First, allow me to apologize for the wall-o-text, but you bring up some excellent points, and I wanted to ensure I addressed those properly.
Serpentbane, on 21 April 2016 - 12:25 AM, said:
So, you suggest countering the problem with lack of team play with mechanics that results in even less team play?
No. What I am recommending is that PGI remove many of the controls they have, now. For example, unless you pay a lot of money for MC, for two people, and then play in the woefully inadequate personal games, you are required to play with so many tons on each side, twelve people on each side for the drop, and there is no variation. My recommendation would be for PGI to remove tonnage and player limits and allow a pair of commanders to start a match and select their own tonnage. Better yet, why shouldn't PGI develop an MWO-Battle Value system and allow for buckets. Time limits... why? Get rid of them, let the commander's decide. Map and mode voting? Leave it to the notional commander's.
Failing that... allow the voting system to go back to maps only, and allow players to select the modes they're willing to play, again.
In essence, if there's going to be team-building, stop forcing it through obviously useless mechanics in the game, and let those who want to be in teams do their own thing. You might come back and say, but we have that, now, in the FW units queue; you don't have any freedom other than to hire or fire someone, and/or adjust their rank. Other than that, it's the same mess you have in the PUG queue, where you're nurse-maided through everything. You can't force teamwork, through mechanics or incentives, especially when those mechanics encourage individuality and non-conformance.
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I’m not defending PGI, nor am I saying the system is perfect. I do however think even more focus on K/D – DMG and individual performance moves us even further away from where we should be, and I won’t back that.
Okay, then develop methods that PGI can use to encourage team work. The use of the incentives presently in the game, the culture of weekend tournaments, and their abortive efforts to force team work, have left team work in this game ashambles. It's unacceptable.
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I also wrote that personal skills would have a large effect on the outcome. But, the result as a team should always be more important. As a good individual player mixed with players not as good as you, you efforts would increase the chances of a win. Additionally, being a lot better than the rest, you could also prevent a decrease, and even get an increase. And this is a good solution.
That's all fine, as long as mechanisms are in place to encourage team work and, I'm sure you would agree, right now there is not a whole lot of incentive for team work in this game. PGI are doing entirely the opposite, especially with PSR, which is why I recommended the 8/8/8 system I did. The current PSR doesn't tell you, unless you read into it -and there are far too many people who read into things way too much all the time-, what your issue is, why you're getting negatives all the time.
Look, if the enemy team has a few bad sticks in it, and a player scores just better than 150 points, but their team wins, they get a bonus to their PSR. They weren't a good team player, they were barely able to hold their own, right? Now, if I'm on the losing team, and I score less than 550 points, I get an equals; at less than 350, I get a down arrow. I was an excellent team player, perhaps my team had the greater portion of high match scores, but we still lost, so all of us get equals or down arrows.
Please, tell me why the bad stick on the enemy team gets an up arrow at such a low match score and/or damage, and I get worse than they do?
With the system I proposed, above, if I were in the middle eight scores and got an = for it, that would be an easy indicator to me, and a means within the game for setting me, with the right team. Those who get higher scores and up arrows all the time have simply not found the right Tier for them, yet, and are not fighting with the right teams for their individual skills, as yet. I would go so far as to say the system is not fair, right now. It is a far-less true showing of someone's skill and team work values than what I proposed, above.
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What you have heard I do not know, nor have I ever played below T2, but I get lots of matches where we play as a team, communicating with each others, paying attention to the mechs of team members, their load outs, and so on. Team play is not dead. However, there are also many players not getting the fact that the outcome of this game is hugely based on the total performance of the team. Instead of rewarding those players by adjusting the mechanics of PSR to fit that attitude, PGI should instead strengthen the team play mechanics of the game even more.
Agreed, which is why I proposed the system, above. It would only be a part of the mechanics that need to be modified to incentivize, without all the fancy presents and giveaways and tournaments, players to play as part of the team.
As for how I've heard about how things are on Tier's one and two... I've witnessed it for myself. Every so often I'll play in Tina Benoit's relatively new podcast, where she gets together with Paul Inouyie, Zoeff, Aranzor, and several others who are, in general, Tier 1 or 2, and plays against other Tier 1 or 2 players. I played just yesterday. Our teams were generally charlie-foxtrot in one location, with the enemy buzzing all around us; yesterday was a good day, and I managed to get my fair share of kills and moderate-low damage. The people in Tier's one and two are, typically, insane in their 'Mech builds, how they move, how they fire and how accurate they are, but they are not playing as a team. They simply don't have time to issue orders and see them done before the area they wanted to issue the orders for is clear of combatants, already.
For clarity, if your definition of a team is that you back up your buddies, you focus targets, and you win, that is a very narrow definition, indeed. In a military sim, like MechWarrior Online, there are to be orders given and followed, teams rotate and work together in more than just backing one-another up.
Now, this brings me to a point to back up what I was saying in this post, above... I know for a fact, now, that I can play against Tier one and two players, and yet I am virtually stuck in Tier four. My bar is sitting in the 4/5 range, just above the right-hand side of the second I in the word MINIMIZE. With my system, since I now score an average of 500 points per match, gain 1 solo kill every other match, have 3 kills most damage dealt every match, and anywhere from 2 to 6 savior kills per match, I would be halfway through Tier 3, by now. The problem is that there is no true way to tell, except for that up arrow, whether you're proceeding up the scale or not, because you could have a match score just above 150 on the winning side and go up, but if you're on the losing team and your match score is below 350, you drop. That is simply not right.
Take the top 8 match scores, make them a +, the middle 8 match scores, make them a =, and the bottom 8 match scores, make them a -, and then you'll begin to see things shake out the way they should. As players improve, they'll truly begin to move up the scale and into higher climes, while the current system will barely allow them to move.
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...although I do tell ppl hiding only to move up and in front just to kill what I think about that kind of play, as this do not bring value to the team.
This shows up in their match score, actually. Kills are not worth as much as the damage done to an opposing 'Mech, which I know you already know, so your priming of them is worth more points than the sneakers will get, which means with my system they would either remain where they are, or descend into a lower Tier until they learn how to play forthright.
To make my case with another point... you might play with a group of folks in a match but, again, there is no base-line to establish whether it's team play or not, so people play as individual's with a common goal, rather than a team. However, regardless of the match outcome, your PSR belongs to you and to you only once you're out of the game, and the group with a common goal who is not a team does not share your PSR, period. Your PSR is then measured, by Tier at least, and I think by which portion of the PSR within you're Tier you're on as well, against the PSRs of other players who may play like crap but remain within the PSR Tier you're in because you, and others like you who work, bring them their with you. You are holding them up, enabling them indirectly, and that is NOT teamwork. The current system is really unfair, and what I just explained, more than anything else I've said, is why.
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Now, doing your most to contribute as a team player is not the same as not preforming on a personal level. Since the start of the current stats I’ve done an average of 498,17 dmg per match. Taking only the mechs I’ve been using lately I average on 526,96 dmg per match. My average XP per match for all time is 1158,72.
Here's another reason to have my system in place, instead... if you're doing an average of 526-7 damage per match, and you're Tier 2, then I should be up in Tier 2 as well, as I average about the same as you do. I have at least three matches a week -and I'm not able to really play more than 25 - 30 matches per week- where I score 750 or above. So, why am I Tier 4 and you're Tier 2? That's not right, and it's not fair, especially since I keep getting held back by teams who play like ****.
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And I do this while always maintaining focus on the team. I don’t go after the damaged mech I’m sure to kill with that last strike, when I see a friendly struggling with a more undamaged enemy. That enemy I almost killed is sure to hold back, and if he don’t, well, me or someone else will surely kill him. Having my team mate equally damaged or killed by that fresh enemy mech however is a much bigger loss to the team than letting a severely damaged enemy mech live a little longer. Because, those numbers I posted is not the ones mattering. My 1,73 win/loss ratio is. This is the only number I really care about. For all I care, K/D ratio could be removed from the game. It only makes ppl do stupid **** on a personal level.
Agreed. And, of course, you've made my case even more for my 8/8/8 system. Now, as for almost-dead enemies, you leave those for the LRM guys to finish off and go help your buddy against the lesser damaged 'Mech.
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Match score are individual, sure. And you as a player are able to influence your score in the PSR greatly, even with a loss. No, PSR is not only a measure of piloting or gunnery skill, and nor should it be. I have played like 98% of all my matches as a solo player, and I can assure you that people dropping random can easily work together with the right set of mind. The biggest problem is MWO not emphasizing on the team play enough atm. The game do not focus enough on roles and tactical gameplay, and as I said is moving towards this arena shooter instead. If you truly want this to be a great team play game, and not just another Hawken, you will see that my points is valid. As I wrote, take a look at the thread linked in my signature. This is the direction I’d like PGI to take MWO.
You and I are, actually, on the same sheet of music with much of this, and the reason I recommend my 8/8/8 system is because you have broken players who get crappy match scores but are gaining in their PSR because they are being carried by the team. You also have team play guys, such as you and I, who are being held down because of the crappy play of these other folks. 8/8/8 would easily eliminate that and would help teams who are actually working together to focus on team-play, rather than hiding, dodging, not maneuvering, balling all up together and not fighting. The current PSR system does NOT encourage team play, it passively encourages individuality because of HOW PGI has calculated the math to work.
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Although, if you do want another Hawken. If all that matters is to drop and as fast as possible meat up with the enemy, playing solo amongst others but not as a team. If your prime concern is personal performance rather than the team as a whole, I do see your point, and we would just have to agree to disagree. As I say, even with some aspects of the game broken, I would not have it broken even more to reward players solely based on a personal number for number level. If this were the case, why should I save my friend rather than killing that enemy...
Again, I work for the team, but the PSR is by the individual, period, and sometimes the team holds back the individual whose performance was superior, and rewards those whose performance, whether for the team or as an individual, was garbage. By changing PSR to calculate the way I'm expressing it should calculate, you're more rapidly moving people on the PSR scales by Tier in the directions they should be going, and you're encouraging team play for those who are in the same Tier and within the same region of the scale for that Tier, simply because people who work similarly on battlefield, are more apt to work as a team and, rather than being concerned about carrying the team, perhaps even becoming jaded because that's all they do, they can relax and have more fun working together with like-minded folks.
This is when you would see some Worldwide Tournament action on a game-by-game basis, even from the lower Tiers.
Edited by Kay Wolf, 21 April 2016 - 09:43 AM.
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