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I do notice there is an anomaly in most matches that I lose, where I tend to get the most damage, kills, and highest score of all 24 people...but only when I lose. Just had this one a moment ago, and it's a perfect example of why I hate humanity



We had problems this match. HardonCollider connected late, but still had all 4 mechs to fight with, and still didn't do any better than that. AntFarm was there the whole time, but apparently had the shot of a moldy potato, since he couldn't break 40 damage with FOUR mechs. Meanwhile, bwserking lost his first mech, and disconnected for the rest of the match, since apparently he forgot that he still gets three more. Empyrrean had 2 mechs left, but spent a good 10 minutes of the match bitching about how the clan team had a lot of PPC builds, and how it wasn't "clanlike" as if it really mattered worth a damn.

Meanwhile, I spent the entire damn match shooting things, and by the time I lost my Raven (1500 damage or so), I had outdamaged the team. Didn't have long in my Ember before they downed the generator, but got 2 kills before they did.

I apparently found the epic matchup of Spec Ops vs Special Ed for that game.

 

You can't blame noobs for being noobs. They're probably new to the game, don't know how to pilot yet, and they see a shiny alert on their screen "planet X needs defenders!"... of course they click. CW is supposed to be the hardcore mode, how come it is the most obvious way for new players to launch a game?

And to be honest you're in easy mode on your raven, with all those waves of new mechs that will draw aggression and allow you to snipe all day long without much pressure.

 

You know that's stunningly true. I never even thought of that. Ouch that would be a horrible entry to the game.

 

Nice idea and very funny but real too long to get a match ... so i think if they don't change something it ll be a big fail.

And another BIG issue when soloQ fight against Full premade clan ...

 

Amen! I have had 8 matches so far with CW. I have been in the solo queue the entire time. Out of those 8 matches I have faced 2 PUG teams, the rest have all been premades. Wanna guess how those turned out? I can only carry so far.

 

I played some rounds in solo queue this WE. Waiting time is better today. This new Game Mode is really fun, because you have 4 Mechs in your Drop Ship, so the match is much more epic. Problem I see is the screwed Balance between Attackers and Defenders. In none of my rounds as Attackers did my team win. Instead it was always a massacre. Those Turrets. Those damn Turrets with LLas! This is made for making Attackers lose. No fun. And yeah, PUGs (Attackers) against Groups (Defenders) - you can imagine this worst-case situation. You can carry hard, but if there is no perfect coordination, you can't take that damn base.

 

Experience so far:

Not as bad as expected despite waiting 20+ minutes for a match, but even close matches don't always yield 80 points on a loss (the requirement for the challenge they're using to lure us in); and good effing luck reaching that target as a PuG vs a 12-man unless you carry hard. You get sniped, and you're SOL in all categories, even if you're contributing to the winning strategy. I think that at least for CW, they should seriously consider implementing a match score bonus for eating damage for comrades, using a similar method as the 'protected' bonuses but in reverse. If you and your team are engaged and you're eating the damage, you should be getting a 'protector' bonus.

Did tweak my load-outs further with the idea of down-sizing for space so long as it provides range, which bumped score considerably, though I'm still trying to find the right sizes of LRM launcher when I do fit them. I think there is room for limited brawl builds on small mechs, but true brawl assaults are probably dead space in your drop deck and in the match when assaulting...and when assaulting, long range is still important because of being able to damage the objective. Then again, if you're making the enemy come to you (the defender), that brawl can be amazing because HEY LOOK AT ALL THE TARGETS OF OPPORTUNITY! Is it Christmas, or what? I'm curious how the meta will fall out for larger groups in terms of number of sniper mechs vs brawler mechs, or if mixed loadouts will become preferred to let the whole team snipe and then brawl.

CW is finally going to break my Gauss aversion and get me to learn to aim/fire the damn things properly, methinks. *shakefist* Approving of the charge mechanic sure as hell doesn't mean I've gotten good at it.

And yeah, I've decided to take up the strategy of grinding with each faction starting with the ones I like least just to get the achievement rewards, then saying 'screw the titles and stuff' and moving on to the next faction. Partly RP, partly the desire to change up between IS and Clan sometimes in CW, but mostly because we can.

 

I don't know why, but I've had better luck against premades than I've had against PUGs. In fact, I'd say at least 3/4 of my losses were against PUG groups (or teams with only 2 or 3 mans). That said...if you're trying to get the 80 match score, take your long range ACs, Gauss, PPCs and Lasers. I don't think I've scored under 175 yet in a match where there was another team present.

 

So, I take back part of what I said. Have been in multiple matches where NO-ONE qualifies, even the winning team, precisely because the match score requirement is 80 and how match score is calculated. Being able to literally win hard enough that you can't qualify is actually kind of worse than losing and coming so very close but not making it by just a few points.

I hope they're getting good data with this first rush, because the incentive is bunk. That aside, I do like the mode and am looking forward to it expanding with more maps and options. It would be interesting to have, for example, a pair of compressed maps for drop decks approved for higher tonnage (requiring larger mechs outright), or a pair of squirrelier maps with a lower tonnage (encouraging smaller mechs outright). Before that, though, at least 4-6 maps for the current range would be nice to see and any incoming tweaks.

 

Not sure what the difference is here but our experiences with CW are way different. I drop mostly with a full lance, or at least one more. Practically never play solo.

I have 1 game out of my 20+ that failed to quality, a Zerg rush no the first cycle. The rest qualified for the challenge. Most were entertaining, some insanely frustrating as PUGs refused to invest in attacking. Not counting two which failed to find opposition. Not counting the crazy waiting time in queuing.

There's a lot, a huge lot of issues remaining before this is fully enjoyable however.

 

ok I think this thread IS appropriate for what I have to say.

The maps.those goddamn awful maps. Again. Can someone please tell PGI that they need to hire dedicated map designers? Like, a team of 3?

Boreal Vault:

The useless gates (gates serve NO function whatsoever) are so close together, why are there even 2 gates in the first place? There is huge freaking sniper hill in front of them and if the defending team does NOT have shit for brains (and that is the only thing a defending team needs to qualify for an win on their behalf), they will stop every rush. There are those rare exceptions where an attacking team is able to win but that is statistical necessity rather than proof of balance.
Drop ship shoots you even if you're AT the gate.

Sulfur thing something map:

This one is harder to defend, because the turrets are placed in a .. let's say.. less stupid way.
But as attacker you have to run 40km to reach either of the gates, which does not serve any fuckin purpose other than to delay your approach. so it takes you longer to regroup after the first wave was shot to death. What exactly is that supposed to achieve in terms of balancing? Is it so that the attackers are more likely to time out? Gates are still horrible choke points and the defenders can switch gates much quicker than the attackers.

There is no strategy behind it all.. it's just a stupid push. If there were a mechanism that makes the gates close again after XX seconds if condition XYZ is not met in time.. yeah that would be something. It could require light mechs to do role warfare for instance. Right now, the closer you get to the enemy base, the more resistance you have to fight (difficulty grows exponentially)

It's like to have to jump over a 8ft river. You jump, and you don't make it and drown. You respawn, try it again, drown again. rinse and repeat. every 50 years or so a guy will come along who can jump that distance and not drown. Is that a reason not to build a bridge?

or you could just Zerg Rush.

Neither of the options I can see to win has anything to do with role warfare or skill. It really is:

"People, snuggle up on G6."
"Come on, time's runnig out." - "but dude my crab is so slow!" - "*sigh*"
"Ok push."
-- everyone dies--
"Ok let's try again with more medium mechs. Gather at G6."

Defend = win 90% of the time

Also, the drop ship lands ON the freaking base, so you not onl yhave to survive the turrets but you WILL get shot by several drop ships as well as newly deployed enemy mechs that drop right on top of your cockpit!?

This flavor of CW is just so silly and strange.

 

Hey my spider can make taht jump easily!

Oh wait its not in my deck.

 

So far on Boreal, I've never seen an attacking force get anywhere near the objective with the exception of one Stormcrow that was able to make it there in a mad rush and died after landing one shot. Everyone else gets stalled at or just within the gate. The defending force has a huge advantage. That being said, a huge brawl at the gates leading to the annihilation of one team has usually led to almost every person on each team meeting the 80 Match point requirements.

On Sulphur, I have had the opposite experience with the attacking team being able to just push straight in to the objective and knock it down by the third wave. Sure you take massive losses but if you get 3 or 4 guys there each wave, it will go down. The problem with this is that by focusing on the objective, Match points crater, and only some of each team make the 80 point requirement.

 

Whatever the ice map one is? That has a bug on it that I discovered the other night... I can shoot the enemy from the outside and they can't come after me. They can shoot me back but they can't physically get to me yet I can laz0r them behind their little wall!!!

 

That's all I go up against when I solo queue... Since my unit can't do CW...

 

Yeah, when I get 75-79 match score and fail to qualify, it's frustrating but not really on PGI per se. It's the nature of a challenge and play. And each time so far I've been able to find something I should have done better to make up the difference.


When I get 50 or less and don't qualify despite being part of the winning strategy and having average damage, it's frustrating because that's more about the structure of the system itself. It's about the number of points awarded for objectives and getting the killing blow or not. That's less about an individual not meeting the mark and more about how the pie is determined. This sucks because there are multiple different cases where the match couldn't be won without a specific player's actions, but they would still lose out. The point structure is geared too much towards 12-man Skirmish x4 rather than a map with key objectives and rewarded behaviors that contribute to victory.
-Were you the one that dropped the power generator(s) that allowed the team to rush with less armor-traded and get more collective damage on Omega, even though it means you got shredded? Too bad.
-Were you the one that kept focus and actually dropped Omega? Too bad.
-Were you the mech responsible for keeping turret and LRM damage to the team low? Too bad.
-Were you the one able to protect the team to the objective with epic armor soak, but lost your weapon components too early and your damage plummeted because of that crit? Too bad.
You may get C-Bills and XP for those things, but your MATCH SCORE doesn't reflect your contribution. Not to mention that unless your damage nets the actual assist, it's virtually worthless for match-score purposes. Legging or taking out a weapon doesn't cut the mustard, even when it's the more optimal strategy.


What really bugs me, though, is that if one team wins too hard, even they won't all qualify...and it's not like that's a fringe case. You just need one mech to go unnoticed for not very long, which is surprisingly easy on the Sulfur map. One of the matches I was in *I* was that mech, and I was in a freaking Battlemaster with a STD 300 engine. Unmastered. Not even 55kph on its best day, and not exactly stealthy, yeah? Sure, it means the other team over-commited to a certain gate and didn't backtrack hard enough to defend the cannon, but it meant NO ONE qualified in that match because it was a 1st-rush win. You just took a critical objective with the max salvage for your faction and losses so minimal that it would make your commanders shower you with accolades...but in a practical sense, you're punished for it.


Yeah, I get that for most intents and purposes, when there's no match-score related challenge going it doesn't matter. You won, you got your in-match C-Bills, you get to the next drop faster...better rewards overall and per-time. But it still means that match score is calculated wildly inappropriately, and that's just going to keep bothering me on principle. The main problem is that it will skew their data collection. If players play for match score rather than wins, and PGI doesn't recognize that, they're going to take the wrong message away. Made worse because behavior will likely revert to 'win hard' the moment the challenge is over for the people that did.


For the rest, I agree with you. There is good there, that with the right polish and iteration passes could become something great. And HOLY CRAP, it's finally here, for real! Overall, I like it. And if PGI keeps showing their new spirit and keeps making it better, I'll be along for the ride!

 

The 80 match score thing is pretty easy though...the ONLY time I've failed to get it was in a match where we made repeated generator rushes to get it down, so I was barely firing at mechs - not counting "no defender" matches. Even in the worst stomps that I've seen, I've broken 150-175 points regardless of what mechs I used (got a nice 9 kill run with my Ember during one stomp, for instance). It's an easily attainable number in most cases...

 

6-man + 5-man + solo vs 12 solos.

No one on my team broke 80 match score, despite our decisive victory. On the other hand, we won, as attackers, on Boreal...

 

Man, that's so weird, it's almost like you're saying what I'm saying. A good player who plays like Skirmish and does so well is fine regardless of win/loss, while players who focus on map objectives for winning, or are actually sniped/focused, will not. In a fairly normal match where both teams cluster fight, you don't even have to be that good on your own, your team just has to not suck. Conversely, regular and very possible match outcomes encouraged by the match structure will not qualify even when the team could not have won that way without your actions. This means the challenge structure is directly at odds with gathering data on CW matches, since the challenge structure is fundamentally different. That's my concern. SAI Peregrinus posted a very good example of what I'm talking about. Decisive win by playing to the CW objectives, fails to meet challenge criteria because it is structured around an entirely different win condition. The two people who met the criterion were on the losing team, and did so because of K/D/A like the match was a single round Skirmish. Sure, that means those two did their job as defense well, and much better than the rest of their team, but the attackers didn't despite winning optimally.