29 replies to this topic

[Homeless Bill]

So, last night, I decided to pick up my first medium ever and start grinding. The experience I had was magic. In ~15 rounds, I only saw three poptarts - and only a handful of LRM boats. It was drastically different than everything I've experienced in the last two months.

I kept seeing Highlanders lining up a shot and being like, "OMGNO," until I locked on and saw most of them were stock-esque. Granted, it wasn't much of a challenge: there were only two or three pilots that I gained any respect for in the matches (Spider pilot, you were a total ****, and for that I salute you). Hell, most of these people didn't even look like they knew the maps.

That said, it's like playing a totally different game. It's like I stepped into a parallel universe where camping and alpha strikes are rare, and most flavors of cheese are exotic.

I'm not saying my Elo is amazing, but it's probably pretty good; it's certainly higher than average based on what I saw last night. It makes me appreciate that PGI might actually not be playing the same game I'm playing. If you asked me about major balance problems based on those matches, I really couldn't point to anything besides the LRM trajectory being a bit steep.

Anyone else had a similar experience when switching to a new weight class or making a new account?

[Soy]

4 days ago made a new account to help a day1 guy, second game in the champion trial jenner 5ks, 600+ dmg, cored out a poor Misery without taking a shot, from behind... all I could think was, that guy just spent 40 bucks to get his *** blown off.......

......funny thing was I still saw power builds, just players who didn't really know what to do or where to go, prioritization, group manuevers, etc...

I think the grind for a new player sucks right now. I feel for the new guy. Help the new guy! HELP A NOOB TODAY.

[FupDup]

Soy, on 22 May 2013 - 12:04 PM, said:

4 days ago made a new account to help a day1 guy, second game in the champion trial jenner 5ks, 600+ dmg, cored out a poor Misery without taking a shot, from behind... all I could think was, that guy just spent 40 bucks to get his *** blown off.......

......funny thing was I still saw power builds, just players who didn't really know what to do or where to go, prioritization, group manuevers, etc...

I think the grind for a new player sucks right now. I feel for the new guy. Help the new guy! HELP A NOOB TODAY.

I made an alternate account on the 20th to get free mechbays because I don't like paying for imbalanced games. I encountered highly organized groups by the end of the first day as well as meta builds, so I dunno what world you guys have been on but I want a ticket there.

[Satan n stuff]

I'm pretty sure that if you group up with a newb you are forcing them into harder matches. If you do your best to guide them through it they will likely get a lot better but you'll likely make them suffer every step of the way. Just something to consider when you want to introduce someone to the game.

[Homeless Bill]

Soy, on 22 May 2013 - 12:04 PM, said:

I think the grind for a new player sucks right now.

So much. Customization, heat management, tank-style movement, weapon groups, range, aiming at components, and just the way this game plays so differently than other shooters has got to be absolutely daunting. Hell, I'm a veteran MechWarrior, and it took me about 100 matches to figure **** out and another 100 to get my KDR up to 1.0.

My first round in the 7M, I got 5 kills and over 700 damage. There were very few players that looked like they knew what they were doing. To me, that's a testament to how well Elo is doing at separating veterans from new players. Once they get tutorials in, it should be a lot better for those poor newbies.

***** n stuff, on 22 May 2013 - 12:17 PM, said:

I'm pretty sure that if you group up with a newb you are forcing them into harder matches.

Totally. If you want to show a newbie the ropes, you're better off signing up for a new account so your Elo doesn't drag them through the fire.

Before the snipers were out in full-force, you were still better off dropping at a high Elo with a buddy that knows what's going on. Now, high Elo means mistakes are punished by near-instant death.

Edited by Homeless Bill, 22 May 2013 - 12:21 PM.

[Chester Cheetah]

FupDup, on 22 May 2013 - 12:16 PM, said:

I made an alternate account on the 20th to get free mechbays because I don't like paying for imbalanced games. I encountered highly organized groups by the end of the first day as well as meta builds, so I dunno what world you guys have been on but I want a ticket there.

It me Soy!


Mech' Matches Played Wins Losses Ratio Kills Deaths Ratio Damage Done XP Earned Time Played JENNER JR7-F 8 2 5 0.40 7 4 1.75 1,534 2,833 00:49:03

I only played for, as you can see, less than an hour. Before the day1 noob I was talking about decided to spam the chat in game log out and, presumably, quit the game. *sigh*

Can't save em all.

Edited by 360noscopeUSMCsniperwolfyolo420, 22 May 2013 - 12:22 PM.

[Wispsy]

I had some weird bug I believe on a different account that has not been played since Elo was introduced I believe. Thankfully I had just finished my basics apparently on my Spider 5D and had enough to equip it with an ERPPC. I was with a friend who was in a trial Jenner on a brand new account. So really we should have been dropping against some pretty not good people for the first few games. This was not the case. Every game we started at least 1 man down, and this mystery leaver was apparently some kind of god at this game. Our Founders Cats with their Lrm only builds (before this last patch) were getting headshot 700m out by entire teams of jumpsnipers with the occasional 3L support. We had Dragons that could not maneuver around buildings to save their life (literally) against people I had specifically noticed in my normal games as dangerous threats that will easily 1shot me if I run in a straight line anywhere within sight of them for more then half a second. We won barely any and only through truly heroic efforts or decoy/basecaps. It was one of the most humbling experiences of my mechwarrior life. Never once have I seen such match imbalance and I played and won a lot when Elo was first introduced (bias towards more games played) so I got some pretty damn unbalanced matches, for a while back then every other solo game I played had me with 6/7 kills and 4x the closest teammates damage in my Jenner (or headfirst round a corner into SSRMs and dead at which point it was guaranteed loss) as I thought it was bad how much I was expected to carry against fairly experienced players dropping in groups. This was not even close. Definitely not what I expected this game to give to newcomers!

No idea what caused it to happen and have not tried again since we realized it was really us that was bugged but just thought I would share my experience of starting with fresh Elo...absolute nightmare, next to impossible to carry, teams of steering wheel addicts against 4man 360 noscope hs jumpsnipers, 7 Person team max for the newcomers.

[Soy]

I find it highly detrimental to the new player experience, that by default, BY DESIGN, if I attempt to group up with an actual noob then said noob has to fight other solid players that he has no chance of actually matching up against in terms of mech efficiency or play experience. They would have to be Ender Wiggan to win a lot of those encounters.

So as a result, a noob cannot actually... play this game... with other players... unless those other players are actual noobs... this is a bad situation with a lot of closed off self resolving "I quit" results I would go as far to speculate.

Edited by Soy, 22 May 2013 - 12:56 PM.

[Stoicblitzer]

Soy, on 22 May 2013 - 12:04 PM, said:

cored out a poor Misery without taking a shot, from behind... all I could think was, that guy just spent 40 bucks to get his *** blown off.......

would you say that he paid 2 lose?

[Homeless Bill]

Wispsy, on 22 May 2013 - 12:49 PM, said:

[paraphrasing] It was bad. Real bad.

That sounds awful. I didn't have a single round like that. Sure, we got the more-than-occasional DC, but nothing like what you're describing. I didn't see a single 732 running poptart, and I only saw two 3D poptarts across the 12 matches it took to get basics. I saw a couple of 4-mans, but no one coordinated enough for a stomp.

Out of curiosity, what time were you playing? I did all mine really late (1:30 - 3:00am PST), so that could have made a difference.

Soy, on 22 May 2013 - 12:55 PM, said:

this is a bad situation with a lot of closed off self resolving "I quit" results I would go as far to speculate.

It must. I'd be curious to see some stats on player numbers and retention.

[Volthorne]

Soy, on 22 May 2013 - 12:55 PM, said:

I find it highly detrimental to the new player experience, that by default, BY DESIGN, if I attempt to group up with an actual noob then said noob has to fight other solid players that he has no chance of actually matching up against in terms of mech efficiency or play experience. They would have to be Ender Wiggan to win a lot of those encounters.

So as a result, a noob cannot actually... play this game... with other players... unless those other players are actual noobs... this is a bad situation with a lot of closed off self resolving "I quit" results I would go as far to speculate.

This is true, grouping up with highly experienced players when you're new definitely puts you through the ringer... And then makes you BETTER than the average player after the same amount of time played. Granted, you also need the aptitude to learn from said time in the wringer, and for the game not to suck or have P2W elements in the first place. I've been through that process multiple times and am still astonished when I can kick the ***** of anyone who doesn't play the game professionally (if it has a pro league circuit) or religiously.

Also, if a person decides to download ANY game, then they're most likely going to play it, having already invested the time into the download. If they quit after that, then chances are that they probably shouldn't be playing anything with multiplayer in the first place.

[Deathlike]

Since the entire ELO system seems to take an AVERAGE of the ELO of the entire group.. being experienced actually PUNISHES a newbie teammate. It's a sad state of affairs. You would hope that you would be slotted in the "slightly above newbie bracket" for a while (although ELO haters would think this is cheating the system) but having a newbie is truly a negative.. in terms of build, experience, and even basic understanding of the game, that most of the time you literally strikeout early. You would almost want the newbies to play in the "newbie queue" that was explained in the patch notes... just so they get the basics down. Handholding would require the experienced player to literally carry them... and I don't think every player introducing a friend or family member would be able to do that.

Anyways, it would be interesting having a poll on people that have played this game for at least a month.. finding out the success rate on trying to get others to play this game. I get the feeling this is lower than your average game's retention rate.

[Wispsy]

Homeless Bill, on 22 May 2013 - 01:12 PM, said:

That sounds awful. I didn't have a single round like that. Sure, we got the more-than-occasional DC, but nothing like what you're describing. I didn't see a single 732 running poptart, and I only saw two 3D poptarts across the 12 matches it took to get basics. I saw a couple of 4-mans, but no one coordinated enough for a stomp.

Out of curiosity, what time were you playing? I did all mine really late (1:30 - 3:00am PST), so that could have made a difference.

This was between around 10am to 2pm GMT, usually this is when games start to get easiest even though the queue time gets so long it sometimes fails simply because there are not huge amounts of incredible players on. It was not just a 1off unlucky game though, every game was beyond a joke we often had 4/5 lights (multiple Spider Ks and Raven 2/4x's and remember team was capped at 7) against at least 4 highlanders all with very top tier aiming and loadouts, supported by 3Ds and 3Ls and the occasional ppc stalkers almost always.

[PropagandaWar]

My kdr is about 1.5. with close to 3500 games. I like the matches where my buds are about the same. the other team puts up a fight and we steamroll or get steamrolled with a lot of epic matches in between. When our Goober build guys come in the atmosphere changes immediatly and it loses its luster.

[Junkman7mgte]

PropagandaWar, on 22 May 2013 - 02:45 PM, said:

When our Goober build guys come in the atmosphere changes immediatly and it loses its luster.

This elitist ***** attitude, is why I haven't looked seriously into finding a group. I dealt with that crap in WOW, and guys like you, have no interest in helping others to be better. Same old - if you are not as good as me, you are not good enough to play with me. That said, I took a guild from unkown, to top 5 on its realm, just to prove a$$hats like you, you are wrong. Then because of people like you, again, left the game several months ago. Maybe this game isn't what I was looking for afterall.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

Junkman7mgte, on 22 May 2013 - 03:01 PM, said:

stuff in the previous post

Happy to drop with you anytime ... I play builds that I like, while trying to have fun.

On topic ...

I do try to find generally good builds that match my play style (i.e.: moderately fast, decent damage at a certain range, manageable heat, mostly survivable under fire), but I'm not overly concerned about only playing the builds that allow the maximum expoitation of the current meta. I don't own a HGN or CTF (poptarts), or a RVN or COM (ECM+Streak), but my recent Win-Loss ratio in all weight classes is above 1.0, so my Elo score should be improving.

The matches I encounter have almost always been mixed between what I would consider optimized FOTM builds, generally good builds, weird but effective builds, and others (bad / troll builds or non-champion trial mechs). It is entertaining to hear the occasional QQing from the (usually dead) FOTM guys whining about how everyone else sucks, is a bunch of noobs, etc.

It will be interesting to see how the mix of builds (I'm not going to comment on the quality / skill of players) changes with the Elo score changes for new players.

[Homeless Bill]

Wispsy, on 22 May 2013 - 02:38 PM, said:

This was between around 10am to 2pm GMT... It was not just a 1off unlucky game though, every game was beyond a joke

Sucks to hear that =[ I was really hoping what I experienced last night is what new players are seeing.

Junkman7mgte, on 22 May 2013 - 03:01 PM, said:

This elitist ***** attitude, is why I haven't looked seriously into finding a group. Maybe this game isn't what I was looking for afterall.

Don't get discouraged. I've met a few elitists that don't want anything to do with newbies, but the majority of players aren't like that at all. Have you checked out the Comstar NA teamspeak server? They've got training channels, places to group up with random people, and a lot of good clans.

If you're looking for a laid-back attitude, a fun atmosphere, and an opportunity for competitive play, check out www.qqmercs.com or drop into our channel on Comstar NA.

Even if QQ isn't your cup of tea, I'd still strongly recommend you find a group; it makes the game much more enjoyable. QQ rescued me from PUG hell back in December, and I've never looked back on my lone wolf days.

Edited by Homeless Bill, 23 May 2013 - 12:00 AM.

[Wispsy]

Homeless Bill, on 22 May 2013 - 04:56 PM, said:

Sucks to hear that =[ I was really hoping what I experienced last night is what new players are seeing.

I very much doubt what I experienced was the norm.

[jeffsw6]

Junkman7mgte, on 22 May 2013 - 03:01 PM, said:

This elitist ***** attitude, is why I haven't looked seriously into finding a group. I dealt with that crap in WOW, and guys like you, have no interest in helping others to be better.

I realize you were replying to someone else, not to me; but there are plenty of guilds/clans/whatever in MW:O that are tolerant of novice players. I spent half the day grouping with someone who is basically a noob, along with a couple of good clan-mates. This new guy was putting up damage numbers like 20 - 40 per match. I'm not sure I ever saw him break 200, and he was playing an Atlas.

I assume the guy will get better with experience. If not, well, unlike World of Warcraft, you don't have to put up with newbies making your 40-man raid wipe over and over and taking 5 hours to get to the boss of a dungeon just to not beat it. When I was playing WoW I quit a guild because they would not make the bad players take a back seat to good ones, or tell them to quit playing PvP spec characters in a PvE guild, etc.

MW:O is not WoW. The matches last minutes, not hours. If you quit after a few games, no one is really going to QQ.

[Kmieciu]

I like to group up with 3 new players from time to time. Thanks to their low ELO I can enjoy 5+ kills a match without too much effort.

Edited by Kmieciu, 23 May 2013 - 12:42 AM.