6 replies to this topic

[The Zen Crane]

Greetings all!

I have been a long time lurker here, playing the game on and off since beta. In the last month or so I have really gotten back in the game, probably playing 4-5 games a day in a variety of mechs. I usually run Heavy or Assault missile boats, and end with somewhere in the 200-300 points range. I admit to spending a fair amount of money (job has to be good for something) and have a mix of Inner Sphere and Clan in a variety of sizes. I have a headset / mic and do chat on occasion within matches. However I am not in a Unit (is it like a Guild in other games?) and haven't really participated in Faction Play at all. Whenever I get to the screen I freeze up about making a commitment to a particular faction. :-) So... on with the questions:

* Why should I participate in Faction Play? Is there better rewards? Faster queues? Just faction pride?

* How permanent is my commitment to a faction? If I select Mercenary or Loyalist, can I never choose again? Can I switch on a weekly basis? Can I fight for the Clans and IS in the same week?

* How strict is the mech restrictions? For instance, if I choose Kurita than could I still choose an ATL-D? Any chance I can use my cool Clanner mechs if I am a Mercenary?

* On that note, can Mercenaries fight for the Clans or just IS?

* Is there any advantage in choosing a higher ranked person in the Leaderboards? More cool loot or c-bills?

* Finally, how would I go about finding a Unit to fight with? As fun as just jumping in and beating on people is, its no shocker that coordinate communication and tactics wins in almost every case.

Whew, lots of questions but I am ready to take the next step and getting more involved in the game. Just looking for how to make this next step. I have always been a huge Kurita fan (and small Liao fan as they always get the shaft), but the Clan mechs are so juicy. :-) Been re-reading the old novels, and do really like the Ghost Bears and Jade Falcon clan factions as well. Thanks for all your help!

Sincerely,
The Zen Crane

[Rintero Pryde]

Hey, I'll answer your questions as best I can. I've been playing steadily for a year, and I'm currently in a Mercenary unit, so my view is skewed by that.

1) Faction Play absolutely has the potential for greater rewards. A winning match with middling to high match score will net you somewhere between 800,000 and 1.2 million c bills, in the space of about 20 minutes. There are also loyalty points rewarded, which will count toward the achievement of ranks within each Faction (and Mercenary). Achieving these ranks will yield things like c bill rewards, titles, and even Mech bays. Faction Play represents an entirely new way to play, which could be just what you need if the play has dried up and gotten boring. Being able to respawn in another mech adds countless new strategies and ways to play. Faction Play now even includes quick play maps and game modes, making it far more approachable for the average player to join in and be effective.

2) As a single player, you can only play as a Freelancer. If you form a unit, you can go Mercenary, your commitments to a Faction can be as short as 7 days, with the ability to pick up a new contract shortly thereafter. As a loyalist, you may leave your faction, but there's a waiting period and an associated c bill cost.

3)Mechs are restricted by only two factors: whether you're representing IS or Clan, and tonnage. You may bring 4 mechs, which must be either all Clan or IS depending on who you represent in the fight, and limited to a total of tonnage shared between the 4.

4)As I said before, Mercs can bounce between IS and Clan contracts at will, once the contracts expire (again, as little as 7 days)

5) As a Mercenary choosing a contract, you are able to see if there is a cbill bonus for playing a particular faction. The bonuses range from 10 to 30 percent, which becomes quite lucrative, yielding something like a max of 350000 extra c bills per victory. Follow the money as a Merc.

6) If you want to find a unit, there's a recruiting page here in the forums that list several units, and should list their strengths and weaknesses. I hope you find one that's a good fit! Playing with others can make even a bad game very enjoyable. My experience transformed after joining my unit, and I couldn't imagine playing without them.

Hell, you could even start your own unit.

Feel free to pm me or reply here for any further questions or advice regarding the games. Hope this helps!

Edited by Rintero Pryde, 17 February 2017 - 10:57 AM.

[Rogue Jedi]

The Zen Crane, on 17 February 2017 - 09:25 AM, said:

* Why should I participate in Faction Play? Is there better rewards? Faster queues? Just faction pride?

Faction play is completely diferant to Quick play, basicly we are fighting over a map of the Inner Sphere, at current most games are Clan V IS,
there are 2 modes, scouting is 4v4, Light and Medium Mechs only, the other mode is 12v12, with eacy player having 4 respawns, it uses the quick play game modes, as well as Invasion mode, which basicly involves taking or defending a base.

on the whole Faction play have much longer queues, and no matchmaking, so I would not usualy recomend a solo player to partisipate, but it can be great fun if you are in a group

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* How permanent is my commitment to a faction? If I select Mercenary or Loyalist, can I never choose again? Can I switch on a weekly basis? Can I fight for the Clans and IS in the same week?

if Merc you take 1 week long contracts, when the contract ends you can sign with any faction, if you go loyalest you are on a probation period of 10 matchs and if you decide to leave you must leave any unit you are part of, then you can break your contract but you give a weeks notice, it is not an instant resignation, and you loose (if I remember correctly) 25% of any loyalty points you accumalated

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* How strict is the mech restrictions? For instance, if I choose Kurita than could I still choose an ATL-D? Any chance I can use my cool Clanner mechs if I am a Mercenary?

Mech restrictions are just Clan/IS depending on which side you are currently loyal or under contract to, so e.g. as a merc with Davion you can use any IS Mechs but you cannot use any Clan Mechs, and if under contract to Kurita then you are absolutely fine using an AS7-D ^{(assuming you meant Atlas by ATL)}

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* On that note, can Mercenaries fight for the Clans or just IS?

Mercs can take contracts with ether

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* Is there any advantage in choosing a higher ranked person in the Leaderboards? More cool loot or c-bills?

sorry, not sure what you mean by this, do you mean higher ranked faction? if so, then no, rewards for the lengh of a weekly merc contract are decided when you join, and as far as I am aware the only significant factor is faction population size

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* Finally, how would I go about finding a Unit to fight with? As fun as just jumping in and beating on people is, its no shocker that coordinate communication and tactics wins in almost every case.

some people like me have links to their unit websites in their forum signitures, if someone is posting in new player help their unit is likely to be new player freindly, or you can look in the Faction Play forum
make sure you ask a few questions before joining, e.g. do they have a code of conduct which you can live with, are they active when you are, what sort of play are they interested in.
there would be no point in me ^{(a man based in the UK who mostly plays in the evenings)} joining a group who are only active in the North America or Australia evening times, if you swear a lot you do not want to join a group with PG comms, and if you concider yourself a casual you do not want to join an ultra competitave group, or vice versa.

For the record the PL have people from Europe, America and Australisia, we have a COC focusing on honourable conduct, and have PG comms, and have both casual and comp players

[Rintero Pryde]

Crane, this post was put up a week or two ago and should point you in the right direction if you're looking for a unit.

https://mwomercs.com...to-join-a-unit/

[The Errant]

I think the previous three responses all answered your specific questions, so I won't talk on those so much except for one:

Why to play Faction Play? Like others above said, the Cbill rewards are much more efficient for your time, especially if you have premium time, use hero/champion/loyalty mechs or have an especially lucrative merc contract (though loyalists get bonuses too). The mode itself is more demanding in terms of build quality and individual skill, but also can feel so much more rewarding when your team successfully executes a coordinated strategy...and yes there is a bit of faction rivalry/jawing that goes on, though most of the better units are mercenaries. I honestly find my temper and patience a lot shorter in solo Quick Play these days now that I know what a coordinated, confident team is capable of.

What else...Invasion mode is different, fun and a nice change of pace, and if your unit succeeds in taking a planet the unit gains 15 MC per planet per 8-hour phase they control those planets. Most units hold periodic drawings among their members to receive this MC.

To succeed in Faction Play I suggest three basic things:

1) Meta up at least a little on your drop deck. You don't have to go 100% tryhard with nothing but the tippy top tier of mechs if you don't want to (though there's certainly no shame or judgement in doing so), but understand that to be competitive in Faction Play your choices are going to be restricted compared to Quick Play. If you go IS you will need XL engines 90% of the time to have the speed and firepower to compete with the clanners. With STD engines you can have one or the other most of the time, not both (though there are a notable few exceptions to this rule). If you go clan this decision is largely out of your hands due to locked engines.

Learn the standard loadouts that people bring to faction play (laser vomit, PinPoint Front Loaded Damage, dakka, SRM/brawling). Don't bring LRMs, except for certain circumstances which I'll expound on in a minute. Learn the particular strengths and weaknesses that IS brings to the table as opposed to the clans. Clan mechs are still in general a little better, but IS mechs have strengths of their own that can overcome the tech imbalance with a very reasonable and modest skill gap if you play to those strengths.

So all that can sound a bit daunting, but it can be made a LOT easier to sort out if you...

2) Find good groups to drop with. This can be done in multiple ways. You can find a unit that attracts you here on the forums and request to join. Often if you happen to drop into a game with a unit and want to drop with them more often, a lot of them don't even necessarily make you join. They can just add you as a friend and shoot you invites when they have open spaces, and/or you can hang out on their Teamspeak servers and pal around while waiting for a spot.

Alternatively the faction Teamspeak hubs often have mixed groups of people from different units dropping together. I personally drop on the FRR/Kurita hub (they used to be separate but recently merged); there are about 60-70 regulars there, most of whom are solid players, who all drop together depending on who's around. At just about all times of day there's at least one group going of various size. During primetime it's not uncommon to see two or three full 12-man drops going. Pretty much all of them are happy to help and give advice with builds, dropdecks, strategies/tactics, etc, and I'm sure the other faction hubs are no different. (Sometimes it's okay to bring LRMs in these situations if it's decided on beforehand as part of your strategy...but for my part I just don't LRM in FP on principle.)

3) Unless you sign on with one of the very best units and drop exclusively with them at all times, there will be occasions where you get roflstomped. Most units will be gracious winners about it, as they've all been in those shoes, but a few units out there will stroke their raging e-peens at your expense in all chat while they farm you. Have a thick skin when dealing with these groups and people. Know that it doesn't happen that often, don't let either them or salty teammates rob you of your sportsmanship, and try to learn from the experience.

I'm still fairly new to Faction Play myself. Only been playing for a couple months and to say I'm still learning the mode as well is an understatement, but if you'd like any additional information I'll do my best to provide it. Hope to see you on the battlefield soon!

Edited by The Errant, 18 February 2017 - 06:30 AM.

[Rogue Jedi]

The Errant, on 18 February 2017 - 06:06 AM, said:

snip

I completely agree with points 2 and 3, but I feel 1 is while not wrong ^{(of course better Mechs and loadouts will help, but meta is often not better for me, infact my own designs almost always work better for me than the current meta, also following Meta makes the game much less fun for me, I am sure many others disagree)} is also not anywhere near as important as you sugested.

if with a good group a new player in a trial Mech who is willing to cooperate can be more useful than a good player with fully kitted out Mechs who does not want to play along.

teamwork is the most important things in faction play ^{(and quick play too but is much more important in faction play as you have a better chance of coming up against significantly better players)}, a team of average players who work well together will usualy destroy a group of good players who are not working well together

[The Errant]

Rogue Jedi, on 18 February 2017 - 07:23 AM, said:

I completely agree with points 2 and 3, but I feel 1 is while not wrong is also not anywhere near as important as you sugested.

I didn't say it was vital. I also didn't say go full meta. But it's my firm opinion that people at least need to know what the meta is, why it's the meta, and how it plays out in FP before trying to work around it. And one of the best ways to do that is to set a solid benchmark by rolling meta-ish at first. Even within the meta though, there's still a surprising amount of variety.

The most important parts really are weapon synergy and speed. A build that's bringing ERLL and SRMs, for example, is inefficient in close range with the heat/damage of ERLLs versus taking MPLs. Meanwhile at range, you might get some damage from your ERLLs but the tonnage you sunk into those SRMs is going to waste and could have been used for heat sinks, engine size, another ERLL, or armor. Believe that the clanners are going to run loadouts with similar range profiles where they will be alpha striking you at their preferred range (the good ones, anyway).

Another example: trying to draw a bead on somebody with an AC5 while painting them with lasers and trying to hit them with SRMs makes it tough to land everything on target and maintain full DPS, and to even bring your full loadout to bear you have to be inside SRM range in which case you could have gotten much more tonnage-efficient weapons like MPL/SPL or better yet more SRMs. You can generally get away with two weapon types, but a boat (ppfld/dakka/laser/srm) makes it simpler to put your full alpha on target for full damage.

On engine size/speed: The clan heavies go around 87 kph with Speed Tweak. This is good for them because all of them moving at the same/similar speeds makes it easier for them to stay grouped up as they move. IS mechs need to be able to go at least 70+ (80+ is preferable if you're a heavy, 90+ in a medium) to reposition fast enough to counter them. If some of your team is this fast and some of your team isn't, you're faced with the choice of anchoring to your slow mechs and being outpositioned or leaving your slower members behind and risking the separate overwhelming and destruction of the two or more groups that form.

You can bring STD engines that will let you go that fast, but the amount of weaponry you'll be able to load with that big of an engine is going to leave you with a 20-30 pt alpha versus the clans' 55-70 pt alphas. The extra survivability doesn't matter if you can't DPS them down fast enough to keep them from neutering you early. Plus a lot of the better teams just try to CT you anyway, STD or XL.

Rogue Jedi, on 18 February 2017 - 07:23 AM, said:

if with a good group a new player in a trial Mech who is willing to cooperate can be more useful than a good player with fully kitted out Mechs who does not want to play along.

True, but a new player in a fully kitted out Mech who is willing to cooperate is almost always more useful than a new player in a trial Mech who is willing to cooperate.

Rogue Jedi, on 18 February 2017 - 07:23 AM, said:

teamwork is the most important things in faction play, a team of average players who work well together will usualy destroy a group of good players who are not working well together

Usually, yes.