56 replies to this topic

[Reptilizer]

Anachronda, on 28 September 2015 - 06:46 AM, said:

Actually, the most important thing you can do is win.

http://mwomercs.com/...ng-skill-level/

Under the current system, even very low scores on a win can result in PSR increase. The scores required to increase under a loss are much much higher. PGI has not released numbers, but the numbers in the relevant threads show your real hope lies in being on teams that win consistently.

Also, damage is the most important thing you can do to increase matchscore. Damage/2 is now added directly to your matchscore (used to be damage/10):

http://mwomercs.com/...ed-for-science/

Since he/she is starting from tier 5 i recommend concentration on maximizing matchscore. You can not reliably influence the win/loss of your team at this level, but you can reliably influence your own score. Damage is King when moving from the underhive.

[bad arcade kitty]

im mid tier 3 right now and i see that the bar pretty noticeably moves to the tier 2 with relatively low number of games (several dozens)... so, basing on that i seriously suppose i was placed into the tier 4, probably very low, or even into the tier 5 when psr was introduced (they used archived game results and quite a lot of my first games were a low fps disaster), i recall how i suddenly stopped meeting the players and units which i had used to see before the psr introduction and my games got much easier, i went on a long win streak and even had some ridiculous match scores for quite a while (no wonder, imagine what scores a streakcrow brings when you regularly empty your seven tons of ammo into the enemy), then it eventually got harder, good players and units appeared again, but i still seem to move ahead yet

i think i should feel lucky that my favorite build is also one of the easiest to get a high score :3
also despite people call it no skill, actually streakcrows die all the time when they make a positioning mistake since you always live on the edge and playing them also needs patience, lrm is much easier to play... but lrm is much less consistently rewarding too, lrm is kind of feast or famine while streaks are reliable, unless you are jammed of course, but that's rare and also you have an uav specially for that

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Opt-in for tier display is now public. The first "your opinion doesn't count, underhiver" post has probably already happened.

Anyhow, bare & share, ladies & germs.

[zudukai]

win in the mechlab. build a successful playstyle(s) around the builds ->
(win on the field - the hard part), refine that playstyle to work with the team ->
(win with the team - ) translates to winning more often, winning more often will bring your PSR up.

Edited by zudukai, 30 September 2015 - 11:46 AM.

[Skarlock]

Tesunie, on 24 September 2015 - 06:12 PM, said:

FYI: PSR and Match score are generated in similar manners, but last I knew they each weigh different actions differently. So, in theory, one could get a low match score, but have a high "PSR score" for the match.

As far as what one must do... One must not only get better, but they also have to do "unspeakable*" things... (Typically: be a bit of a coward. Snipe, hide, reposition, repeat.Try to live as long as possible and/or not die in a match. Win matches.)

PSR really isn't player skill. It's made so that if you just play a lot of games, your PSR will eventually creep up. Sure if you improve your skill or your mech builds, your PSR will go up faster, but if you literally just play a lot, eventually your PSR will rise over time unless you excel at dragging your entire team down into a loss.

Also, dealing damage while not taking damage is not cowardly, it's good play. It is entirely possible to win a match by simply having your team poke from two different angles and preventing the enemy from effectively returning fire. There's nothing cowardly about that, it's simply smart play and having knowledge of what direction the enemy is looking. If they are looking your way don't poke, if they aren't looking your way, hammer em.

You also don't have to play the range game to have high PSR. My highest win ratio mech with over 100 games is the arctic cheetah with either 6 small pulse or 6 er smalls. Just don't try to take something that is big, slow and short range and expect to do well. Builds like that are too inflexible due to the fact that if you don't have an easy angle of approach, you can't force an approach with your speed or be sneaky with small size.

[Jalthibuster]

SnagaDance, on 24 September 2015 - 06:13 AM, said:

So the answer to your question could very well be: LRM-mechs, or Clan mechs that can boat Streaks. Both weapon systems can reap huge rewards versus players with less skill, letting you rack up great damage and thus match score. As you go up in ranks you'll find that people will wise up to these tactics though.

I really wouldn't recommend that. The higher you rise in the tiers the more meta players you will meet. And since guided missiles aren't meta you probably will have less fun the higher you rise because of getting rolled by meta.
If you have trouble dishing out damage maybe have a look at your mouse sensivity. From time to time after death i can watch some players cumshooting their weaponsloads all over the map but not even close to the enemy mech, not even to speak of a single hit box. Usually mouse sensivity is way to high in those cases and the better players usually have it set very low.

[JC Daxion]

Spare Parts Bin, on 24 September 2015 - 05:26 AM, said:

Now that I know I am Tier 5, how do I reach Tiers 4 &3? What must I do? I am sure others are thinking the same thing.

Play, have fun and don't worry about it..

I honestly have no clue what the tier obsession is now. We have had Hidden tiers for years now.. But some how you can see um everyone is obsessed


But to put it simply,. get better and more consistent... BTW high tiers are not all they are cracked up to be. Lots of complaining, and meta.... Or you can just join a group with the competitive crowed.

[Tesunie]

Skarlock, on 28 September 2015 - 02:16 PM, said:

PSR really isn't player skill. It's made so that if you just play a lot of games, your PSR will eventually creep up. Sure if you improve your skill or your mech builds, your PSR will go up faster, but if you literally just play a lot, eventually your PSR will rise over time unless you excel at dragging your entire team down into a loss.

Also, dealing damage while not taking damage is not cowardly, it's good play. It is entirely possible to win a match by simply having your team poke from two different angles and preventing the enemy from effectively returning fire. There's nothing cowardly about that, it's simply smart play and having knowledge of what direction the enemy is looking. If they are looking your way don't poke, if they aren't looking your way, hammer em.

You also don't have to play the range game to have high PSR. My highest win ratio mech with over 100 games is the arctic cheetah with either 6 small pulse or 6 er smalls. Just don't try to take something that is big, slow and short range and expect to do well. Builds like that are too inflexible due to the fact that if you don't have an easy angle of approach, you can't force an approach with your speed or be sneaky with small size.

PSR stands for "Player Skill Rating", but you are right. It doesn't seem to have much to deal with a players individual skill level.

I find, having to abandon some teammates because "I'm afraid I might get my paint scratched" (I don't exactly play it that way, but I'm not too far out from it with that play style), is rather selfish. Running from just about every engagement I find "slightly cowardly", not actually full blown cowardly. (Maybe Cowardly was not a good word for me to choose there.) I'm a player who, if I see a teammate in need, I often want to charge in there and try to save them, even if sometimes I have to ram my mech between then an enemy so they can recover or move out. Thus, this play style, even if it turns heads and distracts (which it is good at doing), I find to go against my desire. (I also, thankfully am rather sneaky and get behind the enemy. Most players I know of with this play style do so from within the team, far behind them. Which I find less helpful, even if they get more damage/kills.)

(I don't think I'm wording this well still. I just hope you get the idea.)

I'll say, brawling is just not one of my good skills. I'm far better in a support role than a brawler role. I don't know why, but close up seems to get me killed. It often doesn't seem to matter how I twist. I do so to shift the damage, and it all still applies to the section on the opposite side of my mech like I was standing still. (HSR probably. I know.) I also tend to notice damage not apply correctly. If I hit with multiple weapons, it seems that most times it registers only one of them hitting. 2 PPC shots seem to deal the damage of one. 2 SRM4 shots seem to hit and deal only one SRM's worth of damage to a single location. (And I've had other people notice it as well with themselves too. So, am I crazy still then?)
(Like... in a CW match last night I had one person kill three of my mechs in a single alpha. It was weird. They shot everything they had, dealt damage to just one side torso even if I twisted like crazy, then their lasers would stop and I lived. POP! Nope. I died after they were finished shooting. 3 of my mechs to that one pilots single mech. He lost one mech the whole match, and killed 7 on my team. It seemed... strange to me...)
(And I had a match with my Jeagermech 6-A (4 LRM5s, 2 UAC5s and 2 med lasers). I had so many visual LRM and UAC hits, was getting really depleted on ammo, died. Did 79 points of damage. It did not seem correct to what I was visually (and having the red cross hairs affect to confirm) seeing. Matches like those make me wish I did/could record my matches for later review...)

Edited by Tesunie, 28 September 2015 - 05:29 PM.

[Skarlock]

Tesunie, on 28 September 2015 - 05:28 PM, said:

I'll say, brawling is just not one of my good skills. I'm far better in a support role than a brawler role. I don't know why, but close up seems to get me killed. It often doesn't seem to matter how I twist. I do so to shift the damage, and it all still applies to the section on the opposite side of my mech like I was standing still. (HSR probably. I know.) I also tend to notice damage not apply correctly. If I hit with multiple weapons, it seems that most times it registers only one of them hitting. 2 PPC shots seem to deal the damage of one. 2 SRM4 shots seem to hit and deal only one SRM's worth of damage to a single location. (And I've had other people notice it as well with themselves too. So, am I crazy still then?)

Brawling gets everyone killed rather quickly for the most part, because in a brawl, you can't get enough of an advantage over your opponent to get a clean kill without taking massive damage in return. Even someone who can't aim very well will still put a significant amount of damage on you because they are at close range, and it's very hard for them to miss. Brawling weapons really don't severely outclass longer range weapons up close, you only have a moderate advantage you are pushing at best. This is why brawling is incredibly difficult. You have to rely on your team to get lots of damage, your positioning has to be perfect and the enemy positioning has to be poor, and then you have to swoop in and get multiple clean kills very quickly with weapons that in general either splatter damage or have poor velocity and accuracy. Ponder this though. If your team is already winning with you out of the fight, what's the point of a brawler?

As for SRM hitreg, it's spotty at best. Sometimes it just doesn't work, and the random nature of how the spread is done also doesn't help you determine if it's you, the RNG of how the spread is concentrated, or hitreg that is the issue. I am most effective in a short range laser brawler with either clan small pulses or IS medium pulses because unlike SRMs, it's possible to get those quick, clean kills in 2 or 3 alphas. Ballistics seem to work well, but the alpha and DPS are lacking considering how many tons you have to invest in them, and the ghost heat on AC/20 UAC/20 hurts bad. SRMs are just not very reliable for the most part in my experience.

On the other hand, if you go mid to long range, you can easily out trade opponents all day if you make better use of cover, angles, and positional awareness, and get lots of damage with very little in return. It takes minimal coordination to do this, just a solid level of individual skill and awareness. I really wish brawling worked better because I'd love to rock a SRM griffin or storm crow and maul people up close, but it just doesn't perform well in my experience. The one exception might be certain maps where close range brawling, with an organized team full of dedicated brawlers, can lead to favorable engagements.

[Tesunie]

Skarlock, on 28 September 2015 - 06:00 PM, said:

True.

But I also tend to get this problem with lasers and ballistics as well. I've had an even exchange before between myself in my Arctic Cheetah (2 CERLLs) vs a near exact Kit Fox build. The Kit Fox decided to stand still (don't ask why), so I was able to shot beam after beam into him. Till I shut down thinking he was almost dead and pushing myself to kill him. He wasn't able to hit me the entire time till I shut down. He shoots his 2 CERLLs at me, instant side torso destruction for some reason (was only yellow armor before). I boot up long enough to see his damage display (ECM prevented it otherwise till then) and see his leg is red, and not his CT that I was hitting constantly. Then, he shoots 2 beams into my CT (also was yellow at that time) and I died. I was just left there going "what just happened"... (Same match, also shot at a stationary Awesome under the Kit Fox's ECM. Found out later in the match (after I died and was spectating) and after I already had visually shot lots of shots into his CT that his arms were red and his CT was yellow...)

I think there is an issue with Hit reg, and my luck being what it is, it seems to plague me. Either that or HSR doesn't like my very low ping levels... (or has an issue). (Still wishing I could record my matches for review. See if I'm just crazy, or if it is happening correctly...) Then again... have you heard of my luck? In a dice game I play, I have a 50% chance of success on each dice. I roll 12 dice, and get 11 failures and one success...

[Skarlock]

Tesunie, on 28 September 2015 - 06:13 PM, said:

I think there is an issue with Hit reg, and my luck being what it is, it seems to plague me. Either that or HSR doesn't like my very low ping levels... (or has an issue). (Still wishing I could record my matches for review. See if I'm just crazy, or if it is happening correctly...) Then again... have you heard of my luck? In a dice game I play, I have a 50% chance of success on each dice. I roll 12 dice, and get 11 failures and one success...

I have low ping (40-50 ms) but I get pretty good hitreg with lasers and ballistics, but not very good hitreg with SRMs usually. Some days I think it's mostly server based because everyones hitreg is bad, other days everything works fine for me.

[Aggravated Assault Mech]

Tesunie, on 24 September 2015 - 06:12 PM, said:

As far as what one must do... One must not only get better, but they also have to do "unspeakable*" things... (Typically: be a bit of a coward. Snipe, hide, reposition, repeat.Try to live as long as possible and/or not die in a match. Win matches.)

*By unspeakable... for me that meant following a... "meta". Yes. You heard it. I followed a meta in the game! Don't look at me! The shame! (I was toying with a dual CERLL Arctic Cheetah. I knew I could do well it in before, as snipe and run isn't a new strategy for me. However, if I want a better PSR, that's basically my way to get it up.)

This is honestly a kind of toxic misconception. There are people in tier 1 that play non-meta (actually not even high meta) mechs almost exclusively. Making smart decisions is how you win. Playing cowardly is sometimes a wise decision, but if you do that every game you're going to lose games (same as if you play aggressively every game).

As for OP, how to increase your PSR is really the wrong question to ask, what you should be asking is "how do I get better at the game?"

Always be critical of your own play: What did you do that worked? What did you do that didn't work? If it worked, how could you have done it better?

Don't make assumptions about your own skill level or the influence of your team on your performance. Don't assume that even if you won, that you took the best path to victory- you took a working path but sometimes you only win because the enemy team was worse than your own.

Reflect on your performance in each game, but don't dwell too deeply on it as it is just one game, and what matters is how you perform over hundreds of games.

[Tesunie]

vnlk65n, on 28 September 2015 - 07:21 PM, said:

This is honestly a kind of toxic misconception. There are people in tier 1 that play non-meta (actually not even high meta) mechs almost exclusively. Making smart decisions is how you win. Playing cowardly is sometimes a wise decision, but if you do that every game you're going to lose games (same as if you play aggressively every game).

I was kinda joking, kinda not joking at the same time. Just an FYI.

Though, the Meta's are often used in the game for a reason, they work. I applaud people who use non-meta designs, which I often do myself, which was why I was joking that it was how I was raising my PSR. I have meta designs, and I have non-meta designs, and I've had designs that were meta before they were meta. I also play a large variety of mechs and play styles, but I find that the sniper play style can be, at times, cowardly and selfish (depending upon how it is done, of course).

Sorry if the silly part of my post didn't quite carry over in text. It can be hard to joke around in text sometimes. (No toxicity was intended.)

[Void Angel]

Tesunie, on 24 September 2015 - 06:12 PM, said:

FYI: PSR and Match score are generated in similar manners, but last I knew they each weigh different actions differently. So, in theory, one could get a low match score, but have a high "PSR score" for the match.


As far as what one must do... One must not only get better, but they also have to do "unspeakable*" things... (Typically: be a bit of a coward. Snipe, hide, reposition, repeat.Try to live as long as possible and/or not die in a match. Win matches.)

*By unspeakable... for me that meant following a... "meta". Yes. You heard it. I followed a meta in the game! Don't look at me! The shame! (I was toying with a dual CERLL Arctic Cheetah. I knew I could do well it in before, as snipe and run isn't a new strategy for me. However, if I want a better PSR, that's basically my way to get it up.)


Personally speaking (even though I'm challenging myself to get to T3), I wouldn't worry about PSR. Just play the game in a way you enjoy. As long as you feel you are having fun, then all is "working as intended". If you ever want a challenge, then raising PSR is always an option.


(One flaw with PSR, I don't preform the same from mech to mech, variant to variant, or even loadout to loadout. It also seems to be heavily bias towards winning...)

It is heavily biased toward winning - because they don't want to encourage people to take self-serving actions that hurt the team, I'd wager.

As for the camp-n-cower meta (which I hate at LEAST as much as you do,) I'd recommend that new players do that until they get comfortable with combat - but caution them that they should also learn to fight more aggressively as they get a feel for the game. One of the things I see causing team failures as I work my way up through my tier (blasted stat analysis instead of translating Elomutttrgrmbl...) is an unwillingness to get out there with the rest of the team and fight. When to do that and when to hang back takes a feel for the game that new players might take time to develop, but it's essential in learning to play the game well.

Spare Parts Bin, on 25 September 2015 - 04:59 AM, said:

What little time I have for MWO/CW I plan to try to improve my PSR.

In case you didn't catch it, Community Warfare does not affect PSR any longer. Don't play CW thinking it'll change your tier.

[Spare Parts Bin]

Raising PSR ie my Tier is a hard business. I was on my least favorite map Forest Colony today. So one called out a Direwolf in the center of the gravel piles near the beach. I was in my SCR-D 3 ER MLs,2 ER SLs, 1 Gauss Rifle. I found him but he soon overheated. I poured on the Lasers and Gauss coring him. I took alot of damage but survived. I shot the arm off another SCR but he finished me off. We lost 5v12 I got 1 Kill,1 Component Destruction, 1 Kill Assist and 175 damage. I lost PSR.

On Viridian Bog my team was in a slugfest with the other team. So I counter flanked and sniped. They sent an Arctic Cheetah to kill me. He got distracted by another friendly but came after me. He overheated, I hit him with Gauss and Laser, scratch one Cheetah. I Guassed a couple of other enemy Mechs. We lost, my tally 3 Kills, 1 Component Destruction, 225 damage, my PSR stayed equal. Another game I did 2 Kill Assists and low damage but we won so my PSR went up.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

I get that. PSR is going to improve if your match was a win, even if you didn't do much. Why? Because whatever contribution you made, however seemingly insignificant, was still a contribution to VICTORY. Roger, Over, Under, and Dunn. "What's the vector, Victor?"

Riddle me THIS, Batman. Say I see a lance of enemy TBRs and HBRs moving under ECM cover. I can't SPOT them for friendly fire, per se. Nonetheless, I see where they are, and I call out their location and movement and the presence of at least one ECM to my teammates via in-game chat and/or VOIP. Scouting points? PFFT! Silly Rabbi! NO POINTS FOR YOU! My team moves to a position overlooking the enemy's likely destination, and dismantles them. I get exactly JACK F***ING SQUAT for my effort, because "It's harder than you think to code that".

Sorry, have I not thrown HUNDREDS of f***ing Dollars (US, at that) at this free-to-play game? Hell, just this year they've gotten me for over $200, and I just started playing again in AUGUST! I don't want to hear how HARD it is (innuendo much). If I'm looking right at an ECM-cloaked enemy and do nothing, that's one thing. If I zoom in on them, that MIGHT just be a clue. If I fire the bright blue lasers at them, that also might be a big clue. And if I zoom in, fire, and send text or VOIP, all within a couple seconds, then you bet your sweet Canadian backside that I just scouted like a motherf***er, and I damned well better get some PSR points out of it.

After all, WTF is "BRAWLING" per the PSR scoring system? HUH? Has ANYONE defined yet what it takes to earn any of those points? Nope.

It's more than a little frustrating. It's the reason that HEAVY has been at 38-51% of the players in queue for a couple weeks SOLID. (The Black Knight, you say? HA! Like anyone's still playing THAT heap of buttcrack sweat...) They want us to believe in ROLE WARFARE, but they're unwilling to believe in it themselves. They code and script a game that discourages anyone from it. And they act surprised when we point it out.

And yet, I give them my money.

What the Hell is wrong with me?

Edited by TheRAbbi, 28 September 2015 - 10:27 PM.

[Speedy Plysitkos]

well, exiting 5 is hard because people do not cooperate there = one win, one loss very often. Getting constantly win is extremely hard. My 800 damage / 400+ matchscore didnt do much, because next match i got stomp 2/3-12 matchscore 100, and cant do much about it.

[ATodd]

Hello,

imho it is not easy to exit the "underhive" ... if you want to play mechs of all weight classes and roles.

Right now the queues look like 10% light, 20% medium, 50% heavy, 20% assault.
I could queue assaults only, and my rating would go up.
I wait long and get in the match with a heavy.

But I tried some light and mediums.
So even with more wins than losses I lost PSR.

Unless you do reasonable damage you can still get only a "tiny" increase in PSR or a draw on a win;
yet when losing you take a massive hit to PSR even with reasonable damage.


Example 1:

Match with 2 assaults (me in STK + some guy in MAL, lots of heavies), Crimson straights.
MAL is daydreaming on startup, so I wait for the MAL to link up.
We follow the group, which is doing too well, so we have to keep catching up.
Eventually the MAL got 1 kill with < 75 damage, I got 2 kills with 65 damage (AC20 to rear CT and face ^^),
== draw on PSR on a win. lol

Example 2:

Again Crimson straights.
No lights in team, at least I got a 89 speed ENF with some clan heavies in our lance.
We head to the middle, I cover the back of an AS7, just in case the assaults get jumped.
Then our cap lights up.
I head back thru the city to our cap, 2 of the clan heavies go thru the water towards our cap.
The single enemy runs off across the water and gets itself killed by the my lance mates.
Rest of team does too well again, so I cannot get near enemies at all after running from cap back to the battle.
== draw on PSR on win, again.


Personally I will keep workin on improving my win/loss and kdr and forget about PSR until the scoring is less damage-only.

Cheers
AT

Edited by ATodd, 28 September 2015 - 11:02 PM.

[Speedy Plysitkos]

atodd, i have expirienced, that 400 damage, could be a PSR red, while 200 damage could be PSR green.
i think for T5 its totaly wrong set.

[iLLcapitan]

As mentioned before, a victory is almost a must for PSR uprating. Which one can only try to contribute to. Maybe it's a bad thing to show players their tier, since some really seem to care about it. As long as you're having fun and matches are roughly fair, the system works for me.