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Post by iw5000 on Aug 8, 2014 11:05:23 GMT -5
(Scroll down a few posts for the final update)----------------------------------------------- This is an update about HSV1 and Clan Wars in general. There's at least thirty or so guys from this board who have been part of this clan at some point or another this year, the CoD Ghosts season. I thought I would drop an update out to those people, as well as anyone else who followed along this past year. Haven't done so since March, and now seems like as good of time as any. Why update now? Clan Wars is coming to an end. The CoD Ghost Clan season is going to end with two more clan wars. One on August 16th/17th. And then the final CW on Sept 6th/7th. After that, Beachhead Studios is going to take the top eight clans in what most likely will be three brackets, and then hold what is essentially a CoD Clan World Championship on Sept 20th/21st. People/clans are still waiting on full details of prizes, brackets and rules, but the dates have been finalized. What has so far been ten months of some very grueling competition, is coming to a close. Here's what the ride has looked like: - Around 110,000 clans got into this competition last Nov and Dec, competing in the Bronze - Platinum divisions. - Around 20,000 of those above clans qualified for a league type play called 'Diamond Division' in Jan. - After the first two clan wars, rankings came out. We got initially placed 1,049th. 35,392 clans would go into Diamond - By April, we worked our way up to 309th, then lost a bad CW. Dropped to 360th. Then had clan issues (11 people left). - We then regrouped becoming stronger, rallied, and won 5 out of 6 Clan Wars. Now up at 34th in the world. We are right on the cusp or maybe even in the Clan Championships in September. 34th in the world (out of 110,000 clans initially), and 2nd in our current bracket. And what a grind this has been getting there. The last few months have been nothing but grueling competition after competition. Clan War's matchmaking is difficult. The better you do, the better the clans you get matched up with. It's Skill Based MatchMaking at it's finest (or worst) In the last few months, as we have climbed higher, we have faced off against nothing but elite clans. Well over a dozen top 100 clans, a few of them even in the top 20. This past weekend, we even knocked off a clan in that elite top 25 group 534-434 (as well as beating three other clans in the top 100), helping to push us into the 34th overall ranking. This was a huge upset win for us. And let me say this again. 'Grueling' is the understatement of the year when describing this journey. I have done CoD LAN, GB, other clan comps in the past years five or six years, and nothing has been this taxing in terms of overall committment. On every aspect and level. Time spent, the actual competition, ridiculous amounts of ongoing organization upkeep and last but not least, watching multiple friendships blow up as well as what seems like herding hundreds of people in and out the clan at times. Ridiculous amount of exhaustion. There have been times we have competed for eight hours, only to lose a contest due to a 2 minute mistake. This competition can make people explode in anger. There have been many victims. I have personally seen dozens of very elite clans simply blow up this year, due to the way this contest is structured (ie, the more you win, the better your competition) And with all that above work, there have been many very loyal people who have put in quite a bit of work to help keep this going. A lot of people have contributed in many different ways. They know who they are. Thank you. It's been a journey & experience I will never forget. I have had the opportunity to get to know a lot of great people. Many in other top clans, as well as a number of people at BeachHead Studios too. Learned a lot. I am ready for this to end though. It's time. But first, two more competitions coming up and then (hopefully) one more in September.
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Post by iw5000 on Aug 21, 2014 14:50:15 GMT -5
UPDATE.. Last weekend's clan war. Victory!!! We won it by a large margin. This helped us move up six spots, getting us to #28 in the world (out of 32,000 Diamond clans, and around 110,000 clans overall in CoD) What also helped is that the #5 ranked clan got busted for cheating. That got us another spot too. BeachHead studios effectively banned them from the rankings, knocking them down to 1 pt. Their loss, our gain. So based on the results, this has us qualifying for one of the spots in the Sep 20th Clan World Championships. We still have one more clan war left on Sep 13/14th, but as of now, we are in. One of the qualifying clans. That's pretty exciting. Now we just need to get people who can play for that big event.
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Post by jaedrik on Aug 24, 2014 15:03:45 GMT -5
It's neat to see we have a Den bro that does competitive play
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markopolo
True Bro
Once a LMG Camper, Then a Voidlock, Now a Lexington 25-8-366 Runner
Posts: 5,567
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Post by markopolo on Aug 24, 2014 15:09:09 GMT -5
Grats!
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Post by iw5000 on Sept 18, 2014 14:59:50 GMT -5
Updating this thread. There's been two clan wars since the original post on August 8th. We won 1st in both of them, winning the most recent last weekend. So with that, the first ever CoD "Clan Wars" regular season has come to a close. BeachHead studios tallied up all the points on the leaderboards, and when the dust cleared....we finished 24th in the CoD world out of some 110,000 to 120,000 clans. As I said in the original post, it's been one of the wildest and craziest competitive CoD rides I have ever been on. Repeating what i said before, I've done prior clan comps. I've done game battles. I've done a few mlg events. This year long competition takes the cake, in terms of just pure 100% emotional wear & tear. For a recent example of just how mind-Foxtroting this game can be on it's clan members, about a month ago Wicked Elite, the world's number #1 ranked clan, dropped out. The cited personal reasons, namely the stress & infighting it was causing in their ranks. But we (HSV1) are somehow still here. God only knows how. And the good news with the above season end is that HSV1 did enough to qualify for this weekend's 'Battle Royale', the end season CoD Clan World Championships. First time CoD has ever done something like this, and we made the cut. Tomorrow morning I am going to opt us into the event, and then things are going to go crazy as all hell the next few days. First up is going to be trying to decide which bracket to compete. There will be four brackets of seven clans (a total of 28 clans qualified for this event). An 12 class, 13-20, 21-50 and 51-100. There's just one time zone, so the Euro, Asian, and US clans will all be mixing it up at one starting time.... 2pm to 6pm ET US. Eight of the top 20 clans are European, with the current #3 clan being from Poland. Pretty much, if you aren't at full max participation for one of these buckets, you are dead from the start. So you got to be at 12, 20, 50, or 100. Right now, based on rankings, the 13-20 and 21-50 look to be the most difficult (especially with Wicked now gone). But that's semantics, every single clan playing in this tournament is just terrifyingly good. These are groups that have made it through 15 or so clans wars. Some professionally sponsored. All about as battle tested group of core teams as one can find. There will be no quit in ANY clan this weekend. Then there is us, a bunch of somewhat average joes. Which makes the whole process kind of unbelievable. Right now, we are leaning towards going into the 12 or 13-20 bucket, depending on our last ditch recruiting drive. Attrition has worn down our numbers. And with a number of our better higher KD slayers not going to be around this weekend, we are grasping a bit. We are trying to piece together anywhere from two to six squads, but the slayer players are not quite there yet. We are still finding these players even today. It's a bit unnerving, as with this Championship, pretty much all our squads are pretty much going to have to win just about EVERY game they play over the two rounds of play Saturday and Sunday. Eight hours in all, probably fifty games in all. Yes, you are playing pub lobbies, but one out of every 3 or 4 games is against other clans. You pretty much have to win 'em all. Go 50-0!, and have a bit of luck in finding lobbies and good connections. The whole process can be pretty stressful (but in a good way) So as said above, our squads aren't quite there yet. But we're working on it (chemistry, setups, who is playing with who, etc..). A few us have leading this have already exchanged probably a couple hundred emails this week. The odds are very much against us, but you got to go for it in life. Aim high and go big. There is no other way. And as with all clan wars, it will be fun to be able to actually use the CoD skills that one has accumulated over the year's, in something meaningful. With this event, there is nothing bigger. So win or lose, we are going to go for it. Here's to hoping!!! Round 1 - Saturday Sept 20th, 2pm to 6pm ET US Round 2 - Sunday Sept 21st, 2pm to 6pm ET US
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markopolo
True Bro
Once a LMG Camper, Then a Voidlock, Now a Lexington 25-8-366 Runner
Posts: 5,567
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Post by markopolo on Sept 18, 2014 15:19:19 GMT -5
Good luck to all of you!
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hebbnh
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Post by hebbnh on Sept 18, 2014 15:24:28 GMT -5
Awesome! Congrats on making the cut and good luck this weekend!
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Post by iw5000 on Sept 19, 2014 12:46:43 GMT -5
So we are officially in. Just got word. In exactly 24 hours, this is going to happen!
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wittyscorpion
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All warfare is based on deception.
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Post by wittyscorpion on Sept 20, 2014 13:13:39 GMT -5
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Post by iw5000 on Sept 22, 2014 9:31:11 GMT -5
this is a copy and past from our website hsv1.boards.net/thread/302/cod-clan-world-championships-results------------------------------------- HSV1 WINS THEIR CoD CLAN CHAMPIONSHIP BRACKET!!!
Ok, where to start? How about a big old 'Foxtrot YEAH' that the grind and competition is over, and we did it. Our journey that started eleven months ago, with the goal of being amongst the best clans in the world ended with a rousing HUGE success. I'll be doing an end season recap post in a few days, but for now, I am just going to focus on THIS Clan Championship win.
DAYS BEFORE
This weekend was just a microcosm of the whole year.
We started out late to the gate in terms of getting feedback from our clan. By mid week last week, the StoneCold household was in a bit of panic in what appeared to be some heavy apathy from the clan. No one was getting back to me. But while we might have been a bit late in getting people to the start, I am very proud of everyone's efforts in ultimately stepping up. I can say by Sunday morning, I had talked to well over 60+ people in this clan who got back to me in some shape, manner or form about the War. Thank you. Thank all of you. I truly do mean that and appreciate your caring.
And that late push by clan members ultimately saved this Clan Championships for us. That is the 'theme' of this post, if I had to find one. A lot of people stepping up from all sorts of places to help us get the biggest 'W' of the Ghosts Clan War season, in the highest field of play.
SATURDAY - ROUND 1
The process started with Saturday's round 1. We fielded two squads but unfortunately disaster struck when the competitions saw a hacker knock out the entire worldwide CoD network. We were in 2nd place at the 80 min mark, but it was disheartening. Words cannot explain how soul-sucking it is on one's mental state to prepare for an event of this magnitude, and then have it get shut down, and have to wait until round 2 the next day. But we were there on Saturday, battling. Props to those who showed up to help just on Saturday. A number of vets who showed up to help. RunForrest cancelling plans with his wife to be there. Bluntz coming around. Haku showing up from nowhere. Newer clan guys like StingierKyle, iGradiated. Thank you and props. Even though the event crashed Saturday, you kept us alive. You kept us in the game, which allowed to win on Sunday. THANK YOU!
Then it came down to Sunday. One day. One moment. One four hour battle amongst SEVEN clans ranked in the top 35 (*top 35 clans out of 120,000 clans who started this process). All in one bracket. As I mentioned, it was mentally hard to regroup after Saturday's shutdown. But regroup we did. I put out a huge call for help and the clan responded in a HUGE WAY in the 20 hours we had before Sunday's start. Calls, texts and emails came flying in all night. I don't think people will ever understand what we did in that time frame. We literally replaced half our of squad and put in replacements for Sunday. That's where 'depth' comes in and our clan had it. Props.
SUNDAY - 'PRE-GAME'
...and let me say this. I was proud of those who showed up Sunday too. We had a number of long time vets/older bros who changed their schedules to help. MalGato, Swain, SnipingmyJayz. Then some long time vets who had been gone awhile, just flying in ready to battle, like Saggy, Edog, & Coronaman. Can't forget another vet GladiusThrust, he was there both days! . Plus some new guys who hadn't had much Clan War experience, but responded like champs, people like MonstahOne and zzHaXZz. And of course, Aroc and EliteWarrior....wow, where to start? These two players are two of the most competitive/skilled/battle tested players I know.....and I could write a whole post about these two, but that will come in a few days in final recap post. They will have their turn. Stay tuned.
HaXZz, Gladius, Stone, Aroc, Elite, ....the five of us played both days. And below is a snapshot for the ages, the twelve of us who got us there!
ROUND TWO START
This was clan wars at it's finest. Back and forth. High drama. We opted to go down to the '12-person' bracket for this Championship, so the pressure was on our two squads to win. Each squad was probably going to have to play around 28 to 30 CoD games in the four hour time limit. What game modes? We wouldn't know until seconds before we played them. We would have to pretty much win every game we played. And yes, while it was public lobbies with random opponents at times, both squads would probably being playing at least half their games against other full partied clans. That's pressure. I know my squad had eight games against just other Champion Bracket clans alone. We went 6-2 against them. THAT is clutching it. Overall, my squad went like 28-2. Our other squad went around 31-0. But more impressive yet, many of those wins came in game modes we do not play, like HC TDM. Great job! But even with those winning results, sometimes that's not enough. Every clan that made it this far, are simply studs. ALL of them tested. And that's where the Clan War tactics come in.......
....and on the tactics front, we clutched it. Right from the start we made a tough call. All twelve of us, pre-match, agreed to use a very VERY risky tactic right from the Clan War start. Go big. We attacked one of the longest time-consuming nodes. Domination. Dom was the longest game to play in our bracket, getting the wins required. This would put us behind the other clans early in the war. But IF the other clans didn't respond in kind to our attack, let us go, controlling this node point would enable us to control it later in the game, as the four hour window might not allow a counterattack. And we got it. We snuck right in and grabbed Dom in lightning fast fashion. My squad won three of its Dom games 200-12, 200-35 and 200-73. Time counts in Clan Wars. Rather than needing say 32 minutes to get our wins, we got the 'Ws' in 22 minutes. Our other squad did the same and our fast wins didn't allow any other clans to notice or counter. We controlled Dom and got the 44pts.
MIDDLE OF THE CLAN WAR
The rest of the Clan War? Back and forth. For the entire time. We took the lead around the 2 hour mark, quickly adapting and changing our plans on the fly. We used tactics that we learned during the past year to help guide us. And guide us they did. We used a maneuver from Diamond War 12 to help us during the third hour. Our experience helped us recognize the pattern on the map, and we exploited it to help us cap HC TDM. Many times this happened during the war. And it wasn't until around the 3 hour & 48 min mark, with our lead only 12 pts, that when we won the KC node (+23pts), putting us up 193 to 160. Cheers all around!
What an experience. Honestly say the weekend was one of the most rewarding CoD playing experiences I have ever had. To be able to actually use your CoD skills in a way that actually meant something. And what was also so rewarding about it all was the friends. My squad? Lots of vets. And it showed during the play. An outsider would have been just confused as fvck at what appeared to be a foreign language being spoken. "One shot at the dumpster", "Two tags mid map", "D-bag 2-story C", ...no one even discussed this stuff pre-war. It just happened naturally. Everyone on the same page. Everyone working as a TEAM. I guess the years of playing this together, just had us ready. And no words out there can explain how rewarding that felt, long time bros (and a newer guy) just playing to our max potential. The other squad, echoed those same feelings too.
POST CHAMPIONSHIP
Throw in the bonus points at the end for controlling nodes end game, we ended up winning 1st with 299 pts, beating the SOW clan. What a ride. What a journey. A year long in the making. Where will this have us end up? Final rankings are due out in a few days. While a typical Diamond Clan War win nets a clan between 95 to 120 pts, .,..those clans who qualified for the Championship brackets stand to get almost double to triple the points, especially if you win it. This big Win may very well get us into the top 15 in the world. That is rewarding, to be able to start something a year ago, and then make it happen.
But what was also even more rewarding, as much or if not more, has been all the people met along the way. New friends. New competitors. Seeing long time bros who hadn't played much step up and do well. And meet tons of new players in other clans. Speaking for myself, I have gotten to know the leaders of most of the top clans in the world. In fact, our clan spent about an hour last night post war hanging out with the guys from the 2nd place finishing British SOW clan. Great people there. Incredible CoD players. Incredible clan. This Euro clan had probably even a tougher rode to the Championships than us and as recent as 6 weeks ago, beat one of the other bracket winners this weekend... a French team, 'Zach Team Elite', who ended up winning the other half of the bracket. THAT is how competitive and tough this sh1t was, which in turn makes it all that more rewarding when it ended.
Oh yeah, I should also add. From what I can gather, our clan won a bunch of SWAG stuff for CoD Advance Warfare. But better yet, our clan is going to be one of only seven clans (in the entire freaking world) that will get a special exoskeleton suit for CoD Advanced Warfare. THAT is really cool.
So that's it. One more post about the whole experience as a whole coming up later this week. That's going to be my final CoD Ghost Clan War season farewell post. Give me a few days to collect my thoughts. And after that? it's R&R time, catch up with my family, and join some friends on Destiny! We have a few months off before CoD-AW, but I can assure you, some of us are already doing some pre-planning with that game. We might have some big announcements coming down the road.
Peace!
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wings
True Bro
Posts: 3,776
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Post by wings on Sept 22, 2014 12:02:07 GMT -5
Good going!
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Post by iw5000 on Sept 22, 2014 12:26:02 GMT -5
You guys need team jerseys. Really though, spectacular work. Actually, we do have jerseys lol. A whole product line
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Post by ChloeB42 (Alexcalibur42) on Sept 22, 2014 12:59:10 GMT -5
Congrats, that's fucking sweet
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Sept 22, 2014 16:55:56 GMT -5
Gj gj. So, is Ghosts now your favorite CoD simply on the basis of clan experience?
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Post by Pegasus Actual on Sept 23, 2014 0:21:55 GMT -5
Congrats, but I still hope that Clan Wars style gameplay never comes back
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Post by iw5000 on Sept 23, 2014 8:55:46 GMT -5
Gj gj. So, is Ghosts now your favorite CoD simply on the basis of clan experience? Well, uhhh....no. I kind of separate the two items if i had to rank things. Rank the Clan War as one item, and then rank the game itself (Ghosts). With Ghosts, I have mixed feelings now that's it's over (I probably won't play Ghosts anymore). My stats would indicate I am decent at it (2.40 KD, 15 WL ratio, etc..). So i can't use the excuse I did poorly as a reason for hating it. And those stats are reflective of huge hits during Clan wars where you die a ton in winning. And other factors. The connection over the past year has been solid. Quitting is far less than prior games. There really aren't any OP guns. Yeah, there's plenty of positives. But.... ....something about this game just feels so grindingly bad. I can't put my finger on it. If I had to try and summarize here, I think it's how IW did a half ass job on incentives. There's just to many incentives to play like a fvcking idiot. Take this past week. IW made a 'WarHawk 24/7' game mode. What? Seriously? This map on a 24/7 mode summarized their entire year. Let's push a map with not one, not two, but three second story rooms with only one real entrance to them. This map typifies IW's thinking. It doesn't matter what game mode you play, every game is mostly the same on Warhawk. Game starts, most opponents go rush to 2nd floor rooms, lie prone, throw IED's and stare at the entrance. Then try to get dogs/IMS's, so help block the door even better. THAT is pretty much CoD Ghosts in a nutshell. And the developers did nothing to help with this. In fact, they encouraged it. They encouraged and help create slower, campier, more douchebaggish game play. I think that's it, why Ghosts didn't work? Look at the history here. They release a game that has five maps made for Ground War mode, then don't put the ground war mode in the 360/PS3. 'Boom'...five maps instantly created that play badly. Right on day 1. Then they put just ridiculously dumb camo challenges in, which a lot of players obsess over. But the challenges all involve doing stationary/hiding elements. "Get 100 lean kills". "Get 100 prone kills". Come on, do we REALLY need the player base obsessing over getting lean kills, which just slows down the entire game? Why not put in challenges like ..."GET 50 WINS WITH 'X' GUN". Why not positive based challenges? Rhetorical question, because the people at IW don't understand people and how they think. Then there's the sniping. Sniping ruins CoD. When mixed with dumb camo challenges, it just ruins gameplay as all you get is hundreds of thousands snipers going into objective modes so they can sit in corners watching one flag. Again, IW failed with this. "let's create a guillie suit challenge requiring 850 sniper kills" Good fvcking god, was that DUMB. That there alone was one of the dumbest design ideas in the history of CoD. Thanks IW. The fix to solve this bs would have been easy. You want to snipe in an objective game mode? You need to be winning. Your team ain't winning, the sniper class is LOCKED. Problem solved. See how easy it is to fix things? Last, throw in the ultra fast TTK's. And dumb shit like radar shield C4's tossing (which can be hilariously fun, but it's still cheap). All the insta-death stuff only plays into the hands of slower, garbage gameplay. That's the thing. Treyarch's BO2 got that part right. They created incentives to push faster/non-campier play. Emphasizing PPM. Point building on ScoreStreaks. High end great streaks to require movement/obj point building. Treyarch's only real fault was not understanding that OP high end streaks will cause people to quit to much, ruining gameplay. Infinity War went completely, wrongly, in the other direction. They didn't understand what was going on with how people play. I could go on and on, but there's no point. IW has some great tech people who can put together a great game. And when you get two sides playing the game as it should be played, it works. It can be fun. But unfortunately, those types of games rarely happen, mostly occurring during Clan Wars. So if playing in a non clan war environment, it's just right back to garbage gaming. And that imho, is why Ghosts ultimately failed.
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Post by iw5000 on Sept 23, 2014 9:35:06 GMT -5
Congrats, but I still hope that Clan Wars style gameplay never comes back I have to ask why? Here are my thoughts on Clan Wars. It's a tough subject. There are a lot of ideas that could have been done to make Clan Wars work better. But everything is hindsight 20/20. The key is this. What was tried this year was truly revolutionary. It really was. Mistakes were bound to be made, some trial and error needed as it went along. And that's ultimately why BeachHead deserves a ton of praise... because they adapted incredibly well. Many of you never saw this, because you weren't still playing. Let me say this. I have NEVER EVER seen a company have real time responses like BeachHead did. The two head guys, FelixGallo and Trey@Beachhead, were just relentless in their follow through, changing and adapting to fix things. I know, as they were talking to me almost every week the past two months. I almost know them on a first name basis now. CoD has never seen this before. Ever. All in all, I can unequivocally say this. Clan Wars was the best form of competition made in CoD's history. No one really can't dispute that imho. For the first time ever, it allowed the entire clan structure itself in CoD, all the clans to actually compete head to head against each other in a worldwide competition. Not just that, but THEN also allow those clans to be ranked each week, that was then continually updated. I've been seeing the same clans FOR YEARS. Finally, a way to measure one's clan against others. Letting everyone see who was the best as the season progressed. This concept seems elementary, but it hadn't been done yet. Adding to that, the year long process itself utilized a form of Skill Based MatchMaking too. One that mostly worked, except for a gap that occurred near the end in the large buckets. You want to be top ranked? Prove it. The top clans were mostly forced to compete against each other war after war. That was very unique. And then, to bring it all down to a Championship weekend, with six brackets matching all time zones? Wonderfully implemented. What more can you ask for? MW3's Elite Clan War system tried this, but offered no way of clans actually competing, or displaying any type of leaderboard process. BO2? That was a complete joke. There was no 'clan' basis, just a haphazard grouping of four players that changed every month, and no way of keeping track of any type of year long leaderboard. League play was dumb. If I want MLG 4v4 stuff, I will go do that (and I have). CoD Clan play is about CLANS. I think that's the point. Most clans didn't get the above point. They wanted something short and easy, something they could boost on or cheat to win on so they could brag. That wasn't Clan Wars. BeachHead designed a true 'WAR' for the first time ever that measured the abilities of a group of people to organize and work together over the course of a year. That was revolutionary. For Clan Wars, a clan had to have their sh1t together if they wanted to do well. BeachHead hit all THREE elements. 1) Micro Level - Play Cod well (KD, game modes, winning, etc..), 2) Tactical/Competitive Level - Compete well in formal competitive intense setting and understand teamwork & tactics, ie, 'Clan Wars' 3) Organizational Level - Broad organizational stuff. Recruiting, command structure, building clan depth, knowledge, getting information out, etc... What more can you ask for in a contest than the above? Isn't all the above required in a WAR? It worked. And yeah, it was hard. Talk to anyone in our clan, they'll tell you how much work we had to do. It was ridiculous at times. That said, it made the accomplishment of getting there a hundred times more rewarding than anything I have ever done in CoD. Who wants easy? Maybe that as a fault for CW's? It was to hard? Maybe. But there's no denying this stone cold fact. The clans that got to the end deserved it. They were the cream of the crop. For the first time ever, we know. I know many of the leaders of those clans and they put in effort, they deserved to be there too.
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markopolo
True Bro
Once a LMG Camper, Then a Voidlock, Now a Lexington 25-8-366 Runner
Posts: 5,567
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Post by markopolo on Sept 23, 2014 12:41:37 GMT -5
Grats!
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wwaa
True Bro
PC / PS4 / X1
Posts: 2,086
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Post by wwaa on Sept 23, 2014 13:00:13 GMT -5
congr!
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Post by Pegasus Actual on Sept 23, 2014 13:10:22 GMT -5
I just don't find a largely meta-game competition that interesting. I've shared my opinions on the subject before. BO2 didn't really work, but I think an eSports-style implementation is the best route, they just need to get it right. Sounds like Advanced Warfare is trying on that front. The core 4v4 gameplay in BO2 was fine, actually really good when it worked. I actually started to appreciate the rule-set as far as banned scorestreaks and perks went... though not a fan of the weapon bans. They just need a way to properly rank and match people.
As for how much work you guys put in, I'm legitimately impressed. It's just not a style of game that works for me. I don't want to be organized at such a macro level.
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Post by iw5000 on Sept 23, 2014 14:01:41 GMT -5
Kind of, sort of remember what you said. Sorry for not remembering the details.
The problem with Esports style is that it doesn't really capture the essence of what Clan v Clan is. It really isn't a route to take, as (imho) 4v4 is just about a few individuals playing against a few other ones. There is no team or clan aspect there, you know? If AW goes in that direction, it will be trying to duplicate something that already exists, which is GB and MLG style tournaments. We already have that. It's a wholly mercenary individualistic sport that shares nothing in common with the roots of the CoD Clan culture. And also, the Esports style is already being done by clans. In fact, about half the clans in the top 20 are already sending teams to the various MLG/UMG events. Down at Dallas last month, four clans had four person squads playing down there.
I'm not against the 4v4 style, I personally like it. Just making the point that if clan wars goes in that direction, it ceases to be a battle amongst top clans.
Regarding the meta game, I can't remember what you didn't like. There definitely was one there though. TONS of tactics going on. More than anyone would imagine, especially when played at the highest level.
As far as the style of game that works for people? Fair enough if it isn't for you. I can't honestly say this current way was our 'style' we wanted either originally. It's not like one sets out to do something and hopes it's more time consuming. But the game is the game. If that's the game style (this recent format) that evolves out of the process, you got to do what is needed to win. You adapt to that style and do what it takes. you know? The few of us calling the shots, it wasn't like we originally wanted to go spend 'x' amount of time. It was just something that organically happened in dealing with doing whatever it took to get there.
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Dumien
True Bro
Black Market Trader
No engrams. Only disappointment.
Posts: 3,292
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Post by Dumien on Sept 23, 2014 15:57:16 GMT -5
See this is why you will be good at raids IW. Administration is a skillset that many people playing video games simply don't have.
Witty's got it too.
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wittyscorpion
True Brorange
All warfare is based on deception.
Posts: 8,598
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Post by wittyscorpion on Sept 24, 2014 3:07:29 GMT -5
See this is why you will be good at raids IW. Administration is a skillset that many people playing video games simply don't have. Witty's got it too. Thanks for the kind words. Whatever skills I demonstrated in organizing XBL lobbies are like peanuts compared to the efforts iw5000 put into CoD ghosts Clan Wars. That's some serious hard core "cat herding" for a period of 10 months…
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Post by iw5000 on Sept 24, 2014 6:06:00 GMT -5
LOL, 'cat herding', ... that was the term we've been using all year. And so appropriate.
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Post by iw5000 on Sept 24, 2014 11:09:41 GMT -5
Ok...we finally got official word late last night. Felix/BeachHead put up the final 2014 CoD Ghosts Clan Rankings!!!!! Around 120,000 clans entered this ten months ago...and these are the top 20!!!I know a lot of guys in our clan will be celebrating this weekend!!!!
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hebbnh
True Bro
Cacodemon expert
Posts: 2,688
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Post by hebbnh on Sept 25, 2014 8:37:19 GMT -5
Congrats again, quite an accomplishment!
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Post by iw5000 on Sept 28, 2014 7:58:12 GMT -5
One more set of accolades came in for the Clan Wars... HSV1 got a power ranking of #13th in the world from the Reddit Clan News site. The guy who does this has been working alongside the clan wars since last winter, keeping track of hundreds and hundreds of top ranked clans, doing a weekly/monthly news line about the process. He put a ton of time into the process. His rankings are unofficial, a bit more subjective and opinion based, taking into consideration strength of schedule, how you finished, and those things. The BeachHead rankings which were released days ago are based solely on points accumulated (hence, the more official rankings) I think eleven or twelve of the final clans are from Europe. Denmark, France, Poland, three from the UK, Germany, etc... Again, to repeat myself for the umpteenth time about the process. There were well over 125,000 to 150,000 clans that started this process last year. Of that, about 30,000 to 35,000 qualified for the Diamond League. You had to win two Platinum level clan wars to qualify for the more elite level Diamond League. Once in Diamond, a clan competed in skill based match-making 'pools' of seven to eight clans. You needed to place in the top three of a scheduled pool, to get a Diamond Leaderboard ranking point. A clan needed to accumulate those points all year to keep high on the rankings.
Here's his article ----------------------------- www.reddit.com/r/clannews/comments/2hjjod/final_ghosts_power_rankings_part_2_of_3_ghosts/
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fpsdredd
True Bro
Always working on the FPS metagame
Posts: 495
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Post by fpsdredd on Oct 6, 2014 16:28:07 GMT -5
I would be interested in a deep break down of any meta game strategy that was involved. Was there anything outside of the game that your clan worked on? Scouting the other teams would be great to hear about if it was done.
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Post by iw5000 on Oct 7, 2014 8:14:40 GMT -5
Hey fred, Scouting would have been very nice to do like you said. Playing the Clan Wars tactical map (the actual 'game')can be helped out tremendously if you can predict which game types clans will play. Cut them off, box them in, etc... Unfortunately, for the CW season, the skill based matchmaking didn't really allow one to see who they would be matched up with ie, prescout. The SBMM was kind of a blind draw. If your clan was ranked say 100th in the world ahead of time, the SBMM would try to seed your clan with three other clans ranked in order around you, then three random clans from below. But you didn't see your opponents until 2 hours before the match. That said....due to the round by round nature of Clan Wars (three rounds early in the season, then two later on), you could see tendencies on how Clan's played in round one, and then use that in round 2 for tactical play. We did this all the time. To give an example, we used this in the Clan Championships. This played a large part in us winning. In Saturday's round 1, we noted the opening moves of the three clans that seemed to be our main competition. Unfortunately, the Championship's round one got cut short with this incident. Pretty much meaning Sunday's round 2, was a winner take all event. denkirson.proboards.com/thread/7318/good-lord-fvcking-unbelievable-unrealBefore Sunday's round 2 start, we plotted out different ways (prescout) to work around what they would do at the start, based on their Saturday's decisions (Decision tree analysis). To make a long story short, we arrived at a plan that was quite risky. To start out in Domination. Dom was the slowest node to capture, but also had a high reward. If a clan could get it early, there was a strong chance no other clan would attack it later, especially if operating without other clan's help (which seemed likely). You can fend off one clan, not two. If we could get this node, it would allow us to keep the 'hold bonus' points at round end. Basically play with house money all round. From round one, we saw that the other clans mostly ignored this node so the opportunity was there. The risky element was 1) our squads had to win every game, and win big (like 200-50). If you lose even one game, you open the door to a counter move. And two, by doing this opening move, we would most likely be the last scoring clan. Be behind for at least 1/3 to 1/2 the round. The other scary part was that IF we didn't get this opening move done right, lost to another clan, we could effectively be KO'd right away. With seven top 30 clans in our bracket, one mistake meant a loss. But pre-scouting on Saturday's round helped. We felt confident we could sneak this move off. And being early in the round, the other six clans wouldn't attack in unison against us. So we did it, and it worked. But the time other clans wrapped up their opening moves, all our squads won all their games. We got it done. And as we suspected, we were able to hold this node to the end, getting us the bonus hold points.
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markopolo
True Bro
Once a LMG Camper, Then a Voidlock, Now a Lexington 25-8-366 Runner
Posts: 5,567
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Post by markopolo on Oct 7, 2014 13:07:11 GMT -5
No Optic Gaming?
I'm kidding.... again: grats and be uber proud.
BTW... when do you quit your job and get sponsored and become YouTube sensations?
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