298 replies to this topic

[wmusil]

OK, So I am not a Canon fanboy. I really don't know much about Battletech, but I have a general idea. Looking at the current CW map, the Clans have lost. It really isn't debatable anymore. OK, Jade falcon has a few planets left (28 as of this ceasefire writing), but Smoke Jaguar, Ghost Bear, and Wolf are essentially done.

Now, we can say all the effective units have contracted with or are aligned with IS houses, or that Clan mechs have finally been nerfed enough for the game to be in 'balance'. Everything that I know about Canon states that this just should not be so. I have mostly IS mechs myself, and by no means am I an expert. I have been here since the beginning, however, I'm just not that good.

That said, Should it be that Clans are rolled under? Should the Timeline be reset to the Succession Wars, so we can have some house on house action? Anyone can look at the map. The Clans are a non issue. Does it matter? The game is not Canon, but then CW doesn't make sense any more. It is always Clan vs IS. I think it needs to be IS vs IS now. Nothing to fight for on the Clan side now.

[Archie4Strings]

There will be many people who agree with you and also there will be really many who will say that this is another useless whiney cry post...
For me? I dont know man... you cant deny the truth and there is definitely some of it inside your post even though we are not yet talking about the reasons (which will happen soon i guess )

Your idea is probably not to bad! kick out the quirks and bring it back to the roots. Where brawling was done in under 200m range, the dakkadakkas were Ilyas with triple UAC5 and the only problem was about balancing lrms...

But i would sure miss my summoner and my warhawk!

I still think that the best would be, to remove all quirks from the game. Just redesign a few mechs to make them all viable again compared to the faction (f.E. the Summoner, Vindicator, Ice Ferret, Mist Lynx, Gargoyle, and maybe one or two more IS mechs?), give the clanners the original Lore-based clan technique back to hand (yes that means that Clan mechs are op).
But also for CW-Matches:
Make 10 (clanners) vs 12 (Is) and still give the IS a higher max tonnage for the dropdeck (i am talking about probably 40 tons more than a clan pilot) and maybe the clanners should also not be allowed to use artillery or air strikes (because that is not a really clan-like).
And also in that way, it is much easier to make changes in the balance even later (by probably just adjusting the tonnage limit or f.E. increasing the power of Airstrikes... whatever)! It is a good adaption of the Lore too and this way it is ok that the Clanmechs are so expensive!

And four Public Matches? the same! lower tonnage limits for clanners and a 10 vs 12.

People just have to decide wether they wanna be a clanner or a inner sphere pilot. That worked for World of Warcraft too (you had to decide if you wanna be in the hord or in the alliance). if you wanna pilot the other faction, make a second account or maybe a second charakter or something like that.

But i guess all this is said already really often and i guess there wont be any big change like that (wether it is what you said (IS only) or what i said), even though i would appreciate it!

[Blackfang]

You can already do ISvsIS its down to the players to make that choice

[Russhuster]

yes, it has been, and both suggestions gave its benefits,..
Maybe delay the Clan mechs for some time a kind of Timeoit for the referee to get things in order again

in that meantime only IS vs IS matches ar paired becuse imho balance has been destroyed by qzuirkbuckets even in the inner sphere mechs compared to each other
First that must be fixed alsongside with a general speedup for PPC what will reduce the PPC bug
same goes for UAC and AC

while that time PGI has enough opportunity to broom the cobwebs( Ghostheat) out of the engine and design a proper matchmaker what is a ( a pain in the ... ) err.. sickness in my opinion at tis current state.

When that is done!
your Clan balancing idea sounds reasonable
In addition a Chassis specific, !!inteligent!! and well thought balancing may be possible
alongside with the free choice of endo/ferro for Clan and the choice if the player wants to ise jumpjets or not atm these are hardcoded in many clan chassis
that would give lower rated mechs like summoner gargoyle EXE the chance to be more viable
in additionsome clan mechs with extreme puny payloads like the Ferret or the mist Lynx need a closer look,.. maybe 3- 5 tons more there

but i do fear PGI wont let that happen bevore hell freezes

In general i do share manyof your ideas. i think one could take these as a base for a developing discussion

Edited by Russhuster, 28 December 2015 - 06:44 AM.

[wmusil]

Yea, I personally don't really care if we stick to Canon. There are likely many reasons for the downfall of the Clans. My only point was that everyone is free to pick alliances. My unit is Merc and tiny. You wont see any planets under our control any time soon. So we pick and choose. Yes we are under contract to Wolf right now, hence my badge, but we go where the contracts are. But going forward, Why would we pick Wolf again, or any Clan Faction? We could just shelve that and go with one of the IS houses. I don't have a preference, because I don't follow canon, but it seems that the premise of CW right now, is hopelessly broken, unless IS vs IS is encouraged, a-la Succession Wars.

[H I A S]

Gameplay > Lore

[MahKraah]

thats the effect that we ,IS players, are pointing out since cw beta 1 started:
the side with the mercs win.
for the most part of cw beta 1.2 and 3 the biggest good mercunits where under clan contract and now, for once, they are with IS.
the result is seen on the map.

there is some big hypocracy in the behavior of the strong units:
"we dont like pug stomps and we want the "good" games."

than you look at the game and notice that the majority of them dont act like that.

MS is a great example as they are good AND big

if ms is in wolf , other good mercunits could easy go to the faction in the wolf invasion corridor or simply join is and defend the planets that are attacked by MS.

that way both sides would get challanging "good" games and the military balance between clan and is would be intact.

BUT THEY DONT

they avoid each others like the plague!

merc units in the IS attack clan to face the random mixed defenders and MS dont defend against them and also attack instead to face the pug hordes in profitable and relaxed easy wins.


the only conclusion possible is that the big and good merccorps do NOT want good games.
that is what throws off the cw balance between is and clan off ALL THE TIME

it will stay that way as long as the merc units are 100% free to go when and where ever they want and do what ever they want there.

if mercs where hired by a faction for a speciffic time and task it would be easy to balance the map

you know what? this is only the first glimps of what will happen in cw 3-4, when winning or loosing planets will actualy matters.

the merc units will bulk together in one faction and steamroll everything to get the winners rewards as free repair, mech discounts, exclusive mech and item access.
once they got all possible rewards they will switch to the next faction as a big massive group, rinse and repeat.
we are talking about 50+% of the total fightingpower of all factions combined hoping from faction to faction to milk the system ......
while complaining about not getting good fights... BU.....t

[Dawnstealer]

It's populations. It was populations when the Clans blew through the IS, with Jade Falcon going so far as to loop down and through Marik and Davion.

Stop with this, people: where the merc units go is going to be the dominant faction. Full stop. That's it.

[El Bandito]

Yep. Unlike what you Clanners think, it is the mercs who weild the real power.

[KahnWongFuChung]

Looking at the current CW map, the Clans have lost.
=======================================================================

OP everyone has lost as MWO has become this monotonous game that never changes CW is same same every battle there is little interest in playing the same game modes for 3 years .MWO has become what it was meant to be a FPS in Mech Skins with COD repetitive arena shooter style.

I wish I could bring back BTU , MWL , or NBT for true planetary league play in MWO with all its spectacular drop decks and game modes and just plain fun that never gets old as you can change the battle perimeter's for each battle. Of course PC MechWarrior4 has 500+ maps and 20 solo and co-op game modes not to mention 10 mission modes.

MWO was all about money and a cheap product to attain it simple as that sorry OP but MechWarrior is dead same as Battletech and I dont see MWO ever becoming either of them unless they do a360 and redesign the game for social lobby system like the MSN Gamming Zone was and putting more game modes and maps into MWO.

[MischiefSC]

Big units went clans when Clans were clearly op in the tech balance, because only us nitwits stuck with IS.

Now two things have happened - for the first time in CW dropping with a Clan deck isn't a significant advantage in and of itself and all the big groups switched to IS.

Yes, absolutely, the big units avoid fighting each other. They want easy money. They want to feel accomplished but that doesn't equate to wanting fights they might lose.

So they line up in a way that keeps them from constantly fighting each other and if there's a distinct tech advantage they want to have that in their favor.

Also it seems that a lot of Clan players quit when they lost their advantage. While the IS filled matches even when the game was stacked against them a lot of Clan players left when that stopped. Result is a low population. Amazing that when Clan tech is no longer flat out superior Clan pugs are not flat out superior.

Huh.

[wmusil]

Right I agree with you MischiefSC, but with CW the way it is now, doesn't that mean that the logical conclusion is that if everyone goes with IS, that CW will never ever work?

My unit is very small and we are merc, so we go where the winds blow, and will likely contract with IS next. That said, this doesn't seem to encourage us to move to IS. it just encourages us not to play at all. Maybe I misunderstand how CW works.

Please, I am no CW expert, but without someone to fight, isn't CW itself dead? A stocking stuffer pugfest might work for a week or two, but if all units go IS and only units keep playing, and my perhaps misunderstood perception that the matches are Clan vs IS, with specific requirements of Clan Mech and IS Mech dropdecks. Why would any pug buy more Clan mechs to compete in CW? Why would anyone compete in CW?

I like what MahKraah is saying, but it reinforces the inevitable conclusion. Mercs will sweep CW, and thus CW will just end. When the entire map is one and only one faction, save for tiny bubbles of useless homeworlds, what then? You will have the choice of joining any faction you want, but of course, eventually that will be the faction du jour. Only noobs will pick factions based on canon, then they will learn and join the super-faction, then that will be the end.

It just does not make any economic sense to me, unless PGI has seen the future and basically said, "ya know?, this won't work", so let's just break it and eventually nobody will play that mode.

Edited by wmusil, 28 December 2015 - 01:58 PM.

[Tombstoner]

Well in defense of PGI, CW its not finished yet..... PGI is basically a snake trying to eat a whale sideways.
If they built a 1-1, 2-2, 4-4. 8-8, 12-12 arena shooter with leader boards more people would be happy.

Unit warfare then becomes this group vs this group thing and the IS map is meaning less. Trying to play out the succession/clan invasion wars was doomed from the start simply from a balance perspective. PGI learned that early access to unbalanced tech will be tolerated by the players. it also creates a huge balance problem many closed beta players warned about. That imbalance played out in CW and pug games untill clan tech is simply meh and the clans are now just the same as any other faction.

Cant wait for faction specific quirks....

[Willard Phule]

Has nothing to do with canon or lore. The Clans are dead...or are on life support. All of the experienced players....groups and solos....have gone to the IS simply because of the influx of new players from the Steam release and a complete lack of matchmaking in CW.

I'm going that way, too. With all the quirks and the increase to drop deck tonnage, it's pretty much a baby seal clubfest.

[wmusil]

Yes Willard, but for how long? If you cant get new players to form units and compete in those club fests, eventually we will have nothing to club. All of us will just drop public and private quick play matches, and there is no reason for CW at all.

Edited by wmusil, 28 December 2015 - 02:06 PM.

[MischiefSC]

wmusil, on 28 December 2015 - 01:37 PM, said:

Right I agree with you MischiefSC, but with CW the way it is now, doesn't that mean that the logical conclusion is that if everyone goes with IS, that CW will never ever work?

My unit is very small and we are merc, so we go where the winds blow, and will likely contract with IS next. That said, this doesn't seem to encourage us to move to IS. it just encourages us not to play at all. Maybe I misunderstand how CW works.

Please, I am no CW expert, but without someone to fight, isn't CW itself dead? A stocking stuffer pugfest might work for a week or two, but if all units go IS and only units keep playing, and my perhaps misunderstood perception that the matches are Clan vs IS, with specific requirements of Clan Mech and IS Mech dropdecks. Why would any pug buy more Clan mechs to compete in CW? Why would anyone compete in CW?

I like what MahKraah is saying, but it reinforces the inevitable conclusion. Mercs will sweep CW, and thus CW will just end. When the entire map is one and only one faction, save for tiny bubbles of useless homeworlds, what then? You will have the choice of joining any faction you want, but of course, eventually that will be the faction du jour. Only noobs will pick factions based on canon, then they will learn and join the super-faction, then that will be the end.

It just does not make any economic sense to me, unless PGI has seen the future and basically said, "ya know?, this won't work", so let's just break it and eventually nobody will play that mode.

So you hit the absolute crux of it.

The game needs to be focused on the factions and motivating people to stay with them. The ability and motivation to constantly change factions and sides totally destroys the basis of why you even have cw apart from group/pug queue.

You are punished for sticking with a faction win or lose. You are rewarded for skipping around every couple of weeks. There are no factions, just a bunch of mercs skipping between irrelevant tags/factions with no interest or investment in who wins or loses. As there are not npcs leaders and armies actually fighting a war in which the mercs are involved it's all utterly pointless.

However if you don't make it pointless and interchangeable then people can't play both is and Clan mechs ever fee days in cw on the same account, thus PGI's going to have a harder time trying to sell everything to everyone.

So cw is broken and ****** and PGI has left it do for years and will never fix it in a meaningful way, same as they've left balance and such. This is it. Cw, as it is right now, is all it will ever be plus or minus a few little tweaks, modes, etc.

Welcome to mwo.

[wmusil]

I agree, but I too have been here since the beginning. I am just wondering if no CW, then why units at all, and if no units, why MWO at all?

Just frustrated after all of these years I guess.

[EightSeven]

Full disclaimer: I am a very long time fan of the clans, from the old BattleTech novels and earlier MechWarrior games.

I played this game during the early beta, but stopped due to work kicking up, getting married, having a couple of kids... Recently came back for the Steam launch and seen that the Clans were introduced to the game. Awesome. Got to playing them, even ran with some very organized CW groups and I have to say... What the hell, Piranha? The Clan 'Mechs are supposed to be better than what the InnerSphere fields during the initial invasion timeline. This equal balanced strategy to keep everyone happy is pure nonsense.

There's a reason why EVERYONE is switching back to IS, it's because you've gone and removed all the best parts of the Clans.

Stop mercilessly ****** the IP just to make a buck.

[old man odin]

Side note; I find it amusing that all these Clan whinge threads are from Wolf players. You know, the faction that has been renown for having the worst pugs since CW started.

wmusil, on 28 December 2015 - 06:05 AM, said:

Everything that I know about Canon states that this just should not be so.

This is a multiplayer shooter that's designed to have equal sides. What the lore states is irrelevant in any balance discussions.

wmusil, on 28 December 2015 - 06:05 AM, said:

That said, Should it be that Clans are rolled under? Should the Timeline be reset to the Succession Wars, so we can have some house on house action?

No, the timeline should not be reset to the Succession Wars. All it would do is deny Clan players games. It would not open up anything new, as IS vs IS battles are already possible and happening in the current system.

wmusil, on 28 December 2015 - 06:05 AM, said:

Anyone can look at the map. The Clans are a non issue. Does it matter? The game is not Canon, but then CW doesn't make sense any more. It is always Clan vs IS. I think it needs to be IS vs IS now. Nothing to fight for on the Clan side now.

There's never been anything to fight for. The map is meaningless. There is no benefit to it whatsoever.

EightSeven, on 28 December 2015 - 02:52 PM, said:

The Clan 'Mechs are supposed to be better than what the InnerSphere fields during the initial invasion timeline. This equal balanced strategy to keep everyone happy is pure nonsense.

There's a reason why EVERYONE is switching back to IS, it's because you've gone and removed all the best parts of the Clans.

Stop mercilessly ****** the IP just to make a buck.

Yes, because what everyone wants to play is the lopsided mess than is TT Clan vs IS balance.

[wmusil]

Odins Steed, on 28 December 2015 - 02:59 PM, said:

No, the timeline should not be reset to the Succession Wars. All it would do is deny Clan players games. It would not open up anything new, as IS vs IS battles are already possible and happening in the current system.

OK, so perhaps I misunderstand the whole Clan vs IS contracting and drop deck thing.

I was under the impression that you had to sign a contract as a merc, or specifically align with a faction. The contract dictated Clan or IS, and also dictated the type of Mechs. Are you saying that during CW sessions, there are ways for one IS unit to attack another? or Clan V Clan for that matter? maybe I don't understand it, but my experience says, if I am driving an IS drop deck on an IS contract I will be facing Clan mechs, and If I am driving a Clan drop deck on a clan contract, I will be facing IS mechs. We are merc, so we have flipped back and forth, so I have played both ways, with the same result.

Is the above statement incorrect? How so?

If the above statement is correct, then the original conclusion still prevails. The party is over for everyone, cause the bashees will get bored, and the bashers will have nobody to bash. it is only a matter of time.

I do not mean pub and private 12 mans. I am asking only about CW.