87 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

Rick T Dangerous, on 04 November 2017 - 02:33 PM, said:

Well, the official story states that clans are OP and IS needs moar advantages. That's the dogmatic believe of a lot of players. But after the Kurita vs. Smoke Jaguar event suddenly a bunch of players discovered that meanwhile the IS side has gathered so many advantages that playing for that side is not a challenge at all. So they enjoyed their little secret and were very careful about not winning any battle phases, they might get nerfed if they did. Now something went wrong, and they accidentally won a phase instead of ending it in a tie. But they don't need to be afraid, PGI didn't waste all those months "balancing" the game by giving IS advantages for their low tier players just to take those advantages away because people use those advantages that are not low tier.
Somewhere here in the forum a dude suggested to give IS more and more advantages until significant players change sides, not realizing that he impied that those players changing sides to use advantages would be just a bunch of cowards. But some players seem to enjoy being cowards...

Except none of the good players are saying IS and Clan are balanced. None of the good teams, certainly nobody who plays at a comp level.

Nobody.

IS is winning in no small part because, bluntly, Clans haven't had to even try to win matches in over 2 months. Most are pretty rusty and needed a wakeup call. I loved it - lost my first match other than scouting on, what, 3 months the other night. ISMO, a new unit, came in and beat KCom *doing what KCom does best*. It was glorious - they were on pint and we were not. They beat us at our own game even with a tech disadvantage. Overcame it with coordination and focus, and they were focused and on point. Was actually very cool - they were clearly going 110% and played great. They deserved that win and we needed the reminder.

Then, to top it off, J a y came over to KCom TS and was very cool about it. Class act all around. I give ISMO full points on that match, they played a 3 position very aggressive strategy and did it excellently. Even if we were 100% it would have been a tough match.

However, to be clear, we lost *in spite* of the tech advantage. That everyone who plays Clans doesn't have a 100% win rate doesn't mean tech is balanced. That's absurd.

[Koshirou]

Are any of you serious? IS wins, what, three planets back after losing several hundred during this season and you somehow think this means that the IS is equivalent to the Clans?

Clan dominance, as I explained earlier, is a long-term trend. Long-term trends are not negated by short-term deviations. To disprove the aforementioned long-term trend, the IS would need to...
a.) take back all the worlds conquered by the Clans
b.) then take all the Clan homeworlds and
c.) do the same again next season.
Wake me up when that happens or at least has a realistic chance of happening.

P.S.: This does not even take into account the fact that this game mode is becoming increasingly anemic and thus small population shifts have considerable short-term effects.

Edited by Koshirou, 05 November 2017 - 01:24 AM.

[Jun Watarase]

WayTooSexy, on 03 November 2017 - 10:07 PM, said:

the top 2 unit on leaderboards are seals ? lul, we expeted more challenging matches on IS, but people just stop dropping after even 1 lost

I never said any units in particular were seals. Given that there is a shortage of clan players/units now, how many of your matches are seal clubbing?

Same phenomenon happens every time the bar is all the way to one side. Not enough decent players = lots of seal clubbing.

The only cycle that I saw lately where clans actually managed to put up a fight in regards to the progress bar was the EU cycle, which is likely due to the time zones of the EU units on both sides (more even distribution of units i guess).

I just find it really ironic that people switched to IS because "clan waiting times are too long"...but all they did was flip the problem around. Looking at all the constant call to arms popups, its quite obvious that IS players are stuck in lobbies waiting for opposing teams to form...pretty much the same situation as they faced when they were clan. I dont have any statistics though, so the waiting times might still be an improvement overall.

And everyone knows that call to arms actually decrease the quality of matches...because free lancers and random pugs see the popup and start queuing vs a 12 man, with predictable results. Im actually curious...on a % basis, how many of your matches are actually close ones? Because when the war log shows a near 100% win rate for one side, most of those probably aren't close matches.

From a psychological point of view, theres a tendency to not bother with FP when the losing side sees the bar all the way to one side, which just makes waiting times longer. Same thing happened on a per planet basis in early FP, since people just gave up and went somewhere else.

Edited by Jun Watarase, 05 November 2017 - 02:28 PM.

[Jun Watarase]

Kwea, on 04 November 2017 - 07:01 AM, said:

apparently neither mechwarrior OR reading comprehension is your strong point....lets use crayons this time....

By going IS we play more units, as there are far more units on the Clan side than on the IS side. It makes for better matches, and more fun. Sure, we run into pug teams....some of them pretty decent overall actually, but about every other match is a decent sized team.

We don't play quite as well as EVIL overall, but we see the same thing...sometimes opposing teams fold after one or two matches, even saying in comms they are going to sit out before a game is over. We queued up 9 times against EVIL, only winning 3, before we switched over, and we liked that challenge. It's not fun getting beat, but it IS fun having a bunch of close matches, all decided by less than 8 mechs each match, win or lose.

MS, EVIL and BCMC are all great units, but they are hardly the only units out there that play well, and by going IS we get more matches, and better matches overall. You still have KCOM, a great team, and a number of really other good units. All we heard when we were clan was "waa waa waa, clans OP and all mercs do it load one side".

Make up what's left of your mind.

Im not sure what your post has to do with what i said....

Someone said most of the top units were still clan judging from the leader board. I pointed out why the leader board wasnt an accurate judge of that, since its old data and having a high amount of planetary wins doesnt necessarily mean you are very good since wins can be achieved via objective rushing.

I mean, case in point, at that time, EVIL was still contracted to clan (technically). So one could look at the leader board, see that EVIL was still clan, and assume that EVIL was still fighting on the clan side. What the leader board didnt show was that EVIL players were switching to EV2L on the IS side. The leader board doesnt tell the whole story, which has been pointed out by many people before, and which was my point.

I have no clue why you are explaining why MS chose to go IS, since I never said anything about that at all. We are talking about two completely different things.

Edited by Jun Watarase, 05 November 2017 - 02:18 PM.

[Jun Watarase]

Koshirou, on 05 November 2017 - 01:23 AM, said:

Are any of you serious? IS wins, what, three planets back after losing several hundred during this season and you somehow think this means that the IS is equivalent to the Clans?

Clan dominance, as I explained earlier, is a long-term trend. Long-term trends are not negated by short-term deviations. To disprove the aforementioned long-term trend, the IS would need to...
a.) take back all the worlds conquered by the Clans
b.) then take all the Clan homeworlds and
c.) do the same again next season.
Wake me up when that happens or at least has a realistic chance of happening.

P.S.: This does not even take into account the fact that this game mode is becoming increasingly anemic and thus small population shifts have considerable short-term effects.

The original post clearly stated that the poll was a reference to the "see, clans win every phase, they must be OP!" threads. Nobody is seriously using the progress bar to argue that one side is OP.

[Lovas]

Whomever voted IS OP in that straw poll is an idiot lol.

[Jun Watarase]

Lovas, on 05 November 2017 - 02:22 PM, said:

Whomever voted IS OP in that straw poll is an idiot lol.

Or he may have realised that the poll was meant to be a joke and followed suit.

[Kwea]

you were talking about how most units were not clan any more, and MS had just switched but held a lot of planets from being clan in prior contracts.

Whatever floats your boat. My point still stands.....that a lot of good units were still clan, and were just not use to an actual challenge from IS pilots.

[Hal Greaves]

ive been getting way too trashed and completely sucking lately


but its all gravy wew

[November Juliet]

I love when evil switches sides we run into non stop units for a bout a week and then they disappear....then we switch sides again and then its units for like a week or two then it dries up again. Can't wait to switch again. Some cocky guys out there that need to catch a Mech beating.

[McGoat]

Unfortunately it's not just you guys, we haven't seen a few folks come back since we played them: Stomp Denied.

[Jman5]

November Juliet, on 16 November 2017 - 08:33 AM, said:

I love when evil switches sides we run into non stop units for a bout a week and then they disappear....then we switch sides again and then its units for like a week or two then it dries up again. Can't wait to switch again. Some cocky guys out there that need to catch a Mech beating.

As someone who has picked nothing but Inner Sphere contracts for the last several months, it's really blatant that a lot of units actively avoid real competition. In the last week I think the only semi-large Clan premade I've seen is Kcom. The rest either switch sides themselves, or start playing a lot more quickplay, or they just don't log on as much. I'm still dropping solo and even my terrible WLR is creeping up because I'm mostly just facing small groups and pugs.

I dunno, I find the whole thing mildly infuriating because how many tier 1 teams out there have been insisting over the years that all they want are hard fights. Yet as soon as they get those hard fights, they rage quit. Like clockwork.

[McGoat]

Jman5, on 16 November 2017 - 10:01 AM, said:

I dunno, I find the whole thing mildly infuriating because how many tier 1 teams out there have been insisting over the years that all they want are hard fights. Yet as soon as they get those hard fights, they rage quit. Like clockwork.

I can only think of one team, right now, that hasn't been on much after some loses, but there are other things influencing that.

So how many "tier 1" teams have rage quit in the last several months?

Good grief you guys are hell bent on assuming that folks are avoiding other teams - wanna know what happens when BCMC gets on, and same for EVIL (from what I see when I/we drop with each other)? We form up, either a 2 man or more, and hit search.
Bam. That's all there is to it. Who we play is irrelevant, we're here to play.

So I ask again, who is avoiding matches that you know of? Don't be bashful, put them out there.

[B0oN]

WayTooSexy, on 03 November 2017 - 10:07 PM, said:

the top 2 unit on leaderboards are seals ? lul, we expeted more challenging matches on IS, but people just stop dropping after even 1 lost

And you know why that is ?
You being way too sexy
Fighting with a circustent in your pants IS kinda hard ... löl

For the rest of the "yara-yara" ... TEAMWORK OP, nerf plox .

Oh btw some more teams that might just hit play : 77BW, 420, 8FP

Edited by B0oN, 16 November 2017 - 10:52 AM.

[Jman5]

McGoat, on 16 November 2017 - 10:18 AM, said:

I can only think of one team, right now, that hasn't been on much after some loses, but there are other things influencing that.

So how many "tier 1" teams have rage quit in the last several months?

Good grief you guys are hell bent on assuming that folks are avoiding other teams - wanna know what happens when BCMC gets on, and same for EVIL (from what I see when I/we drop with each other)? We form up, either a 2 man or more, and hit search.
Bam. That's all there is to it. Who we play is irrelevant, we're here to play.

So I ask again, who is avoiding matches that you know of? Don't be bashful, put them out there.

I went back and counted. In the last 6 or 7 days I've played 14 games. 1 out of 14 games was against a large premade (4man or bigger). Rewind further to the week before and 15 out of 26 games were against large clan premades.

You're asking me to name names, but I can't reasonably follow every unit and all their members. Who switched sides, who didn't, which players in a big units are playing more, who is playing less. Are they playing Quickplay? I'm not going to name names because that would be irresponsible and in some cases it's probably just coincidence.

However, what is easy for me to see is that one week I'm fighting tons of large premades like usual and the next week it's suddenly almost nothing but pugs and small groups.

[McGoat]

There was also an event going on..
Also, Clans hate to lose (lol).

[Lovas]

Jman5, on 16 November 2017 - 10:01 AM, said:

As someone who has picked nothing but Inner Sphere contracts for the last several months, it's really blatant that a lot of units actively avoid real competition. In the last week I think the only semi-large Clan premade I've seen is Kcom. The rest either switch sides themselves, or start playing a lot more quickplay, or they just don't log on as much. I'm still dropping solo and even my terrible WLR is creeping up because I'm mostly just facing small groups and pugs.

I dunno, I find the whole thing mildly infuriating because how many tier 1 teams out there have been insisting over the years that all they want are hard fights. Yet as soon as they get those hard fights, they rage quit. Like clockwork.

It was the wait times that forced us back to IS, not who was where. We left Merc status and went clan loyalist (quite late compared to some) because several of our members had maxed out the Merc tree. We were there for two weeks, waiting normally 30-45 min just for a match before we broke loyalty, had to wait another week before we chose IS.

Unfortunately even with evil, MS, and us as IS we still pretty much get instadrops, which isn’t motivating us to go anywhere at the moment. I get in about as many drops in one night as I did over 4 nights as clan. That and PGI can’t seem to want to or understand how to manage active player populations.

[MischiefSC]

McGoat, on 16 November 2017 - 10:18 AM, said:

I can only think of one team, right now, that hasn't been on much after some loses, but there are other things influencing that.

So how many "tier 1" teams have rage quit in the last several months?

Good grief you guys are hell bent on assuming that folks are avoiding other teams - wanna know what happens when BCMC gets on, and same for EVIL (from what I see when I/we drop with each other)? We form up, either a 2 man or more, and hit search.
Bam. That's all there is to it. Who we play is irrelevant, we're here to play.

So I ask again, who is avoiding matches that you know of? Don't be bashful, put them out there.

Honestly I'm concerned that a couple of teams going to IS was too late. I know we had gone from 18 a night to more like 8 before you guys had switched and I know a lot of the people I had dropped alongside were just gone. At least one team that I used to really enjoy playing with seems to have split up or just left.

People get used to being lazy. The teams that switched to IS have a real advantage in as much as they took the initiative and they knew they were going to have to adjust and try harder. Everyone else has to try and just adjust their bad habits on the fly.

Keep at it, people will get used to actually having to try again. It takes about 14 days for people to adjust to a change in their routine and about 21 days to make new habits. I just hope you all stay there long enough for everyone to adjust to having to try again.

[McGoat]

Unfortunately even with evil, MS, and us as IS we still pretty much get instadrops, which isn’t motivating us to go anywhere at the moment.
-Lovas

I don't think we'll be going anywhere any time soon. Honestly, being IS (this is my first time) has made me a better overall player and has lead to me having the most fun i've had in this game as of yet.

I just am getting annoyed with the amount of crap threads lately about "Mercs", about unfair balance, this or that being "OP" etc. When in the end it's all a wash when team play is considered (Damnit, I said I wasn't going to mention teamplay, because its overplayed [lulz]).

Edited for random tags :|

Edited by McGoat, 16 November 2017 - 11:28 AM.

[Jman5]

McGoat, on 16 November 2017 - 11:14 AM, said:

There was also an event going on..

So you would expect IS to follow similar patterns, but when I look at the last 14 games, I see Inner Sphere had large premades on my side 6 out of 14 times (versus 1 out of 14 on Clan side).

The fact of the matter is that the only way any of us could know with reasonable certainty a unit or player is dodging competition is if you had some way of tracking their contract selection, and tracking their players' activity over a long period of time. You'd probably even need to do something like look at average time to re-queue after losing to see if they purposefully dodge teams they just lost to. I imagine some people aren't even connecting the dots for why they suddenly "don't feel like playing FP right now." And for some units it really is just a coincidence.

I can't point to a single unit or player and say: THIS PERSON IS DODGING. I don't want people to interpret what I said as an accusation against everyone who switched to IS or everyone who is playing more quickplay. It absolutely is not my intention. All I can see is the larger impact and pattern that always seems to follow when IS gets 1 or 2 high profile teams for an extended period.

Edited by Jman5, 16 November 2017 - 11:52 AM.