61 replies to this topic

[Racerxintegra2k]

Greetings Mechwarriors,

I'm going to state the obvious here. You have to be very much a lore head or a masochist to remain an Inner Sphere Loyalist in this game. The benefits are completely underwhelming. The battles are always up hill. Whether you want to blame Big Merc groups, Tech Imbalance, Veteran players on clans .. the fact is the Innersphere isn't winning.
I'm not here to contemplate why the IS loyalists are usually on the losing side, but simply stated IS Loyalists should have some large incentive to be cannon fodder for the clans. How about it ??? Shout out to all the Loyalists out there ! IMO Loyalists should have something mercs cant have that's worth while.

[Bombast]

The love and respect of Anastasius Focht, HERO OF THE INNER SPHERE, should be all the reward an IS Loyalist needs.

But yes, it does seem like loyalist players (On both sides) deserve more, doesn't it?

[Jay Leon Hart]

Why should you be rewarded for ignoring half the items PGI makes money from?

[Bishop Steiner]

If I played without being a lore enthusiast I would have stopped long ago. Seriously, to me the question is how people who DON'T embrace lore manage not to get totally bored and burned out.

My only guess is it's better for egos to be the big fish in the small pond than play real competitive scenes and be the little fish in the big pond? Just a wild guess though.

[Dogstar]

You're forgetting one factor besides IS nostalgia for oldies like me - clan mechs are the ugliest mechs in the universe.

Seriously the MadCat/Timberwolf is an ugly ugly ugly box of spare kit parts thrown together to make a mech, and that's one of the better looking ones.

Some of us are IS fans because we have taste and style up the wazoo, not something thrown together in an afternoon out of some parts lying around the eugenics lab!

[El Bandito]

As an active merc for both sides, IS side has my condolences.

[Kuaron]

Dogstar, on 24 September 2017 - 07:47 AM, said:

You're forgetting one factor besides IS nostalgia for oldies like me - clan mechs are the ugliest mechs in the universe.

Seriously the MadCat/Timberwolf is an ugly ugly ugly box of spare kit parts thrown together to make a mech, and that's one of the better looking ones.

Some of us are IS fans because we have taste and style up the wazoo, not something thrown together in an afternoon out of some parts lying around the eugenics lab!

I'm sure your Wolverine and Orion are glad you said that!

[Hit the Deck]

Is 'Mechs are actually more fun to tinker with because they have more item variety (e.g. 4 kinds of PPCs) and perhaps ironically, more restrictive equipment.

[Spheroid]

The outcome is a completely predictable result of the one bucket, one front system. In my opinion the whole setup should be allowed to fail to the maximum extent possible so that Russ Bullock can't lie his way out of the question why the starmap is completely occupied.

The roadmap for the rest of the 2017 makes zero mention of faction warfare, so expect nothing.

Originally FP had something that could have been built into meaningful interstellar war, but all is lost now.

[Bombast]

Kuaron, on 24 September 2017 - 08:11 AM, said:

I'm sure your Wolverine and Orion are glad you said that!

Hey, the Orion has character. That's more than a lot of mechs in this game, and most of the Clan mechs.

[InvictusLee]

Spheroid, on 24 September 2017 - 08:22 AM, said:

\
Originally FP had something that could have been built into meaningful interstellar war, but all is lost now.

I actually dont see why we cant just pick a planet near the border and fight over that planet rather than having to jump in on matches that the matchmaker says i have to fight over.

At one point, terra was literally in reach, and I couldn't do anything but stare at it on the map. Its the holy grail for clan pilots... but noooo... we gotta invade meaningless planet 8582 because the match maker said so.

[Thorqemada]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 September 2017 - 07:39 AM, said:

If I played without being a lore enthusiast I would have stopped long ago. Seriously, to me the question is how people who DON'T embrace lore manage not to get totally bored and burned out.

My only guess is it's better for egos to be the big fish in the small pond than play real competitive scenes and be the little fish in the big pond? Just a wild guess though.

I dont believe being the big fish in the loser bracket is an attractive feat if any...

I like the Pre-Clan-Battletech Universe - its alive - its adventurous - its intruiging - it has flair.
I hate the Clans:
A. They mark the beginning destruction of the Franchise
B. They are completely artificial and have no flair
C. They are Communazi Spacefaring Clonewarriortribe Fanatics with a Superhumancomplex
D. They are impossible to balance in a PvP computergame bcs Players give a **** about ludicrous downbidding rituals
E. Reasons...

Clanner go home!

Edited by Thorqemada, 24 September 2017 - 09:56 AM.

[FireStoat]

I prefer clan mechs and it's what I play nearly all the time. If clan mechs didn't exist however, I think I would still enjoy the game very much by cherry picking the very best IS mechs for their weight classes. Javelin & Wolfhound, Bushwacker & Assassin (possibly Vindicator too: dem quirks), Cataphract, Warhammer, & Marauder (that 3R. really.), Battlemaster & Cyclops. IS has some really superb mechs that CAN go toe to toe with clan mechs of the same tonnage.

The odd thing though that I keep coming back to is - would those mechs I listed above still have their quirks if Clan mechs never existed in the game? I don't envy PGI and this juggling act they have to maintain with every step of releases.

[Juodas Varnas]

Kuaron, on 24 September 2017 - 08:11 AM, said:

I'm sure your Wolverine and Orion are glad you said that!

Wolverine is a sexy beast, dude! (Not as sexy as a Scorpion, but NOTHING is as sexy as a Scorpion)

Ain't our fault you have sh*t taste in mechs.

[Trissila]

Thorqemada, on 24 September 2017 - 09:55 AM, said:

I dont believe being the big fish in the loser bracket is an attractive feat if any...

I like the Pre-Clan-Battletech Universe - its alive - its adventurous - its intruiging - it has flair.
I hate the Clans:
A. They mark the beginning destruction of the Franchise
B. They are completely artificial and have no flair
C. They are Communazi Spacefaring Clonewarriortribe Fanatics with a Superhumancomplex
D. They are impossible to balance in a PvP computergame bcs Players give a **** about ludicrous downbidding rituals
E. Reasons...

Clanner go home!

"They are artificial and have no flair"

"Communazi Spacefaring Clonewarriortribe Fanatics with a Superhumancomplex"
"Ludicrous downbidding rituals"

Well, where I come from, that would be called flair. It's just flair you don't care for. You don't like how Clanners do things, I get that, but perhaps that is the whole point.

Clanners are an intriguing part of the Battletech universe. Up until the Invasion, they practiced a clean, sterile version of warfare. The batchall process could be seen by many as an idealized form of war-as-it-should-be, where two sides vow to do battle with as few resources as possible, wasting as little precious life and machinery as is absolutely necessary to wage war. They declare their targets, they fight honorably (barring a few noteworthy exceptions), they're effectively Space Knights.

But it turns out that that's just one facet of the Clans, and probably the cleanest one. The rest of their society is a horrifying, caste-based nightmare that would turn any free man's stomach. There's a lot of bad to go with that good. And in the end, it turns out that Clean Warfare is a myth -- it only works if everyone agrees to it, and the IS didn't agree to it. Not playing by artificially restrictive rules is what ultimately prevailed, and that's basically the point of the overarching story of Battletech. The Clans are an effective metaphor for how Absolute Order, although a nice and lofty ideal, comes at a heavy cost in terms of freedom, and in the end most people want to be free.

[Novakaine]

One day I'm gonna log in to find no one but Clanners online.
Seriously though sometimes I ask myself why bother playing IS
Then Diamond Sharks here I come.

[Bishop Steiner]

Thorqemada, on 24 September 2017 - 09:55 AM, said:

I dont believe being the big fish in the loser bracket is an attractive feat if any...

I like the Pre-Clan-Battletech Universe - its alive - its adventurous - its intruiging - it has flair.
I hate the Clans:
A. They mark the beginning destruction of the Franchise
B. They are completely artificial and have no flair
C. They are Communazi Spacefaring Clonewarriortribe Fanatics with a Superhumancomplex
D. They are impossible to balance in a PvP computergame bcs Players give a **** about ludicrous downbidding rituals
E. Reasons...

Clanner go home!

Dude.

You got it so wrong.

The Clans are a bunch of Furries who were lead by some insane but charasmatic moron who read the Cliffnotes for Nietzsche, Genghis Khan and such and convinced a bunch of people to play dress up as different animals while adhering to some pseudo-samurai wannabe code based off poorly translated anime.

But dang did they have good scientists. Probably because they WEREN'T the ones playing dress up and puffing out their chests to show how macho they are.


Strana Mechty Grand Conclave of 3048 Class Photo......

Yes Inner Sphere... these were the fruitloops kicking your butts for 2 solid years.

[Kuaron]

Juodas Varnas, on 24 September 2017 - 09:59 AM, said:

Wolverine is a sexy beast, dude! (Not as sexy as a Scorpion, but NOTHING is as sexy as a Scorpion)

Ain't our fault you have sh*t taste in mechs.

lol, if this is what you call sexy, I don't want to see your... other things people usually call this way.

[Juodas Varnas]

Kuaron, on 24 September 2017 - 10:40 AM, said:

lol, if this is what you call sexy, I don't want to see your... other things people usually call this way.

[Bud Crue]

OP,

I, upon hearing of MWO, embraced the nostalgia of a game I played at a child and decided to give it a play once CW became a reality. I came to MWO with the expectation that it would be, as PGI advertises: an immersive experience "set in the rich Battletech universe" wherein a player can "rewrite the history of the Inner Sphere". Despite this advertisement, I soon realized that nothing about the lore, or even the setting of the "rich Battletech universe" is present or ever will be present in this game. And yet, through my own force of will decided that the game called MWO should be immersive and lore based, and thus I played CW almost exclusively for a good long time as an FRR loyalist.

The first crack in the armor of my provocative ignorance of the actuality of the game came with the first great quirkening and I a dawning realization that tech didn't matter. It's just numbers and PGI can do whatever they want with those numbers.

More cracks appeared with the realization that CW is a totally ignored mode by PGI. From the institution of a mechanism to punish recruitment of team members to a team based mode, to the 1 bucket elimination of all supposed faction identity, to the raw stupidity of phase 3's changes, and PGI's official and year long insistence that "the core game is fine", yet in total contradiction repeatedly asking the community how to fix CW; started to make it clear that playing CW may very well be pointless, let alone playing as a loyalist.

Still more cracks appeared with the first two Tukayyids. Low and behold these were not fights between the forces of the IS and clan, these were battles over where the mercs wanted to play.

The final crack, and that which made me realize that it is pointless to play as a loyalist on any side was in January, when Russ said during the second CW townhall that 2017 would be a refocusing by PGI on the CW mode,and yet we are still waiting to see what the fruit of this supposed refocus will be.

So OP, forget clan v IS, forget tech differences, forget loyalty rewards. Instead first look at the reason for playing CW in the first place. Consider the history, consider the current state of the game, consider the wait times playing CW. If you can answer that question "why bother with CW at all?" in a way that keeps you excited to play CW, then and only then should you think about the practical aspects of playing as a loyalist. If you get that far, consider the reasons you want to play as a loyalist in a mode where the only two factions that matter are the IS faction and the Clan faction. I think if you do this thorough of a self-reflection you will find there is no practical reason to play this nearly abandoned mode as a loyalist, and then you, like almost everyone else still willing to play the mode, will play it as a merc.

Edited by Bud Crue, 24 September 2017 - 10:54 AM.