23 replies to this topic

[Leiska]

Anyone else find it way too hard to actually win matches despite solid personal efforts? I recently bought my third Stalker in hopes of mastering my other two, but as usual, the games are a pain with useless team mates everywhere.

As anyone who has taken a look at Stalker variants knows, the 4N is a strictly worse 3F (this makes no sense, PGI!), but I got it because it was the cheapest one. I have no chassis upgrades, so I'm running an XL engine in a build that doesn't actually need it (quad LL).

Despite all this, my K/D ratio is 1.8, which I think is quite decent for a pugger (my 3F is at 2.12), yet my W/L ratio is an appalling 0.5. Today I won 2 games and lost 10. I had the highest damage and score of my team in every single game and my K/D ratio rose, yet my W/L ratio keeps sinking. I guess it will soon hit the abysmal 0.37 of my 3H (1.44 K/D on that one).

Across all my mechs my W/L ratio lags my K/D ratio by ~1.0 or more. To me this seems like a huge statistical anomaly, but I can't seem to break the trend. Anyone else find themselves in a similar situation? I just have no faith in my teams any longer. Even when I seriously derp and get myself killed early in a round, I somehow seem to always be the best performer because everyone else aim with blinders on and have the map awareness of a hamster.

Yeah, whiny post, but whatever...

Edited by Leiska, 17 April 2013 - 04:56 PM.

[The Cheese]

Before anyone comes in and tells you to join a clan on get on teamspeak, I just want to say this:

I feel your pain.

If you're gonna keep pugging, you just have to stick it out, I'm afraid. Eventually, the matchmaker will start pairing you with people closer to your skill level, and your win/loss will even out.

Edited by The Cheese, 17 April 2013 - 05:00 PM.

[ThinkTank]

Groups win more than pugs.

Just sayin'

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Why buy a 5N? You should have the 5S, 5M, and 3F. The others are just missing hard points.

Aside from that, you might consider trying 4 LPL. The range is a bit shorter, but you can put a lot of very precise firepower down range.

As for your w/l woes, there was a recent (yesterday) adjustment of Elo. You may have found yourself in a new bracket post-patch, and so matchmaking will be struggling to put you where you really ought to be. Hopefully your win/loss will even out sooner rather than later.

[Rayah]

Yeah, 30+ match losing streaks are the worst...

Edited by Rayzor, 17 April 2013 - 05:04 PM.

[Davers]

Leiska, on 17 April 2013 - 04:55 PM, said:

Anyone else find it way too hard to actually win matches despite solid personal efforts? I recently bought my third Stalker in hopes of mastering my other two, but as usual, the games are a pain with useless team mates everywhere.

As anyone who has taken a look at Stalker variants knows, the 4N is a strictly worse 3F (this makes no sense, PGI!), but I got it because it was the cheapest one. I have no chassis upgrades, so I'm running an XL engine in a build that doesn't actually need it (quad LL).

Despite all this, my K/D ratio is 1.8, which I think is quite decent for a pugger (my 3F is at 2.12), yet my W/L ratio is an appalling 0.5. Today I won 2 games and lost 10. I had the highest damage and score of my team in every single game and my K/D ratio rose, yet my W/L ratio keeps sinking. I guess it will soon hit the abysmal 0.37 of my 3H (1.44 K/D on that one).

Across all my mechs my W/L ratio lags my K/D ratio by ~1.0 or more. To me this seems like a huge statistical anomaly, but I can't seem to break the trend. Anyone else find themselves in a similar situation? I just have no faith in my teams any longer. Even when I seriously derp and get myself killed early in a round, I somehow seem to always be the best performer because everyone else aim with blinders on and have the map awareness of a hamster.

Yeah, whiny post, but whatever...

Try communicating more. Let your team know what you are doing. Ask for people to be your wingman. Call out targets for people to focus fire on. Get them to act like a team, rather than 8 guys who just want to run out and shoot stuff.

[Nauht]

Use gxp. Your mileage may vary but you should be able to take a sizeable chunk out of pilot skills with it.

Personally I'm sitting at about 100k gxp with about 14 mechs in my hangar.

[MonkeyCheese]

The Cheese, on 17 April 2013 - 04:58 PM, said:

Before anyone comes in and tells you to join a clan on get on teamspeak, I just want to say this:

I feel your pain.

If you're gonna keep pugging, you just have to stick it out, I'm afraid. Eventually, the matchmaker will start pairing you with people closer to your skill level, and your win/loss will even out.

This ^ I know this pain

The out of the 10 or so people (most got founders) from my teamspeak that use to play in the closed beta for hours on end, there a like 2 that rarely play now.

I spend about 90% of my games pugging it and 10% in a group of 2 nowdays. Sometimes it is painful to pull of high damage and multiple kills in a jenner/commando and watch the rest of your team derp around such as assaults capping in alpine =|

[Artgathan]

The problem is that K/D ratio is not really meaningful. As an Assault pilot there are four roles you need to (simultaneously) fill:

• Executioner: You need to dish out lots of damage (regardless of whether or not you kill things, you should be tearing enemy armor off by the tons every time you pull the trigger).
  
• Guardian: You need to absorb damage from the enemy and distract their attention from other allied mechs so that they can move to better positions to deal out damage.
  
• Controller: You need to control ground for your team. An effective assault mech denies the enemy ground by making the enemy scared of advancing. For example: if you park your mech overlooking a valley the enemy should be scared of advancing into the valley because you will gun them down if they even think about it.
  
• Leader: Your allies will follow you (most of the time) simply because you are death on two legs. Use the in-game chat to lay out basic plans (yeah, it sucks, but it's do-able). If you notice that the enemy if pinned around E5/6 on Forest Colony, tell someone to flank them through the cave while you pin the enemy down. If nothing happens, move on your own and someone is bound to follow you. Once your team sees two blue triangles moving the same direction they'll likely flock to you.

It's hard to PUG. I PUG 80-90% of my games so I feel your pain. Most people think that the role of an Assault mech is to dive into the enemy ranks, guns blazing, absorbing fire. This is only part of your job. The most important thing you can do for your team is to create opportunities - pin the enemy down. Expose their internals. Make the enemy focus on you so that they don't notice the lance of mechs bearing down on them.

You've got to multitask like crazy, but if you can pull it off you can certainly improve your W/L ratio.

[Cest7]

I figured out the trick to leveling stalkers....

Put your 3F loadout on all the rest of them. PPCs for everyone!

[jeffsw6]

Leiska, on 17 April 2013 - 04:55 PM, said:

Anyone else find it way too hard to actually win matches despite solid personal efforts? I recently bought my third Stalker in hopes of mastering my other two, but as usual, the games are a pain with useless team mates everywhere.

Two things:
PUG
and:
Tons of PUGs playing new Highlanders with 0/8 basic and many with stock builds, not having enough CBills (or brains) to customize them to their play-style, and not being familiar with that mech yet. Tons of 4-mans preying on these unfortunate PUGs.

So just like it was when the Jagermech came out recently, so it is again, with Highlander. If you want to take advantage of it, I suggest you join a group. Even if you do not get on VOIP, a 4-man that actually cares about winning the match, and has a strategy for cooperating, stands more of a chance than 4 randoms.

The Cheese, on 17 April 2013 - 04:58 PM, said:

If you're gonna keep pugging, you just have to stick it out, I'm afraid. Eventually, the matchmaker will start pairing you with people closer to your skill level, and your win/loss will even out.

No, it won't. Unless the match-maker is changed to separate PUGs from 4-mans, and to fix "sync drop" groups so they can't do that anymore, teamwork will continue to be the most over-powered force in the game.

There is never going to be a solution to this without integrating VOIP into the game. The lance system on the map and HUD, ability for Betty to bark instructions to teammates, etc. is a waste of PGI's development resources. It is not a substitute for VOIP and it never will be.

[Leiska]

Nauht, on 17 April 2013 - 05:13 PM, said:

Use gxp. Your mileage may vary but you should be able to take a sizeable chunk out of pilot skills with it.

Personally I'm sitting at about 100k gxp with about 14 mechs in my hangar.

I only have 13k GXP, so I'm hesitant to use it on anything other than modules, which I don't yet own because of a lack of c-bills.

jeffsw6, on 17 April 2013 - 05:22 PM, said:

Tons of PUGs playing new Highlanders with 0/8 basic and many with stock builds, not having enough CBills (or brains) to customize them to their play-style, and not being familiar with that mech yet. Tons of 4-mans preying on these unfortunate PUGs.

The thing is, these factors should plague the opposing teams just as much, but time and time again they seem to be vastly superior as a whole.

Edited by Leiska, 17 April 2013 - 05:26 PM.

[jeffsw6]

Don't blow GXP on mech efficiencies! It's too valuable. Just keep racking up those 200 - 300 XP PUG losses and be happy when you get the occasional win.

Except when you drop into Tourmaline Desert. When that happens, just push ALT+F4. Okay, not really, but man I am sick of that ******* map.

[GetinmyBellah]

Davers, on 17 April 2013 - 05:04 PM, said:

Try communicating more. Let your team know what you are doing. Ask for people to be your wingman. Call out targets for people to focus fire on. Get them to act like a team, rather than 8 guys who just want to run out and shoot stuff.

I've been doing this for 6 months in strict pug matches, and I have finally given up and I don't give up easily on anything... out of several hundreds of pub based matches trying to lead teams maybe 10% listened and we won without competition when people followed the plan/tactic/strategy. My main goal(s) was always stay grouped, focus fire most immediate threat first (it is simply to time consuming in the heat of battle to type out the target so I always reminded people; no chasing of lights and an Atlas in our midst is an immediate threat, not the torsoless hunchback), etc.; but dang dudes people go crazy over the concept of one kill even though it may lead to a loss (eg: Assault breaks from main group to chase a cicada across the map) and another concept the majotiy can't understand is doing things in a manner the enemy is not accustomed to, such as flanking maneuvers, ambushes using ECM correctly, etc., anything that will throw the enemy off - always trying to flank; anything that breaks the norm and generally allows you to focus fire the enemy down one by one because they haven't stayed in a tight group as we have.

Anyhow you will simply be worn down by the fact 90% of the time you will have an incompetent group or they just can't break the mold and do something different. I'm finally at a loss and just try my best, but I will not comm anymore even though the new system has me as a commander more often than not, dagnabbit.

[Davers]

Vegentius, on 17 April 2013 - 05:30 PM, said:

I've been doing this for 6 months in strict pug matches, and I have finally given up and I don't give up easily on anything... out of several hundreds of pub based matches trying to lead teams maybe 10% listened and we won without competition when people followed the plan/tactic/strategy. My main goal(s) was always stay grouped, focus fire most immediate threat first (it is simply to time consuming in the heat of battle to type out the target so I always reminded people; no chasing of lights and an Atlas in our midst is an immediate threat, not the torsoless hunchback), etc.; but dang dudes people go crazy over the concept of one kill even though it may lead to a loss (eg: Assault breaks from main group to chase a cicada across the map) and another concept the majotiy can't understand is doing things in a manner the enemy is not accustomed to, such as flanking maneuvers, ambushes using ECM correctly, etc., anything that will throw the enemy off - always trying to flank; anything that breaks the norm and generally allows you to focus fire the enemy down one by one because they haven't stayed in a tight group as we have.

Anyhow you will simply be worn down by the fact 90% of the time you will have an incompetent group or they just can't break the mold and do something different. I'm finally at a loss and just try my best, but I will not comm anymore even though the new system has me as a commander more often than not, dagnabbit.

Ok, then new strategy. Every match ask 'Who is the premade here?' and follow them and do what they do. Boom! De-facto 5 man team.

[LeShadow]

Artgathan, on 17 April 2013 - 05:16 PM, said:

You've got to multitask like crazy, but if you can pull it off you can certainly improve your W/L ratio.

I'll agree that neither dmg nor k/d hold a lot of meaning when it comes to an Assault's overall performance. However, sometimes there's just nothing you can do. Sometimes the best you can actually accomplish is to keep dealing damage while praying that someone on your team will back you up. Or even just seize an oppurtunity to "steal" a kill. At least that's one enemy down

Been in a match yesterday where, theoretically, we had the enemy heavily outgunned. Nonetheless one of our Atlai did a whopping 130 damage (placed 2nd on our team) while the other managed 20. Twenty. I don't even know how that's possible.
Add to that two d/c's and you're basically fighting 4vs8.

So, yeah, do your best, but accept that sometimes (maybe most of the time) no amount of planning will save you.

Side question: Isn't ELO calculated by w/l ratio? Can you even improve your score if your teams keep losing? I'm honestly not 100% clear on the details...

PS:

Vegentius, on 17 April 2013 - 05:30 PM, said:

I've been doing this for 6 months in strict pug matches, and I have finally given up and I don't give up easily on anything...

This. Sooner or later you'll just get tired of telling people not to chase the single jenner across half the f'ing map.

Edited by LeShadow, 17 April 2013 - 05:45 PM.

[Artgathan]

LeShadow, on 17 April 2013 - 05:41 PM, said:

Side question: Isn't ELO calculated by w/l ratio? Can you even improve your score if your teams keep losing? I'm honestly not 100% clear on the details...

The idea is that Elo isn't a "score" per se (as in it's not like an arcade game where the objective is to max out the value). Think of it like a sports rating system: you've got B League, A League and AA Leagues. Your Elo determines which league you play it. In MWO you start out in the 'A' League. If you win a lot, it bumps you up to the AA League (in an effort to find players who are more on your level and thus reduce your W/L ratio to 1). If you lose a lot it'll drop you down to the B League (again, trying to match you with players on your level and increase your W/L to 1).

So, if my W/L ratio is 0.7, it means I'm playing against players who are "out of my league". So the matchmaker will move me down a league. If this brings my W/L to 1, it means that I'm in the right place: I'm now playing against players who are of my skill level.

Does that help?

[LeShadow]

That bit i understood. What i don't get is how, if it's actually wins and losses that determine your ELO, a player who is more skilled than the majority of the teammates assigned to them (like the OP), but keeps losing, could ever reach a "league" where (s)he's matched with people of similar skill.

[Cest7]

LeShadow, on 17 April 2013 - 05:56 PM, said:

What i don't get is how, if it's actually wins and losses that determine your Elo

Do you like math? Check out this thread where Paul posted the Elo formulas.

Edit: Its not win/loss so much as the ratio between the Elo score of the winner and loser. Yes, your Elo will go up for the more wins you have, but by how much depends on your & your opponents Elo score.

Back on topic... Hate to break it to you OP, but the 4N is the Lemon stalker. Theres nothing that the 4N can do that the 3F or 5S could do better. On the upside, It'll directly swap the 3F's laser loadouts.

Edited by Cest7, 17 April 2013 - 06:03 PM.

[Leiska]

LeShadow, on 17 April 2013 - 05:56 PM, said:

That bit i understood. What i don't get is how, if it's actually wins and losses that determine your ELO, a player who is more skilled than the majority of the teammates assigned to them (like the OP), but keeps losing, could ever reach a "league" where (s)he's matched with people of similar skill.

This is what the LoL community calls "elo hell", however, it shouldn't really be possible to consistently lose >50% of your matches if your skill level is above average in your league, so most people complaining about elo hell actually suffer from an inflated sense of their own skills or a too low sample size.