62 replies to this topic

[Starbomber109]

RaptorCWS, on 22 December 2016 - 10:50 AM, said:

anyone want to create a thread showing good builds and drop decks for factionplay for new players? this might help a lot of people out.

someone already did

Edited by Starbomber109, 22 December 2016 - 11:27 AM.

[Vxheous]

Davegt27, on 21 December 2016 - 07:35 PM, said:

how do you find the global avg?

do you have a link?

In the past, (actually even right now if you take 240T vs 240T dropdecks) it takes ~14000 damage to kill 48 mechs. If you average that over 12 players, its ~1150 damage that each person on your team will have to account for. So ~1000 damage per game in CW is usually considered "no longer potato" and at minimum pulling your own weight

[Kin3ticX]

Starbomber109, on 22 December 2016 - 08:28 AM, said:

I'm just curious, why 4? Is it arbitrary or is there some reason to it? For example, I know that people run at least 12 head armor because that is the minimum so you don't get killed in one hit by dual gauss builds (and there are people out there skilled enough to headshot you. Just throwing that out there.) What's the point of 4 rear armor though? Even with 5, i've never been hit by any combination of weapons in the back that has killed me in one hit from full health. Is there something 'magical' about 4 back armor or is it just arbitrary. I'm sorry if this is off topic but it's bugged me for a while. (What's to stop me from using only 1-3 back armor?)

Also (more on-topic) you don't have to sit in the back to do 1k damage, I saw a streamer playing FW with a silly deck of 4 griffons. Do you wanna know how much damage he did? 2k+ It was beautiful, and inspirational. I realize not everyone has 4 Griffon 2n (and that's actually a really bad dropdeck because it's light on armor, very light) but what I am trying to highlight is even with hella short range builds you can easily do tons of damage.

16 head armor in the min to not get 1 shot by dual gauss in the head, its so rare though its almost not a concern.
18+15 = 33 Max
16+15= 31 Withstand dual gauss
6+15 = 21 Withstand dual PPC or AC20 (thats why some of the light mech builds you see 6 head armor)

4 rear armor is the number we used in the old Mercstar. Its just a good rounded rear armor # to throw out there that works for every class save for maybe a Brawler in which you might increase it a couple points. Dont get too hung up on the number it could have just as easily been 3 or 5, the point is that its low.

[Davegt27]

Quote

This week I dropped on several teams where a few people did less than 250 damage in four Mechs.

How is that even possibru?!

yeah I am out

all but 2 times I have run in to good 7 man or greater units like KCOM

I even have a video the highest dmg on our team was 630 (with 4 Mechs)
mine was 344 (with 4 mechs)

right after that I dropped with a IS team and now it was my turn to have a super-powered Mech
did 1100 dmg with 3 Mechs

the difference was amazing

[Xavier]

Starbomber109, on 22 December 2016 - 08:28 AM, said:

I'm just curious, why 4? Is it arbitrary or is there some reason to it? For example, I know that people run at least 12 head armor because that is the minimum so you don't get killed in one hit by dual gauss builds (and there are people out there skilled enough to headshot you. Just throwing that out there.) What's the point of 4 rear armor though? Even with 5, i've never been hit by any combination of weapons in the back that has killed me in one hit from full health. Is there something 'magical' about 4 back armor or is it just arbitrary. I'm sorry if this is off topic but it's bugged me for a while. (What's to stop me from using only 1-3 back armor?)

Also (more on-topic) you don't have to sit in the back to do 1k damage, I saw a streamer playing FW with a silly deck of 4 griffons. Do you wanna know how much damage he did? 2k+ It was beautiful, and inspirational. I realize not everyone has 4 Griffon 2n (and that's actually a really bad dropdeck because it's light on armor, very light) but what I am trying to highlight is even with hella short range builds you can easily do tons of damage.

Its more about a rule of thumb....start with 4 until you fell more comfortable to take it even lower.....I am down to 2 rear armor on alot of my mechs now....it really becomes a faith in your teamates setting.....however if you arnt running as a team....then there is no faith.

[MischiefSC]

The difference in surviving an alpha in the back between 4 and 10 is minimal. You're better off having it up front where an extra ML hit is useful all the time.

If you're getting shot in the back your positioning is bad and your situational awareness needs work.

[Unendingmenace]

Kin3ticX, on 21 December 2016 - 03:10 PM, said:

So there shouldn't be any problems (there are)


If you are doing well below sub 1000 damage consistently game after game then you are just throwing yourself into the meat grinder. You get 4 tries and you only need to do 250 damage per mech to break 1000 damage. Yes its true, this game has objectives, but your robot is also dripping with guns and guns are what win games. Once you break 1000 damage consistently (which has been the global average in the past) you are no longer as terrible as half of everyone else.

Sometimes people have a bad game which is understandable, but over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over means you need to change things up to find something more suitable that performs well in FP. Im not saying you need a unit but you do need to dump your special snowflake dumpster 'mechs and bring real ones.

Damage isnt everything, but damage is the next best thing to perfectly coring out or legging a mech. Its very colinear with many of the contributory things that happen to make your team win.

So here is what I suggest. As you play, look for different players that put out monster numbers which tends to mean they know what the hell they are doing and emulate them. No guides or any other tutorial BS are needed. They will gladly tell you what their dropdecks are I guarantee you. Follow them around (without body blocking them) and help them kill their targets (which will teach you how to position).

If you cant hit anything then you probably have really bad mouse settings. You want your DPI x your ingame multiplier to = ~250-300. Yay now you can hit something.

For those that think their opponents are using armor hacks, its because they really do have more protection. Use 4 rear armor OR LESS because forward armor is what saves you while rear armor almost always goes to waste.

Thank you and have a wonderful time in stompy robots online.

Great post Kin3ticX! New players to CW should definitely take on this, there's a lot of great advice in here. Like everyone else in this thread has been saying, one of the best things you can do from the get-go is build a proper drop deck. After that you can work on becoming a better player.

[Pat Kell]

Nephologist, on 22 December 2016 - 09:13 AM, said:

Everything you just listed falls under "Acting like a good player." I never said it wasn't good advice, just that you can sum it up (tl;dr) with the phrase "Acting like a good player."

Also, how the heck do you take something like this personally?

Sorry, I misunderstood the tone of your post. You are right, it can be summed up that way but sometimes it helps to elaborate.

[Jiffy]

Appogee, on 22 December 2016 - 01:50 AM, said:

In the Heavies:
Warhammer 6D and 6R
Thunderbolts are still good and cheap, just out of fashion.
Black Knight 6 or 7

In the Mediums:
Griffins are good, but require skill in positioning to do well
Crabs are tanky and probably a better choice for new players
A Centurion AL with 3LP will pull its weight without requiring you to facetank

In Lights:
Hero Jenner is best, but costs $
Wolfhounds or Firestarters are probably your best free Mech
Maybe a Spider 5D

My IS deck is usually some combination of BLR-2C, BLK-6, WHM-6D, JR7-O, GRF-2N, WHM-BW, LCT-1E or LCT-PB



It's not unrealistic at all. I've played 16 FP 4.1 matches, got beaten in12 of them (mostly due to PUGs vs teams) but only achieved less than 1000 damage once.

I'm sorry, but there's no way an above-average player isn't consistently doing more than 1000 damage in a FP match. I recommend you rethink either your drop deck or your tactics.

Sorry, I just realized this was about FP. Yes, I'd have a hard time doing less than 1000 damage in faction warfare. I derped out here.

[Insanity09]

So, if the point being made by the OP was that everybody should strive to be as effective as possible, I'm all in favor. Total agreement.
If the point was that if you are doing less than 1K damage in an FP match, you really shouldn't be playing (FP) because you are dragging your team down, I must respectfully disagree on several levels.
Ultimately, everyone should always be trying to improve, whether the damage numbers are low or not.
Leave it at that to avoid the tldr

Math is hard, stick to shooting things.
Let's dispel a few myths with the glory of math.
Per some of the numbers given earlier in this thread...
The average damage to kill 48 mechs is 14K? That works out to about 291 per enemy mech.
Which means that evenly shared between the 12 people on your team, you get approximately 1166.
Except, that isn't realistic.

Firstly, nobody is likely to do exactly 1150 (or 1166.6667 etc.) and thinking that every single person on a team will do that number (approx.) is ludicrous. For every person that does more than that equal share, somebody else must be doing less. If one person gets, say 1600 damage, somebody else may have only done 700. Or three people only did 1000 instead of 1150. Does the person doing 700 or just 1K suck? They did less than their "share", right?
That's the way averages work, it does not mean the people who did below average didn't work hard enough.

Next up, durability.
Basically, head shots, back kills, focused kills on CT or legs, (or an ST if ISxl) can all take considerably less than 291 damage. Those kills still did the job, so perhaps relying purely on damage as a measure of performance isn't totally accurate? A skilled player will not waste damage/shots, and so a skilled player might actually have low damage (and they might not even be getting the killing blows, since good teammates will be supporting them on the same target).

What about win versus loss? If my team lost in FP, almost by definition we didn't get 48 kills (might be possible on a time out, but not terribly likely). What if we won, but did it without getting the 48 kills? Successful gen/omega rush, won by timeout vs a insufficiently aggressive attacker, etc.
Every kill not made out of the 48 means less damage done by the team, and thus the entire team's damage numbers look worse. I posit that does NOT mean we played badly.

Average damage as a performance metric is suspect, median might also be a good number to see. Ultimately though, there are too many factors making either of these numbers iffy at best; they don't tell the full story.

Other factors? Tactics and strategy are hard, just shoot stuff.

Positioning. You might not be able to be in a good position. Perhaps you get to your favorite spot and somebody else got there first. Perhaps the enemy went by a slightly different route. Maybe you were every so slightly slower than your teammate, and by the time you were able to fire (without blowing a hole in your friend's back), the enemy had less damage to provide you with numbers to pad your score. There are too many variables regarding positioning to guarantee good damage.

Were you laying down suppressing fire at a distance? (related to sniping, but not quite the same) Guess what, lower damage numbers. Were you the volunteer who went to watch over the other gate? The one the enemy didn't attack through? Oops, lower damage for you, even though knowing where they were coming from was crucial to the team's success.
Were you leading the rush to the enemy? Too bad you got focused first and couldn't do as much damage as a result.
Basically, good tactics and smart play will mean that some people have lower damage numbers. The team will succeed, but an individual's performance might suffer. That means that individual performance metrics, while nice, are NOT the end-all, be-all.

I am absolutely NOT saying that each and every person should not keep trying to improve their effectiveness. Everyone should always strive to improve.
Note I said effectiveness, not damage. If I'm playing with somebody who gets 8+ kills regularly in an FP match, but typically has less than that mythical 1K damage, and they do it by accurate fire (head shots or straight CT shots), I will absolutely not complain about their presence on my team because they are effective.

I am also NOT saying that folks who get consistently low damage numbers don't need to up their game. They probably do. I'm just saying that there might be a lot more to the story.

[Kin3ticX]

Insanity09, on 23 December 2016 - 08:28 PM, said:

So, if the point being made by the OP was that everybody should strive to be as effective as possible, I'm all in favor. Total agreement.
If the point was that if you are doing less than 1K damage in an FP match, you really shouldn't be playing (FP) because you are dragging your team down, I must respectfully disagree on several levels.
Ultimately, everyone should always be trying to improve, whether the damage numbers are low or not.
Leave it at that to avoid the tldr

Math is hard, stick to shooting things.
Let's dispel a few myths with the glory of math.
Per some of the numbers given earlier in this thread...
The average damage to kill 48 mechs is 14K? That works out to about 291 per enemy mech.
Which means that evenly shared between the 12 people on your team, you get approximately 1166.
Except, that isn't realistic.

Firstly, nobody is likely to do exactly 1150 (or 1166.6667 etc.) and thinking that every single person on a team will do that number (approx.) is ludicrous. For every person that does more than that equal share, somebody else must be doing less. If one person gets, say 1600 damage, somebody else may have only done 700. Or three people only did 1000 instead of 1150. Does the person doing 700 or just 1K suck? They did less than their "share", right?
That's the way averages work, it does not mean the people who did below average didn't work hard enough.

Next up, durability.
Basically, head shots, back kills, focused kills on CT or legs, (or an ST if ISxl) can all take considerably less than 291 damage. Those kills still did the job, so perhaps relying purely on damage as a measure of performance isn't totally accurate? A skilled player will not waste damage/shots, and so a skilled player might actually have low damage (and they might not even be getting the killing blows, since good teammates will be supporting them on the same target).

What about win versus loss? If my team lost in FP, almost by definition we didn't get 48 kills (might be possible on a time out, but not terribly likely). What if we won, but did it without getting the 48 kills? Successful gen/omega rush, won by timeout vs a insufficiently aggressive attacker, etc.
Every kill not made out of the 48 means less damage done by the team, and thus the entire team's damage numbers look worse. I posit that does NOT mean we played badly.

Average damage as a performance metric is suspect, median might also be a good number to see. Ultimately though, there are too many factors making either of these numbers iffy at best; they don't tell the full story.

Other factors? Tactics and strategy are hard, just shoot stuff.

Positioning. You might not be able to be in a good position. Perhaps you get to your favorite spot and somebody else got there first. Perhaps the enemy went by a slightly different route. Maybe you were every so slightly slower than your teammate, and by the time you were able to fire (without blowing a hole in your friend's back), the enemy had less damage to provide you with numbers to pad your score. There are too many variables regarding positioning to guarantee good damage.

Were you laying down suppressing fire at a distance? (related to sniping, but not quite the same) Guess what, lower damage numbers. Were you the volunteer who went to watch over the other gate? The one the enemy didn't attack through? Oops, lower damage for you, even though knowing where they were coming from was crucial to the team's success.
Were you leading the rush to the enemy? Too bad you got focused first and couldn't do as much damage as a result.
Basically, good tactics and smart play will mean that some people have lower damage numbers. The team will succeed, but an individual's performance might suffer. That means that individual performance metrics, while nice, are NOT the end-all, be-all.

I am absolutely NOT saying that each and every person should not keep trying to improve their effectiveness. Everyone should always strive to improve.
Note I said effectiveness, not damage. If I'm playing with somebody who gets 8+ kills regularly in an FP match, but typically has less than that mythical 1K damage, and they do it by accurate fire (head shots or straight CT shots), I will absolutely not complain about their presence on my team because they are effective.

I am also NOT saying that folks who get consistently low damage numbers don't need to up their game. They probably do. I'm just saying that there might be a lot more to the story.

Low damage is the low hanging fruit. Like I said before, perfectly coring or legging a mech is ideal but any kind of damage is the next best thing. Honestly you are not wrong, but its really a lot of nitpicking of stuff that doesnt matter. Damage is colinear to all the good things poopy pugs and units need badly (more assists, more kills, more winning, more cbills). Damage gets them all of that. People have 4 mechs and their combined armor and structure is much higher than 1000, so 1000 damage for everyone is very doable in any 48 kills CW game.

Btw, 960 damage is the old CW wide average per PGI's old Tukayidd stat dump and Mercstar held a 1200 avg damage internally. The players with more damage had more assists and more kills as expected and it was a clear trend.

This is graph from data on the old mercstar unit, from about 800 screenshots of Invasion play

[Vxheous]

Insanity09, on 23 December 2016 - 08:28 PM, said:

So, if the point being made by the OP was that everybody should strive to be as effective as possible, I'm all in favor. Total agreement.
If the point was that if you are doing less than 1K damage in an FP match, you really shouldn't be playing (FP) because you are dragging your team down, I must respectfully disagree on several levels.
Ultimately, everyone should always be trying to improve, whether the damage numbers are low or not.
Leave it at that to avoid the tldr

Math is hard, stick to shooting things.
Let's dispel a few myths with the glory of math.
Per some of the numbers given earlier in this thread...
The average damage to kill 48 mechs is 14K? That works out to about 291 per enemy mech.
Which means that evenly shared between the 12 people on your team, you get approximately 1166.
Except, that isn't realistic.

Firstly, nobody is likely to do exactly 1150 (or 1166.6667 etc.) and thinking that every single person on a team will do that number (approx.) is ludicrous. For every person that does more than that equal share, somebody else must be doing less. If one person gets, say 1600 damage, somebody else may have only done 700. Or three people only did 1000 instead of 1150. Does the person doing 700 or just 1K suck? They did less than their "share", right?
That's the way averages work, it does not mean the people who did below average didn't work hard enough.

Next up, durability.
Basically, head shots, back kills, focused kills on CT or legs, (or an ST if ISxl) can all take considerably less than 291 damage. Those kills still did the job, so perhaps relying purely on damage as a measure of performance isn't totally accurate? A skilled player will not waste damage/shots, and so a skilled player might actually have low damage (and they might not even be getting the killing blows, since good teammates will be supporting them on the same target).

What about win versus loss? If my team lost in FP, almost by definition we didn't get 48 kills (might be possible on a time out, but not terribly likely). What if we won, but did it without getting the 48 kills? Successful gen/omega rush, won by timeout vs a insufficiently aggressive attacker, etc.
Every kill not made out of the 48 means less damage done by the team, and thus the entire team's damage numbers look worse. I posit that does NOT mean we played badly.

Average damage as a performance metric is suspect, median might also be a good number to see. Ultimately though, there are too many factors making either of these numbers iffy at best; they don't tell the full story.

Other factors? Tactics and strategy are hard, just shoot stuff.

Positioning. You might not be able to be in a good position. Perhaps you get to your favorite spot and somebody else got there first. Perhaps the enemy went by a slightly different route. Maybe you were every so slightly slower than your teammate, and by the time you were able to fire (without blowing a hole in your friend's back), the enemy had less damage to provide you with numbers to pad your score. There are too many variables regarding positioning to guarantee good damage.

Were you laying down suppressing fire at a distance? (related to sniping, but not quite the same) Guess what, lower damage numbers. Were you the volunteer who went to watch over the other gate? The one the enemy didn't attack through? Oops, lower damage for you, even though knowing where they were coming from was crucial to the team's success.
Were you leading the rush to the enemy? Too bad you got focused first and couldn't do as much damage as a result.
Basically, good tactics and smart play will mean that some people have lower damage numbers. The team will succeed, but an individual's performance might suffer. That means that individual performance metrics, while nice, are NOT the end-all, be-all.

I am absolutely NOT saying that each and every person should not keep trying to improve their effectiveness. Everyone should always strive to improve.
Note I said effectiveness, not damage. If I'm playing with somebody who gets 8+ kills regularly in an FP match, but typically has less than that mythical 1K damage, and they do it by accurate fire (head shots or straight CT shots), I will absolutely not complain about their presence on my team because they are effective.

I am also NOT saying that folks who get consistently low damage numbers don't need to up their game. They probably do. I'm just saying that there might be a lot more to the story.

Most people that do 8+ kills and under 1K damage typically have KMDD's in the 1-2 range, meaning they did not contribute the most to killing that mech. Players that are efficient with killing mechs like you describe end up doing more damage than the rest of the team over the 30 minutes. 1K is like bare minimum for most competent players, and they're usually not happy with 1K. Most competent FW players will already hit 1K by mid-late 2nd wave.

Edited by Vxheous Kerensky, 23 December 2016 - 11:35 PM.

[KinLuu]

Appogee, on 21 December 2016 - 03:35 PM, said:

But I went to Faction Play because it's "hardcore mode" and to escape PUGtatoes!

Since when is FP hardcore?

It is MWOs easy farming mode. Always was. If you need to level a mech before bringing it to Group-Q, you do it in FP.

[Moebius Pi]

Any of the third-party Tourney circuits is Hardcore mode. Followed by Group Queue (because, hey, more likely to run into an actual group vs a conglomeration of solos compared to FP) imho.

FP at best is a step up from Quickplay and the perennial favorite for farming (multiple mechs to level up for many established folks who aren't remotely intimidated by the average player/unit in the mode), and for the more organized mediocre crowd to feel good about farming newer solo pugs who (mistakenly) thought they could hop in easily, back patting abound at the stomp, then throw tantrums when an effective competitive unit from Group or the Tourney circuit shows up and steps on their delusions, stomping them like a raw pug for their arrogance. About it.

Sound accurate?

[Fuerchtenichts]

Insanity09, on 23 December 2016 - 08:28 PM, said:

Math is hard, stick to shooting things.
Let's dispel a few myths with the glory of math.
Per some of the numbers given earlier in this thread...
The average damage to kill 48 mechs is 14K? That works out to about 291 per enemy mech.
Which means that evenly shared between the 12 people on your team, you get approximately 1166.
Except, that isn't realistic.

Well a match with 12 Players all at ca. 1100 damage in Wave 4 is quite near to optimal. Thing is, it indicates that the received damage should have also been split between the players. Sharing armour, is as Important in Team Play as dealing damage.

Edited by Fuerchtenichts, 24 December 2016 - 03:29 AM.

[Tiantara]

Xavier, on 22 December 2016 - 03:53 PM, said:

Its more about a rule of thumb....start with 4 until you fell more comfortable to take it even lower.....I am down to 2 rear armor on alot of my mechs now....it really becomes a faith in your teamates setting.....however if you arnt running as a team....then there is no faith.

- I just love to see that mech in battle. Especially when they got "damage message" to late to run. It' always ends as KMDD for my score. But any mech who has up to 20 rear armor make me troubles...

[JasonIIC]

OP is spot on. With the new game modes, even seasoned players are changing tactics and builds. The meta is all over the place. If you're consistently underperforming, step back and take note of what is going on around you. As salty as the forums can get, I've found that there are actually very few top tier players who won't offer suggestions, in game and out.

[Starbomber109]

Quote

math

Doesn't the game award you bonus damage? Like, lets say you destroy a ST and he still had most of an arm attached, do you get the damage for that arm as well? (I don't know this one but I remember someone saying it sometime) Or you score a crit on some amo in someone's leg, you do get all the damage that amo explosion caused (I know this one). There are other factors that affect damage other than perfectly coring enemy mechs. (Also your shots are likely not to be 100% on target unless you are very skilled and even if you are, skilled players using laser vomit don't leave the beam on the component for the full duration, so at least some damage is bound to get spread around when they go back to cover or twist away)

In a perfect world, sure, everyone gets 1150 dmg. Some players are going to get more, some are going to get a bit less, but they might make up for it with destroyed non-critical components or critical hits. They might also have been drop calling (unfocused) or leading a charge (typically the guys in front do less damage than the ace pilots in the back...someone has to sacrifice themselves so you can do your 4k damage)

I don't think you're wrong but I think the point is more, 1000dmg in FP is a number to aim for so that you can feel good about yourself. If you did less, you should be able to trace it to a mistake you made. Losing a side torso too early, shooting a rock, running out of amo, something I did caused me to do less damage. If I still did like 800-900 i still feel OK, that's kinda like an acceptable variance. I'm just glad FP has an established damage number, while there really isn't one in QP. In QP sometimes I feel like I did a lot but only got 250 dmg. Other times I do 500 dmg and we lose.

Edited by Starbomber109, 24 December 2016 - 08:40 AM.

[Colonel ONeill]

This is gold.
Some CW Veterans explaining with facts why 1000dmg is more or less the barest minimum to pull your weight in an average CW game and there are still people who try to explain why they can not get it even though they are 'good'.

I mean sure, there are tons of reasons why you can not get 1000dmg in a game. But if you break it 90% of the time, everything is fine. If you can not break it 90% of the time you are not pulling your weight and you need to be carried.

The best thing about this is, that the top units of MWO are not even intrested in CW. They just use it to level mechs or farm something. They play on a whole other level than what the units in CW are doing.

[MischiefSC]

I need to update my drop decks, playing rarely in IS mechs, even a derp match is 1k damage and 3-5 kills or at least KMDD (more important in FW) and that's a minimum.

If that's not the minimum you're getting 90% of the time then you're not carrying your weight, you need to work on your deck and performance. Win or lose, pug or premade.

Nobody is perfect. The goal should be constant improvement. However if you're under 1k consistently you need to aggressively improve as you're not carrying your own weight. Full stop. The extra stuff? Sharing armor, scouting, etc? You should always be doing that too. You should also be doing 1k damage.