152 replies to this topic

[C337Skymaster]

Just to add my two cents about changing factions to be one of the clubbers instead of one of the seals: I tried that, tonight, and it didn't work. It seemed like there were organized teams on each side of the fight, but the matchmaker wasn't setting them against each other. Instead, each organized team was given 12 baby seals, regardless of faction, and the clubbing commenced. I had ONE semi-balanced game that came down to the timer (we still lost), and the rest were complete roflstomps of barely 1 drop to all 4 of ours.

It's really no fun at all to just be someone else's cannon fodder, and it makes me not want to keep playing. I'll just go back to Battletech, thanks. I was intrigued by the free MC, but it's not worth the frustration.

[justcallme A S H]

TBH I have seen the builds you bring.

Your poor experience is definitely a result, in part, of your own actions.

[Ghogiel]

C337Skymaster, on 10 August 2018 - 05:46 PM, said:

It's really no fun at all to just be someone else's cannon fodder, and it makes me not want to keep playing.

You are content for other players to farm

ggclose

[C337Skymaster]

Ash: Stock loadouts. Flavor. Soul. Bringing 2 Heavy Large and 6 ERMed on every single platform that has, or can have, 8 energy hardpoints isn't fun. It strips the life and soul out of the game.

I run stock builds because that's the soul of Battletech. Each loadout has its own meaning and purpose, and I endeavour to use them for their stated purpose.

Now, it's true: I've mastered all of the good ones, and am on to the sucky ones, but even those can perform admirably in the proper environment and in a well-balanced match. My stock 'mech that still has its stock rear armor (which has successfully surprised more than one sneaky back-stabber, by the way) can't stand up to two hellbringers with the loadout I mentioned above. Not much can. I don't want to chase the meta. I want to play the game, and understand the fictional engineers who built the 'mechs the way they did. Plus the added challenge of doing well in a crap build.

But again, there's a difference between 10-48, and 30-48, or 40-48. My use of stock loadouts might be blamed for a 40-48 match. Even a 30-48 match. But there's WAY more going on in a 10-48 match than the weapons I brought and my armor configuration.

[justcallme A S H]

That fine - run stock loadouts and totally ignore the warning screen you agreed too.

It's no one's fault but your own.

[Appogee]

There are so many misconceptions and misleading statements in this thread from players who are clearly unfamiliar with Faction Play. It worries me that the misinformation may spread and infect others.

Edited by Appogee, 10 August 2018 - 10:58 PM.

[Appogee]

C337Skymaster, on 10 August 2018 - 05:46 PM, said:

It seemed like there were organized teams on each side of the fight, but the matchmaker wasn't setting them against each other.

There is no matchmaking in FP beyond 'assemble two teams of 12' and 'groups of 12 move to the front of the queue. It's just random. Nothing stacked either for or against you.

The only non-random factor is that some groups deliberately wait until another strong group is in the lobby before dropping, so as to avoid that group. I am glad to belong to a unit where we actually try to drop against other units, not avoid them. We enjoy a good fight, not seal clubbing.

You can increase your odds of a win by grouping with other players. Teamwork is the single biggest factor in FP wins. Individual player skill - build optimization, positioning, aiming/shielding, and using the rhythm of a 4-wave battle - is the next biggest factor.

[Appogee]

C337Skymaster, on 10 August 2018 - 07:59 PM, said:

Ash: Stock loadouts. Flavor. Soul. Bringing 2 Heavy Large and 6 ERMed on every single platform that has, or can have, 8 energy hardpoints isn't fun. It strips the life and soul out of the game.

I run stock builds because that's the soul of Battletech. Each loadout has its own meaning and purpose, and I endeavour to use them for their stated purpose.

You are trading off your chance of winning for your desire to be a lorist running highly sub-optimal builds. That's a choice you are making.

You cannot complain about not winning when you are in effect making your team carry you. It'd be like me playing basketball and insisting my team accept that I will only ever take shots from outside the 3-pointer line because "that's the only way I like to play".

Eisenhorne, on 08 August 2018 - 08:48 AM, said:

If you play enough to recognize players, the entire match is often a foregone conclusion, lol... The challenge then becomes how well can you PERSONALLY do in that situation? Its like your Kobiyoshi Maru.... what do you do when faced with a no-win situation? For me, if I can get at least 1500 damage and 4 kills, I'll consider it a personal victory. It's usually doable, even if the other team is a coordinated 12 man.

Very true. Plus, the most cherished wins are the ones when you beat what seemed like an unbeatable foe. They are the wins that keep many of us coming back to FP.

[Prototelis]

I have to agree with that sentiment.

Every once in a while some of the peeps I roll with will beat ASH and crew, which is always awesome. Most of the time we lose, but I personally enjoy going up against more challenging teams.

****, just making a good team work for a win is a win in my book.

[PocketYoda]

Until PSR, skill trees, and real clan balance changes nothing will bring me back..

[S O L A I S]

El Bandito, on 05 August 2018 - 09:17 PM, said:

At least in SQ solo pugs have 50-50 chance. They have less in GQ and FP. Plus, it is far more discouraging for the pugs, compared to SQ, to see (MS) 12-man group at the start up screen--and know what will happen, cause they are gonna get their arse kicked straight up for 20 minutes. Matches that are decided at the start are far more painful, the longer they have to drag on. We had plenty of enemy pugs discoing, and suiciding cause they hated the idea of playing against us, especially during this event. MC prize allure might be good in the short run, but in the long run PGI is exposing those clueless pugs to the merciless nature of FP, thus potentially alienating them.

Yeah I know what you are talking about. Just recently was in an eight man and our pugs saw we were matched up against MS and immediately got upset and started complaining that we were going to lose.... we laughed until we realised that they were not joking. (guess we were slightly annoyed they didn't know who we were as well)

Even after we won the first wave 12-2 they were still convinced somehow MS was going to make a come back. None of them did very well and three out of four pretty much did nothing the entire match.

I struggle with this.

CW needs players, but needs the kind of players who are interested in playing as part of a team. When you have pugs that see a twelve man of the same unit and give up, it is not good for the other guys who may be in there to give it their all and try as hard as they can.

So as far as the mercilessness of the mode and alienation goes... I don't know. To be honest I would be happy if PGI did more events to draw people in and let nature do it's thing knowing that only a small portion overall will become 'invested' in CW.

[S O L A I S]

Khobai, on 06 August 2018 - 12:51 AM, said:

They really should try the split queues.

Its not like they can make FP worse.

And if they dont do anything about sealclubbing, its certainly not going to make FP better.

There is nothing to lose by trying. Because doing nothing is going to result in FP dying anyway.

You're wrong.

There are enough people still holding on in CW and spending money that PGI clearly wants to retain. All the money spent on Solaris, and still no where near the population CW has.

There are not enough groups running around to have a split queues. You also have a very, very large disparity in skill between the various groups and units playing. Newer units or starter units or small units, etc all need the current mixed player pool.

You want to stop seal clubbing start off by gating the mode off from brand new or perpetually terrible players and focus all efforts in getting team oriented people into the mode and more tools to help people organise.

[S O L A I S]

C337Skymaster, on 10 August 2018 - 07:59 PM, said:

Ash: Stock loadouts. Flavor. Soul. Bringing 2 Heavy Large and 6 ERMed on every single platform that has, or can have, 8 energy hardpoints isn't fun. It strips the life and soul out of the game.

I run stock builds because that's the soul of Battletech. Each loadout has its own meaning and purpose, and I endeavour to use them for their stated purpose.

Now, it's true: I've mastered all of the good ones, and am on to the sucky ones, but even those can perform admirably in the proper environment and in a well-balanced match. My stock 'mech that still has its stock rear armor (which has successfully surprised more than one sneaky back-stabber, by the way) can't stand up to two hellbringers with the loadout I mentioned above. Not much can. I don't want to chase the meta. I want to play the game, and understand the fictional engineers who built the 'mechs the way they did. Plus the added challenge of doing well in a crap build.

But again, there's a difference between 10-48, and 30-48, or 40-48. My use of stock loadouts might be blamed for a 40-48 match. Even a 30-48 match. But there's WAY more going on in a 10-48 match than the weapons I brought and my armor configuration.

Wait wut? You're running stock mechs in CW? WTF....really?

Even more hilarious is you not getting that what you are doing is absof#$^inglootly screwing over your team, in a highly team focused mode.

Oh and your assertion of the evil and dreaded meta is nonsense. This is the list most of the better players turn to for builds in CW

https://docs.google....#gid=1496649597

Lots and lots of builds and choices for all ranges, and most use this as a start point and tweak builds or are inspired by some of them and run it on something else. Saying that folks metawhoring are all running around in the same thing and lacking variety is not anything close to what is actually occurring in the wild.

The heart and soul of this franchise has always been the mechs and combat. Not what each particular mech is carrying. Especially considering that the loadouts were designed with table top in mind and not a sandbox video game.

[JRcam4643]

For me the primary reason not to do faction play is the invasion maps suck.

[Phyrce]

Big Tin Man, on 05 August 2018 - 09:03 AM, said:

So Russ says the event has brought FP pop up 5-6x from the past months. So how about this for a short term fix until they come up with whatever FP 5.0 might be.

One week IS v IS
One week IS v Clan
One week Clan v Clan

Repeat until FP 5.0 is released. It's something for everyone, and 2 of the 3 weeks people won't complain about clan v IS balance.

Not tough to do, brings population back, creates balance in FP with same tech bases fighting each other. And I miss shooting Kurita scum.

Too bad that faction play pop increasing 5-6x basically kills all the other game modes because the player base isn't there to support it.

[JRcam4643]

This thread is as good a place as any to say that FP should be changed so that you earn points in battles that are used to buy war assets and which ever side places the most effective assets wins and allow players to track their points and assets and give players the option to move assets from one planet to another if they deem it better.

I'm not going to go into a lot detail since not many people would support such an idea but if they changed FP to a system that would capture some players who like chasing points and managing assets that they get. And they could do this with out changing how the battles currently work.

[LowSubmarino]

Id never again play FP with random ppl because chances are too high you get a team that runs single file into team reds firing line and you are down 9 mechs after 2 mins with no hope of ever coming back and you get massacred for 30 mins.

That simply was no fun.

id only play FP if I know every single player in my team and they had to be good. No cannonfodder push overs.

[Dragonporn]

To think about it, in competitive sense, both FP and GP were destined to die out slow, horrible death, because of one thing: missing ranking system/no working PSR. And that's also the reason certain pop cannot get over specifics of QP. I mean, look at pretty much any popular competitive game, it has working team/solo ranking systems, and they might not be super accurate, but at least they do something. In MWO there's none. PSR bar helps very little in QP, but that's it. In pretty much any competitive mode there would be hardcore nolive units and casuals. Some people can dedicate 20 hours a day for training and playing (Asian pro scene lol), others are available once a week at best for couple of hours. Pitting one such unit against another would have known, and very sad results. Currently PGI is unable to come up with any sensible rating system for those gamemodes, and actual shrinking playerbase adds insult to the injury, so with low pop it won't work, not sure they even care, because it's pointless at this stage... Such a waste though.

Edited by Dragonporn, 15 August 2018 - 10:10 PM.

[Rafe Yomin]

Dragonporn, on 15 August 2018 - 10:09 PM, said:

To think about it, in competitive sense, both FP and GP were destined to die out slow, horrible death, because of one thing: missing ranking system/no working PSR. And that's also the reason certain pop cannot get over specifics of QP. I mean, look at pretty much any popular competitive game, it has working team/solo ranking systems, and they might not be super accurate, but at least they do something. In MWO there's none. PSR bar helps very little in QP, but that's it. In pretty much any competitive mode there would be hardcore nolive units and casuals. Some people can dedicate 20 hours a day for training and playing (Asian pro scene lol), others are available once a week at best for couple of hours. Pitting one such unit against another would have known, and very sad results. Currently PGI is unable to come up with any sensible rating system for those gamemodes, and actual shrinking playerbase adds insult to the injury, so with low pop it won't work, not sure they even care, because it's pointless at this stage... Such a waste though.

We just don't have the population for an actual rank system. I'm in T3 and when i play i am in T1 matches a lot. This shows me that any ranking system will fail. It already needs to go to the maximum the system can go during EU evenings/nights, and go outside of the bracket is normally should find a match.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

was a Pain from beginning ...The ship has no targetharbour a Crew thats all months change and a Captain thats set the Harbour each Day new for the Passenger who hopes thats buy most ...first great Words...than all energy in CW (and no experience) than Transverse...Esport ...CW next Phase ...MW5....Solaris ...and in all the Years only 20? Maps (thats to less for a Planet and a shame for a Campaign ), many CW Maps bad designed and have Maze Styles like the old 80th Years Games, whats is with the team thats rework the old Maps like river? gone or work to MW5 (who the last News of the PGI Site is from the Mech Con 2017! )???? the new maps not really looks like this Team...a CW with Maps thats not make for unique Planets like Tharkand .A CW with nothing logistic or strategic Elements in a Campaign Mode, and Loyality is senseless.only the MW and BT Brand holds MWO over the Years to life...against by Games like War Thunder or Star Conflict (last Game only the Grinding is horrible)..this game is a Blame and Shame Show a one Man Truman Show...all Hopes im thinking now by MW5, the Game who News like White Elephants and only PC Gamers brings a new Preview all Years.


Many Other Games have like MWO no Matchmaking ...he have Lobbyservers and respawns ...you will not fight with the Guys of a server and with the Rules ...ok ...you search you a other Server with more fun ...thats the biggest Fail by MWO (like other games seeing Robocraft)..seeing Star Conflict -the level of your Fighter give the Match class ...buy a High level Fighter and you by the Sharks -negative Side, as Old Shark use a T1 Fighter and clubbing the Seals

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 16 August 2018 - 03:18 AM.