21 replies to this topic

[Errinovar]

I'm not completely new, I think I started in May. But what I've noticed is that gauging your piloting ability is somewhat difficult. I consider myself to be mediocre in my favorite mechs and **** poor most of the time I try a new mech until I get it figured out. I can't really use the kill death ratio, because my **** poor performance really skews the total by the time my skills get up to average. Win/Loss is a wash when solo dropping as it really has less to do with an individual and more to do with the team.

So what I did today is I ran 5 matches in my Raven (because that was what I was piloting when I got the idea), and tallied up the damage, kills, assists, and deaths for each match.

match damage kills assists deaths
1 385 2 5 0
2 565 1 6 1
3 429 1 5 1
4 303 0 4 0
5 213 4 3 1
-------------------------------------------------------
Totals: 1895 8 23 3

Average: 379 1.6 4.6 0.6 per match

Now I know it is a pretty small sample but the average seems to cut pretty close to what I have been doing these days in my raven. How does this rank in terms of piloting? I know I have improved somewhat, but what is the line that distinguishes a good pilot from a mediocre pilot, and a mediocre pilot from a poor pilot?

[Mycrus]

does it really matter if you are having fun?

we don't have dueling / solaris arena options in the game so we don't really know who is top dog and who is at the bottom of ladder...

damage can easily be exploited... a night or two ago, i caught a victor out alone... so i take my time with it... blew its side torso out, legged it... opened up the other leg... and then opened up the CT... the last thing i did was even clean off the head... so 800+ damage for just 1 mech....

kills can also be exploited... just scan the battlefield and look for open up squishy parts and shoot there...

assists is mostly exploited... run around and shoot stuff at least once, and then presto... you haz a lot of assist...

[Errinovar]

It matters if you are looking to improve, if you want to get a feel for how well you do for your team, particularly if you mainly solo drop and you are looking to find a team.

And yes I play to have fun, so I'm not trying to inflate the damage, or the kills etc.. I'm looking to find out how I relate to the rest of the field in my quest to improve my piloting. I know I have improved a lot since I started, but going from an average of 150 damage, 0 kills and dying every match to now only tells me how much I have improved relative to where I started. There is nothing wrong with wanting to know where I stand in relation to other pilots, it isn't an epeen thing, it's a wanting to find a gauge of where I stand now and how much I have to climb to start feeling like a competent or even skilled pilot.

I highly doubt I am alone in this.

[Mycrus]

don't get me wrong - i don't find anything off with what you want...

i want the same thing myself... my point is towards not having the tools to yardstick yourself against other pilots...

the last bit would be builds as well.... a cheezer & perennial 4-man player will feel that they are better than most, but when stripped from their 4-man and their cheeze builds they can and will get owned by "pubstars" (pugs that have risen up in Elo and learned piloting and gunnery skills the hard way)...

yah we so need solaris... but true ranking... none of this tourney grind fest, which actually is just a ranking of players that do not have lives beyond their internet robotz...

Edited by Mycrus, 31 August 2013 - 08:50 PM.

[Johnny Reb]

Well If tou kill the other team and end up winning I say your on the right track!

[Errinovar]

@Johnny: 2 problems I have with that: 1st Team win/loss doesn't really tell me anything about my own abilities, and k/d ratio is pretty underwhelming for a gauge, because of the environment. Secondly, as a pugger, there are times when I am having a great game but my team overall is getting stomped and we end up losing the match.

[Johnny Reb]

Of course not. If you are at least doing damage and still lose, then deal with it! If im dropping solo win or lose really is a {Scrap} shot. Good thing cause I think the na sayers are wrong and more ppl are coming in all the time. Still, I do my best and if I lose with top damage oe kills so be it. One game in a pug. Played hundreds of them. Only ppl that care are really not worth caring about. I would say the same to the hardcore 12v12 but really, Nacht Dem Spiel ist For Dem Speil!

[justjay]

Want to really gauge your skill? always go solo, and go with purposefully bad (weapon-wise) builds. try random things, force yourself into uncomfortable situations, and then make the best of that. I used to roll with an F jenner exclusively, then i tried the D with SRM's and small pulses, and the K with some bastardized TAG laser, small pulse, LRM nonsense (maybe that was a D, don't remember) and loved them both after scoring well with them.

Point is, challenge yourself, put yourself in hard / unfamiliar territory, that's how you really determine your skill.

[Hans Power]

Scores don't really matter that much in my opinion because they don't always reflect actual performance. Some parts of teamwork like drawing fire away from teammates, making a sally to mess up the enemy teams positioning or stuff like that doesn't necessarily reflect in point values but still are effective. If I wanne get a good score with less risk involved, I stick close to the assaults and provide backup fire (I'm in a heavy, by the way). Or I mix it up a bit. Both playstyles are fun and give me a sense of accomplishment often enough.

Edited by Hans Power, 01 September 2013 - 02:13 AM.

[CGB Behemoth]

Open your "Mech Stats" in your forum profile.
Then chose your mech's 3 params (Matches played, kills, damage). Dividing DMG/Kills or DMG/Matches will give you two stats.
The lower DMG/kills is - the better (you killing enemies quickly).
The higher DMG/Matches the better (you kill many enemies if you are good in DMG/kills).
By this two stats you can see how you make better or worser by time.

P.S. Sorry for my bad English.

[Archon Adam Steiner]

The best way to gauge skills is to join a team - something like mine (a division of the Skye Rangers) - or any other out there that you see actively recruiting in the Merc boards (since House board recruitment isn't permitted).

Damage alone, kills alone, assists alone, dying or not... it's all relative to the battle in question.

High damage? Useful, but if it was applied by 'spray and pray', it was an accident. Was it even directed at the appropriate target, or just the most easy to kill or damage one?

High kills? Easy to swoop in and steal those.

High assists? Tagging 'mechs is pretty simple!

Dying? Well, if you were a brawler for your team, and you kept the enemy focused on you for a good while, while your team-mates beat the the hell out of the bad guys or capped an objective, dying was exactly the right thing to do.

MWO is a team game; playing it as an individual can only rack of individual accolades which are hard to judge. Yes, generally good pilots will produce high kills/damage/assists, but sometimes they don't, even for multiple games in a row, if the situation doesn't call for brutal fighting.

If you want to judge your skill, and better yet, improve it - join a team. Fight as an integral cog in a machine. Complete the objective(s) of the match, and improve to win another day.

[Greyrook]

I tend to mentally rank the skill of a player that I'm spectating by a couple things:

Reaction/Aim time: How long does it take them to line up and pop off a burst-damage weapon (ballistic, ppc, srm) once a mech comes into their view and are they making good use of indirect weapons (lrms)
Accuracy: Do they make a hit with a burst damage weapon, and can they track an enemy with lasers. Also, are they aiming at a beneficial location on the enemy (weakened armor, scout legs, etc)
Maneuvering: Are they minimizing their damage by twisting and exploiting terrain properly.

This is because I tend to agree with the others above who regard the stats as no very accurate in terms of representing skill level, although they do imply skill to a certain degree. I would say you're doing well for a Raven based on your excerpt, getting good to high damage and picking off enemies for a lot of kills is the mark of an effective scout outside of actually seeing what said scout is doing.

[LegoPirate]

generally i like to say if youre doing between 75-150 damage per kill/assist, and getting 6+ kills/assists per game youre doing solid.

[scJazz]

Greyrook, on 01 September 2013 - 04:48 AM, said:

I tend to mentally rank the skill of a player that I'm spectating by a couple things:

Reaction/Aim time: How long does it take them to line up and pop off a burst-damage weapon (ballistic, ppc, srm) once a mech comes into their view and are they making good use of indirect weapons (lrms)
Accuracy: Do they make a hit with a burst damage weapon, and can they track an enemy with lasers. Also, are they aiming at a beneficial location on the enemy (weakened armor, scout legs, etc)
Maneuvering: Are they minimizing their damage by twisting and exploiting terrain properly.

This is because I tend to agree with the others above who regard the stats as no very accurate in terms of representing skill level, although they do imply skill to a certain degree. I would say you're doing well for a Raven based on your excerpt, getting good to high damage and picking off enemies for a lot of kills is the mark of an effective scout outside of actually seeing what said scout is doing.

Ummm as has been pointed out previously. You are not seeing the aiming the way the Player does while spectating. What you see as a totally absurd miss might have been a hit and vice versa.

[Greyrook]

scJazz, on 01 September 2013 - 05:10 AM, said:

Ummm as has been pointed out previously. You are not seeing the aiming the way the Player does while spectating. What you see as a totally absurd miss might have been a hit and vice versa.

Ummm for the most part you are seeing a decent representation, and the reticle will display registered hits regardless as long as they are detected by the server (although that's a whole other kettle). And besides, this is just for my own personal evaluation of another party without their knowledge and was just an example of what I regard as marks of a skilled player.

[scJazz]

Greyrook, on 01 September 2013 - 05:27 AM, said:

Ummm for the most part you are seeing a decent representation, and the reticle will display registered hits regardless as long as they are detected by the server (although that's a whole other kettle). And besides, this is just for my own personal evaluation of another party without their knowledge and was just an example of what I regard as marks of a skilled player.

That is cool... I'm just pointed it out because both of us I'm sure have been spectating someone and we see the flashing crosshairs and the paper doll getting blinky yet someone else says "L2Aim" on Team chat.

[Sheraf]

Errinovar, on 31 August 2013 - 08:13 PM, said:

I'm not completely new, I think I started in May. But what I've noticed is that gauging your piloting ability is somewhat difficult. I consider myself to be mediocre in my favorite mechs and **** poor most of the time I try a new mech until I get it figured out. I can't really use the kill death ratio, because my **** poor performance really skews the total by the time my skills get up to average. Win/Loss is a wash when solo dropping as it really has less to do with an individual and more to do with the team.

So what I did today is I ran 5 matches in my Raven (because that was what I was piloting when I got the idea), and tallied up the damage, kills, assists, and deaths for each match.

match damage kills assists deaths
1 385 2 5 0
2 565 1 6 1
3 429 1 5 1
4 303 0 4 0
5 213 4 3 1
-------------------------------------------------------
Totals: 1895 8 23 3

Average: 379 1.6 4.6 0.6 per match

Now I know it is a pretty small sample but the average seems to cut pretty close to what I have been doing these days in my raven. How does this rank in terms of piloting? I know I have improved somewhat, but what is the line that distinguishes a good pilot from a mediocre pilot, and a mediocre pilot from a poor pilot?

There is no such line, have fun is the main reason. Once you are having fun in the match, your skill will improve as you play along

[Koniving]

Honestly while stats can give you an idea of your abilities, I found a much more satisfying test is to take a stock mech with no changes, and then defeat superior, advanced tech mechs in this screwed up world where we are playing with the best tech of the succession wars -- most of which was lost and made uncommon with hundreds of years of fruitless wars.

If you can take a stock mech and defeat a mech of equal weight and of superior equipment in a battle one on one, you're doing pretty good. If you can take on several and win, you're doing freaking incredible.

Alternatively, you can take a mech with joke weapons and see if you triumph.

Because even if you fail, it doesn't say much to whether or not you're bad. But if you succeed, it says a lot about how great you can be.

Click for fun!

Spoiler

That said, in this match I took out 1 enemy beforehand without taking a bit of damage, and during the fight my 3 teammates are killed within the first minute and a half, leaving me to go solo against at least 4 enemies. In an assault this is pretty good. If I were in something smaller, this would be incredible.
As the title says: The Flamer Stalker Returns!

I found this video sounds pretty good with this (as I was listening to it when I dug up the video).

[Xeno Phalcon]

Pfft who cares about your stinking score give me my cbills!



vs

[Greyrook]

Xeno Phalcon, on 01 September 2013 - 09:31 AM, said:

Pfft who cares about your stinking score give me my cbills!

I quite recently earned a whole 80K c-bills for a win after doing 600 damage and getting a kill. I was...displeased.