767 replies to this topic

[Mister Blastman]

Screw it. Full disclosure or bust.

[Nick Tsunami]

I voted to hide it for all.
I will display mine, be it only to highlight that I did not vote against it because I want to hide it, but because I believe that it is a genuinely bad idea.

In fact, I completely fail to see how displaying this is going to improve the gameplay experience, or even the forums tone. If I could find a way in which it would do so (Improve the experience), I would definitely vote for.
This will rather potentially (maybe not) fragment more the community than improve it. Not good for a small community to start with.

I'd rather have suitably bling-y cockpit item to mark a Tier one player status, to display in your cockpit for all those dead guys spectating you.
Give the real elite player something effectively hard to get and worth bragging about, without having people discounted for their lower player ability.

Or go the standard way and do a all-inclusive leaderboard (average points, not tiers). This way, if someone wants to see how he ranks, he can. Getting everybody to display their tier neither gives you a goal to reach nor it shows you how you rank amongst the 'mechwarrior, it shows you how the others ranks amongst their peers. It may be similar but still is a significant difference.

[Surn]

In the mechwarrior registry, we already debated and implemented this discussion 15 years ago.

Each match should have a tier adjustment value. If you do poorly, it is low... For example 4.1 would mean you performed just under tier 4 average performance.

Additionally, the tier performance takes into account your mech, we based on tons but mwo would need a tier system for mechs.

If a pilot does average (3) in a tier 1 mech, their tier_mod might be 3.5. Same pilot with the same results in a tier 5 mech would generate a tier_mod score of 2.25 for example.

Database would track performance of each player based on mech and continually calculate the mech tier for each chassis and variant and taking into account the Basic, Elite, Mastery of the mech variant.

A little linear regression later... walla.. a good system.

(I will make time if you need help programming this stuff. As I obviously envisioned and created the Mecha RPI system in the mechwarrior registry. The basic system is now used to rank college basketball teams.)


MORE INFO:
The reason behind the tier_mod is that the calculations for the overall pilot skill rating are only calculated once and stored on the database with the match entry for the player. The matches can then be sorted in any way imaginable and the tier_mods for those matches will create a tier ranking based on any set of criteria.

Examples:
What is a players PSR for assault game mode, in tier 3 mechs?
How has the player performed overall during the last 14 days, or during their group's last faction contract?
What is the players PSR in Light mechs?

While all these things are possible through other calculations, a simple average or mean from a database call is all that is needed here.

Further, because mech variants, game modes and other factors are dynamic the tier_mod system represents the momentary sum of all these values at the time the match was played. This is important as player tiers will not wildly swing due to changes in mech tier changes due to quirks or other external factors.

...again, all this has already been thought through, although we used to call it "Strength Mod" and then combine it with winning percentage. However, MWO winning percentages do not seem to be very strongly related to individual performance due to team size.

Edited by MechregSurn, 30 August 2015 - 09:58 AM.

[SilentFenris]

Nick Tsunami, on 25 August 2015 - 04:32 PM, said:

I'd rather have suitably bling-y cockpit item to mark a Tier one player status, to display in your cockpit for all those dead guys spectating you.
Give the real elite player something effectively hard to get and worth bragging about, without having people discounted for their lower player ability.

Or go the standard way and do a all-inclusive leaderboard (average points, not tiers). This way, if someone wants to see how he ranks, he can. Getting everybody to display their tier neither gives you a goal to reach nor it shows you how you rank amongst the 'mechwarrior, it shows you how the others ranks amongst their peers. It may be similar but still is a significant difference.

Your last bit about leaderboards brings up another dilema. Now that we have 5 Tiers classified, will mech leaderboards be:
a ) seperated into 5 Tiers
b ) Tier 1 only
c ) whoever scores the best among all the tiers
d ) combine specific Tiers ( example Tier 1 & 2 = pro, all other Tiers = casual)

Each has pros and cons. Previous tournaments did not care what ELO you were in just the points you scored.

Under the new PSR system I could see Tier 1 players getting upset when someone takes 1st on the leaderboard that is ranked in a lower Tier. The Tier 1 players will have to work harder for leaderboard points than anyone else.

On the other side, some of the best players might not keep Tier 1 ranking all the time, especially if leveling new mechs or just spending a few matches running odd builds. Keeping them out of the leaderboard would diminsh the game. Like a "wildcard" team in sports.

Edited by GrayFenris, 25 August 2015 - 05:31 PM.

[Oddr]

Personally, I'm not really interested in whether or not it is displayed. What I would like to see is a population or density curve of the community's pilot skill ratings, along with my own rating on that curve. Would be interesting to see what the curve looks like, how it changes over time, and how I move around. And I do mean pilot skill rating, not the tiers (too few buckets to get a sense of how things are progressing). Having hash marks to see the tier boundaries on the curve would be nice though.

It would also be interesting if they threw in more variables over time: i.e. which servers were you on? were you in a Clan or IS mech, exact tonnage, down to the specific chassis or even variant. The makeup of both teams would also be interesting, but really increase the amount of data needed. Exact builds might be getting too detailed, but I think it would be interesting.

I'd love to get my hands on all that data and see what pops out.

[El Bandito]

SHOW MY PSR! Show them to all. I am not ashamed.

Edited by El Bandito, 25 August 2015 - 11:05 PM.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

and opt in is winning my a landslide

We DO need something better than this for groups though. Especially if youre thinking of opening up all the tiers to fight one another because that will be utter chaos

[Moldur]

Some 6000 votes will decide. That could be a small part of the player-base, or a large part. Either way it's scary, wouldn't you say?

Edited by Moldur, 26 August 2015 - 12:35 AM.

[30ft SMURF]

IraqiWalker, on 24 August 2015 - 07:02 AM, said:

The matchmaker does do the sorting on it's own. You are correct there.


No, not really. Some of us actually have brain cells, and understand how people behave on the internet. We already have a lot of trash talking going on in the forums. How much worse do you think it will get when people start using tiers to back up their E-peen?

Would I like ranks to be public? Yes

Is that possible considering how people behave? No.

People are big enough ****** already, we don't need to give them even more things to be pricky about.

So as I mentioned in my previous post, when you get the human race to stop being @$$holes, I'll vote yes. Until then, I vote no, and I am not shy about showing my tier rank. I don't care about that stuff.

What I do care about, is trying to make these forums hospitable, not more hostile.

Most everyone who has brain cells knows roughly where they place compared to others in this game. We've been playing for multiple years now and the stupidity has nothing to do with how good people are at the game. There are ignorant people from the bottom to the top and knowing who is good at the game might just let some of them know who to listen to in a drop. This is a team game and the people that try to coordinate and help aren't always good at it, but its better than nobody doing it. Though when mulitiple people try to lead it couldn't hurt to defer to the 'better' player. If you fear that stats will cause people to act more ignorant you fail to realize how ignorant they already are and will be regardless of this new metric for skill.

[MechWarrior3671771]

"knowing who is good at the game might just let some of them know who to listen to in a drop."

Again, no. Twitch skills do not equate to leadership skills.

I know good shooters who are clueless when it comes to group tactical movement.

[Kjudoon]

Lugh, i call that the Pork Chop Effect. Someone hung it around your neck and sent you out to play with the pitbulls. I particularly love it when they chase one of my fast lrmboats fore xtra hate and humiliation when my teammates tear them up and they die right in from of me like ther terminator in a hydraulic press. I have even warned some people of players that i learned have a mad on for killing me and they are open for the easy kill every time. Just stick nearby. And it happens.


Mmmmm. Tasty tasty porkchop.

[IraqiWalker]

Davers, on 25 August 2015 - 02:31 AM, said:

I keep seeing this reasoning pop up and I don't quite understand it. The argument of a low tier player coming up with an ACTUAL GOOD IDEA (not just some idea he thinks is good) and being attacked because of his tier is silly. You say we have a lot of that in the forum already- show me these threads. Where are these arguments? I can only think of two.

1. LRMs are easy godmode weapons.
2. LBX weapons are great vs lights/critical hits.

And both of them are wrong.

I was going to maybe search around for an example, but the post I'm quoting right below this sentence kinda does a good job of illustrating the problem.

Also, don't forget that there are some people who play this game that really friggin old. Some have great ideas, and tactical knowledge, plus piloting advice, however, they are physically incapable of applying them to their full potential. So yes, that means there are pilots with great knowledge, who will remain in the lower tiers because they have arthritis, or bad eye sight, or just don't have the physical ability to apply the knowledge they are sharing.

Unit47, on 25 August 2015 - 05:13 AM, said:

Tier5 spotted

God forbid we start acutally listening to the people who understand the game mechanics instead of the mouthbreathing underhive when discussing balance.

Thank you, this post shows a lot of the stupidity I'm talking about. Somehow, you decided that I'm saying we should ignore top tier players, and not listen to them, and that I am a tier 5 player, thus I should be ignored.

Hell, you just did exactly what I was talking about: You viewed me as a low tier player, and thus advocated that my post should be ignored, simply because I'm a low tier player. Even if my suggestion is sound.

30ft SMURF, on 26 August 2015 - 12:53 AM, said:

Most everyone who has brain cells knows roughly where they place compared to others in this game. We've been playing for multiple years now and the stupidity has nothing to do with how good people are at the game. There are ignorant people from the bottom to the top and knowing who is good at the game might just let some of them know who to listen to in a drop. This is a team game and the people that try to coordinate and help aren't always good at it, but its better than nobody doing it. Though when mulitiple people try to lead it couldn't hurt to defer to the 'better' player. If you fear that stats will cause people to act more ignorant you fail to realize how ignorant they already are and will be regardless of this new metric for skill.

Except this isn't about displaying tiers in drops. This will be displaying tiers in the forums. Not in the match drop screen.

Hell, even in drops, it really doesn't serve much of a purpose. You rarely have more than 1 drop caller, if that, and people either follow them, or ignore them anyways.

Kjudoon, on 25 August 2015 - 03:08 AM, said:

You mean THIS is going on?



Do not expect it to ever stop.

Case in point, Unit 47's post.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 26 August 2015 - 02:54 AM.

[Seelenlos]

30ft SMURF, on 26 August 2015 - 12:53 AM, said:

Most everyone who has brain cells knows roughly where they place compared to others in this game. We've been playing for multiple years now and the stupidity has nothing to do with how good people are at the game. There are ignorant people from the bottom to the top and knowing who is good at the game might just let some of them know who to listen to in a drop. This is a team game and the people that try to coordinate and help aren't always good at it, but its better than nobody doing it. Though when mulitiple people try to lead it couldn't hurt to defer to the 'better' player. If you fear that stats will cause people to act more ignorant you fail to realize how ignorant they already are and will be regardless of this new metric for skill.

BEST WRITING ON THE MATTER! NEEDS NO COMMENT FURTHER THAN THIS ONE !

[Bacon Wan Kenobi]

I'm in the opt-in camp. Different people will make different choices for different reasons.

For myself, I'd leave it toggled off. I think the whole "If you don't display you are T5 to me" line is hillarious. Great! Assume that if you want. It doesn't effect me in any way but might very well end up making you look like a fool. I don't care if someone else knows where my ranking stands. I'd rather my play on the battlefield speak for itself.

Some people though may like displaying it. I am in general a fan of people being allowed to make their own choice.

[Unit47]

IraqiWalker, on 26 August 2015 - 02:48 AM, said:

Hell, you just did exactly what I was talking about: You viewed me as a low tier player, and thus advocated that my post should be ignored, simply because I'm a low tier player. Even if my suggestion is sound.

If I misinterpreted your post: mea culpa.

The thing is these forums prove my point every day:

A good example is the endless discussion about LRM's. Contrary to the fact that 99.9% of Tier1 players regard them as inferior and unreliable compared to any other weapon system. They have not been used in any competitive matches since before the end of CB yet we still have people openly crying for nerfs (because they can't figure out to handle them in the lower tiers), advocating them as super competitive to new players and so on.

In this case the views of lower tiers should be just plainly ignored because they don't play in an environment where game mechanics are fully understood and used (and to some point abused) for maximum combat efficiency.

The same procedure needs to be applied for any balance discussion.

If a tier5/4 player somehow managed to get a really good understanding how the game mechanics will work and can proof that he won't be ignored, but the majority simply lacks the understanding of game mechanics to make a good solid statement on balance issues.

Naturally this procedure creates unwanted side effects in the top tier. The best case example is the overbuffing of PPC's back in the days when jumpsniping was king. The tier1 players spoke out against overbuffing them, the vast majority of casual players was happy that they could finally go 'Hadouken!', the rest is history.
After 2 1/2 years jump sniping had accumulated enough tears from the casual players for PGI to finally act. Again the tier1/2 units/players warned against overnerfing this valid playstyle, even proposed detailed suggestions on how this could be achieved. The vast majority cried out in rage and hate against the jumpsniping-meta and we got useless JJ's and the mighty Lowlander for some time.

The most recent episode in this endless drama was the implementation of the clan mechs. Lets be fair the TBW is still the best all around mech in this game. It was gods mighty fist of fury when it was released. Again PGI was told that the TBW needed a somewhat of a nerf to get in line with the rest of the heavy chassis. The vast majority basicly told the higher tiers to '**** off' and that clans needed to be superior for reasons.

[MechWarrior3671771]

"A good example is the endless discussion about LRM's. Contrary to the fact that 99.9% of Tier1 players regard them as inferior and unreliable compared to any other weapon system. They have not been used in any competitive matches since before the end of CB yet we still have people openly crying for nerfs (because they can't figure out to handle them in the lower tiers), advocating them as super competitive to new players and so on.

In this case the views of lower tiers should be just plainly ignored because they don't play in an environment where game mechanics are fully understood and used (and to some point abused) for maximum combat efficiency."


No. And this perfectly illustrates the problem of ignoring someone because of their tier. LRMs *are* effective at the lower tiers, and they are a lot of fun to play with. For my first 3 months here I had a blast using them. And it wasn't until my 4 month that I even needed to bring TAG or equip ATD. If I had been thrown into the Guass curve, I doubt I would have enjoyed the game enough to stick around. Top players forget what it was like to be a noob, and it affects their judgement.

You can be the cream of the top tier and still not have the wisdom to understand that the majority of the player base does not play at the comp level and never will, and that they can have fun and be effective with LRM boats.

What's going to happen here is people will start making arguments from authority ("I outrank you so I must be right") when instead the arguments should be weighed on their merits, not on who is making them.

Edited by Fenrisulvyn, 26 August 2015 - 05:31 AM.

[NiuqOteen]

The things Wn8 and other "skill" ranking systems did to World of tanks was / is pretty aweful. Before the match starts ppl giving up, due to being "outclassed".

Or playing recklessly when you over match the other team.

Visable ranking at all time is a bad thing. Please do not make it public knowledge at least in public matches.

[StompyRobot100]

why not show us our tier on the home page or whatever and then in the prebattle grid thing show the spread? that way no one sees anyones individual tier, we know what we are, still know about where the other guy is. so many other ways to display this stuff than the three options provided.

[IraqiWalker]

Unit47, on 26 August 2015 - 04:34 AM, said:

If I misinterpreted your post: mea culpa.

The thing is these forums prove my point every day:

A good example is the endless discussion about LRM's. Contrary to the fact that 99.9% of Tier1 players regard them as inferior and unreliable compared to any other weapon system. They have not been used in any competitive matches since before the end of CB yet we still have people openly crying for nerfs (because they can't figure out to handle them in the lower tiers), advocating them as super competitive to new players and so on.

In this case the views of lower tiers should be just plainly ignored because they don't play in an environment where game mechanics are fully understood and used (and to some point abused) for maximum combat efficiency.

The same procedure needs to be applied for any balance discussion.

If a tier5/4 player somehow managed to get a really good understanding how the game mechanics will work and can proof that he won't be ignored, but the majority simply lacks the understanding of game mechanics to make a good solid statement on balance issues.

Naturally this procedure creates unwanted side effects in the top tier. The best case example is the overbuffing of PPC's back in the days when jumpsniping was king. The tier1 players spoke out against overbuffing them, the vast majority of casual players was happy that they could finally go 'Hadouken!', the rest is history.
After 2 1/2 years jump sniping had accumulated enough tears from the casual players for PGI to finally act. Again the tier1/2 units/players warned against overnerfing this valid playstyle, even proposed detailed suggestions on how this could be achieved. The vast majority cried out in rage and hate against the jumpsniping-meta and we got useless JJ's and the mighty Lowlander for some time.

The most recent episode in this endless drama was the implementation of the clan mechs. Lets be fair the TBW is still the best all around mech in this game. It was gods mighty fist of fury when it was released. Again PGI was told that the TBW needed a somewhat of a nerf to get in line with the rest of the heavy chassis. The vast majority basicly told the higher tiers to '**** off' and that clans needed to be superior for reasons.

But a tier 4/5 player won't ever get the chance to prove them self or their opinion, because they will just be ignored/shot down immediately, on account of being of a lower tier.

I was going to make a long reply, but Fenrisulvyn did it far better than I could.

Spoiler

Fenrisulvyn, on 26 August 2015 - 05:28 AM, said:

No. And this perfectly illustrates the problem of ignoring someone because of their tier. LRMs *are* effective at the lower tiers, and they are a lot of fun to play with. For my first 3 months here I had a blast using them. And it wasn't until my 4 month that I even needed to bring TAG or equip ATD. If I had been thrown into the Guass curve, I doubt I would have enjoyed the game enough to stick around. Top players forget what it was like to be a noob, and it affects their judgement.

You can be the cream of the top tier and still not have the wisdom to understand that the majority of the player base does not play at the comp level and never will, and that they can have fun and be effective with LRM boats.

What's going to happen here is people will start making arguments from authority ("I outrank you so I must be right") when instead the arguments should be weighed on their merits, not on who is making them.

One thing I will add is that experienced players also don't understand how the game works for new players. They've either forgotten that, or were new players a long time ago, and never bothered with keeping up with new player experience.

For example, many of them will pop into the new player help section of the forum, usually advising new players to pilot meta mechs, and use "optimal" loadouts. That advice seems sound to you, and many others.

It's one of the worst things you can do to a new player.

1st - New players still don't know which end of the gun to point at the enemy, how do you expect them to understand WHY a build is effective?

2nd - Meta mechs are extremely forgiving of piloting mistakes. You'll end up with one trick ponies that don't know how to pilot soon as they switch to another mech. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to re-train pilots who got used to an OP mech? I do, I had to re-train a light mech pilot who was just used to the ECM spider. No idea how to really position, because ECM always kept him covered. No idea how to actually sneak around, because of ECM, and no idea how to do most things properly, because he was using a top of the line mech (it was back then.)

I can add more reasons, but this just illustrates my point that the game is completely different in the lower tiers, compared to the upper ones. On top of that, balance isn't the only type of discussion that happens here.

For example, currently, the Arctic Cheetah is the problem mech of the month, due to borked hitboxes, over-quirkiness, hit reg, and a few other problems. Every single thread has at least one guy saying "anyone who complains about the ACH is a noob who doesn't know how to play" Good news is that we have people from all tiers complaining about it.

However, with tiers made public, those problems, and attitudes are only made worse, not better.

destructive166, on 26 August 2015 - 06:10 AM, said:

why not show us our tier on the home page or whatever and then in the prebattle grid thing show the spread? that way no one sees anyones individual tier, we know what we are, still know about where the other guy is. so many other ways to display this stuff than the three options provided.

Now THAT is outside the box thinking.

---

At the end of the day for me, I'm looking at this with one question in mind: Will this make the forums better, or worse? So far, I think it will make things worse.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 26 August 2015 - 07:13 AM.

[AdamBaines]

destructive166, on 26 August 2015 - 06:10 AM, said:

why not show us our tier on the home page or whatever and then in the prebattle grid thing show the spread? that way no one sees anyone's individual tier, we know what we are, still know about where the other guy is. so many other ways to display this stuff than the three options provided.

I liked this, but Im still not sold on WHY we need to be shown it at all IN GAME. Whether its displaying the Tier for each player, or a spead as you suggested, I have not seen a compelling reason why we need to know IN GAME Tier info. I have only seen negative consequences of IN GAME Tier display.

Let us be able to research in the forums by seeing our own profile, or looking at others (be it opt-in/out or mandatory display).

Edit: Last sentence of second paragraph.

Edited by AdamBaines, 26 August 2015 - 07:10 AM.