91 replies to this topic

[Lily from animove]

FallingAce, on 27 December 2017 - 08:53 PM, said:

That's not what the clammers said after Luthien.

wasn't there,
dunno what they (mostlikely just some of them ) said.
stop caring about dezgra talking.

[Arkhangel]

Commander A9, on 28 December 2017 - 09:52 PM, said:

Tharkad back in Steiner hands without explanation.

I'm writing this one up as a bug not even PGI cares about...

Matt screwed up, moved the goalposts and got in trouble for that, so it got moved back. that simple enough for you?

look, regardless of whether Matt MEANT the event to be, it's not how it ended up, the fact remains he screwed up, and didn't catch it until after the event was over for a full day. at that point, you don't change the results, you just apologize to the community, and promise to do better next time. Plus, you have the actual stats for the battle literally in front of you now. the IS successfully defended Tharkad. problem is the Tug of War system is just screwy.

We honestly need some sorta system with assets to nail and so on, that could, i dunno, maybe affect the drop deck tonnage per side, like, say, capturing an ammo depot or Mech Repair facility for an increase, or doing a Raid on a Starport to take a Union down or something. have objective missions with short timeframes. That and honestly.... let's be blunt. they need to give Leopards their full weapons loadout in FW. people'd be a lot less likely to camp a spawn if they had to deal with the two PPCs and three LRM20s they're supposed to be carrying as well (even moreso with the Clan's Broadswords).

Edited by Arkhangel, 01 January 2018 - 12:25 AM.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Arkhangel, on 01 January 2018 - 12:24 AM, said:

That and honestly.... let's be blunt. they need to give Leopards their full weapons loadout in FW. people'd be a lot less likely to camp a spawn if they had to deal with the two PPCs and three LRM20s they're supposed to be carrying as well (even moreso with the Clan's Broadswords).

Quite possibly one of the easiest FP changes to improve the non-unit experience.

[renegade666]

The results do seem pretty darn skewed, in fact I can't see how in the world the Clans won by any logic. IS had the higher win ratio, nearly 200 more wins in Invasion mode and OVER A THOUSAND wins more in Scouting mode. And played only one less match than the Clans.

But I'm more frustrated by the other thing being demanded here.

I honestly don't think the balancing is all that bad - besides, in Battletech lore the Clans had superiority in many fields as is reflected here.

But also in lore, IS units resorted to guerilla tactics and took advantage of the Clans' strict adherence to certain rules of engagement and conduct to steal victories from the jaws of defeat.

It's not a case of nerfs being necessary. It's a case of players on both sides needing to use their brains and coming up with new tactics and strategies instead of repeatedly committing to those which most often FAIL.

People need to stop demanding the system be overhauled whenever things go wrong for them. Play smart. Use those brains.

"No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy."
- Helmuth von Moltke

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
- Albert Einstein(?)

Edited by renegade666, 01 January 2018 - 03:54 AM.

[Tarl Cabot]

renegade666, on 01 January 2018 - 03:51 AM, said:

The results do seem pretty darn skewed, in fact I can't see how in the world the Clans won by any logic. IS had the higher win ratio, nearly 200 more wins in Invasion mode and OVER A THOUSAND wins more in Scouting mode. And played only one less match than the Clans.

.......

"No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy."
- Helmuth von Moltke

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
- Albert Einstein(?)

How? Matt's intention was to move the goal post 1 win from the starting point, ie at 1 battle or 3% (each battle, just like normal FP), but instead he entered a 0 that did not compute, setting the goal post to default 27 battles or 90%. Tharkad ToW ended at 82% (or 24 battles), effectively a stalemate/tie like normal FP, no change in planets.

Luthien was the first Capitol event but the setup was completely different. Each battle was worth 1% instead of 3%. Goal posts was still set at 90% or 90 battles into the ToW. IS was able to pull it back with a total of 23 battles (23%), a stalemate/tie at Clan's ToW of 77%.

Again, Matt said he was attempting to make sure there was no tie/stalemate. Matt was attempting to set it up like Tukayyid, where 2 of the 3 events did not have a Tug of War bar, the Clans had to have 51% while the IS had to finish it below that. Which meant if the IS was winning at the start of the event the games did not count except for the overall stats.

Prior CW the arc below would have 13 wedges. Tukayyid had 63? And there was not weight weight difference.

[renegade666]

Tarl Cabot, on 01 January 2018 - 05:57 AM, said:

How? Matt's intention was to move the goal post 1 win from the starting point, ie at 1 battle or 3% (each battle, just like normal FP), but instead he entered a 0 that did not compute, setting the goal post to default 27 battles or 90%. Tharkad ToW ended at 82% (or 24 battles), effectively a stalemate/tie like normal FP, no change in planets.

I admit, I didn't go through the entire thread so I wasn't aware of this. It puts a lot into better context. Thanks for pointing it out <o

Tarl Cabot, on 01 January 2018 - 05:57 AM, said:

Luthien was the first Capitol event but the setup was completely different. Each battle was worth 1% instead of 3%. Goal posts was still set at 90% or 90 battles into the ToW. IS was able to pull it back with a total of 23 battles (23%), a stalemate/tie at Clan's ToW of 77%.

Again, Matt said he was attempting to make sure there was no tie/stalemate. Matt was attempting to set it up like Tukayyid, where 2 of the 3 events did not have a Tug of War bar, the Clans had to have 51% while the IS had to finish it below that. Which meant if the IS was winning at the start of the event the games did not count except for the overall stats.

Perhaps instead of setting a fixed number of battles, how about the next event sets a deadline and they calculate the results from the number of battles actually played out, instead of setting a "total wins" requirement? That would better reflect the actual contributions from both sides and eliminate ties unless the numbers were EXACTLY the same on both sides. Even then, another factor could be calculated to determine who actually wins (mechs lost, dmg received vs taken, etc).

As I said, I'm actually more concerned with the continual calls for nerfing and so on, but cheers for filling me in on the blanks.

Edited by renegade666, 01 January 2018 - 06:37 AM.

[Tarl Cabot]

Then you end up with if one side gets so far ahead, how to come back from that? Still, usually there are additional items tagged on to encourage players to drop into FP.

But then, one has to consider these are Capitol planets with an entrenched population and not a proxy planet like Tukayyid. And to have it setup to where there is a winner/loser and no in between imho would not be the way to go. For a IS Capitol world, for the Clans to win by a 51-49 margin would make no sense. Now, with how Clan society is setup, that might work if it was a Clan homeworld but it would not work for an IS homeworld. Why do you think the Jaguars leveled Endo Bay Edo (chuckles, thoughts and fingers not aligned) with an orbital bombardment?

That is why for the Clans to conquer an IS Capitol planet, it needs to be done with an overwhelming victory, not just a coin toss. There are all different ways it could be done but PGI has implemented their tug of war bar, but the setup needs to be done closer to the Luthien settings than the normal, every day Faction Play settings.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 01 January 2018 - 06:31 PM.

[Arkhangel]

Tarl, it's the city of Edo on Turtle Bay, just to correct ya, but yeah. the Jaguars took that place over, but the IS resistance (Yakuza led) in Edo made it such a pain in the *** for them they turned the capital city of the planet into black glass. which of course in turn made the Jaguars the target of the IS's vengeance in Operation Bulldog and led to the destruction of the entire clan.

now, Turtle Bay was just a standard planet. any IS capital would likely have a crapton of orbital gun emplacements, several air wings, and likely at least a few SDS systems kicking around to blow incoming DropShips and JumpShips out of the sky.

Come to think of that, that could be an interesting mechanic to go for. have guys invading a planet have smaller drop decks starting out due to Leopards needing the lighter weight to avoid being blown out of the sky, and then have a threshold of Orbital Gun/Dish missions they need to do before they can unlock the bigger drop deck as they're essentially disabling space defenses to allow for it. but then also have that threshold work the other way if, say, the defenders managed to take back an emplacement or comm dish, as they've managed to get in contact with the air wing, or gotten the Orbital Gun back online to start nailing dropships again. could even have ones where Invaders have to defend their dropship while it's being repaired after being hit by air and space defenses.

[Daflibble]

Arkhangel, on 01 January 2018 - 06:21 PM, said:

Come to think of that, that could be an interesting mechanic to go for. have guys invading a planet have smaller drop decks starting out due to Leopards needing the lighter weight to avoid being blown out of the sky, and then have a threshold of Orbital Gun/Dish missions they need to do before they can unlock the bigger drop deck as they're essentially disabling space defenses to allow for it. but then also have that threshold work the other way if, say, the defenders managed to take back an emplacement or comm dish, as they've managed to get in contact with the air wing, or gotten the Orbital Gun back online to start nailing dropships again. could even have ones where Invaders have to defend their dropship while it's being repaired after being hit by air and space defenses.

While I'm sure it's a lot more coding work I agree some sort of mechanic that simulates an invasion better than dropping an equal number of mechs on both sides to fight it out would be great. Currently FW is boring in my experience, it's just bigger longer quick play PUG matches. I feel like lack of interesting objectives to achieve beyond take out the OGEN'S, omgea AND kill all enemy mechs is the problem. Your options for doing interesting things are very limited.

Still love MWO for giving me mechs back with pretty graphics.

[MovinTarget]

Daflibble, on 10 January 2018 - 11:26 AM, said:

Currently FW is boring in my experience, it's just bigger longer quick play PUG matches. I feel like lack of interesting objectives to achieve beyond take out the OGEN'S, omgea AND kill all enemy mechs is the problem. Your options for doing interesting things are very limited.

When dropping solo, absolutely. When dropping as a group looking to have fun, it can be the most fun mode in the game.

Additionally, in regards to the scaling drop deck weights, I think a lot of people would hate that as they would have to constantly retool their decks or find it difficult to assemble an optimal deck on short notice.

[Alaric Hasek]

That's not why the IS won the Clan war. They won because they had endless supplies of 'mechs and 'mechwarriors to throw at the limited number of invading Clan warriors. The war was pretty much over after the Clans agreed to a truce after Tukyaid... those 25 years allowed the IS a chance to close the tech divide and train up division after division of 'mechs. The Clans really had no chance to defeat the whole IS, but that wasn't really their goal. They just wanted to take Terra back. If they hadn't agreed to the truce they might have done that but it would have been a Pyrrhic victory at best after facing the entire might of Comstar's forces. They probably didn't have a chance even if all the Clan toumans had been intent on the Crusader goal, but just the very fact that there were Warden Clans that didn't want to have anything to do withthe invasion meant that the only hope for the invasion was to strike hard and deep and hope for a political settlement.

renegade666, on 01 January 2018 - 03:51 AM, said:

But I'm more frustrated by the other thing being demanded here.

I honestly don't think the balancing is all that bad - besides, in Battletech lore the Clans had superiority in many fields as is reflected here.

But also in lore, IS units resorted to guerilla tactics and took advantage of the Clans' strict adherence to certain rules of engagement and conduct to steal victories from the jaws of defeat.

[Tarl Cabot]

Did we ever receive a response to this flip flop about Tharkad switching back from Clans to House Steiner, even if done via Twitter? We all had some good theories going though in a few other threads...

Commander A9, on 28 December 2017 - 09:52 PM, said:

Tharkad back in Steiner hands without explanation.

I'm writing this one up as a bug not even PGI cares about...

Tarl Cabot, on 29 December 2017 - 03:45 AM, said:

Was thinking about that. Which planet had become the temporary LCAF capitol after the initial fall of Tharkad, and did said system fall to the Clans?

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 28 March 2018 - 05:34 PM.