211 replies to this topic

[QuantumButler]

Mechsniper, on 18 December 2016 - 07:09 PM, said:

12 Clan mechs should never be allowed vs 12 IS mechs, this is one huge problem. 2 stars of clan tech vs 3 lances of IS is how FP should have rolled from day 1.

Assymetric player counts don't work in MWO and never will.

[I_AM_ZUUL]

QuantumButler, on 18 December 2016 - 03:30 PM, said:

You may find it shocking that To many thousands of people who would actually want a mechwarrior game, the first clan mech designs [Timber Wolf, Dire Wolf, Mad Dog, et al] are *the* most iconic 'mechs, and they do not give two ****s about battlemasters or hunchbacks or warhammers.

I know several people in my unit who couldn't care about the upcoming HBS battletech game simply because it doesn't have clans.

So just keep in mind PGI *had* to introduce clans and from a business perspective was right to do so.

super simple... JIHAD!!!!!!!!!!! That is what i have always wanted but Mechwarrior has always been stuck in the absolute worst part of Battletech. Make everyone fight each other while fighting the true evil which is Comstar... i do not need any trips down memory lane and fundamentally do not care about the Clan invasion even if I did. The Clans are merely gross violations of everything that Nicholas Kerensky wanted because when the Khans opened his letter like a 100 years after his death, they choose to destroy it and stay being the Clans instead of reverting back into a normal society and reintegrating with the Inner Sphere.

Jihad gives Tech 3 levels and intermixes Clan & IS units... I will still get the enjoyment of fighting Evil Comstar even if they are pretending to be a separate faction in Blakists, cause i know that Comstar are the real evil organization and the Blakists are just one maneuver on the part of Comstar to gain control of the Inner Sphere.

Edited by I_AM_ZUUL, 18 December 2016 - 10:30 PM.

[Karl Marlow]

QuantumButler, on 18 December 2016 - 05:37 PM, said:

The point was PGI was not financially stable enough to delay introducing the clans any longer than they already did, and they have had more than ample time since then [3 years!] to add in new IS tech if they really ever intended to [they don't and never did].

Face it, PGI is never going to make MWO the game you wish it could be.

That's not why clans were introduced. IGP forced it to happen before PGI wanted to. The clans were always going to happen but gameplay and balancing had to take an abrupt back seat because IGP suddenly demanded clans.

[ice trey]

CW is painful to play when you're not in a 12-man, and unless I'm willing to burn most of my Saturday afternoon, I can't afford to wait around for a 12-man to organise, much less can I expect all 12 players to stick around for more than three matches in a row before someone has to give their kid a bath or eat brunch or something.

...But QP, while easy to drop in, is a painfully boring hamster wheel. Lather rinse repeat.

Long story short... HBS Battletech/M5M

[Jep Jorgensson]

• Clan Scouting Drop Deck Tonnage reduced to 50 (from 55).

Jep Jorgensson, on 17 December 2016 - 08:51 PM, said:

No need to worry. After PGI nerfs the Clans and our tonnage again, the mercs will switch sides again and everything will seesaw back in the IS's favor.

Called it.

[I_AM_ZUUL]

Jep Jorgensson, on 21 December 2016 - 12:12 AM, said:

• Clan Scouting Drop Deck Tonnage reduced to 50 (from 55).



Called it.

except they havent jumped sides... IS needs ridiculous quirks to be OP enough for the bigger groups to switch sides for the rollstomp in that direction.

[Johnny Z]

I_AM_ZUUL, on 21 December 2016 - 08:11 AM, said:

except they havent jumped sides... IS needs ridiculous quirks to be OP enough for the bigger groups to switch sides for the rollstomp in that direction.

Sad state of affairs that this even matters.

[Speedkermit]

Is the population imbalance still ruining CW?

I haven't played in a long while, but I doubt if anything much has changed.

[Alan Davion]

Speedkermit, on 21 December 2016 - 09:21 AM, said:

Is the population imbalance still ruining CW?

I haven't played in a long while, but I doubt if anything much has changed.

I haven't played in a long time either, but from what I've been reading, all the top units are currently Clan side, so that, coupled with the Clans still overall technological superiority leads to one hell of an unbalanced system.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Well since it appears a major part of the issue is a population imbalance I say we look to lore and remove the possibility of mercs being offered a contract to fight for the Clans. Seriously, the Clan's HATE mercs so why is this even a thing.

Also it would force alot of people who tend to jump where the wind blows strongest to actually pick a side and stick with it. I mean how the hell does PGI expect to be able to balance FW when you can just Merc up and move to whatever side you perceive has an advantage? For example, as soon as you give enough incentive to the IS to balance things out, Mercs who were Clan will just jump to the IS side and all of a sudden you have the same issue on this time IS is dominant. Make people pick a side, then balance around the faction population.

[Nammuz]

A huge problem with FW is that there are 4 drops. In 90% of games you know who won by the end of the first drop about 7 minuets in and if you're on the losing side you have 3 drops and 20 minuets more of just trying to make it suck less.

[Bud Crue]

Viktor Drake, on 21 December 2016 - 11:25 AM, said:

Well since it appears a major part of the issue is a population imbalance I say we look to lore and remove the possibility of mercs being offered a contract to fight for the Clans. Seriously, the Clan's HATE mercs so why is this even a thing.

Also it would force alot of people who tend to jump where the wind blows strongest to actually pick a side and stick with it. I mean how the hell does PGI expect to be able to balance FW when you can just Merc up and move to whatever side you perceive has an advantage? For example, as soon as you give enough incentive to the IS to balance things out, Mercs who were Clan will just jump to the IS side and all of a sudden you have the same issue on this time IS is dominant. Make people pick a side, then balance around the faction population.

Even without mercs, if the "wind" is blowing strong enough in just one direction for any significant period of time, even some loyalists will change factions or tech sides if imbalance (tech, population, skill, whatever) gets bad enough. I think mercs ability to move without real consequence is the problem. Make it so they can't easily move over short periods and I think the population imbalance problem is largely solved.

I have proposed elsewhere (maybe even in this thread too) a two level contract term idea that I think would go a long way to addressing this: within each tech side (Clan v IS) the merc contract period corresponds to a month or longer, maybe even as extreme as 1 contract per competitive season. Once you make that contract you are stuck on that side of the tech wall for the whole term. Within that tech level contract term, you can switch factions (within that tech) on a weekly basis like normal.

By doing this you guarantee that all of the mercs can't coalesce together all at once, like they have in the past. If you really wanted to be restrictive you could add additional limitations like making it part of merc life, a requirement that you can never repeat a contract with the same tech (e.g. season 1 you went clan then season 2 you must go IS). If that later restriction was deemed necessary then I would also give mercs the ability to drop with either tech regardless of where they are at (remember the goal is to focus on population imbalance). Personally, I don't think the later would be necessary and they ought to be able to move the population around using rewards or lack thereof. Anyway, just ideas. Only PGI can do anything.

Edited by Bud Crue, 21 December 2016 - 11:52 AM.

[Zibmo]

Bud Crue, on 21 December 2016 - 11:51 AM, said:

Even without mercs, if the "wind" is blowing strong enough in just one direction for any significant period of time, even some loyalists will change factions or tech sides if imbalance (tech, population, skill, whatever) gets bad enough. I think mercs ability to move without real consequence is the problem. Make it so they can't easily move over short periods and I think the population imbalance problem is largely solved.

I have proposed elsewhere (maybe even in this thread too) a two level contract term idea that I think would go a long way to addressing this: within each tech side (Clan v IS) the merc contract period corresponds to a month or longer, maybe even as extreme as 1 contract per competitive season. Once you make that contract you are stuck on that side of the tech wall for the whole term. Within that tech level contract term, you can switch factions (within that tech) on a weekly basis like normal.

By doing this you guarantee that all of the mercs can't coalesce together all at once, like they have in the past. If you really wanted to be restrictive you could add additional limitations like making it part of merc life, a requirement that you can never repeat a contract with the same tech (e.g. season 1 you went clan then season 2 you must go IS). If that later restriction was deemed necessary then I would also give mercs the ability to drop with either tech regardless of where they are at (remember the goal is to focus on population imbalance). Personally, I don't think the later would be necessary and they ought to be able to move the population around using rewards or lack thereof. Anyway, just ideas. Only PGI can do anything.

Or you could eliminate mercs altogether, now that both sides are bucketed, forcing choice. The "but I wanna play BOTH sides" can go right out the window for the good of the game.

[Pers0nne]

Welp, that's it, I'm IS and I won't ever play FW again and the reason is pretty simple :
The match making of that game is a ******* joke, it don't even try to match premades against premade and you'll get farmed with pugs by full premades.

I play a lot of games and I haven't seen that kind of **** since ages !

How the **** PGI can't even do BASIC matchmaking correctly ?

[Alan Davion]

Pers0nne, on 21 December 2016 - 01:35 PM, said:

Welp, that's it, I'm IS and I won't ever play FW again and the reason is pretty simple :
The match making of that game is a ******* joke, it don't even try to match premades against premade and you'll get farmed with pugs by full premades.

I play a lot of games and I haven't seen that kind of **** since ages !

How the **** PGI can't even do BASIC matchmaking correctly ?

Honestly its because all the top players and units are Clans right now, that, coupled with the Clans overall tech superiority, leads to the biggest imbalanced system in history.

Clans were only even somewhat balanced in TT thanks to the BV system due to their mechs having BV numbers that often reached between two and three THOUSAND points. Where as a lot of IS mechs had numbers that were something like only one thousand to one thousand five hundred points.

Basically meaning Mech A was roughly equal to Two Mech Bs.

For example, I once compared the Shadow Hawk and the Timber Wolf. Under the current Table Top BV system, known as 2.0, a SHD-2H is worth 1,064 points. A Timber Wolf is worth 2,737.

With that system in mind, you would need 2 SHD-2Hs to be roughly worth 1 Timber Wolf, in fact your SHD-2Hs would be 124 points higher than the one Timber Wolf. That means, played right, the SHD-2Hs would have a reasonable shot of taking down that Timber Wolf.

Here in MWO, you have no such governing factor to know exactly how your mech stacks up against any other.

[I_AM_ZUUL]

Alan Davion, on 21 December 2016 - 01:45 PM, said:

Honestly its because all the top players and units are Clans right now, that, coupled with the Clans overall tech superiority, leads to the biggest imbalanced system in history.

Alan Davion, on 21 December 2016 - 09:46 AM, said:

I haven't played in a long time either, but from what I've been reading, all the top units are currently Clan side, so that, coupled with the Clans still overall technological superiority leads to one hell of an unbalanced system.

both of you guys seem to be phrasing this in a cart before the horse scenario... its not that the top teams are in Clan with a slight mech advantage. Its because the Clans have a very real and encompassing advantage that the top teams are there. If PGI handed out massive Quirks to IS mechs, then all the top teams would flock over to IS to roll stomp Clan pugs. the top Groups behavior is one of the main problems that FW has always had... they just want to farm pugs, so whatever side has the mech advantage is where they go cause the matchmaker doesnt match Groups vs Groups.

Edited by I_AM_ZUUL, 21 December 2016 - 02:01 PM.

[C E Dwyer]

McMurl, on 14 December 2016 - 05:31 PM, said:

So i really enjoy playing Faction warfare, and this most recent patch made FW pretty awesome. Problem is, it seems like the clans are more organized or just doing better all together, but i dont think this is because of balance. More tonnage, most mechs can take more damage per ton and their weapons are great for applying their full damage in a more accurate fashion, etc. Clans only really have a (small) range advantage and can fit more weapons due to less tonnage per heavy weapon.

What can be done to keep the IS interested? 10 v 12? 48 mechs vs 36 mechs? it really just seems the IS just isnt as organized as the clans, so they keep losing

Balance the game, buff JJ's who knows these days

[Johnny Z]

Pers0nne, on 21 December 2016 - 01:35 PM, said:

Welp, that's it, I'm IS and I won't ever play FW again and the reason is pretty simple :
The match making of that game is a ******* joke, it don't even try to match premades against premade and you'll get farmed with pugs by full premades.

I play a lot of games and I haven't seen that kind of **** since ages !

How the **** PGI can't even do BASIC matchmaking correctly ?

First of all I think its great that players can make 12 man groups! This is awesome and I don't know ANY OTHER GAME that has that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Really its awesome.

My second point is that this game allows for 12 man groups! Where as the other games I am aware of only allow 2 man groups or something like that!!! So its a feature this game has that others don't that creates a challenge and blaming this game for that is a mistake.

Third point is, its no big deal. All the effort into making this a big deal is coming from the premades themselves from what I can see.

Just like the big push to add VOIP was from team speak users. I think its great that it is in but don't really care!

Why so much effort from premade groups that are SUPER RARE TO ACTUALLY SEE 12 MAN UNITS. Usually its like 4 to 8 and some others units mixed in! But why? I could not care less.

Most likely its about trolling effectiveness. The larger the pool the harder to effectively troll. Where as a bunch of small pools they can focus better because an hour of harsh trolling is brutal rather than off and on, hit and miss like a large pool would more often give.

Edited by Johnny Z, 21 December 2016 - 02:16 PM.

[Alan Davion]

I_AM_ZUUL, on 21 December 2016 - 02:01 PM, said:

both of you guys seem to be phrasing this in a cart before the horse scenario... its not that the top teams are in Clan with a slight mech advantage. Its because the Clans have a very real and encompassing advantage that the top teams are there. If PGI handed out massive Quirks to IS mechs, then all the top teams would flock over to IS to roll stomp Clan pugs. the top Groups behavior is one of the main problems that FW has always had... they just want to farm pugs, so whatever side has the mech advantage is where they go cause the matchmaker doesnt match Groups vs Groups.

Which is the main problem of the CW/FW portion of the game. The game itself has too damn small a player base to allow the continual flip-flopping of units from IS to Clan or vice versa, just like before they finally narrowed it down to simply "IS VS CLAN" instead of Davion vs Kurita and Liao, Kurita vs Davion and FRR, Steiner vs FRR and Marik, Marik vs Steiner and Liao, Liao vs Marik and Davion, Ghost Bear vs Kurita and Smoke Jaguar, Smoke Jaguar vs Ghost Bear and Wolf, Wolf vs Smoke Jaguar and Jade Falcon, Jade Falcon vs Wolf and Steiner.

The game had too small a player base to support so many separate factions.

Even still the player base is too small to support this constant flip-flopping we see with the top units depending on what new shiny mech has come out.

It's time for PGI to lock the sides down. Wipe out all contracts. Let everyone choose IS or Clan, and once you've chosen, that's it. Deal with it. If you don't have an account for IS and an account for Clan, too bad,

[Mawai]

Viktor Drake, on 21 December 2016 - 11:25 AM, said:

Well since it appears a major part of the issue is a population imbalance I say we look to lore and remove the possibility of mercs being offered a contract to fight for the Clans. Seriously, the Clan's HATE mercs so why is this even a thing.

Also it would force alot of people who tend to jump where the wind blows strongest to actually pick a side and stick with it. I mean how the hell does PGI expect to be able to balance FW when you can just Merc up and move to whatever side you perceive has an advantage? For example, as soon as you give enough incentive to the IS to balance things out, Mercs who were Clan will just jump to the IS side and all of a sudden you have the same issue on this time IS is dominant. Make people pick a side, then balance around the faction population.

In my opinion, whatever balancing mechanism they may choose has to be dynamic and real time. This means that a unit which changes sides to gain a reward because of low pop on the other side will only see increased rewards in proportion to current real time faction populations. If there is a large imbalance then the first units to switch sides and accept long term contracts should be rewarded for that over the length of the contract. Short term switches, if allowed, would be rewarded little if at all. Hopefully, this would encourage people to sign up with sides for longer terms to add some stability to the population numbers.