Saxie, on 18 August 2015 - 07:42 AM, said:
Let me ask you a question, do you think PGI doesn't look at the players performance to see where they are coming from before implementing a suggestion?
Think about PPC rescaling for a moment. Victor and Highlander jump jets. The reason we can't have functioning victor or highlander jump jets is because some people told PGI that victor and highlander poptarts were ruining the game. Are the people PGI is listening to on this topic credible, or are they just blaming poptarts for their own lack of skill? Without knowing ELO stats there's no way to know.
I would guess some of us get the impression PGI is listening to the constructive criticism of people who are less than legit at times. The signal to noise ratio of good suggestions to bad suggestions is far from being balanced. There's no real way to know who has really taken the time to learn the game mechanics and figure out which builds are good and bad, and who is just complaining about something because they're lazy and prefer to blame "ghost heat", "poptarts" or something random rather than their own bad decisions or the bad builds they use.
I'll give you another example. Sometimes people post screenshots of themselves racking up more than 1,000 damage in a locust, hunchback, pretty baby or other "DOA" mech. Then there's always somebody who says something cynical like... "You only did 1,000+ damage in a locust because you're in a low elo bracket. You would never do 1,000 damage in a locust if you were in a high elo bracket, like me."
If we had publicly displayed tier ranks, we might have a decent idea of whether or not that were true. We would have a better idea which builds worked in high ELO and which were only effective in high ELO brackets, and whether or not it even mattered. We would know whether or not mechs like pretty baby and locust were DOA and only effective in low ELO or whether they could be functional and effective against higher competition in higher ELO.
Another example, sometimes there are people who claim "poptarts are a major problem in game". There will be people who respond and say: "I'm not seeing a problem with poptarts". The original poster will respond: "that's because you're in a low elo bracket, its only a major issue in high elo". Discussion goes nowhere, because no one knows what their own elo rating is much less someone else's. If tier ranks were publicly viewable we might be able to get to the bottom of things and also cut down on a large amount of the misinformation posted here.
Publicly viewable tier ranks are just another set of metrics that could help people to figure out what is really going on in game. This could lead to better balancing, better knowledge of topics and all in all a better game.
That's the reason I support it.
But people do tend to fear change and I can understand them wanting things to stay the same. Either way it won't make much of a difference to me, but if people want to see improvement and see issues like highlander jump jets, doa mechs and other issues be resolved. I would encourage them to support publicly viewable tiers because its the only way we have to really figure out the reality of those topics and adjust accordingly.
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