592 replies to this topic

[John McHobo]

Despite CW´s flaws I can say confidently: I had fun. Very interesting games with nice people.

[Appogee]

My observations:

Clan vs IS balance is getting quite good.
* IS has some specific variants that are better than Clan Mechs.
* Clan has some specific chassis that are overall better.
* many Clan players haven't yet worked out that they can't rely solely on laser vomit any more.
* a wave of Cheetahs can completely turn the tide of battle, particularly in Counter Attack mode.

Group size is the single biggest determining factor in a CW match.
* the bigger the group, the more likely they will win, regardless of faction.

Some large teams use a surprising amount of cheese.
* 2 waves of 12 Cheetahs each, solely focused on rushing gens and Omega... game over.
* Standing at their own spawn under Drop Ships, with full ERL decks... game over.
* I don't 'blame' them for what are legitimate tactics and drop decks... just surprised they felt it necessary against PUGs.

Trial Mechs should be prevented from joining CW matches.
* It's unreasonable to expect people who waited so long for a match to then be lumped with gimped teammates.

Personal Challenge was great.
* Decent rewards.
* Cumulative match score made the rewards achievable for anyone who put in reasonable effort.
* The Match Score is still stupid and exploitable in the way it multiplies scores based on unused Mechs.
* But I saw much fewer examples of team mates slacking off trying to farm their team's hard work, which was great.

PGI needs to get smarter about unit leaderboards.
* "Biggest team" playing "smallest faction" for "most drops" = "entirely predictable leaderboard".
* Perhaps they need to look at average score per unit member, or some variation of it.

CW needs skill-based Match Making
* I stomped ... and I was stomped.
* I had some great close matches, but more stomps.

Edited by Appogee, 09 December 2015 - 12:33 AM.

[Praesideus]

DivineEvil, on 08 December 2015 - 08:28 AM, said:

General Tyykaid mechanics remained highly biased in Clan's favor. Out of four potential game-modes (attack, defense, counter-attack and position-hold) only Attacks were possible to win long before time-out. Only Clans were capable of playing that mode, and thus any half-competent Clan formation were capable of going for match objectives directly, ignoring the opposition altogether, using Clan's advantage in mobility. On the other hand, IS teams always had to either decimate all 48 Clan Mechs, or to prolong the match until time-out, in order to win. Thus, Clan representatives always had the possibility of abusing this game-mode assimmetry in their favor.

Funny facts.. out of ~20 matches I played, I played ONE invasion, with organized pug team attacking and we won. Rest were counter-attacks with clan defending. Thus claiming clans having advantage in the event is pretty shortsighted.

[Husker Dude]

Appogee, on 08 December 2015 - 09:25 AM, said:

Trial Mechs should be prevented from joining CW matches.
* It's unreasonable to expect people who waited so long for a match to then be lumped with gimped teammates.

CW needs skill-based Match Making
* I stomped ... and I was stomped.
* I had some great close matches, but more stomps.

Honestly, I think requiring only owned mechs would cause a great deal more imbalance, as anyone who can't afford the entry fee on buying Clan mechs would end up on the IS side (basically, every new player who wants to try CW).
While it's a bummer to see a guy drop on your side running only trials, the only way to allow new players to play on the Clan side is to allow trials. We'd all go from complaining about people in trials to people running un-basic'ed non-competitive mechs pretty fast.

[Dawnstealer]

Devillin, on 07 December 2015 - 02:52 PM, said:

Don't forget that Clanners were duelists. It was dishonorable for one warrior to fire on another warrior's target. I felt that the easiest way for PGI to simulate this in the game is to make Clan targeting systems work the opposite of the IS systems. Where the IS mechs get a targeting bonus when a teammate maintains a lock, Clan mechs should get a target penalty when a teammate locks onto the same target. The more locks on a target, the bigger the penalty.

Mentioned in a CW link somewhere, but my thought was that Clan players get zero cbills and XP for an assist, but get a comparatively huge bump for solo kills. You can't force people to play in character, but PGI could at least encourage and reward it.

I just remember there was one time in the early days of CW, during a 5-47 stomp, my last mech was flying in, I challenged any Clan player to a one-on-one. I was focus fired the second I landed by twelve mechs.

[Dagorlad13]

TWIAFU, on 08 December 2015 - 05:01 AM, said:

Me too!

Out of all the matches I played this weekend, saw 12man premades, 3-4 times in total, averages 1 a day! Rest we all skittles.

The most memorable games were the hard fought ones I have over the weekend. Serious, drag out fights right down to the timer. Just crazy intense fights! Back and forth with no idea who was going to win until the timer ran out, in some cases.

Those are the most memorable fights I had all weekend. Those are the ones I want more of. At the end of those long battles, winning or loosing didn't matter, it was the close fight til the end that was the best.

IMO and IME, this event was better just in the quality of matches. Experienced far less one sided fights then ever before and it was GLORIOUS!

Yes, CW needs work - we all know this. My good experiences far outweighed the bad.

CW issues as a whole not withstanding, give this CW event 7-8 out of 10.

Yes, as I have said, most of the PUG + small group vs PUG + small group games tut I pla to in this weekend were very close and mostly down to the wire, with the edge usually going to the defender.

[Sturmwind]

freud2b, on 08 December 2015 - 07:50 AM, said:

Hey WTF , what happens to cw? why a ceasefire 8 Day !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ?

...as it has been said often enough before: Until Thursday, Steamlaunch, then reset of the map.

[Appogee]

Husker Dude, on 08 December 2015 - 09:35 AM, said:

Honestly, I think requiring only owned mechs would cause a great deal more imbalance, as anyone who can't afford the entry fee on buying Clan mechs would end up on the IS side (basically, every new player who wants to try CW).

But IS PUGs are already the worst PUGs.

If we can at least stop them taking trial Mechs, we'll be slightly ahead of where we are now.

Edited by Appogee, 08 December 2015 - 10:05 AM.

[Dassh]

On the cliché that "Clan 'Mechs are more expensive":

In my experiences they aren't really, definietly not with a huge margin. Sure, a stock IS 'Mech costs less than a Clan one but you have to upgrade DHS and Endo and get a new engine right away (even XL engine) so you can easily spend 10 mil. more before buying a single laser. After buying a Clan 'Mech you have no other worries than buying the weapons and even some omnipods.
If you compare the overall cost of two 'Mechs from the same weight class they will be roughly the same.


On using trial 'Mechs (aimed for newbies mostly):

If you have to use trial 'Mechs for CW or an event for any reason (what I agree on that is anything but a good idea), go for Clans. IS trial 'Mechs are badly inferior due to their stock STD engines and single HS, lack of Endo etc. A Clan trial still will be nowhere compared to its well-customised counterpart but it will have XLs, DHS, Endo, Ferrous. So, imho if trial 'Mechs then defo go for Clans, never IS.

[Husker Dude]

Appogee, on 08 December 2015 - 10:04 AM, said:

But IS PUGs are already the worst PUGs.

If we can at least stop them taking trial Mechs, we'll be slightly ahead of where we are now.

Then we'd have no new, casual players on the Clan side, they'd all, every single one, be on the IS side, because of how long it takes to save up for a set of Clan mechs, which I think would put the IS behind where it is now as the default starting faction for new players.
I'd rather someone take the Trial Thunderbolt and whatever the assault is into a CW match than, like, a mix of cheap light and mediums that just fill the weight minimum, just by virtue of armor.

Edited by Husker Dude, 08 December 2015 - 10:23 AM.

[Luscious Dan]

Well, imagine my shock Monday night when I went to play some more CW to make the minimum participation score and found out the event was already over. Like an idiot, I assumed the event ran until Tuesday like they often do. Whoops.

Congrats to Mercstar for ensuring Clan Wolf remains atop the leaderboards (my personal favorite clan faction).

[percolated1]

I had a lot of fun, got half the goodies as I had limited playtime this weekend. Only time the wait times were truly awful was Saturday, the rest of the time my first mech hit the ground in less than ten minutes after joining queue, and often less than five. The mechanics of CW do currently favor the attacker. You can bum rush the gens and Omega and win on Attack. You can completely dictate the fight as a defending attacker in Counterattack. That said, the IS/Clan balance is much better now.

[Arkhangel]

I will agree the unit cap idea sucks after all the feedback, but I think the signing bonuses is a good one. would make units less wishy-washy in their loyalties. you're a lot less likely to just break a contract just to sign on for a tournament if you lose a massive bonus at the end of it.

In all honesty, we also just need something to actually SPEND Unit Coffers on too. get those massive C-bill accounts paying for stuff, rather than just letting them accumulate. Union Dropships, Jumpships maybe a spy satellite sweep that can be used once per game, upgrading a base your unit assets are at so you, say, get a C-bill bonus for a short period in CW, so on.

and to the guy who said "lol, do you even think this is a game", I do, it's just the fact that CW has us all as merc units, and we should get paid like them. at best right now we're bounty hunters (rather fitting we have that mech) making 300k per "bounty". If we sign on a contract, we should get maybe slightly less per mission, but get a nice signing bonus, and a good lump sum at the end for how well the unit did in their timeframe (or a weekly or bi-weekly payout).

this wouldn't punish successful units, but it would prevent them from just breaking a contract without a second thought, and hopefully even out the disposition of good units among the factions.

Edited by Arkhangel, 08 December 2015 - 10:36 AM.

[Repasy Cooper]

I just thought of a possible format for the next Tukayyid that might give us better statistics to work with.

Each Battle of Tukayyid was preceded by a 'Season' of ComWar, right? I propose that each season should be treated as a qualifier for the final fight on Tukayyid. This idea is partly influenced by lore, where only the best Warriors of each faction took part in the batchall for the planet. However, it also makes sense, in that this way we ensure the most even player skill between Clans and Inner Sphere. Details:

• The number of qualifying pilots that are eligible for the batchall should be a percentage function of the total player count of Clans and Houses. I believe this will work better than individual factions because as we've clearly seen from this season, depending on how the battlezones progress several factions can end up with a dead playerbase, or with an underskilled playerbase. The latter would severely affect battle results during the battle for Tukayyid.
  
• Eligible players/units receive an invitation leading up to the tournament, and are given a reasonable amount of time to accept. If players do not accept, then invitations will move down the 'list' of skilled players just under the cut, until all batchall slots are filled.
  
• The number of active nodes during the tournament should be a percentage function of the total number of eligible players on the smallest of the two sides. This ensures that neither side will have trouble covering nodes. Furthermore, this means that the larger of the two sides will have to work harder, as they may have a more dispersed concentration of skilled players (though this will be mitigated by inviting only top players).
  
• Perhaps the tournament does not have to take place on Tukayyid every time. If this is to be an Inner Sphere history influenced by gaming community, then the tournament should take place at the most contested zone at the time of the tournament. It does not make too much sense to have the tournament at Tukayyid if it lies far away from the frontline at the time of the tournament.
  
• Hopefully, once ComWar is complete we will no longer need map resets after the tournaments as well. We should have a balanced game that encourages faction growth, while at the same time limiting one faction from getting too large without extra effort from players. Once they have the features that make use of unit coffers, perhaps the bonuses bought with those C-bills should increase in cost as a faction's borders grow.

A format like this serves two goals:

• Ensures that the Battle of Tukayyid is the most intense tournament possible, with skill players matched against equally skilled players regardless of whether they are 12-mans or pugs.
  
• MORE IMPORTANTLY, encourages players to take part in Community Warfare for a chance to earn prestige/MC/rewards from the tournament!!!

What do you guys think?

[Husker Dude]

I'm sort of against the idea of the event being an invite-only affair, rather than a community building one.
Like, it should be something that gets new players hooked on and acclimated to the game mode and become regular players (so that we're all not waiting 10+ minutes for drops every evening), rather than just something to reward the elite people who already play.

[Repasy Cooper]

Husker Dude, on 08 December 2015 - 10:40 AM, said:

I'm sort of against the idea of the event being an invite-only affair, rather than a community building one.
Like, it should be something that gets new players hooked on and acclimated to the game mode and become regular players (so that we're all not waiting 10+ minutes for drops every evening), rather than just something to reward the elite people who already play.

Easily manageable. Nothing preventing PGI from limiting the eligible players to 10%, or 50%, or 95%. Obviously makes most sense to choose value that includes a reasonable amount of players who are active in ComWar.

Alternatively, maybe to be eligible for the tourney you need only play a certain amount of ComWar games during the season, or accumulate a certain amount of points. Think of it like an extended challenge: earn 125,000 points in ComWar during the season & you qualify for the tournament. That would translate to about 500 games, a reasonable amount to encourage a larger ComWar player base.

Edited by Repasy, 08 December 2015 - 10:51 AM.

[Gaussfather]

DivineEvil, on 08 December 2015 - 08:28 AM, said:

My summary of the Battle of Tyykaid 2 is that:

• At this point Inner Sphere is almost perfectly balanced with Clans. There's of course personal bias among the playerbase, calling their favored side as one in disadvantage, based on their determination to emphatise the weaker sides of their tech-base, ignoring it's corresponding strong sides. There's also a significant case of inequal distribution of quirks on IS side, the undisputable lack of variety on Clan side, and obvious under/over-powered mechs and variants on both sides. Nevertheless, IS/Clan balance has never felt that close before.
  
• Despite the heat balancing on Clan heatsinks, vast majority of Clan players still preferred laser-vomit builds, regardless of environmental circumstances and failure rates. This makes any claims of Clan's higher average skill level pathetic and fundamentally groundless.
  
• Disregarding the given warning, many IS players still were confidently running subpar and even trial mechs into the event, with littile to no communication, cooperation and initiative. Considering the disparity between IS mechs/variants versus Clan's infused synergy of Omni-mechs, it had it's effect of general IS PUG performance being plainly hilarious and disappointing.
  
• General Tyykaid mechanics remained highly biased in Clan's favor. Out of four potential game-modes (attack, defense, counter-attack and position-hold) only Attacks were possible to win long before time-out. Only Clans were capable of playing that mode, and thus any half-competent Clan formation were capable of going for match objectives directly, ignoring the opposition altogether, using Clan's advantage in mobility. On the other hand, IS teams always had to either decimate all 48 Clan Mechs, or to prolong the match until time-out, in order to win. Thus, Clan representatives always had the possibility of abusing this game-mode assimmetry in their favor.
  
• Stars of the event, -MS- has once again shown, that the course of supremacy in CW at this moment lies in abuse of every possible potholes in rules and mechanics, rather than fair fighting. They have took the control of the event from the very beginning to the end with their sheer numbers. Aside from the single company, publically displayed trough streaming, all other -MS- groups shown the excellance of shameless, dishonored and illicit behavior, using aforementioned objective-rush tactics, while also hiding across the map to prolong the matches they've already lost. Troughout the event, of all the different units that performed pooly, whether just due to lack of experience, sufficient command structure or competetive member count, -MS- were the only ones who, at least for me, induced feelings of pity and spite, and by all means had once again proven their roles of laughing-stock of the MWO community and the best exemplar of what any MWO unit should not be.

Hi, I agree with pretty much everything you stated about Tukkayid event, but I'm not sure the mechs are really "balanced". One on one, most clan mechs of similar weight class will still outperform most IS mechs (but they DO shut down alot more than before). Mainly because they are much faster and tougher. When we beat them it was mainly because of superior tactics and teamwork/focus fire.

Also, you are asking to die early if you don't put a heavy/slower standard engine in your mech (some lights being the exception) in CW. I still stick to the idea we should test having XL engines in IS mechs behave similar to XLs in Clan mechs (not causing instant death when you lose 1 ST).

Tukkayid 2 still suffered from poor variety in the modes and I agree with you 100% on the mechanics being biased against IS since we can only defend and counter-attack, never just kill Omega to win.

I had more fun with this 2nd Tukkayid event than the 1st one. Even though I played fewer matches. I suppose the rewards help make an otherwise pointless game mode worth playing, along with the camaraderie you get from playing with fun FRR groups. I hope PGI makes planets worth capturing with the steam release.

About MS, well didn't have any real drops against them this time around... not sad about that...

Edited by Jman88, 08 December 2015 - 12:02 PM.

[Arkhangel]

Jman88, on 08 December 2015 - 11:57 AM, said:

Hi, I agree with pretty much everything you stated about Tukkayid event, but I'm not sure the mechs are really "balanced". One on one, most clan mechs of similar weight class will still outperform most IS mechs (but they DO shut down alot more than before). Mainly because they are much faster and tougher. When we beat them it was mainly because of superior tactics and teamwork/focus fire.

Also, you are asking to die early if you don't put a heavy/slower standard engine in your mech (some lights being the exception) in CW. I still stick to the idea we should test having XL engines in IS mechs behave similar to XLs in Clan mechs (not causing instant death when you lose 1 ST).

Tukkayid 2 still suffered from poor variety in the modes and I agree with you 100% on the mechanics being biased against IS since we can only defend and counter-attack, never just kill Omega to win.

I had more fun with this 2nd Tukkayid event than the 1st one. Even though I played fewer matches. I suppose the rewards help make an otherwise pointless game mode worth playing, along with the camaraderie you get from playing with fun FRR groups. I hope PGI makes planets worth capturing with the steam release.

About MS, well didn't have any real drops against them this time around... not sad about that...

IS do get Clan XLs of a sort. they're called light fusion engines. not as light as XLs, but you don't die when you lose an ST. if we get the other sizes of weapons at some point, LFEs, Compact Gyros, etc. should be added alongside them.

[BeaverOnFire]

Dawnstealer, on 08 December 2015 - 09:39 AM, said:

Mentioned in a CW link somewhere, but my thought was that Clan players get zero cbills and XP for an assist, but get a comparatively huge bump for solo kills. You can't force people to play in character, but PGI could at least encourage and reward it.

I just remember there was one time in the early days of CW, during a 5-47 stomp, my last mech was flying in, I challenged any Clan player to a one-on-one. I was focus fired the second I landed by twelve mechs.

I really really like your idea. Elegant and simple!

[LeeNTien]

DivineEvil, on 08 December 2015 - 08:28 AM, said:

All other -MS- groups shown the excellance of shameless, dishonored and illicit behavior, using aforementioned objective-rush tactics, while also hiding across the map to prolong the matches they've already lost.

Not accurate.
We, 77th Grey Guards (EU-unit) of MercStar, did not stream, and didn't "rush the objective" or "hide" even once during the entire event.
We did have to dunk it when were faced with too stiff of an opposition, but that always happened on the 3-d or 4-th wave (and it's not easy to do in just one wave, when there are still turrets, gens and plenty of enemy mechs all over omega).
And we had also killed omega a few times when the outcome was way too clear (24 - 2 for example), to free the slot and let one of those 40+ IS teams into the next game. Not even a thank-you?

And our 12-man hadn't lost a single game, as far as I know, although I was told, that half-teams during out of prime-time hours did lose a game or two, but those went with pure rush-brawl to clean the spot as fast as possible as well.

The only game we've prolonged during the entire event was when our opponents asked for a couple of 1-on-1 fights, and then an "all-out-brawl in the middle of the map", which took some time to organize, but caused a lot of fun for both sides.

Also, when tactics for the event were discussed during the first evening, there was a specific order to the drop-callers not to dunk it, unless absolutely necessary (as in initial attacks had failed, scores 10+ in favor of the enemy, only lights and mediums remain vs dug-in behind turrets TDR5SS and STKs).
In my experience of MS - orders are followed.
And in my drops outside of the event, with MS in general - not a single team/unit within MS uses the tactics you've described.
They are often used against MS by smaller teams or pugs, though, with an excuse being given in chat after the game: "it's the only way we can try to beat you".
So, I'd call BS on your words, mate.

I'd sort your own misconceptions first, then feel whatever you've felt.

P.S. I've only met TCAF-team once during our drops, and we've won comfortably in Counter-attack on Hellebore by (in my opinion) a very valid tactic of slugging it out in trenches behind the gates. TCAF had Stalkers, we had Warhawks, the game was good, and no "rushing" or "staying behind" happened, just pure old-fashioned brawl. There was no "DivineEvil" on that team though. May be that's why you are so mistaken about us.

Edited by LeeNTien, 08 December 2015 - 03:01 PM.