104 replies to this topic

[Murku]

If cheese builds are all that is found in the top Elo tiers, and IF PGI THINKS THIS IS ENOUGH OF AN ISSUE to do something about it (as in apply some nerf to the worst culprits), then Elo will have helped identify this problem.

Regardless, you can choose your load out the same as anyone else. What's more important to you, your Elo ranking or playing the game the way you like?

[Demosthones]

valkyrie, on 26 February 2013 - 11:17 PM, said:

Except ELO doesn't take into account different builds, as has been said, just previous success. So, the moment I step out of a -3L or a Splatcat and go back to running my Cent, my ELO doesn't change. It just assumes "well he's still going to do just fine" and match me up against someone who is either way above my "actual" skill level or equally skilled and has no qualms about using such a build. I then get my face fed to a belt sander by a combination of min-maxers and the pubbies I'm still expected to carry.

There is a saying: "you are what you are." In our case PGI knows what we are according to our elo for light, medium, heavy, and assault. It is unrealistic to expect them to take elo further (ie: determine your elo based on weapon loadouts for particulair chasis).

PGI: Well he has a high elo in medium but when he usese so and so loadout on this particulair medium mech he does crap dmg.. so lets give him a noob to shoot at.

That will not work. Weapon loadout trends and cheese builds are dynamic. The streakcat used to be huge and now we never see it. These things are going to change over time.

The main problem here is that different variants, in the same weight class, are better than others. The Raven 3L is better than any other raven, the cicada 3m is better than any other cicada, etc etc.. The question is how deep should elo go? They decided not to take it to the degree of particulair variants within a wieght class. Not much we can do as a community except post our displeasure and hope they refine the elo system a little bit more.

[Kraven Kor]

Demosthones, on 27 February 2013 - 11:02 AM, said:

There is a saying: "you are what you are."

I prefer the following quote:

"You're not what you are, you're just what you do.
(So it ends with their butts and it starts with your shoe.)"

<3 Grey Market

[Kristov Kerensky]

The ranking system isn't in place to find problems with the builds, that's not something it's actually good for. Optimized builds are what they are, optimized, and there's no fixing that short of making every single Mech and weapon identical and removing all skill from the equation totally so that we start the game up and let the computer play for us. Each and every match would be a draw and that would be about as much fun as masturbation with a cheese grater..unless you are into that sort of thing...I don't want to know.

Pick a 'cheese' build and I'm sure myself and probably most of the people on this forum can tell you exactly how to counter it's effectiveness, not a single Mech or build in MWO is the be all and end all of Mechs, they all have counters and ways to defeat them without them being able to do jack about it. That is the down size of the optimized builds in MWO, they tend to be 1 trick ponies without any secondary abilities to make them useful outside of specific situations.

The ranking system is working just fine, people are finding out that they just aren't as good as they thought and that rankles. Well..guess what...that's life, just because you THINK you are good at something doesn't actually mean you are. Many of the groups running premades have been stomping on less skilled players and they've been using 'cheese' builds for a lot of that, it shows too. The OP and his teammates in Kong aren't doing as well as they were used to doing, because they had inflated rankings when it was added, now those rankings are being deflated down to their actual skill level.

This has NOTHING to do with optimized builds or inequalities in ECM or whatever, it's a matter of skill, skill they thought they had due to stomping on newbs without a clue as part of a premade. Fun time is over for them, reality has stepped up and slapped them in the face, and they just don't like that and figure it MUST be because the ranking system doesn't work..after all, they had GREAT WLR and KDRs, they MUST be experts at this game at the very least..right?

Wrong.

[Vlad Ward]

Elo doesn't measure skill. It measures success. If your success rate is low because you're using a non-optimised Mech, your Elo will drop and it won't expect as much out of you.

In reality, you should not be facing equally skilled players with better Mechs. Total success rate is a factor of both Mechbuilding power and Skill power. People with high skill and low Mechbuilding ability are going to end up in the middle of the road, right next to people with mediocre overall ability and people with low skill and high Mechbuilding ability.

If you want to be able to turn on/off casual mode, you could probably just designate a casual weight class for yourself. Since Elo ratings are class-dependent, you can keep your competitive Elo in Heavies/Assaults/whatever and just have a low, casual Elo in Mediums.