127 replies to this topic

[LauLiao]

dragnier1, on 21 April 2014 - 06:53 AM, said:

Usually wins-losses are fairly even (for me at least, i pug), except these few days while the 5 match challenge is going on. I've gotten many losses. It might be down to luck too, perhaps.

I don't TS myself, i play without sound 30-40% of the time+don't have a head set.

EXTREMELY important point here! There's this free mech/mech bay challenge going on that you can't do in groups, which means there are probably a lot of "groups" out there this weekend sync dropping to grab the free mech. Wait until this thing is over and see how it goes then.

[Bhelogan]

LauLiao, on 21 April 2014 - 07:49 AM, said:

EXTREMELY important point here! There's this free mech/mech bay challenge going on that you can't do in groups, which means there are probably a lot of "groups" out there this weekend sync dropping to grab the free mech. Wait until this thing is over and see how it goes then.

No, you can get your wins in groups for the free mech challange.

[Malcolm Vordermark]

Could be a lot of problems here. I would like to see the mech build you are using. You can always head over to Smurfy which will allow you to easily save and link your builds. I would also like to know how many wins vs losses you have right now.

Ultimately though, if you fix everything and play right you're still at the mercy of bad match ups. The way you avoid this is grouping up with other players. The game's support of grouping is irrelevant. It is not difficult to find groups, even asking in the new player's section where to find groups will get pointed towards a lot of resources for grouping. If you simply refuse to do it because the game's client does not support it I have no sympathy for you. That would be like complaining that other players have an advantage because they have double heat sinks and your mech came with singles.

Edited by Rouken, 21 April 2014 - 08:04 AM.

[AllSpark]

PitchBlackYeti, on 21 April 2014 - 05:33 AM, said:

I've had maybe 2-3 games thet were really close shave, most of the time it's just lolstomp for one team or the other.

That sounds like the MM is working properly then. The nature of no respawn gamemode is that when one team loses a mech or two, they are significantly outgunned and the house of cards (aka. their team) starts to collapse. If the enemy team can keep the momentum up - stomps happen even when both teams are equally skilled. Sometimes the early game success/failure pretty much defines how the rest of the game is turning out for your team.

If you are always on the losing team then there is something wrong with the MM - namely your ELO is not correct, but stomps themselves don't signify a broken MM. It is really easy misjudge the tactical situation and overextend in this game. If the enemy can capitalize your mistake, it can be nearly impossible to turn the game around. Stomp can start from a small mistake and snowball from that, especially in PUG games where communication between team mates is limited.

[Steve Pryde]

Yeah, most of the time you get rofl-stomped or you and your team stomped the enemy team (wich makes no fun, too) and only sometimes it's a close up match wich makes the most fun for me. Elo-matchmaking is only good for one: a big laugh.

[Nyden]

A few observations;
With the free mech prize this weekend there seems to be alot of extra new players in the mix, so coordinated teams and guys with good enough ELO's to get matched with them have been reaping the benefits for the last couple of days.

Generally, the longer the matchmaker takes to find a match, the wider the variance in ELO is going to be and often it just takes a couple critical mistakes by one or two guys to drag a perfectly good team down.

Also, as has been noted, your ELO doesn't move much if the matchmaker expects you to get stomped.

I expect my ELO in the class of mechs I was running on the weekend is on the low side of mid range and it took me more games than it should have to get my 5 wins. I also noticed a tendency for the matches to be a little more one sided than usual.

So, to some extent I think your problem is bad luck. With all the iterations of the match maker and the various ELO resets I've also gone through lengthy periods of losing badly. Another issue is that because ELO is based on mech class, often when switching to a new mech my ELO will put me in a higher bracket than I'm prepared for because I was winning more often than not in the last mech I drove. Of coarse I had a lot more experience earned in that mech and had already paid the double heat sink tax, so winning was easier. This leads to a lot of losing as my ELO adjusts to my abilities with the new mech.

The new 3/3/3/3 thingy next week should balance matches enormously better, of coarse it may also significantly increase wait times, especially if you like driving assaults and heavies but it's probably worth giving a shot.

[HighTest]

Onyxian,

When do you play?

I had posted in your previous thread. I'm sorry to hear that things aren't looking up for you yet.

Since I keep seeing you on here, even after the stomps you're facing, so I'm going to assume that you're a decent, patient guy who really would like to get better at this game. So...

If your play time coincides with mine, give me an hour. Find a time that you can get on our group Teamspeak server with me. I'll run through some matches with you for some "how to survive the common PUG" training. I get that grouping up on Teamspeak doesn't usually work for you, so I'll try to help you become more independent. I'm no uber-competitive elite mechwarrior, but I can probably show you a bunch of stuff that will make your MWO life a little less painful.

If it works, then great! If not, well, you at least tried to see what you could do before you quit and head over to some other game.

Send me a PM if you want to set something up.

[Koniving]

PitchBlackYeti, on 21 April 2014 - 05:33 AM, said:

I'm also aware that PGI is attempting to tweak the MM to group players by their skill but so far it doesn't seem to be working at all.

I think the largest issue is that MWO groups an organized group of randoms + some higher end of the bracket + some lower end of the bracket and slaps them together on both teams to reach an 'average'.

One team might have only a few higher scored players with a lot of lower skilled players while the other side might have an even number of not-as-highly scored players with some high-end lower scored players and still meet that average.
In which case either those 'few' players on the first team has to carry a lot of weight or the larger number of experienced yet not as good players on the other team will completely overwhelm them.

As Redshift said, there's a huge thing about the dynamics of combat. Think Star Craft or War Craft (before that 'WoW' bullcrap). As soon as one player dies, the entire tide of the fight changes. Once four players die, the enemy team will advance with confidence. And that's what it really is, confidence to stop hiding.

A typical fight begins with positioning, devolves to Gears of War style pop-and-squat shoot outs until people make mistakes, and then becomes a Blitzkrieg. That is unless something intelligent is done. Here's some examples.

• Guard the assaults; they can't do everything. If everyone is looking in the same direction, you're as good as dead; if you can't fight from the group's position you need to keep your eyes to the sides. Watch for flanks. The only way to win a stalemate is to rush in from the side -- or defend adequately against it.
  
• The front line will always fall from behind. That's why every military in history has a minimum of two lines. The front line and the reserves. The reserves are there to protect the front line and fill in the gaps. Smarter teams even alternate the front line and reserves -- just like in sports you switch out players when they are exhausted (or heavily hurt).
  
• Be the wedge. If you can get away with it, consider convincing a lance to come with you to be the wedge that causes an enemy's front line to crumble. Even better if they have two or more lines then pick off the enemies at the rear most line. The entire line will break and many will come for you, and then your allies can rush in and tear them to pieces. That, or only two guys at a time come after you. Either way if you have a full lance (4 players) on your side being the wedge, you just won. Every. Single. Time.
  
• Know your role. If you produced a mech then you made it with something in mind. If you didn't you should reconsider your design to fill a niche and then play to that niche.
  
• Sometimes it's better not to shoot when you see the enemy. If you're following someone and they don't shoot there's a reason. It's better to make sure the hornet is alone than to have rattled the nest.
  
• Players who stop a lot... know more than you do. Seriously this is true. There's a seismic sensor module (nicknamed "Wall hacks" by people who hate it) that scans for movement and it only works if the player is stationary. Works kind of like the Aliens motion tracker. If they start backing up for seemingly no reason, you'll be thankful if your pants are already brown so no one will know what you're about to do.
  
• Full speed isn't always the best speed. Vary your speed when traveling, you will live longer and be harder to hit.
  
• This ain't the movies; mechs who run in straight lines die first. Zig zag, circle-jerk, run around. Never attack head-on in a straight line, you will always lose.
  
• The closer you are, the less accurate you are. It's true, at less than 180 meters the closer you get the more your shots will spread due to the fact that your shots are NOT coming from the center of your screen. Be wary if an enemy is trying to get too close; chances are he knows what he's doing and you're gonna get screwed.
  
• Having trouble killing something that keeps turning and twisting? Shoot the legs. There's no rear/front armor on legs.
  
• Enemy has too much firepower? If it says 20, shoot that cannon-side torso. Even if it's on the arm, shoot the side torso to take it out (and half if not all of your enemy). If it says "LRM" and is massively spamming missiles? Find a way to sneak up to it (less than 180 meters = safe) and blast it down. If it says "SRM" and has a lot of high numbers, go for the missile side but keep your distance (more than 270 meters = safe).
  
• Check the map. A quick glance to the map will tell you a lot.
  
• Explore maps in testing grounds. If you know what you are doing and where you are going, you'll know more than at least 6 other people on either side.
  
• Atlases are walking coffins. Put the dead back where they belong.
  
• David versus Goliath wasn't easy; yet it was. Greatest thing about a giant is how tough it is to kill yet how easy it is to kill. Get behind it. 9 out of every 10 assault mechs have 80 to 100% front armor. Some have less armor on their legs than most lighter light mechs have for their entire body -- which means with enough firepower you could one-shot the armor and really tear it apart.
  
• Lasers are useless if you don't focus the beams. When using a laser and when possible, STOP, Point, Shoot, Wait for the beams to end, Move. Use Pulse Lasers to avoid this problem.
  
• If you can pinpoint 33 damage then aim for the cockpit. No, seriously, why the heck are you shooting anywhere else? Kill the jerk inside the enemy mech and you kill the mech. Test and probe in the testing grounds and see if you can score those shots.
  
• Battlemasters and Stalkers are the easiest assaults to kill in 1 shot. Aim for the nose (Battlemaster), aim for the visor (Stalker). Remember 33 damage in an instant spike is what you need, twin AC/5s can do this pretty easy if you're confident in consistently scoring the hits. Four AC/5s do it even better.
  
• As a ghost you can provide information. You know stuff that you shouldn't, that the living can't communicate. Tell others! "Playername needs help B3" "Bravo has engaged the enemy had H9." "The enemy is open J2." "Target D, Stalker, weak legs."
  
• Meta builds aren't that great, everyone knows their weaknesses, everyone knows their strengths, and they will be the first ones to die if the opportunity comes along.
  
• If all your weapons take 4 or more seconds to fire again, rethink your weapons. You miss, there's a huge gap of time for you to get screwed. It takes 0.7 seconds minimum for a human being to provide an opening after making a mistake in CQC. On average it takes 1.35 seconds for a person to die after that mistake. If you take 4 seconds to recover; you're screwed. Nothing you can do will change that unless you rethink either your weapons or how you use them.

Hope this helps someone, somewhere.

[Koniving]

AllSpark, on 21 April 2014 - 08:18 AM, said:

That sounds like the MM is working properly then. The nature of no respawn gamemode is that when one team loses a mech or two, they are significantly outgunned and the house of cards (aka. their team) starts to collapse. If the enemy team can keep the momentum up - stomps happen even when both teams are equally skilled. Sometimes the early game success/failure pretty much defines how the rest of the game is turning out for your team.

If you are always on the losing team then there is something wrong with the MM - namely your ELO is not correct, but stomps themselves don't signify a broken MM. It is really easy misjudge the tactical situation and overextend in this game. If the enemy can capitalize your mistake, it can be nearly impossible to turn the game around. Stomp can start from a small mistake and snowball from that, especially in PUG games where communication between team mates is limited.

Close fights are rare in this environment.
This was the last one I had.

---
The following is about a separate match.
For fun, one lance (plus a mech or two that doesn't live long) versus the entire enemy team whose objective is to take the base (before base turrets). Within the two minutes of the match they wiped out most of our team and took the base down by 85% and almost won immediately. We resisted, we organized, we defended, we won. Here's the dash cam.

Edited by Koniving, 21 April 2014 - 09:23 AM.

[HighTest]

Koniving, on 21 April 2014 - 09:04 AM, said:

• If all your weapons take 4 or more seconds to fire again, rethink your weapons. You miss, there's a huge gap of time for you to get screwed. It takes 0.7 seconds minimum for a human being to provide an opening after making a mistake in CQC. On average it takes 1.35 seconds for a person to die after that mistake. If you take 4 seconds to recover; you're screwed. Nothing you can do will change that unless you rethink either your weapons or how you use them.

As much as everything Koniving writes is true, I REALLY like his last point. (I think most of the other ones may be a little too advanced for you at this stage -- you will get there, but maybe not yet.) His last point is a rule that I learned to live by, but have never really thought to articulate.

One of the mistakes I made when I was new to the game was running around with a 3-ERPPC Awesome. And that was even well before the DHS nerfs, ghost heat, and PPC heat tinkering made them particularly useless like now.

Heat back then wasn't really the problem... USING the weapons was the problem. If you alpha strike all three PPCs at once, sure, heat is part of the problem. But if you MISS, and all you have are those 3 PPCs, you're sitting on your thumb in front of an enemy for 4 seconds before you can try again. You might be able to run or hide, but depending on the mech and your position, maybe not.

The problem is, when you're new, aiming is still coming along. You need to factor in projectile speeds. Factor in hitreg 'quirks'. Stuff like that. With practice, eventually, you can just 'feel' the weapon. But as a newbie, you can easily miss an entire alpha and leave yourself open to being slaughtered.

I suggest, if you aren't already, start with a medium or heavy. Lights take practice. Lots of practice. (Well, it did for me, anyway. My brain apparently doesn't work at 150+ kp/h). Assaults are VERY unforgiving to both mistakes or keeping up with the rest of your unpredictable PUG team (because they are so slow). Stick to something in the 70-100 kp/h range, and make sure that you have either:

- faster-recycle weapons (AC2, UAC5. AC5, MG, etc.), or
- backup weapons. (It's amazing what even 2 Medium Lasers can do when you're in a pinch, for a measly cost of 2 tons).

That way, WHEN you make a mistake (and I assure you, even the veterans do sometimes), you can either back yourself up with some weapons or try to get yourself out of trouble.

Also -- if you don't already have one, invest in a gaming mouse with on-the-fly DPS adjustment. Trust me -- unless you're planning on running as a pure brawler, you will very much appreciate the extra precision when shooting past 600m or so. Expensive? Yes. Worth every penny? YES! I found one I liked so much, I bought 4 of them. I figure I'll be good for a while now.

[Onyxian]

@ Rouken

My mech build shouldn't matter... That's making the assumption my teams losses are all my fault because of poor mech builds. Yeah, if they're bad, maybe that does cost a game here or there, but it can't explain the constant hammering. Teams with DC regularly beat me, and even a bad build is better than a DC, isn't it?
And I do have a group, but none of them were on when I was last night.


@ Allspark

Yeah, but why does that NEVER happen for my team. MY team is always the one making the mistakes. And IF the enemy team ever makes a mistake, my teams can never capitalize on it. Why am I never on the team that can do that?

@ Nyden

Bad luck can explain a bad night, or bad wkd. But an entire month of it?

And I understand that a lot of team groups dropped this wkd for the free mech. It doesn't explain the previous 27 days.

@ HighTest

Thanks a ton, I really appreciate it, but I've already said I can't TS. And I shouldn't HAVE to in order to win anything. I understand it puts me at a disadvantage to the people that do, and I'm ok with that. But it shouldn't cost me every game.

@Koniving

You're a saint for the amount of time you put in trying to help, I've tried a lot of what you suggest, but its hard to think logically or rationally you're team is down a lance 2 minutes into every game and you're constantly under fire, no matter you try to hide the snipers on the team always know where I am or where I'm going or the LRM rain is coming down because an ECM spider we can't see is spotting for his team (which my team can never seem to do). And I'm devolving into another rant, none of which you guys haven't heard a thousand thousand times before.

[HighTest]

Onyxian, on 21 April 2014 - 09:36 AM, said:

@ HighTest

Thanks a ton, I really appreciate it, but I've already said I can't TS. And I shouldn't HAVE to in order to win anything. I understand it puts me at a disadvantage to the people that do, and I'm ok with that. But it shouldn't cost me every game.

I'm not trying to talk you into being a hardcore group and TS player -- I'm just looking for an hour on TS so that I can talk you through some stuff. I find my typing fails me miserably when I'm in the middle of a firefight. It's a lot easier to do a brain-dump verbally as the situations occur rather than trying to sort it out in chat after-the-fact.

If that's an option (even for an hour or so), let me know.

[TheCaptainJZ]

@ OP,
I almost exclusively PUG. The only time I am in a team is when I drop with my brother. Even in the days before ELO, i've never had an experience like you describe. You are right, it doesn't make sense statistically. Only thing I can imagine is if you have a much higher ELO score than you should from some time ago and it's just not dropping it quickly enough so the average ELO of your team matches the other team's but only because yours is wrong. I doubt this is the case, but it's possible for some other players here. This really is something you should email support, with your screenshots, so a dev can look into your case. You can also try messaging Karl Berg. He's been responding consistently with the playerbase in a thread here: http://mwomercs.com/...courtesy-phone/
I don't know if he can help you directly, but it's worth a shot. Please file a support ticket either way with what you've told us. Obviously, this is not the way it's supposed to be and your information might help the devs figure something out for future players and yourself.

Edit: Also, if you are interested, you can add me in game and we can drop together some time. I'm not a high ELO player, but I have some good games. No need for voice comms or anything. We can just lance/team chat.

Edited by TheCaptainJZ, 21 April 2014 - 09:51 AM.

[Koniving]

For once I get to post something short and quick.

Panicking is the fastest way to get everyone killed. See it all the time in games, in shows, movies, etc., but for some reason it never clicks with people. Maybe it's army training, maybe it's just that common sense isn't common. Whatever the case, don't panic.

[Garegaupa]

Onyxian, I'm really sorry to hear about your massively bad experience... This does make me fell rather ashamed of myself for complaining when I've had one day of bad luck...

I don't have any better advice than the fine people on this forum have already provided you with, unfortunately. What I can tell you, though, is that your experience kind of reminds me of what happened when I started playing Stalkers (and Assaults, for that matter) for the first time. I was extremely disappointed at first, as I thought (and had experienced) that the Stalker was very hard to kill, but I just kept dying, getting left behind, and so on.

However, I really, really wanted to like the Stalkers, so I kept playing. It sure was slow going, but eventually things started turning around, and now the Stalkers are among the 'Mechs I do best in. I can't remember if this took as long as it has done for you, but it sure felt like it. Maybe things will improve for you too if you hang in here!

I also believe that, when things start going bad, ones own negative thoughts and feelings will help make the matter worse. I actually made a thread regarding this a while ago, and got some good input. Here it is, if you are interested: http://mwomercs.com/...36#entry3259536

Also, if you can find the time for one hour alongside HighTest on TS, I feel pretty sure you wouldn't regret it!

Good luck, I really hope you won't give up, and that things will improve for you!

Edited by Garegaupa, 21 April 2014 - 09:54 AM.

[Koniving]

Just point and shoot, and remember when things hit the fan, turn and run.
This vid is a new one. When I encounter the Jager watch what happens when I nearly die. I already had a plan and I put it in action, turned around and killed 2 mechs back to back.

[HighTest]

Koniving, on 21 April 2014 - 09:52 AM, said:

Just point and shoot, and remember when things hit the fan, turn and run.
This vid is a new one. When I encounter the Jager watch what happens when I nearly die. I already had a plan and I put it in action, turned around and killed 2 mechs back to back.

Great video, Koniving. I really enjoy city fighting for this reason. My best games have always been the ones where I can duck and dodge in and out of stuff when I get into trouble. (And where I can sneak around to my enemy's flank or rear and surprise the living heck out of them with a well-placed alpha. But that's another story.)

On that note -- I haven't played a match with you in my group for a while, Koniving. Clearly we either play at very different times, or your ELO is just that much better than mine.

I suppose that's better than dropping against you in a PUG.

[Peter2k]

Well this might be a help, or none, depends on you

I love using a UAV to let PUG's know where the enemy is, you'd be surprised how fast they turn once they can see a group of red triangles

in my opinion I turned quite some battles that way, instead of typing which no ones seems to listen, I show PUG's the way to go
although advanced tactics go out the window, but than no one listens to the text anyway

here is hoping for a module that lets scouts target more than one enemy at one time

[AllSpark]

Onyxian, on 21 April 2014 - 09:36 AM, said:

@ Rouken

@ Allspark

Yeah, but why does that NEVER happen for my team. MY team is always the one making the mistakes. And IF the enemy team ever makes a mistake, my teams can never capitalize on it. Why am I never on the team that can do that?

I honestly think you are just experiencing some bad luck here and you probably should change your Mech and build to see if that suits you better and makes the game more enjoyable. I PUG 100% and I have mechs which I have K/D and W/L way over 2 and then I have Mechs which don't seem to suit me at all (and what's with Caustic? My W/L is 0.33 and I really like that map... )

When I'm experiencing a stomp my goal switches from winning the game into just getting a kill and staying alive as long as possible and when I succeed I still walk out of the game with a grin on my face. If I get stomped and I I did good compared to other members on the blue team, I still consider it a personal win. I did what I could in a bad situation.

So I guess my advise here is that you should focus more on your own improvement as a Mech pilot and not so much at winning and losing games, that attitude keeps me enjoying MWO.

[Koniving]

Lately between college (getting into game design) and various other things (DayZ, State of Decay, trying to get Skyrim to work with just the right set of mods for performance yet amazing graphics while recording) my play time on MWO has been reduced to about 3 hours a day and typically at late night when matchmaker is at its 'worst' (2 and 5 AM).

Honestly if ELO goes by wins/losses, mine can't be that great.
W/L Archived 4,305 / 3,907 (since the to me unannounced stat wipe in February 2013; only noticed it because most of my mechs had no record of being played when I've put days worth of playtime into them)
W/L Current 136 / 94

Spoiler

I play those times because I genuinely miss when I never knew what I was up against and that's when matchmaker has very little to work with and thus the matches are as eschewed as possible. 3/3/3/3 may help a lot of new players but it is going to ruin the game for me; like many I'm holding out hoping that the "Unit Life" element of Community Warfare removes this restriction in favor of actual tonnage-limits in matches where the number of Dropships or forces you left at a Garrison you have determine what you can actually bring. Hopefully with the reinforcements (secondary mech limited 'respawn') thing pushed out to us so long ago.

(Signature, left link for more with the use of a little scenario).