61 replies to this topic

[Lovas]

justcallme A S H, on 11 August 2017 - 02:38 AM, said:

The sheer amount of players that have no idea of basic MWO, refuse to work together and bring crap loadouts has gone up, way up.

I have a love/hate relationship with the pugs....I love it that so many "bad" players are playing CW because I have this foolish hope that some of them see how we play the game, win with us, and then change their loadouts/playstyles. Its how I learned anyway.

And I hate it because....well, you guys know the reasons.

[justcallme A S H]

reasons.

reasons being they don't change and/or learn because it's the same people that have refused to do it for years.

[Xannatharr]

The ones that insist on bringing bad loadouts for years are frustrating but in most cases they can (or already have) at least learned "where the hole is" when shooting Gens or Omega... so there's that.

[Xaat Xuun]

yeah, past 2 nights have been a lot of watching the searching circle, If I'm solo . .. TS is having fits , won't let me log in some channels .. frustration added there
ahh **** it

[Jonathan8883]

I'm a new player (<1 mo), although since I extensively played every Battletech game from MW2 on, I've had an accelerated learning curve.

My observation as a PUG player is that all of the organized groups are on the Clan side. I like the rewards from Faction Play, but when FP involves PUG vs organized groups 75% of the time - why bother playing it? Assuming a 50/50 win rate for Pug vs Pug, I am looking at an 87.5% chance of losing, and "carry harder" doesn't work against a team. I have better things to do with my 20 minutes of real life time than be a punching bag in a grossly imbalanced match. I'm sure KCom, 420m, 07, and the other teams I have dropped against repeatedly are great guys... but sorry, it's just no fun for us.

Unfortunately, I started playing right around the CW tech release event, when faction play was even, and so I thought IS was a good choice. Now I am having to save up to buy Clan mechs instead of skilling up the 5 IS mechs I have, if I want a chance at the high-C-bill rewards required to upgrade mechs and skills. As someone who plays as a member of the team (on the times when we have anyone who uses a mic-I don't have one-to call the shots), this will just contribute to more imbalance.

Related new-player observations:
-FP documentation is terrible. It took a long time to even find out that the generators have a window you have to shoot through. Like 10+ FP missions.
-Game documentation is terrible. Most search results are old forum threads from the time when you purchased modules with GXP, had to have 3 variants of a mech to Master it, etc. Ghost Heat is also not shown/defined clearly in-game.
-C-bill reward documentation is missing. What is "brawling," and how can I replicate it to get more c-bills?
-What in the bowels of Blake is up with the fricking Linebacker? It seems like half the teams are running 80% massed linebacker knife-fighters.

Edited by Jonathan8883, 12 August 2017 - 07:24 PM.

[pzUH]

Well, simply block PUGs/potato/casual players from FP. And good luck finding matches. XD
FP is just sooo broken...

[Davegt27]

some info on heat

[Jun Watarase]

Last NA cycle was IS dominated. Oceanic cycle is currently IS dominated. The only people playing scouting mode at the moment is a marik 4 man that intel rushes and refuses to fight if their drop is contested.

No clue where all the clan loyalist units are...looks like everyone is stacking IS again with merc contracts.

[B0oN]

Bud Crue, on 09 August 2017 - 10:33 AM, said:

Wait...if the thread is about no one running IS anymore, are you saying that the IS was EZ mode?
I just can't keep up with these things anymore.

Errything is EZ mode if you know the "how to" .

[Marquis De Lafayette]

Jonathan8883, on 12 August 2017 - 07:13 PM, said:

I'm a new player (&lt;1 mo), although since I extensively played every Battletech game from MW2 on, I've had an accelerated learning curve.

My observation as a PUG player is that all of the organized groups are on the Clan side. I like the rewards from Faction Play, but when FP involves PUG vs organized groups 75% of the time - why bother playing it? Assuming a 50/50 win rate for Pug vs Pug, I am looking at an 87.5% chance of losing, and &quot;carry harder&quot; doesn't work against a team. I have better things to do with my 20 minutes of real life time than be a punching bag in a grossly imbalanced match. I'm sure KCom, 420m, 07, and the other teams I have dropped against repeatedly are great guys... but sorry, it's just no fun for us.

Unfortunately, I started playing right around the CW tech release event, when faction play was even, and so I thought IS was a good choice. Now I am having to save up to buy Clan mechs instead of skilling up the 5 IS mechs I have, if I want a chance at the high-C-bill rewards required to upgrade mechs and skills. As someone who plays as a member of the team (on the times when we have anyone who uses a mic-I don't have one-to call the shots), this will just contribute to more imbalance.

Related new-player observations:
-FP documentation is terrible. It took a long time to even find out that the generators have a window you have to shoot through. Like 10+ FP missions.
-Game documentation is terrible. Most search results are old forum threads from the time when you purchased modules with GXP, had to have 3 variants of a mech to Master it, etc. Ghost Heat is also not shown/defined clearly in-game.
-C-bill reward documentation is missing. What is &quot;brawling,&quot; and how can I replicate it to get more c-bills?
-What in the bowels of Blake is up with the fricking Linebacker? It seems like half the teams are running 80% massed linebacker knife-fighters.

When you are dropping solo the chances are vastly reduced that you will see a team on your side. 2 nights ago our matches where about 50% pugs and 50% IS 12 mans (with zero PUGs). You don't see the teams on your own side (often) when you are dropping solo. Btw: the IS has dominated the last couple of cycles:

[BigScwerl]

Jonathan8883, on 12 August 2017 - 07:13 PM, said:

My observation as a PUG player is that all of the organized groups are on the Clan side. I like the rewards from Faction Play, but when FP involves PUG vs organized groups 75% of the time - why bother playing it? Assuming a 50/50 win rate for Pug vs Pug, I am looking at an 87.5% chance of losing, and "carry harder" doesn't work against a team. I have better things to do with my 20 minutes of real life time than be a punching bag in a grossly imbalanced match. I'm sure KCom, 420m, 07, and the other teams I have dropped against repeatedly are great guys... but sorry, it's just no fun for us.

He is correct, When you enter the FW queue as a solo player or PUG (Pick Up Gamer), It is unlikely that you are going to get matched up with an 8 man from an organized unit. I occasionally PUG in the solo Queue with my IS decks, and I can relate to your pain. It is often very terrible, people don't have mics, don't speak english or don't want to listen to a little direction.

Unfortunately, many people do not heed the warning that PGI puts up when first logging into faction warfare. Believe it or not, for most organized units, it is not really that fun playing an unorganized team either, We'll often just attempt to win on the objective as quickly as possible to get things over with. All I can say to you is: find a team to play with. Join a Unit, or find a teamspeak channel with a group of players dropping IS side that want to actually compete. or build a clan deck and come drop with 07 sometime. we're easy to find.

[justcallme A S H]

Jun Watarase, on 14 August 2017 - 02:39 AM, said:

Last NA cycle was IS dominated. Oceanic cycle is currently IS dominated. The only people playing scouting mode at the moment is a marik 4 man that intel rushes and refuses to fight if their drop is contested.

No clue where all the clan loyalist units are...looks like everyone is stacking IS again with merc contracts.

It's Sunday US - Limited people bothering to play usually. Fri/Sat are the big nights/times for US, it's always dead on my Monday (US Sun). Only 24hrs prior Clan had the bar maxed out and most Merc contracts don't come up for another 2-3 days.

So what it might look like to you, isn't what's actually happening.

Most of my friends like is Clan and that is US/Oceanic right now.

[Bjorn Coston]

justcallme A S H, on 14 August 2017 - 05:41 PM, said:

It's Sunday US - Limited people bothering to play usually. Fri/Sat are the big nights/times for US, it's always dead on my Monday (US Sun). Only 24hrs prior Clan had the bar maxed out and most Merc contracts don't come up for another 2-3 days.

So what it might look like to you, isn't what's actually happening.

Most of my friends like is Clan and that is US/Oceanic right now.

Yup. Tried to hop on last night for some FP drops. Had 5 different TS channels open waiting for organized groups to form. After a good solid hour of waiting and my active friends list being almost entirely Clan, went "Nope" and logged off. Might try again tomorrow but for meow, it's just waiting for the competitive population to even out. But most likely it will dramatically sway IS, leaving loyalist Clanners to do the same song and dance I'm sure. Oh well, nature of the beast.

[nehebkau]

El Bandito, on 07 August 2017 - 08:46 PM, said:

Ever since our unit switched to Clans we are not getting any drops. Our unit really should have stayed as IS. Is the IS side having the same issue?

Ya know, I just haven't really had a desire to drop CW lately.

[DAYLEET]

All the units back to clan again. Cant face each others obviously. First thing many do is looking at the warlog, and then they go play something else.

[LordNothing]

if people would stop flocking to the winning side this wouldnt happen. make merc contract length proportional to the size of the unit, and then do hard lockouts for how many can switch to another side in a given period of time. current loyalty jumping mechanisms seems only useful for keeping pugs from farming mechbays.

Edited by LordNothing, 20 August 2017 - 03:19 AM.

[Ssamout]

Because PGI in its infinite wisdom has decided to leave loyalist contracts on even though players have been MIA for a year(s) its really ******* hard to try to figure out where most of the active player base is when choosing a contract. Most active merc units try to choose a side that gets action, bcause they like to get matches. There might be some scrubs that flock to winning side but they are so bad that even pugs will stomp 'em.

Gotta lol @ all these conspiracy theories how all the mercs always flock to one side so that they cant play each other, or the game for that matter..

[Tier5 Kerensky]

I switched from Clan to IS few days ago. Right now IS waiting time for a team is minute or few, but pretty much always when you get a team, you also instatnly see that you have an enemy team already.

So there is a lot more players on Clan side. Possibly bigger groups who then can then call to arms recruits then they push into queue.

[Xannatharr]

Teer Kerensky, on 22 August 2017 - 12:24 PM, said:

So there is a lot more players on Clan side. Possibly bigger groups who then can then call to arms recruits then they push into queue.

I can confirm this, IS is pretty much insta-queue right now, at least around U.S. EST 8-Midnight. Seems like there is always a Clan team waiting for a match.

Xann

[CraneArmy]

Ssamout, on 20 August 2017 - 04:05 AM, said:

Because PGI in its infinite wisdom has decided to leave loyalist contracts on even though players have been MIA for a year(s) its really ******* hard to try to figure out where most of the active player base is when choosing a contract. Most active merc units try to choose a side that gets action, bcause they like to get matches. There might be some scrubs that flock to winning side but they are so bad that even pugs will stomp 'em.

Gotta lol @ all these conspiracy theories how all the mercs always flock to one side so that they cant play each other, or the game for that matter..

its not a conspiracy theory, its not that they dont want to play each other.

1) They want MC, and you dont get MC, and you dont get planets, or if you are dropping for the loosing team.

2) They want to play with other mercs that they play with often. I'm not a merc, but I've kicked around comstar quite a bit and there is the common lamenting "Oh you guys are clan right now, **** I geuss I cant drop with you, that sucks. Our contract ends in about 12 hour's I'll be able to drop with you tomorrow"

3) contract bonus. which right now especially is very large with the 2 new clan factions that have no loyalists.

and this may not be every merc group, but I promise you, the merc groups that are on every night that turn the needle are interested in these things.

I promise you while there may be merc groups that choose a side to get quick drops, your characterization of "most.. choose a side that gets action" is incorrect.
It maybe the "most" by number of units, but not "most" by number of active and competent players. This is evidenced by the long wait times clans have if by nothing else. I also have many members from most of the large groups on my friends list from mechbay tours and just from slumming around. So I see which groups are where whenever we're looking to pick up pilots. Since 1-2 weeks after civil war, most have been clan.

Just to clearify my position, I'm not complaining, we always get instadrops and I'm not in a unit so I dont get any MC payouts, I also play with good players so my winrate and K/D are well above average for loyalists regardless of the merc situation.
But that is the merc situation.