18 replies to this topic

[Zirack]

Statistics Guide: Noob vs MWO

I collect data for fun. I play games for fun. This post contains information I wish I'd known when I jumped into the game. To be clear: I very-much like the MechWarrior franchise, however (as we all know) jumping into the game as a new player can be pretty harsh. Hopefully the following stats will help other new players get a quick statistic low-down on the game so they can make informed decisions and know what to expect.

Disclaimer(s):
* The following data is based on a Free Player experience (my own); no boosters or Champion/Hero mechs were used.
* This is not an introductory guide to the game. It is meant for the new-ish player to gain a sense of how the game plays from a mathematical point of view.

---

First off, let me tell you a bit about my limited experience so far in the game so you can better know how to interpret what I say:
A) I have always liked the MechWarrior franchise.
B) I currently have 8 accounts.
C) I have piloted 24 of the 49 available Mechs.
D) The data below is from Pick up Group (PuG) games only.

Scores

Spoiler

I score quite average compared to my fellow pilots:

Peer Score

Overall: 46
on Win: 59
on Loss: 34

---

My Score

Overall: 50
on Win: 60
on Loss: 39

---

Average Score

Overall: 48
on Win: 60
on Loss: 37

---

As you may notice from the above scores, MechWarrior Online (MWO) is pretty rough. The average Winning Score is 60, while the average Losing Score is 37. In other words, when you lose, you lose pretty hard.

MWO is also a very team-oriented game; pulling a Rambo will only result in your death, and a barely-scratched enemy. The good news is, the game's matchmaking works fairly well (although it doesn't seem like it most of the time). I'll let the numbers explain further:

Win : Loss - how often can you expect to win?

Spoiler

Win : Loss %

Win Rate: 53%
Loss Rate: 47%

---

So I win and lose about half the time. However, here's the bad news that I mentioned earlier: when you lose, you lose hard.

Team K:D Ratios - how good are the winners? how bad are the losers?

Spoiler

Average Enemy Kills (per team)

Winning Team: 11.5
Losing Team: 5.3

---

Kill : Death (K:D) Ratios

Winner: 2.2
Loser: 0.5

The K:D Ratio is either 220% or 50% depending on whether you won or lost. In real world terms, this means the winning team usually bulldozes a trail of destruction through the pathetic enemy team. I believe this is why many players seem to say that MWO has horrible matchmaking.

Personally, I think the real issue is the fact that a loss of even a couple Mechs on a team can drastically reduce the team's overall effectiveness. Most matches involve a large amount of back-and-forth trading. If there is a battle between 3 friendly and 5 hostile Mechs, it's quite likely you will lose all 3 of your Mechs without killing even 1 of theirs.

---

Losing Team's Kill Count Frequency

# of Kills	Frequency %
0	3%
1	5%
2	7%
3	15%
4	15%
5	9%
6	15%
7	10%
8	9%
9	4%
10	5%
11	4%
12	0% N/A*

That's some interesting data. It depicts how many enemies the losing team usually kills, and helps illustrate the "bulldozer" effect mentioned above. Personally, I consider a 'close' match to be one in which the winning and losing teams have about the same number of kills. In the Skirmish game mode, the winning team always gets 12 kills, so I consider a close game to be one where the losing team gets between 9 and 11 kills. From the table above, we can see this occurs about 13% of the time, meaning 87% of the time, I would not consider the game to be 'close' - but that's just my opinion.

*N/A: can't kill 12 enemies without winning, hence the 0%

Kills & Assists - how many people can you expect to kill?

Spoiler

Average Kills (per match)

by Tonnage
Assault: 0.75
Medium: 0.73
Heavy: 0.70
Light: 0.58

by Win / Loss
Win: 0.96
Loss: 0.30

---

Again, we can see that when you win a match your kill count is much higher (over 300% higher) than when you lose. Continuing on, let's look at Assists:

Average Assists (per match)

by Tonnage
Heavy: 5.35
Medium: 5.15
Light: 4.70
Assault: 4.00

by Win / Loss
Win: 6.34
Loss: 3.18

---

C-Bills & XP - how much money and XP do you make?

Spoiler

So what about C-Bills (in-game currency) and XP? How are they affected?

C-Bills

per Hour: 724,757
per Match: 90,990

by Tonnage (per hour)
Heavy: 803,094
Light: 783,287
Medium: 723,606
Assault: *not enough data

by Game Type (per hour)
Conquest: 749,089
Assault: 727,625
Skirmish: 706,022

by Win / Loss (per hour)
Win: 942,416
Loss: 456,344

---

XP

*Note: some of the XP data includes the x2 multiplier

per Hour: 8,257
per Match: 1,036

by Win / Loss (per hour)
Win: 12,796
Loss: 2,833

So when it comes to C-Bill earnings, you earn double. As for XP, winning nets you about 4.5x more. Keep in mind, you will be winning and losing about half of your matches. While I'm talking about C-Bills, here is some quick info on the Cadet Bonus (bonus C-Bill awarded during first 25 matches):

---

Cadet Bonus

Total over 25 matches: 7,983,000
Average per Match: 319,320

The Cadet Bonus is equivelent to a 3.5x multiplier to your normal C-Bill earnings. When it's gone, you will be effectively earning ~70% less per match. This is why I have 8 accounts *sigh*. By the time the average player completes their first 25 matches, he/she should have earned between 8 and 10 million C-Bills.

---

Mech Costs - how much they cost + how long it will take you to be 'Elite'

Spoiler

Now that we've discussed how much money you make per hour, let's talk about the main expense in the game: buying Mechs. Buying a Mech usually runs between 3.8 and 10.8 million C-Bills, although they can be as little as 1.4 and as much as 17.8 million. Either way, the likelihood is you will want to make your Mech the best it can possibly be, and for that you will need to 'Elite' it. Elite'ing a Mech requires purchasing 3 variations of it, earning XP in each, and purchasing all their Basic Effeciencies.

Avg C-Bill Cost to Elite a Mech (buying 3 varients)

by Tonnage
Assault: 32,253,505
Heavy: 26,063,592
Medium: 17,984,637
Light: 11,434,078

---

Well, we know how much we make per hour, so let's calculate exactly how long should it take us to actually elite a Mech.

Avg Time (in hours) to Elite

by Tonnage
Assault: 42.3
Heavy: 34.2
Medium: 23.6
Light: 15.0

---

Avg # of Matches to Elite

by Tonnage
Assault: 354
Heavy: 286
Medium: 198
Light: 126

---

Avg Match Length: 7.52 minutes

by Game Type
Skirmish: 7.73
Assault: 7.40
Conquest: 7.40

Here's where the grind starts to show itself. If you're a free player looking to get the most out of your Mech, you're going to be playing a lot. To put this in perspective, playing 3 hours per day, it will take an absolute minimum of 14 days, 2 hours, and 24 minutes to buy 3 varients of the average Assault Mech. If you're a weekend warrior, and those 3 hours occur only on Friday and Saturday, it will take 49 days, 9 hours, and 36 minutes.

*Note: the above predictions are the bare minimum requirement. These numbers assume you are buying only the default loadout of your Mech - no extra weapons, upgrades, armor - nothing. Your odds of survival are pretty low if you use a Mech's default loadout (it's usually a bit like piloting a giant toaster).

Survival - what are the odds you will survive in a match?

Spoiler

Survival - (chance to survive till end of match)

by Tonnage
Light: 60%
Heavy: 57%
Medium: 48%
Assault: 38%

by Win / Loss
Win: 85%
Loss: 9%

So, basically, if you want to live: play a Light Mech, and don't lose.

---

Conclusion

I hope these stats will help new players know what to expect. In my opinion, the most important thing I wish I had known up front would be just how min-max the game can feel; when you lose, you get your butt handed to you. When you win, it often feels like you barely tried. There are some really close and fun matches to be had, but the majority of them are going to be bulldozer matches - one team obliterating the other. It should be mentioned that this is not uncommon in competitive games with matchmaking.

My (biased) Opinions
I keep track of how much "fun" each match was after I finish it. Here are my results:

by Tonnage (out of a possible 10 points)
Light: 7.1
Medium: 6.4
Heavy: 5.5
Assault: 4.8

Overall Game Rating: 6.5

The overall score surprised me, because I do like the game. Ultimately, I think it's a bit of a love-hate relationship; I play in hopes of having one of those really close matches - where it gets down to a 1v1 or a 2v2 and you just don't know who will win. Honestly, I don't care who wins at that point, because it felt like a good fight.

Links / Notes
Playing Without Paying - A Free Player's Guide by Vodage

Edited by Zirack, 05 May 2015 - 10:53 PM.

[Banditman]

Interesting, I suppose.

The most important thing a new player can take out of this is the fact that losing in MWO is often *not* a close thing. When you lose, you're going to lose badly. When you win, you're going to win handily. That's the effects of two factors: Focus fire and no respawn.

Basically, once your team starts losing mechs without making any kills, the potential for turning things around is low since you aren't going to have teammates spawning back in with fresh mechs to turn things around.

This is honestly where CW shines. It is possible to turn a CW match around. It's still not anything close to "likely", but it's more possible in CW than in a pub drop.

MWO is a snowball game. It may start even, but tiny little advantages can turn huge. Elite mechs versus basic mechs. Poor heat management versus good heat management. Tiny little things start the avalanche.

[Elizander]

Pretty good stats. Also with how elo works, the following can happen for bad losses:

1) You have group queue players with high group elo but are not as good in disorganized solo pug games. MM thinks it is even but it isn't.
2) Your team only has 1-2 really high elo players and they get killed early or are not in a position to perform early enough before half the low elo players in your team die.

Close games do exist but are not all that common. Elo is designed for 50-50 win loss not for 100% close nailbiting games.

[Zirack]

@Banditman: Snowball - that's it, that's the word I was looking for, haha.

@Elizander: I definitely agree; the game is built for 50:50 win:loss - not close matches. I find that style of gameplay to feel a lot like gambling: you can practice, practice, practice but, ultimately, whether you win or lose has more to do with unseen statistics than your actual skill.

That's not to say skill plays no part in this game - it definitely makes a huge difference - but you are only 1 Mech out of 12. You can't save your entire team if they happen to perform poorly (which can happen for a huge variety of reasons).

In most First Person Shooter (FPS) games, the goal is to avoid being shot. In MechWarrior, however, you survive being shot - with better positioning, aim, or use of 'shield arms', etc. Taking damage is a guarantee, it's how you take that damage that matters (don't take it in the cockpit), hehe.

_______________________________________________________________________________

It is a very strange thing, though, that I find myself continuing to play. I just had one of those terrible matches where everything went wrong - team out of position, enemies flanking and picking us off 1 by 1. What's funny is that they probably played so well 'on accident', lol.

I'd have to say, if there was 1 thing I wish could be corrected in the game, it would be how easy snowballing occurs (one team obliterating the other). The unfortunate thing is, I can't think of an easy way for the developers to fix this; I think it's just part of beast.

Winning / Losing feels a lot like it did when I played League of Legends a while back: a bit hollow most of the time. It's like pulling that lever down on the slot machine: Oh boy, when you win, all those bells and whistles start sounding off, and lights start flickering... you feel like some kind of David beating Goliath... but all you did was pull a lever. Likewise, when you lose, you think to yourself: "Hmm... that was a waste. I kinda wish I'd done something else," but it's all too easy to just pull that lever again.

[Elizander]

Zirack, on 04 May 2015 - 12:44 PM, said:

@Banditman: Snowball - that's it, that's the word I was looking for, haha.

@Elizander: I definitely agree; the game is built for 50:50 win:loss - not close matches. I find that style of gameplay to feel a lot like gambling: you can practice, practice, practice but, ultimately, whether you win or lose has more to do with unseen statistics than your actual skill.

That's not to say skill plays no part in this game - it definitely makes a huge difference - but you are only 1 Mech out of 12. You can't save your entire team if they happen to perform poorly (which can happen for a huge variety of reasons).

In most First Person Shooter (FPS) games, the goal is to avoid being shot. In MechWarrior, however, you survive being shot - with better positioning, aim, or use of 'shield arms', etc. Taking damage is a guarantee, it's how you take that damage that matters (don't take it in the cockpit), hehe.

_______________________________________________________________________________

It is a very strange thing, though, that I find myself continuing to play. I just had one of those terrible matches where everything went wrong - team out of position, enemies flanking and picking us off 1 by 1. What's funny is that they probably played so well 'on accident', lol.

I'd have to say, if there was 1 thing I wish could be corrected in the game, it would be how easy snowballing occurs (one team obliterating the other). The unfortunate thing is, I can't think of an easy way for the developers to fix this; I think it's just part of beast.

Winning / Losing feels a lot like it did when I played League of Legends a while back: a bit hollow most of the time. It's like pulling that lever down on the slot machine: Oh boy, when you win, all those bells and whistles start sounding off, and lights start flickering... you feel like some kind of David beating Goliath... but all you did was pull a lever. Likewise, when you lose, you think to yourself: "Hmm... that was a waste. I kinda wish I'd done something else," but it's all too easy to just pull that lever again.

MWO has no comeback mechanic and since you can't one shot 5 mechs unlike in counterstrike it makes it less entertaining for spectators. LoL, DOTA2, and Street Fighter 4 are games that have good come back mechanics and are good spectator e-sports. Everyone loves the underdog.

[Darwins Dog]

Zirack, on 04 May 2015 - 05:03 AM, said:

numbers

Just curious, what is the +/- on the averages? Particularly I'm interested in the average kills per loss. A 12 to 5 loss isn't that bad considering how much of an advantage it is being up by one or two mechs (no respawns means that kills are much more important). On the other hand if there is a wide margin on that, then you have lots of 12-0/12-1 games (which are very frustrating), but just as many 12-10 games (which are awesome).

[Desorem]

Absence of role warfare and major POI on pug maps (something that can justify separating lance to take it) simply makes gathering in one murderball and rolling in semi-random direction a viable tactic. From that grows focus fire, small TTK, ya know.

If you ever played WOT(***** please!) you know what I`m talking about. Not sure if its actually good tho.

Edited by Desorem, 04 May 2015 - 01:38 PM.

[Shalune]

To new players:

I'd actually de-emphasize the feeling of steamrolling you get and look at it from another perspective. More often than not, when a team 12:4s you, most of their mechs are one well-aimed 2PPC + Gauss volley from dead. Do not get discouraged, and do not gauge your success on numbers alone.

As Banditman pointed out (Hi Bandit! <3) you see the evidence of this in CW where there are multiple lives. You may get wiped out without a kill on one wave, but unless the other team vastly outclasses you, your fresh mechs will then wipe out their mangled wave.

[Koniving]

Zirack, on 04 May 2015 - 05:03 AM, said:

I collect data for fun. I play games for fun. This post contains information I wish I'd known before I jumped into the game.

Smurfy would love you.

Elizander, on 04 May 2015 - 12:50 PM, said:

MWO has no comeback mechanic and since you can't one shot 5 mechs unlike in counterstrike it makes it less entertaining for spectators. LoL, DOTA2, and Street Fighter 4 are games that have good come back mechanics and are good spectator e-sports. Everyone loves the underdog.

You'd be quite surprised. There isn't a mechanic, no, but a good, solid build and teamwork can do quite a lot.

Spoiler

You don't get to see most of the action as I never intended to record; the music's playing over my winamp and we turned the fight around despite a horrific start.

Another fight, two against 7 in the end, with my 'Mech missing a leg, side torso raw (with an XL engine), and missing an arm. Lasers gone, one of two streak launchers destroyed, only an LBX 10 and an AC/2 left.


Sometimes... things really go awry. Last guy managed to win against several enemies, but chose to ignore the disconnect out in the open to fight a turret head on...and promptly died after 1 minute of combat against it and the turret that followed. Even come back mechanics wouldn't have helped this one.



This was a match where me and JWP spent most of our time wandering around in a circle, almost always too far from the enemy. JWP got some pop shots off but it wasn't until we rounded a corner and found four enemies that we got our first real taste of action. Though the other two lance mates were alive, they were separate from us (back before earnings 2.0, no rewards for staying together and we had no desire to do suicide runs down the center).




These two are among the greatest turnarounds I've ever had.
This one, near the very beginning the enemy manages to almost take our base. Before turrets. Our entire team beyond the five of us gets wiped out, and now it's us versus all that is left in a 13 minute base defense against all fast lights and mediums.


For this next one, here's the ending score.

and what was available of the gameplay. (youtube was playing in the background, up before a moment up to this point I was watching youtube in between lobbing LRM swarms and repositionings The Awesome has a 215 XL engine, and less than 240 points of armor total with 40+ standard heatsinks).


This last score I post up because before the Urbanmech you could not get more underdog than a Flamer Stalker.

Spoiler

8 is my screenshot key.

So, quite a few turnarounds there.
However my greatest turnaround of all was this one. Early open beta.

Two LPL. Two SRM-2s. Nothing else. Stalkers were just released, no unlocks. I would have only had 6 kills as I refused to gang up on enemies especially since the last enemy had a yellow screen and had to turn off his hud to be able to play. So I allowed the other player to fight the last enemy. Sadly I was heavily scolded and the other ally lost his weapons within seconds and was getting torn apart so I wound up stepping in there as well. (SRMs at the time, due to a bug, was doing up to 25 damage per missile because of splash mechanics).

[bad arcade kitty]

ha, i knew conquest is the most rewarding

Elizander, on 04 May 2015 - 12:50 PM, said:

MWO has no comeback mechanic

it has if you play conquest
plenty of games when you win by capping having only 1 light vs enemy lance of heavies or so

[JC Daxion]

Yea i have to disagree on the no comback thing. Maybe in 12 man drops, But in pugs, i can't even begin to start counting how many times i have seen matches go from 2-4 mechs down, to wins, I think the biggest swing has been 5 or 6, it is rare but they do happen.

Though for me, more often the mechs kinda trade blows till they hit about 5-6 left, and then one side drops quick. But of course you do get those epic matches that come down to the wire as well.

I do find conquest gives more fun matches for the most part, just for the fact people tend to split up a bit more, and it is not so much of a rolling ball of death, and to me that is just more fun. I think skirmish is my least favorite, if just for the simple fact that so often does it come to to one light mech playing hide and seek for 5-8 mins, wasting everyones time. Don't be that guy....


to the OP, very interesting data.

Edited by JC Daxion, 05 May 2015 - 12:25 AM.

[Banditman]

JC Daxion, on 05 May 2015 - 12:24 AM, said:

it is rare but they do happen.

That's sort of the definition of "no comeback mechanic". There are other games where advantages are given to the teams that are losing to better enable a comeback. It forces the "winning" team to continue to play efficiently or risk the comeback.

It's possible to comeback in MWO, but there are no mechanics to support it, making it extremely unlikely.

[Surn]

I have had 2 matches where I was the last mech vs 3 and 4 opponents... And won. Both were in a timberwolf.

[Jody Von Jedi]

MechregSurn, on 05 May 2015 - 08:05 AM, said:

I have had 2 matches where I was the last mech vs 3 and 4 opponents... And won. Both were in a timberwolf.

Two out of how many matches though? I've had that too, but they are very few and far between. But when they do happen, they are the stuff of legends and make for the most memorable matches.

[ExoForce]

Ive seen last KitFox standing vs 5. Win. Ive seen many times last one vs 4. Win. NEVER give up!
And take arty or air strike with You .

[Zirack]

@Darwins Dog: You asked what the + / - is for the number of kills by a losing team.

Average: 5.25
Standard Deviation: 2.75

Source Data:

Spoiler

Losing Team's Kill Count Frequency

# of Kills	Frequency %
0	3%
1	5%
2	7%
3	15%
4	15%
5	9%
6	15%
7	10%
8	9%
9	4%
10	5%
11	4%
12	0% N/A*

*note: can't kill 12 enemies without winning, hence the 0%

Interpretations:

Number of Kills by the Losing Team during a Loss:
Kills : %
0 to 3: 15%
3 to 6: 38%
6 to 9: 34%
9 to 11: 13%

So the losing team gets between 0 and 3 (really 0 and 2.99) kills 15% of the time. They get between 3 and 6 (3 and 5.99) 38% of the time. Sorry for the explanation, just thought I'd make sure everyone was following me here.

Some interesting facts to pull from that could be:
54% of the time, the losing team will kill between 0 and 5 enemies.
46% of the time, the losing team will kill between 6 and 11 enemies.

If I may use my personal bias, I would consider a close game to be somewhere in the 9 to 11 kills range. In other words, if I'm on the losing team, I would only consider the game 'close' if our team killed between 9 to 11 of the enemy. This only occurs 13% of the time for me, which is probably why I feel the game is a bit "all or nothing".

Of course, different people will feel differently. If a close game to you is one in which the losing team kills around 5 or more enemies, then that occurs 55% of the time.

Edited by Zirack, 05 May 2015 - 12:53 PM.

[Tim East]

I had a 5 v 2 comeback in my (shortly) pre-quirkening TDR-9S. I had just switched to a soon-to-be-buffed 2ERPPC 3MPL loadout, and managed to pull victory literally from almost nothing since my buddy was apparently a scratch shy of dead, given how he flopped the instant the third-to-last guy looked at him. It was caustic, and we had been badly beaten. I had tried sniping with those silly shoulder mounted ERPPCs for the first time ever with moderate success, but been forced to give ground or die where I stood in the face of superior numbers. I met with my ally (in some medium I think, I forget) at the base of the small mountain on the side of the lake opposite the base with the refinery-like structures. I took cover behind the hill and resumed my sniping as the enemy charged at us. Bam, one went down with a 2 PPC hit to the torso, and another (a timber, overconfident fool) who thought to rush me and kill me fell to a quick burst of MPLs. At this point I was running pretty hot and my ally died softening up the dude who came around the other side of our little hill, and I figured, heck with it, I'm going out guns blazing. So, I turned, hit the dude who killed my ally with the MPLs and almost overheated. Then I stopped for a second, saw a mostly-dead Warhawk chewing on me with ERLLs, and tapped him on the shoulder, popping the other half of his XL. Sat there for several seconds overheated as the last guy (some medium, iirc. Kintaro maybe?) peppered me with SRM fire, and when my hud came back I had lost my pulse lasers and my CT armor. I did manage to tag him with my ERPPCs though, and he dropped like a rock, thankfully. There were like 3 minutes left on the clock. It was one of the more intense fights I've been in in a heavy.

The moral of the story? If you're all open CT, it almost doesn't matter if you outnumber the enemy.

This happens pretty rarely though; the above writers are correct.

[JC Daxion]

Banditman, on 05 May 2015 - 07:40 AM, said:

That's sort of the definition of "no comeback mechanic". There are other games where advantages are given to the teams that are losing to better enable a comeback. It forces the "winning" team to continue to play efficiently or risk the comeback.

It's possible to comeback in MWO, but there are no mechanics to support it, making it extremely unlikely.

the come backs from 4-5 are rare... But down 1-2 mechs, especially in pugs, by no means is a be all and end all in my experience it is still the virtual coin-flip at that point. If you are down 3-4, then it is harder, i will agree you are on an uphill battle at that point.. But really see pugs down 2-3 get even very often. It might be rarer that they pull out the win, but defiantly not like 1 in 100 which people like to say..

Not really sure about what you mean about other games.. Personally i don't know of any that i have played that things get harder as you start winning.

as for the 12 mans,,, I won't comment, out of the few nights i have spent enjoying them, they really played out the same as pugs IMO. Either ends in a roll one side or another, gets 6-6, and one side rolls, or goes to the wire.. How often each of those happen in that setting i am not to sure due to my limited 12 man drops, But in pug world, as of late, it seems like the matches get to the half way point more often than not before one side really takes a step ahead..

I have fun no mater what happens though,.. outside of a night i should just be logging out and not playing

[Darwins Dog]

Zirack, on 05 May 2015 - 12:11 PM, said:

If I may use my personal bias, I would consider a close game to be somewhere in the 9 to 11 kills range. In other words, if I'm on the losing team, I would only consider the game 'close' if our team killed between 9 to 11 of the enemy. This only occurs 13% of the time for me, which is probably why I feel the game is a bit "all or nothing".

Of course, different people will feel differently. If a close game to you is one in which the losing team kills around 5 or more enemies, then that occurs 55% of the time.

The bins you used pretty well match my "levels" of loss: steamrolled, soundly beaten, nothing to be ashamed of, and close game. I'd like to see more close games, but when you are dropping with random people you are rolling the dice. Sometimes the dice are in your favor, sometimes they aren't.

The perceived severity of the loss is all about the context of the game. In a game with respawns, getting killed early isn't a big deal. Your team is at a temporary disadvantage. You wait your 30 seconds and come charging back in, or hold back and set up for the next wave. In that case, losing to a 2:1 kill ratio is really bad.

EDIT: Thanks for the numbers btw!

When you don't come back, then your team is at a permanent disadvantage. Games like that tend to be much more lopsided, especially when they are TDM (which covers most PUG games in MWO). Losing that to a 2:1 kill ratio isn't as bad. I forget where I heard it (it was a while ago), but Russ said that well over half of all games are won by the team that gets the first kill. When you have the advantage of numbers, then your wounded mechs can disengage to let others keep up the pressure, and you have the greater ability to focus fire. With the timer, you also have the advantage of initiative. When you are up on kills, your opponent has to make an attack or lose.

Better alternate objectives change that dynamic. When bases could be captured more easily in assault, a team that was down still had an option to get a win. Conquest (if the map is big enough) offers that as well. That's why CW is a different story. Both attackers and defenders have a way to win regardless of kills (generators or time, respectively). The availability of respawns also reduces the effect of getting ahead on kills. When the game turns into a real fight, I rarely see anything worse than 3:1 kill ratios, and usually more like 2:1.

All this to say that I don't think losing 12 to 6 in MWO is all that bad.

Edited by Darwins Dog, 06 May 2015 - 06:58 AM.