2 replies to this topic

[Kyynele]

I just played a couple days of the latest tournament, using a Locust, and placing somewhere near the top.

The only reason I did place as well as I did, was because I could afford to play in the mornings and early afternoons European time. During that time it seems there are much fewer players online, which in turn provided matches of much more varied quality, which were much more fruitful for a mech that has so low even theoretical maximum DPS that it can't really carry matches or compete in damage and kills if the rest of the teams are very competent. The issue might be less glaring if you play a mech that is actually capable of making a big difference in a match.

On the weekend, I played pretty much all day, and it soon became apparent that all the high scoring games I played before 5 PM. So in the last days, I didn't even bother playing in the evenings, just played a few games during the day, and always got games that boosted my scores. This in contrast to the saturday and sunday nights that I played something like 6+ hours each and got 0 matches that would've contributed to my scores. Not even close. They were all just over too fast. And I know I'm not the highest Elo player in the game. I'm also not the best Locust pilot in the game by far.

I mean absolutely no disrespect towards the people who beat me fair and square, or anyone placed in the top 50 lists, you deserve recognition for playing well. I did get into matches with many of the top Locusts and it was a pleasure to see you play. Special respect to mercenarie, who managed to kill me in an almost fair, long range peeking trade.

Anyway, I can't help but notice that many high profile players are in rather low positions or completely absent from the leaderboards.

TLDR, or the actual suggestion:

I think it would generate an even ground for everyone in a tournament if Elo matchmaking was turned off for the duration of the tournament. This way you'd have no advantage of gaming the system to get matches where you will have increased chances of getting big scores. Everyone would have the equal chance of getting easy or hard matches, and everyone would get both, just by dropping, no matter what time they play.

Even more optimal would be a separate queue for the tournament people, but I have serious doubts whether the player pool would be big enough for that.

Feel free to disagree/discuss.

[Wintersdark]

Turn off Elo, and you'll just let the more skilled players totally ravage the rest. Leave Elo on, and everyone can compete - if you're not as good a player, at least you're mostly fighting other players who are also less good.

You can argue for it either way, really...

But: no Elo doesn't mean everyone has equal chances of easy or hard matches.

Average players? 50:50.

Good players? There are VASTLY more average players than good players, so most of your games will qualify as easy.

Less skilled player? You're going to be pugfarmed all weekend

[Kyynele]

Yeah, I worded it badly.

Everyone wouldn't have a equal chance for easy and hard matches, everyone would have a chance for roughly the same quality of matches. Which COULD make the scores more meaningful.

I guess it's just the empty feeling after the tournament. It's finished, I got a prize, but what did it mean? If it just meant that I got into easier matches than the people below me, what leaderboard is it truly?

I'd personally prefer something that would allow me to somehow measure my performance against the other players, and the current personal tournament design just isn't delivering. The game hasn't got any proper ranking or ladder. These leaderboards are the closest thing we've got, but they just measure some kind of weird "how well do you do against people who the matchmaker thinks are roughly as good as you are" -value.