put together a team in the MM gets to attack or defend. It's first come first serve basis.
A faction can land on and attack any planet within their range they want. This prevents factions from being able to simply push and choose the battlefields. If Faction A attacks a planet and nobody chooses to defend, instead of waiting to drop and then going through the whole process of a phantom drop, simply allow the attackers to leech a small % of the planet until someone defends.
So Faction A attacks Faction B's planet. Faction B doesn't defend so Faction A sits on the planet leechign xx% every 5 minutes or so. (This number can be adjusted as needed for balance to ensure large factions with large units can't bully and abuse or exploit or at least keep that kind of stuff to a minimum) Once it hits a certain % it's capped off for leeching ability BUT that cap point gives Faction A enough ownership to open a "port" on the planet. They can then launch attacks anywhere within range of that planet until kicked off by the planet's owner.

Eventually Faction B is going to start defending as a faction continues leap frogging to their capitol. I understand the numbers would be in constant flux and the first few trials of a system like this would expose a lot of issues with MM, exploits, etc. but that's what testing is for in the first place.

If Faction A then leap frogs to Planet B they continue the process. Keep in mind we're not talking 10 minutes of sitting on an empty planet to achieve a port. It would be set up to take several hours of uncontested drops to get to this point. That's PLENTY of time for ANY faction no matter their size to come up with a CW team to counter the leech. It adds a completely new dynamic and strategy.
It would also have the added bonus of helping level the field for smaller units. It helps keep them from getting blocked in an locked into fighting only certain planets and units.

It requires no real "extra" code. The code is already written. This idea just modifies the ability for MM to work a little faster by allowing multiple units to jump into games. It also uses the same principle as ghost drops now, just without requiring going through the entire wasted process of dropping into a game to fight turrets for 3 minutes.


Rewards:
I'm torn about this. I think a faction attacking a planet in this manner should receive SOME cbills and exp, but it has to be balanced against simply exploiting the system to farm. The rewards would need to be very miniscule (think getting paid for garrison duty instead of combat pay of you want fluff reasons) and capped at a certain point (prior to getting enough % of the planet to open a port in my opinion) to reduce and help alleviate farming. The trick with this is simply making it less profitable to leech than to actively attack.
No new code here, just an adjustment of rewards. Maybe have it a "total package" reward. You don't receive your rewards until after you complete the process? Not sure here I'd be eager to hear thoughts from everyone else on this one. TO me rewards are very unimportant to me in CW. I'm playing the "story mode" or "hardcore" or "military campaign" when I drop in CW. When I want to grind out quick cbills and exp I drop pub queues. I'd be happy with no rewards for leeching, but I doubt many others would.

Anyhow, in a nutshell I think a system like this would do wonders for helping balance CW, make matches happen faster, and let smaller factions and units still feel competitive.

I'm going to be posting a series in my own thread soon discussing all of this more in-depth this week (along with my ideas and feedback regarding everything else in the game)

[Tyler Valentine]

I play some CW every time I log on, it's my game mode of preference.

Honestly, as a PUG, it's easier being Clan and Clan Jade Falcon in particular. I think Clan 'mechs do have an advantage, although I would say it is small and can easily be mitigated by tactics. What really makes Clan easier is the fact that you tend to get more experienced players on your side. CW is obviously very team oriented, but beyond that, it is very aggression oriented... a few guys unwilling to push through the gates ruins it for everyone. Inexperienced players are uncomfortable running through enemy fire to get to an advantageous position, so they hesitate and that can easily cost the match. Clans aren't OP as much as experience is OP and experienced players tend to have clan mechs.
Jade Falcon (followed closely by Wolf) just tends to have the best PUGs and a lot of the better groups hang out there frequently BTW.

Glad you had fun, I also really enjoyed myself this weekend! Goes to show how fun CW can be with a little population.

[Clownwarlord]

7 or 8 games and I was done ...

2 matches I made over 1 million CBills had like 24 hundred damage and about 7 to 10 kills each of those matches.

I had two horrible matches, one was with a group and one was solo pugging. The solo pug was a bunch of pugs vs 228 group ... needless to say it didn't go well at all. The other match ... well while we worked as a team and followed directions the directions where bad and that happens when you face off against another group known for CW (MS). So out side of seeing to better or more organized groups not bad as you can see I said I made 1 mil CBills in two matches and finished the event getting everything in 7 or 8 matches. Also that was cbill count before the bonus for the win which made it 1.3 mil per match.

As a group of 12 I got matches fairly easy, as a group less than twelve still not to bad of wait times, but solo dropping wait times sucked at times waiting 10 minutes max.

As for the non CW portion of the event I had to do that solo because group cue sucked and so did solo to a point of people picking crap maps and game mode when I was needing to finish up on other game modes.

[TyphonCh]

Horrible. I played about 8 CW matches and gave up because I lost every time.
Same old song and dance, pulverized by 6 - 12 man groups, all with the same guass-laser builds, farming the losing team. It's not even fun I don't even know why I bother

Edited by Team Chevy86, 30 November 2015 - 10:35 AM.

[Clownwarlord]

Team Chevy86, on 30 November 2015 - 10:34 AM, said:

Horrible. I played about 8 CW matches and gave up because I lost every time.
Same old song and dance, pulverized by 6 - 12 man groups, all with the same guass-laser builds, farming the losing team. It's not even fun I don't even know why I bother

Yeah I have video recordings of a certain unit farming drop zones ... its not pretty.

edited because of name shaming rule (just to be on the safe side)

Edited by clownwarlord, 30 November 2015 - 10:37 AM.

[Votanin FleshRender]

/shrug

Dropship farming doesn't bother me. Price you pay for sucking hard. That said, it's nigh impossible to NOT suck hard with pugs vs a 12 man. Pugs vs pugs, I averaged, I think, 2kish damage, with a couple games near 3k. Vs 12 mans, the team melts so fast my best game was 800 damage, if memory serves (which it often doesn't)

[TamCoan]

It was decent overall. Dropped about four PUG matches and four in a three-man team. Five drops were vs. either 12-man or 8-man premades. Three drops were vs. PUGs. Ended the night with three wins, five losses. Two of the five losses were horrible stomps with no communication.

We won a match vs. a premade as we had good comms and coordination. Other than the stomps the rest of the matches were fun.

The last game of the night had a very odd clan makeup. (It was a premade 12 vs. a full PUG team where we had no coordination.) They brought dedicated LRM boats with cheetahs dropping NARCs all over the place. At one point I stood back out of range to see just how many LRMs they were dropping. A single volley looked to be coming from at least 6-8 mechs running either dual 15s or quad 10s. They literally blanked the sky with missiles. The part that made me sad was the lack of coordination on our side. We should have been able to close with those boats and wipe the floor with them. Instead everyone scattered and cowered in choke-points or out in the open. They had so many lrm boats without secondary weapons that it should have been an easy win.

Overall I actually enjoyed it. I did pretty well and have all but three of the items. I am about 80-90% on two of them so I should be able to grind those out tonight with about two matches. The other is a win on the attacking side for the premium time, just luck of the draw on that one.

[Elizander]

Pugged it so I only ever won one game on defense. I wasn't expecting to win though and just grinded out the numbers needed to get the prizes I wanted. Winning or losing didn't really matter.

[TLBFestus]

Mine was simply AWESOME.

Never, looked at it, never considered it, and was never frustrated by it. It was a win-win.

[Freeman 52]

Great experience, I would say. Short waits, and except for a few matches against 12-man teams, the rest were fairly balanced PUG on PUG action. I am actually pleasantly surprised at the amount of coordination going on sometimes, compared to solo queue and even group queue.

About the Clan vs IS: I personally find my clan mechs a better fit for CW, loaded with ecm and mid-range pinpoint damage. Besides that, my unit is just temporarily on contract with Jade Falcon, and I have to say Falcon pugs were much better on average than other factions.

YMMV, but I say the mode works. The challenge rewards were just icing on the cake.

[Ace Selin]

Had lots of fun and PGI gave some really nice prizes too. FRR is great for units and single players, as everyone is most welcome onto the FRR Teamspeak and everyone is happy to play with anybody, especially if you are on the TS with us. We dont always win but we try to be coordinated and play as group to help ourselves, unlike some......

Team Chevy86, on 30 November 2015 - 10:34 AM, said:

Horrible. I played about 8 CW matches and gave up because I lost every time.
Same old song and dance, pulverized by 6 - 12 man groups, all with the same guass-laser builds, farming the losing team. It's not even fun I don't even know why I bother

How many times did you go to LFG, go onto your Faction TS and try to form a cohesive team before dropping into CW, ok i know the answer, it was never and then you wonder why teamwork is OP?

[Sandpit]

Team Chevy86, on 30 November 2015 - 10:34 AM, said:

Horrible. I played about 8 CW matches and gave up because I lost every time.
Same old song and dance, pulverized by 6 - 12 man groups, all with the same guass-laser builds, farming the losing team. It's not even fun I don't even know why I bother

So you were pulverized by premade groups ranging in size from 6-12
(keep in mind for those 6mans that means half the team if PUG as well)

and you were beaten by Guass and Lasers

I don't get it. You basically just said you lost to better teams and loadouts from the sound of it. What exactly are you expecting in CW? Solo players? How small of a team does it have to be before it's not considered a factor for a loss?
5man?
4man?

I've lost some CW and won some CW. 90% of the time (CW or not) when I go back and watch or think about the match I just lost, it's because we were outplayed as a team. Not because of
Premades
Meta game
Unbalanced gameplay
Comms
Voip
Boogeymen
etc.

I do think that both sides should have some sort of "shelter" that prevents being trapped and camped while you're dropped from the ship and picked off 1-2 at a time though. That's one thing that will ruin a match faster than anything else I can think of in terms of "fun" for me personally.

[sycocys]

The matches with pugs were horrendous - even when someone tried to take lead, far too many players on the team spend so much time playing rambo that they had no clue nor any desire to function as a team.

The matches with random assortments of 8-12 man groups was much more tolerable. Most of the groups assembled from LFG and people actually wanted work utilize teamwork and attempt to win. Even most of the losses were a decent time.

Overall though it wasn't anything new or different. The mode and maps still suck dirty old man balls, there's really nothing interesting or exciting about the mode and the maps just make that worse by force feeding teams into shooting galleries. Same old thing, could definitely have benefited from some (ie ANY) sort of change to try to make it more playable for a wider range of people at the very least.

[Votanin FleshRender]

Ace Selin, on 30 November 2015 - 05:11 PM, said:

How many times did you go to LFG, go onto your Faction TS and try to form a cohesive team before dropping into CW, ok i know the answer, it was never and then you wonder why teamwork is OP?

I was in CW LFG the whole weekend, and only got 1 invite, and when I tried to join the invite, it said the group was full

[Sandpit]

Votanin FleshRender, on 30 November 2015 - 06:23 PM, said:

I was in CW LFG the whole weekend, and only got 1 invite, and when I tried to join the invite, it said the group was full

I don't think the LFG is used much. For whatever reason players don't utilize it much yet. Next time just create a group. Just because you're a group leader doesn't mean you have to be a battlefield leader if you're not comfortable "being in charge". Get a fun PUG going and go to town. You'll find that you'll have regulars eventually and you'll form more cohesive groups more regularly