131 replies to this topic

[Stealthrider]

Just gonna give my 2c.

I typically drop solo or with a few friends. We tend to switch between IS and Clan week to week. Recently, balance between the two factions has honestly felt pretty decent. Sure, Clans tend to win the longer ranged maps and IS the more brawly ones, but--assuming it's not a full unit vs pugs--it hasn't felt like either was stronger overall.

When I drop I usually try to call, and despite what people like to insinuate most of the time people listen.Occasionally there's the one hopeless jackass, but he's the exception, not the rule. People do listen to a drop caller. The problem is that in most games, no one takes up that position, and therefore most pugs just aren't used to it, and many don't understand why it's important, hence the backlash. But in my experience so long as you calmly keep calling, ignoring the jackass, people still listen. At least they try to.

A lot of people that solo drop seem to think that there's no way to beat a coordinated group, and a lot of people that group drop think that if you're not group dropping you're hopeless.The truth of the matter though is that there really isn't that much separating premades from pugs, other than your EVILs and such that are just that good together. People generally want to coordinate, they generally do listen to called targets and most of them do bring skilled, solid mechs (and just because a mech isn't currently meta doesn't mean it's not still a solid mech. The game isn't so black and white that you're either in a LRM boat or a Hellbringer with nothing in between).

With all that said, what I see as the main problem of FP is the stigma attached. People are afraid to try drop calling, afraid to call targets, afraid to even bother against a unit. It doesn't help that certain units would prefer to spawn camp and pad their damage numbers than actually win the game, preferring to drag out all 48 mechs when they could've killed the gens/capped the circle/etc with their first wave. It's that kind of attitude that pushes people in one of two directions: into the bigger units (since the smaller ones usually won't field a full team) or away from FP entirely. That exacerbates the units vs pugs problem by lowering the number of pugs as well as the number of people that just aren't in the big units, which leads to pretty monotonous battles when there's no event going on, with the same few units stomping on the remaining pugs when not having actual unit vs unit battles, of which I can't imagine there are too many.

So here's what I propose as at least a temporary "fix."

There's been suggestions of limiting group size to a single lance. Instead of having the game hard-limit the mode as such, I propose that units try to limit themselves to smaller drops. Additionally, that they use the in-game VOIP to drop call and coordinate the pugs and (I'd imagine) smaller/weaker units on the team. The goal is twofold: 1) to attempt to lessen the impact of a large unit drop, both in terms of overall power and of the psychological effect a large drop has on opponents, and 2) to give the other players a taste of what kind of coordination a large/good unit plays with and demonstrate why and how it is effective.

This could be a community-run event of sorts, where this happens for a month or some other period, or a personal mandate by whichever units felt generous enough to do it regularly. Either way, the hope is that by making this kind of effort FP won't appear as daunting as it typically can, that it would encourage players to seek out advice rather than getting clubbed and putting the mode aside, and overall improve the playerbase both new and veteran.

It's probably happened or been discussed before. Might be laughed out of the room for suggesting it. After all, I'm just a relative nobody and not a top tier player by any means, what the hell do I know.

Edited by Stealthrider, 10 January 2018 - 06:24 AM.

[C E Dwyer]

Even solo dropping you can do well if you use common sense..

You can either do the intelligent thing and support the groups you ended up dropping with, or you can play like its QP and fail..

Of course if the groups have their own chit chat channel and can't be bothered to give you a basic idea of what's going to happen ( and actually have a clue), it's their fault for keeping you in the dark.

Team work is ultimately the reason for F.W so if you don't want team work, don't drop in FW

[Kubernetes]

TBF we rag on most solo droppers because they’re mostly clueless potatoes. However, many heavy-hitters will occasionally drop solo for the challenge. Leading a group of skittles to victory over a premade can be one of the most rewarding experiences in MWO. I still remember the times I’ve beat KCom or EVIL as a solo. My teams were loudly cheering over VoIP because it was so good.

[MischiefSC]

I just got to say. As someone who plays in KCom which is one of the most successful teams in FW at driving wins, this thread is funny. We brawl every single match - in fact I have to keep checking myself on bringing what most people think of as 'long range' when we are defending Boreal and the like and Pat says 'Bring range', because what that really means is 'Bring something that can shoot a couple of times while we close to a brawl'.

Clans can out-brawl IS all the time, any time, because bigger alpha and better cooling. Brawling is where Clans are *strongest*, you just have to not be an utter ***** and try to poke-brawl. You push right up and win on bigger alpha and heatcap. Your first guy goes down like a Spartan in a blaze of glory soaking up heat so when everyone is at heat cap, Clans are cooling faster and doing more damage with each shot.

I also face-palm at all these people saying 'I and/or a friend of mine consistently do 3k damage and...'

BULL ****.

BIG STEAMING PILES OF IT.

QUIT LYING.

I know the players who consistently do 3K damage, it's a short list. We all know them and see them. These total BS statements by people trying to claim that they actually do amazing at stupid things like LRMs or ATMs on Hellbore and whatever when the people who actually do 3k consistently come in and explain exactly why they're wrong.

Inevitably when you look up such people on either the QP or FW leaderboards they're either just over or just under a 1.0 w/l and a mediocre KDR.

That in and of itself is okay - nothing wrong with people playing how they want and having fun. It's a game. Stats don't count for anything -

however they also don't lie. So when someone lies and says 'Oh I do X and always do great' it's not that hard to look up and realize that, no, no that's not the case.

Anyone can give advice but not all advice has the same value. There is one, and only one, metric that matters in this game - winning. Doing what wins is represented in how often you win. If you're winning a lot then what you're doing? Clearly it works at winning. This is an incredibly simple concept. It's also easy to look up.

Clans are still stronger than IS. Everyone who has been successful at consistently winning at this game from comp queue to FW is pretty clear on that. If someone is consistently losing in Clans it's because they are making such bad choices that they're losing with the deck stacked in their favor.

That's really a statement all its own.

[K O Z A K]

MischiefSC, on 12 January 2018 - 09:51 PM, said:

I just got to say. As someone who plays in KCom which is one of the most successful teams in FW at driving wins, this thread is funny. We brawl every single match - in fact I have to keep checking myself on bringing what most people think of as 'long range' when we are defending Boreal and the like and Pat says 'Bring range', because what that really means is 'Bring something that can shoot a couple of times while we close to a brawl'.

Clans can out-brawl IS all the time, any time, because bigger alpha and better cooling. Brawling is where Clans are *strongest*, you just have to not be an utter ***** and try to poke-brawl. You push right up and win on bigger alpha and heatcap. Your first guy goes down like a Spartan in a blaze of glory soaking up heat so when everyone is at heat cap, Clans are cooling faster and doing more damage with each shot.

I also face-palm at all these people saying 'I and/or a friend of mine consistently do 3k damage and...'

BULL ****.

BIG STEAMING PILES OF IT.

QUIT LYING.

I know the players who consistently do 3K damage, it's a short list. We all know them and see them. These total BS statements by people trying to claim that they actually do amazing at stupid things like LRMs or ATMs on Hellbore and whatever when the people who actually do 3k consistently come in and explain exactly why they're wrong.

Inevitably when you look up such people on either the QP or FW leaderboards they're either just over or just under a 1.0 w/l and a mediocre KDR.

That in and of itself is okay - nothing wrong with people playing how they want and having fun. It's a game. Stats don't count for anything -

however they also don't lie. So when someone lies and says 'Oh I do X and always do great' it's not that hard to look up and realize that, no, no that's not the case.

Anyone can give advice but not all advice has the same value. There is one, and only one, metric that matters in this game - winning. Doing what wins is represented in how often you win. If you're winning a lot then what you're doing? Clearly it works at winning. This is an incredibly simple concept. It's also easy to look up.

Clans are still stronger than IS. Everyone who has been successful at consistently winning at this game from comp queue to FW is pretty clear on that. If someone is consistently losing in Clans it's because they are making such bad choices that they're losing with the deck stacked in their favor.

That's really a statement all its own.

Dropping in FP with 4-6 other competent players will allow you to win most of the time no matter the state of balance, the tonnage discrepancy and balance right now allows IS to be very strong in brawling because you can stack multiple assaults, you should check it out, lots of fun

[TWIAFU]

Hazeclaw, on 12 January 2018 - 10:27 PM, said:

Dropping in FP with 4-6 other competent players will allow you to win most of the time no matter the state of balance, the tonnage discrepancy and balance right now allows IS to be very strong in brawling because you can stack multiple assaults, you should check it out, lots of fun

You cannot actually be posting that teamwork in the teamwork dependent queue is a, if not THE, deciding factor in victory?

[K O Z A K]

TWIAFU, on 13 January 2018 - 03:56 AM, said:

You cannot actually be posting that teamwork in the teamwork dependent queue is a, if not THE, deciding factor in victory?

Well yeah, but also the skill differential in FP is so huge, you have drops where top players in the game can face newbies with trial decks (or very special builds). You can frequently see strong 6 mans beating weaker unit 12 mans even with very little coordination. And the meta differences can just as easily be overcome in your avg FP match, you can win most of the time doing brawling as clan, and vomit trading as IS despite the factions being weaker in those areas

[UnKnownPlayer]

Hazeclaw, on 12 January 2018 - 10:27 PM, said:

Dropping in FP with 4-6 other competent players will allow you to win most of the time no matter the state of balance, the tonnage discrepancy and balance right now allows IS to be very strong in brawling because you can stack multiple assaults, you should check it out, lots of fun

Assaults dont really make a big difference to be honest, in the drops that I join we rarely bring assaults, mostly heavies although we do use the full tonnage so we can bring 3 orions and they tank light an assault.
If the tonnage cap were lower I think people would just bring roughnecks instead for similar tanking levels.

Also, there are several maps and game modes where we don't even bring full tonnage.

Also, Mischief is correct, the clan mechs can deal out more damage in the brawl than IS mechs it's just that most people try to use their range to poke and trade and enhance their own scores at the expense of their team's armour rather than playing as an organised group in the brawl. I suppose that is because of the risk / reward trade off. You know you will get plenty of damage out if you poke and trade and are probably less likely to die yourself - a safe bet. On the brawl side you may get very little damage out (i sometimes finish a match with 1000-1200 damage because I led the charges for my team) but the pay off was the utter crushing of the opposing team.

[TWIAFU]

Hazeclaw, on 13 January 2018 - 07:47 AM, said:

Well yeah, but also the skill differential in FP is so huge, you have drops where top players in the game can face newbies with trial decks (or very special builds). You can frequently see strong 6 mans beating weaker unit 12 mans even with very little coordination. And the meta differences can just as easily be overcome in your avg FP match, you can win most of the time doing brawling as clan, and vomit trading as IS despite the factions being weaker in those areas

If only these newbies with trial decks could be warned about what they will/would face, right? Give them some indication of a minimal skill set, minimal mech requirements, something, so these poor newbies can make informed decisions for themselves and be responsible for those actions.

Are you surprised that a strong weaker force in numbers can beat a larger force? Have you ever read a History book?

[KingCobra]

TWIAFU, on 13 January 2018 - 08:24 AM, said:

If only these newbies with trial decks could be warned about what they will/would face, right? Give them some indication of a minimal skill set, minimal mech requirements, something, so these poor newbies can make informed decisions for themselves and be responsible for those actions.

Are you surprised that a strong weaker force in numbers can beat a larger force? Have you ever read a History book?

WOW this is so funny (newbies) newbies are like mythical creatures in MWO very rare to see 20 a year now.Lets be honest here most players with trial decks are smurfs ALT accounts or a few pugs that just don't by lights or a mech they need to complete a deck.

MWO will never change in FP because the lords of MWO want organized units to keep happy and grind C-bills off of dead pugs corpses.it has always been this way and I don't see the lords of MWO fixing this issue anytime soon even if it meant the end of this game.

[K O Z A K]

TWIAFU, on 13 January 2018 - 08:24 AM, said:

If only these newbies with trial decks could be warned about what they will/would face, right? Give them some indication of a minimal skill set, minimal mech requirements, something, so these poor newbies can make informed decisions for themselves and be responsible for those actions.

Are you surprised that a strong weaker force in numbers can beat a larger force? Have you ever read a History book?

umm ok, huh?

my point was if you truly believe that clan is stronger at brawling than IS in the context of FP, drop 2 waves of dakka annis/maulers/slepnirs..........laugh your a** off all the way to the clan drop zone, or in siege drop 2 waves of srm cyclops/victors and dual hg annis/maulers/slepnirs

[naterist]

How to save fw? Well since they removed the sandbox universe aspects, ghen they need to implement a lot more features.

They took what was at best an idie game quality mode and stripped it until it became more of a rough skeleton of what it was (3.0), left it for a while, then dumbed it down even more (4.1) and now 2 years later their wondering why its empty.

[MischiefSC]

Hazeclaw, on 12 January 2018 - 10:27 PM, said:

Dropping in FP with 4-6 other competent players will allow you to win most of the time no matter the state of balance, the tonnage discrepancy and balance right now allows IS to be very strong in brawling because you can stack multiple assaults, you should check it out, lots of fun

I have an alt I drop in IS with. Well aware of the state of balance on both sides.

IS assaults are a TRAP on most maps/modes. Clan assaults, MAD IIC/MC MKII, will crush any IS assault and chew the **** out of the 2nd one. Wave 2 is then fresh Clan heavies vs chewed IS assaults, which is also a roll. Then it goes down hill.

Run 4 heavies or 3 heavies and a medium. IS assaults are painfully slow and have a wide speed disparity so you're always spread out. Many lime the Mauler are very wide and clumsy, making it hard to cover lanes and push. Run 12 good heavies and focus on crippling Clan wave 1. Legs, ST. Then 2nd wave you smash them with fast heavies and push toward their DZ and eat their 2nd wave in pieces. The magic really happens on wave 3 when you're Roughnecks vs HBK IICs and Huntsmen and then wave 4 when you're Roughnecks, Bushies and Assassins vs Mist Lynx and ACH.

Defense you can get away with Cyclops and such but attacking or any other mode you need to exploit the power of WHRs, MADs and RHGs speed and engagement profile synergy to stay balled up and stronger later waves and better balance with Clan mediums.

Cuz Clan assaults are light years better than IS assaults in FW. For Clans it's the ability to eat 1.5 or 2 waves with your first that creates success. That or just LBK x 12 x 3 on any /mode if you don't want to have to think or try, just win because you showed up.

[justcallme A S H]

KingCobra, on 13 January 2018 - 08:44 AM, said:

WOW this is so funny (newbies) newbies are like mythical creatures in MWO very rare to see 20 a year now.Lets be honest here most players with trial decks are smurfs ALT accounts or a few pugs that just don't by lights or a mech they need to complete a deck.

MWO will never change in FP because the lords of MWO want organized units to keep happy and grind C-bills off of dead pugs corpses.it has always been this way and I don't see the lords of MWO fixing this issue anytime soon even if it meant the end of this game.

And yet if you read reddit there have been half a dozen new players in the last 2 weeks on there asking question, learning, wanting to improve their game.

And then there are guys like you who rather than wanting to improve their gameplay (when people like myself have offered to help many times) - you just accuse better players of hacking.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 13 January 2018 - 04:48 PM.

[K O Z A K]

MischiefSC, on 13 January 2018 - 11:29 AM, said:

I have an alt I drop in IS with. Well aware of the state of balance on both sides.

IS assaults are a TRAP on most maps/modes. Clan assaults, MAD IIC/MC MKII, will crush any IS assault and chew the **** out of the 2nd one. Wave 2 is then fresh Clan heavies vs chewed IS assaults, which is also a roll. Then it goes down hill.

Run 4 heavies or 3 heavies and a medium. IS assaults are painfully slow and have a wide speed disparity so you're always spread out. Many lime the Mauler are very wide and clumsy, making it hard to cover lanes and push. Run 12 good heavies and focus on crippling Clan wave 1. Legs, ST. Then 2nd wave you smash them with fast heavies and push toward their DZ and eat their 2nd wave in pieces. The magic really happens on wave 3 when you're Roughnecks vs HBK IICs and Huntsmen and then wave 4 when you're Roughnecks, Bushies and Assassins vs Mist Lynx and ACH.

Defense you can get away with Cyclops and such but attacking or any other mode you need to exploit the power of WHRs, MADs and RHGs speed and engagement profile synergy to stay balled up and stronger later waves and better balance with Clan mediums.

Cuz Clan assaults are light years better than IS assaults in FW. For Clans it's the ability to eat 1.5 or 2 waves with your first that creates success. That or just LBK x 12 x 3 on any /mode if you don't want to have to think or try, just win because you showed up.

IS assaults are absolutely beastly on many maps, IS has the best long range trading assault in the game, and the strongest brawling assaults in the game, only mid range trade assaults being better on clan. Where IS really loses out to clans is the heavies, thankfully in FP you can avoid that problem by dropping 2 assaults as IS (9/10 drops will be determined in the 1st/2nd wave anyways), and for close range maps you can follow that up with 2 of the best brawling mediums in the game.
Especially on hot maps an IS assault dakka wall can (very slowly) walk straight across the map to the clan dropzone, and nothing can stop the amt of armour and firepower that brings. Same as on the closer range siege maps (not boreal) IS srm/hgauss assaults walk all over the clans. Problem is most of the time people slow down/stop and try to trade with clans. You cannot play IS dakka or srm/hgauss brawlers conservatively, or clans will wear you down, you have to W key your way to victory.

Roughnecks are really meh. Linebacker is a good swiss army knife of a mech, although it doesn't have hitboxes that go out of whack for anyone with ping over 50 like some IS mechs, but linebacker rushes only really work because newer players panic, assassin rushes have the same effect at 25 tons less.

Where clans do have an advantage is the more open and cold/heat neutral QP maps, but you can still hold your own with battlemasters

[Leone]

justcallme A S H, on 13 January 2018 - 04:48 PM, said:

And yet if you read reddit there have been half a dozen new players in the last 2 weeks on there asking question, learning, wanting to improve their game.

Wait, what? Why wouldn't they come here? I don't reddit, but feel free to drop one of my walkthroughs on 'em, with any other commentary you feel necessary. I did make 'em so they could just be dropped on folk.

Assaulting thy Enemy
Community Warfare, a Primer

~Leone.

[MischiefSC]

Hazeclaw, on 14 January 2018 - 10:02 AM, said:

IS assaults are absolutely beastly on many maps, IS has the best long range trading assault in the game, and the strongest brawling assaults in the game, only mid range trade assaults being better on clan. Where IS really loses out to clans is the heavies, thankfully in FP you can avoid that problem by dropping 2 assaults as IS (9/10 drops will be determined in the 1st/2nd wave anyways), and for close range maps you can follow that up with 2 of the best brawling mediums in the game.
Especially on hot maps an IS assault dakka wall can (very slowly) walk straight across the map to the clan dropzone, and nothing can stop the amt of armour and firepower that brings. Same as on the closer range siege maps (not boreal) IS srm/hgauss assaults walk all over the clans. Problem is most of the time people slow down/stop and try to trade with clans. You cannot play IS dakka or srm/hgauss brawlers conservatively, or clans will wear you down, you have to W key your way to victory.

Roughnecks are really meh. Linebacker is a good swiss army knife of a mech, although it doesn't have hitboxes that go out of whack for anyone with ping over 50 like some IS mechs, but linebacker rushes only really work because newer players panic, assassin rushes have the same effect at 25 tons less.

Where clans do have an advantage is the more open and cold/heat neutral QP maps, but you can still hold your own with battlemasters

BLR 2C is situationally better on some maps for erlls. Otherwise it's SNV, even MK MC II. Or Warhawk. MAD IIC will out-brawl any IS assault - easily. So can a MC MK2.

Linebacker has a heat manageable 60 pt alpha and runs over 100, letting you overrun and close distances to brawl against better ranged mechs. KCom wins LBK rushes against great teams consistently.

If you can't out-dakka IS on hot maps I don't know what to tell you - Dakka Bear, lots of dakka options. Or just MPL boats - cold enough to run great on vitric. You can carry bigger loadouts and more ammo and go faster. The issues with Clan ballistics don't matyer much when shooting big assault mechs.

You can run lbx40 HBK IIC, all manner of cool running builds.

Clans can and do out-brawl IS if you're aggressive. Faster, ability to overrun and control the engagement, you win on heatcap.

Clans are best in 2 roles - trading at mid to long range and aggressive pushing. These are also the two most auccessful strats in the game.

[K O Z A K]

Cyclops will out-brawl any clan assault - easily.

If you can't out-dakka clans on hot maps I don't know what to tell you

Clans definately can and do out brawl IS if you have a better team, just like IS definately can and do out trade clan if you have a better team despite the factions respective strengths and weaknesses.

At the end of the day we all have our opinions I guess

[DevlinCognito]

Don't bring reasonable arguments and logic here! In penance you need to make a thread crying about how everyone who isn't you is OP and should be nerfed!

[MischiefSC]

Hazeclaw, on 14 January 2018 - 01:02 PM, said:

Cyclops will out-brawl any clan assault - easily.

If you can't out-dakka clans on hot maps I don't know what to tell you

Clans definately can and do out brawl IS if you have a better team, just like IS definately can and do out trade clan if you have a better team despite the factions respective strengths and weaknesses.

At the end of the day we all have our opinions I guess

Want to 1 v 1? Cyclops vs MAD or MC MKII?

Please list your better IS dakka builds. Clans have the exact same advantages in ballistics they have in energy - lighter, smaller, so more bang for the buck, better cooling and thanks to CXL and Cendo more total tonnage and space available.

The only reason Clan ballistics are not more popular is that Clan lasers are just so incredible. Clan ballistics are inferior for trading due to streams of rounds but in a push and against big assaults that's not relevant, so you get faster, stronger mechs in the same tonnage bracket. Clan mechs are universally cooler running than IS.

IS has some of its strongest brawlers in the heavy class, especially for coordinated pushes. Front loading 2 assaults is why IS tends to lose against decent Clan teams; it wastes the tonnage advantage.