40 replies to this topic

[Cabanaboy]

I hear from all the clan Merc/Loyalist players that IS vs Clan tech is not a big deal, yet a majority of the top units are clan loyalists or clan merc units. If the tech isn't that big of a deal, why is it so one-sided?

If it is about the C-bills, I think PGI should balance by making IS as a whole far more desirable, as Right now Steel Viper and Nova Cat are 50% boost, and Smoke Jaguar is 40%. Best IS has is Liao at 40%, Marik at 30%, FRR at 20%.

The IS map is swiss cheese, and besides HHoD, I am not sure of any other major IS units that drop heavily in FW. I constantly run into organized clan unit drops, but rarely see organized IS unit drops.

Any ideas besides snarky comments?

I mean, people can only take such one sides drops like this so much, and the premade curb stomping the Pugs is a giant fault in this game. There is no real competition for premades, it's just stat padding.

[Grus]

Dosnt IS have like 3 big TS hubs for you to log on to and from said premade?

Cabanaboy, on 12 September 2017 - 05:39 PM, said:

The IS map is swiss cheese, and besides HHoD, I am not sure of any other major IS units that drop heavily in FW. I constantly run into organized clan unit drops, but rarely see organized IS unit drops.

228 is on a lot if FW so you might want to ask them their droptimes.

[Leone]

The problem lies within the two new clan factions. Many a mechwarrior finished or high up in the mercenary Loyalty path finds the two new factions the most appealing to take as a loyalist, so a few veteran merc units hopped onto the loyalist camp clan side to take advantage of 'em.

So, of those merc units who used to hop back an forth trying to pick the side with better drops, a few stopped doing so, weighting the clan side a bit more heavily with experienced teams.

~Leone.

[Vxheous]

Cabanaboy, on 12 September 2017 - 05:39 PM, said:

I hear from all the clan Merc/Loyalist players that IS vs Clan tech is not a big deal, yet a majority of the top units are clan loyalists or clan merc units. If the tech isn't that big of a deal, why is it so one-sided?

If it is about the C-bills, I think PGI should balance by making IS as a whole far more desirable, as Right now Steel Viper and Nova Cat are 50% boost, and Smoke Jaguar is 40%. Best IS has is Liao at 40%, Marik at 30%, FRR at 20%.

The IS map is swiss cheese, and besides HHoD, I am not sure of any other major IS units that drop heavily in FW. I constantly run into organized clan unit drops, but rarely see organized IS unit drops.

Any ideas besides snarky comments?

I mean, people can only take such one sides drops like this so much, and the premade curb stomping the Pugs is a giant fault in this game. There is no real competition for premades, it's just stat padding.

I see you in LRM 40 Catapult, there's your first problem. FW requires you to trade damage/push well, and LRMs don't cut it. First improve self, then improve others, and you'll profit far more from the game.

[Mercil3ss]

Leone, on 12 September 2017 - 10:28 PM, said:

The problem lies within the two new clan factions. Many a mechwarrior finished or high up in the mercenary Loyalty path finds the two new factions the most appealing to take as a loyalist, so a few veteran merc units hopped onto the loyalist camp clan side to take advantage of 'em.

What he said. I am definitely in this boat. Just hit Merc Rank 10 and moving on to Loyalist. The cash rewards are best with the new clan factions and those are the factions I have not progressed in at all. It just makes practical sense... free extra prizes for what I would be doing anyway, playing FW.

Besides getting to start over again in a new faction makes the game feel less stale. We do what we can to stay interested while PGI gets its act together and eventually (maybe) makes FW meaningful.

[Alexandra Hekmatyar]

What about the smaller IS faction warfare units?
Although the problem with my unit is that it's too small to get full groups going so mostly go with other house marik folk and my unit kinda has a lot of active new folk so we won't be competing against any good clan units anytime soon.

[feeWAIVER]

IS pugs are typically just worse than Clan pugs.
No idea why, they just are.

[KHAN ATTAKHAN]

Open FP to clan v clan and I.S. v I.S. as well as the norm clan v I.S., throw in merc v clan, merc v I.S. ad merc v merc into the mix, open the whole can of whoop*ss, it would end the age old argument of who's better between 2 factions and the numbers would certainly change, make this tired old dog get up and bark wouldn't it, no more stacked numbers, no more forums whinging, just faction v faction and let the best one win on merit not quirks or nerfs.
1. The mercs I am suggesting here are not contracted to clan or I.S., let tem use both clan and I.S. tech in their drop decks(They're mercs for gods sake, that's what mercs do).
2. Clans go back to equal drop weight with I.S. and mercs.
Everyone kills everyone and we are all happy

OOPS!!! my bad too simple.

[Cabanaboy]

In my defense, was trying a new deck out, it failed miserably. I figured someone would pick my loadout up, but it doesn't change the insane number differential at the top. Even with the best Meta build I'd not change the flow of that tide

I sort of like the idea Khan put up, the clan vs clan, is vs is possibility. That would kill the tech argument mostly, though there would still be grumbling when you random a 12 man clan vs puggle conglomerate of IS players.

What I'd like to know is actual numbers of unique players who do FP daily right now. Then I'd like to see how many of those are pugs versus 4+ player premades. I hear that there aren't enough players to force premades to fight only pre-mades because of wait times, and I know there are definitely days and times this si true. If this is true, maybe some adjustments to make this more pug friendly, or atleast more events to bring Quickdroppers into the world of FP? I love Faction Play, but right now it can be frustrating, especially as I am trying to build a new IS-only unit from scratch solely for FP play.

~Cabanaboy

Edited by Cabanaboy, 13 September 2017 - 06:55 AM.

[r4zen]

Cabanaboy, on 13 September 2017 - 06:53 AM, said:

What I'd like to know is actual numbers of unique players who do FP daily right now. Then I'd like to see how many of those are pugs versus 4+ player premades. I hear that there aren't enough players to force premades to fight only pre-mades because of wait times, and I know there are definitely days and times this si true. If this is true, maybe some adjustments to make this more pug friendly, or atleast more events to bring Quickdroppers into the world of FP? I love Faction Play, but right now it can be frustrating, especially as I am trying to build a new IS-only unit from scratch solely for FP play.

~Cabanaboy

From the leaderboards in May before Tukkayid:

• 1797 loyalist pilots
  
• 1037 Merc pilots
  
• 20 freelance pilots

Required 10 matches in FP before ranking on the boards. That's ~a month after the last reset? In comparison I believe the active total playerbase in May was something like 33k-34k (so pilots who drop faction make up less than 10% of the active playerbase).


The problem isn't getting pilots to try FP - it's getting them to stay. Most aren't gluttons for punishment like you are.

Edited by r4zen, 13 September 2017 - 07:38 AM.

[Hobbles v]

Ton for ton clans do still have the edge. Fairly close but not as close as it was pre skill tree. Clans won out big time there.

The biggest factor is that most of the good units have longtime experienced pilots who have farmed out the faction rewards everywhere.

Right now clans has two new factions with a 3rd incoming to farm so naturally most of the good units are going that route.
Also having more clan faction's than is will spread thier pop and give clan side even more lucrative merc contracts.

The best thing non balance related they can do to balance population is add comstar to the is when they add diamond shark so there is a new tree for is loyalists to farm and another faction to spread is population into to keep contract payouts competitive.

Edited by Hobbles v, 13 September 2017 - 09:56 AM.

[C H E E K I E Z]

My problem with Innersphere right now, is to be on a top meta level, you have 2 mechs, Battlemaster, Grasshopper. Thats it. Same builds, 3 lpl/4mpl, or 5-6 ERLL. Now play just those 2 mechs on every map every game mode, it gets boring AF, Oh, forgot about blackwiddow 4ac5, and slepnier 4uac5.

Clan side you have so many options, i am on a huge kick with my dakka night gyrs and kodiaks, along with srm lights. Notice something thats not in there? not a single laser. Im rank 20 Stiner and Liao, with rank 18 Marik..and to get that 90% of the time i had to play 2-3 mechs, and it literally burnt me out. you can't take orion's or cata's or catapults into solo FW, and expect to carry. Now when your in a 5-10 man, with people who bring vommit that you know can carry. and put 4k dmg up, yea you can bring those brawlers and do your 2k and be done with it.

So, TL;DR Innersphere and clan TECH itself are even, with IS honestly winning in laser vom. But in Clan i have 100% more fun with options. OPtions are what keep people playing the game.

[ccrider]

Onions are amazing cheekiez; we brought 7 out on polar highlands conquest and had a blast. Managed a tie which was funny as he'll since we were just splatting stuff not paying attention to caps. You get bored, come onion with us sometime.

[FallingAce]

Phase 3 player/unit/merc faction stacking was a problem.

Instead of changing the contract and rewards system, PGI answered with buckits.

This just made the stacking problem worse.

It also had the side affects of reducing the available rewards. FW went from 10 planet tags availableevery cycle to 4.

Even if 2 of the clans were steamrolling their I.S. counterpart, the other 4 I.S. factions could still tag planets.

PGI change from faction warfare to buckit warfare took it away.

There just isn't much incentive to play FW as I.S..
Mercs get better payouts and clans are winning most planet tags.

Unless PGI addresses the contract system and the rewards system, nothing will change.

Edited by FallingAce, 13 September 2017 - 02:13 PM.

[C H E E K I E Z]

ccrider, on 13 September 2017 - 01:50 PM, said:

Onions are amazing cheekiez; we brought 7 out on polar highlands conquest and had a blast. Managed a tie which was funny as he'll since we were just splatting stuff not paying attention to caps. You get bored, come onion with us sometime.

Oh dont get me wrong, the ac20/srm6 onion VA is amazing, i loved the thing, but when facing teams that will blow your side torso off in 1 alpha when your getting close to them, it just isnt competitive, There are not many mechs that can 1v1 that thing

[Jun Watarase]

C H E E K I E Z, on 13 September 2017 - 12:32 PM, said:

My problem with Innersphere right now, is to be on a top meta level, you have 2 mechs, Battlemaster, Grasshopper. Thats it. Same builds, 3 lpl/4mpl, or 5-6 ERLL. Now play just those 2 mechs on every map every game mode, it gets boring AF, Oh, forgot about blackwiddow 4ac5, and slepnier 4uac5.

Clan side you have so many options, i am on a huge kick with my dakka night gyrs and kodiaks, along with srm lights. Notice something thats not in there? not a single laser. Im rank 20 Stiner and Liao, with rank 18 Marik..and to get that 90% of the time i had to play 2-3 mechs, and it literally burnt me out. you can't take orion's or cata's or catapults into solo FW, and expect to carry. Now when your in a 5-10 man, with people who bring vommit that you know can carry. and put 4k dmg up, yea you can bring those brawlers and do your 2k and be done with it.

So, TL;DR Innersphere and clan TECH itself are even, with IS honestly winning in laser vom. But in Clan i have 100% more fun with options. OPtions are what keep people playing the game.

? How does dakka work against ER LL spam on polar/alpine/frozen?

[Commander A9]

Jun Watarase, on 14 September 2017 - 02:01 AM, said:

? How does dakka work against ER LL spam on polar/alpine/frozen?

Easy.

You push!

Proper maneuvering in the right terrain together as a unit, then when you close with the enemy, you hit them hard and fast.

Don't fear being shot-it's going to happen. Someone is going to go down, but if your death gets your side 12 kills in one wave, then you've done your job right.

Trust me, it works...having done it with my team several times. The bad guys never know what hits them.

Meanwhile, the Inner Sphere has a number of notable units already fighting for them.

Do Clans have more? Who knows-we don't see numbers other than contract bonuses or penalties.

Edited by Commander A9, 14 September 2017 - 03:38 AM.

[TheFallOfTheReaper]

Tldr: your using missleboats in fp: usually only good for defending with a premade to callout, big units want to finish the two new trees, soon to be three, they want their free **** :3 what 5k mc/75mcbills and 5 mechsbays or so?

[Sunstruck]

ISENGRIM

Follow the Jarl to victory!

But ya most of the top faction warfare units are all mercenary, and justly so because mercs really use to make the most sence before it was just IS vs Clan. They could go around and get mechbays and rewards for each faction.

[Xavier]

Mercstar switched to IS this last Sunday because we were tired of the waiting for matches. On a side note I now know why clan won planets so fast that by 9:00 EST the battle was essentially decided. I witnessed a unit that will remain unnamed in organized 12 mans rush incursion bases against a pickup 12 man IS group. They never attempted to fight the group. Went solely for the base destruction from the first wave on. I know people will say that farming is bad and MS has recently been avoiding straight up spawnfarming except on games where it's the only victory condition, just to help make the game better. It is very sad when large groups don't even try to fight but rather play for an objective only.

The reason for base capping was made very clear by them....they said they were trying to end the match quickly because they would be accused of spawn farming if they didn't.

I am sorry to theIS groupswhi have had to deal with that tactic....although MS does not use it I feel it necessary to apologize to IS groups who have suffered from that tactic