86 replies to this topic

[MattNovaCat]

No, I don't plan to quit playing, but I am thinking about seeing just how low I can get my PSR to drop.


4 months of playing daily (currently 660 matches) and I am still very firmly in Tier 5. 48 kills, 612 deaths and a 0.08 rating and always seeing my rating drop after each mission.


At what point do you abandon an account and create a new one to start over now that you know what you are doing? Or is there hope of ever seeing Tier 4?

[Not A Real RAbbi]

PSR is as much "what have you done LATELY" as anything. If you manage to get yourself turned around as a player, upward mobility will come soon enough. Trust a scrub (that's ME).

Abandoning and starting over? I don't like it. You lose everything that you HAVE accomplished here, like the XP and GXP gained, the modules and skills unlocked, the mechs and equipment purchased, etc. Gone. You start over from ZIP, ZILCH, NADA. Not cool. And if you haven't turned your ways around yet, it'll just continue in the next account.

So. How about telling us what's the matter, that you're keeping a KDR of under 0.1? What seems to be the problem?

[Wintersdark]

Definitely don't start over. You'd gain nothing and lose XP and such.

If you're still t5, that's OK. There's no gain from seeing t4 except facing stronger opponents. There's a big push to climb tiers, but its not like you get a prize for it. If I could choose to go back to T3, I would.

[TercieI]

MattNovaCat, on 06 January 2016 - 02:24 PM, said:

No, I don't plan to quit playing, but I am thinking about seeing just how low I can get my PSR to drop.


4 months of playing daily (currently 660 matches) and I am still very firmly in Tier 5. 48 kills, 612 deaths and a 0.08 rating and always seeing my rating drop after each mission.


At what point do you abandon an account and create a new one to start over now that you know what you are doing? Or is there hope of ever seeing Tier 4?

I had 5 kills in my first 100 matches and now play on a top competitive team. There's hope.

Here are my main thoughts for you to consider:

Do you jump around between mechs or have you concentrated on one or two (I recommend concentrating).

Have you tuned your system? Many new players have way too high a mouse sensitivity and getting that alone tuned can make an immense difference.

Are you running your own builds or are you running tried and true "meta" builds? Too many new/bad players think they're smarter than the comp guys. They're not.

Have you played with more experienced players and listened to their advice? There are many, many things to this game that are hard to figure out. Experienced help can help a lot.

Good luck. Don't give up if it's still fun for you.

[Morggo]

Yeah, don't loose hope; you will recover.

I slipped into 5 shortly after they introduced it and it freaked me out.
Then I tottered between 4 and 5 for a while then something... just clicked.
Like our good Rabbi says, it will turn around once you start gaining some traction and consistency. Now I'm up from that T5 visit and closing in on T3 (honestly though I'm not much of a Tier wh*** and not actively working to climb the ladder at all, but again like therabbi says it just comes as you progress)

Hang in there, mate! Let the good folk in here help resolve your areas for improvement

[Hexenhammer]

TercieI, on 06 January 2016 - 02:42 PM, said:

I had 5 kills in my first 100 matches and now play on a top competitive team. There's hope.

Here are my main thoughts for you to consider:

Do you jump around between mechs or have you concentrated on one or two (I recommend concentrating).

Have you tuned your system? Many new players have way too high a mouse sensitivity and getting that alone tuned can make an immense difference.

Are you running your own builds or are you running tried and true "meta" builds? Too many new/bad players think they're smarter than the comp guys. They're not.

Have you played with more experienced players and listened to their advice? There are many, many things to this game that are hard to figure out. Experienced help can help a lot.

Good luck. Don't give up if it's still fun for you.

That^

Things that have to be learned in this game
Patience.
When to attack
When to retreat. Over extending gets a lot of people killed
Who to attack
Mechs builds play a huge role in how the mech is used
Stay with the pack

I learned I have to play the mech the way it's designed. I play an srm6 build Humchback differently than a laser build Humchback. Both are brawlers but both function differently.

Anyways. Things that can help


1. Play more! Ask your self what you could have done differently.
2. Team speak. Get on and play with other people. I've had a number of matches where People would say do this or that while Watching me. And I'd never be playing thunderbolts if a team speak friend hadn't shown me the right build. The right build is the key to every mech.
3 Meta. Meta. Meta. I don't like meta but meta wins games.

Edited by Hexenhammer, 06 January 2016 - 02:54 PM.

[Nevaran]

Im at tier 3 with less than a month playing the game(110-ish hours actually playing the game). But then again my first ever pc game was MW3, and i loved the hell out of that game!

If you see yourself losing, try something different - you got 3 different weapon types, and 4 different mech types - sooner or later you will find something that not only is fun for you, but also you are good at.
And if you dont? Hell if you have fun, its all it counts - not everyone are good at playing these intense games.

[MattNovaCat]

Like I said, I don't plan to quit. The game is still fun...most of the time. Some of the CW matches and PUGs are steamrolls and dropzone massacres where you don't stand a chance and its not fun. Or when you get swarmed by Cheetahs or sniped at ranges when the enemy don't even show on radar.


Most matches I average 100-300 damage but there have been way too many where I've scored 0 before death. (I drained my AC or LRM ammo and scored no hits at all? Seriously!) I definitely have accuracy issues which I am working on but either my weapon choices or abilities are awful cause damage output is so low.


I do use voip or teamspeak, I do drop with groups (have several groups of friends), I just tend to get killed really fast. I plunged into CW really early on (yes, I was that PUG but I listened to teammates and followed orders and tried hard...just tend to get steamrolled).



I jump around mechs a fair amount, but I do focus on the few I've been modding. Raven (usually my best and has the most kills), Griffon, Cataphract, Dragon, and Blackjack.

[Havyek]

Best suggestions would be to lock your arms to torso and adjust your mouse sensitivity so it's not bouncing all over the place.

Also try and stick with the deathball, doing low damage can be put to poor aim but 0 damage is bad positioning.

Also pick a range/role you want to play for a bit and build a mech to suit. Putting 2 LRM10s, a UAC5 and 5 SPL doesn't give you any specific range to try and stay at, and playing at 1 range makes another a waste of tonnage.

[TechChris]

First Off! YOU NEVER ADMIT to not being a Mechwarrior. Never! It is a position of honor, and the title should never be given up!

Second. AS for your stats, abilities, etc, etc......Don't feel so bad. EVERYONE had to start somewhere, trust me, I've played this long enough I saw people who's names now inspire fear barely know how to drive a mech long ago!

Third. I could write out a long list of suggestions for ya, play Q&A n all that, but I'm not much for being a Forum Warrior (notice low post count even after 2 n a half+ years).
So I'll keep my advice simple. In the guides and strategies section of this forum there's a wonderful thread called "Tactics 101 Comics". Just search for it there, it is quit informative on the basics of how to win at this game and enjoyably funny read at the same time!
Also, if ya peruse the forums there are several "adds" for units that don't have any real restrictions they just like to play the game. See if ya can get in with one of them. As hanging out on comms with people who played n learned already can be quit the handy teacher, as they can first hand tell ya what you did wrong/right!
Lastly, practice and faith in ones self. If at first ya don't succeed, try something else, n keep going til you find ya groove. A wise man once told me "If you know all the ways something can go wrong, your left with only the way it can go right!"

Lastly. Don't get hung up on tier. Its nothing but a glorified XP bar. I personally have been moderating how much I play lately just to slow down my inevitable creep towards Tier 1....as I don't wanna be tier 1. It'll just mean MM hates my guts more, and expects even more from me! I like to focus on having fun in a mech game, don't wanna have to focus on who got the better FPS twitch skills!

And good luck to ya man. All legends start somewhere!

[Lujke85]

If i were you... i'd take the opportunity at tier 5 to steamroll some new players

Jokes aside, its not about winning or losing, its about how much fun you have. ACs and missiles are hard, work with lasers and start your way up from there. I played laser exclusive builds (thank you resistance 2 pack) for the beginning, before branching into ACs and LRMs and other fun stuff.

I read a lot of guides (tactics 101, kajanashi's guides, metamechs) and did what they suggested, learnt to torso twist, learnt not to panic or run too far in front (guilty of leeroy jenking once in a while). don't worry about K/D, noone cares except tryhards. get in, be an asset to your team, make some mechs blow up and release some steam!

[Koniving]

Hello and welcome to the MWO forums. I'm sorry to hear that your luck has been pretty rotten. I confess while my first match had me rip an arm and a leg off of a rival stock Jenner in my own stock Jenner, and involved a ~lot~ of ramming (oh my god that was so fun!), it took me almost two weeks to get my first awarded kill.

Give me an example of a build you have and how you play it. What is your ping when you hit "tab"? Do you use wired or wireless internet?

When in a fight, where do you aim?
Do you try to hit the same part consistently, or do you aim "in the general direction"?
You mentioned missiles. Which missiles? How close or far do you fire them at targets? Do you use the R (target lock) key?

I realize that group queues are basically "medium mode" and community warfare is "hard mode", but it seems like you could probably use a more personal touch. Will you be free around 5 PM EST tomorrow?

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Okay, first thing's first. You're saying that you feel you have aim problems. Coming out of a match with 0 damage, having drained all of your AC ammo, I'd say that's a strong candidate. Also, knowing the range limitations of the weapons MAY be your second-place problem.

SOLUTION: For starters, the Mechwarrior Academy's Target Practice and Onslaught features. It's FREE. Go use the CRAP outta those. Not GREAT tools for building skills, but they can help.

Pay attention, too, to the weapon indicators at the bottom-right of the HUD when you're aiming at a target. If the weapon's text is BLACK (this will probably change tomorrow, since I mentioned it), then you CANNOT hit that target for any damage at all. Get used to knowing how far each weapon can reach, and only using it when you can HIT your target--anything else may be wasted heat and ammo, and a needless exposure of your position to the enemy (who may then choose to return fire at you with weapons that CAN reach that distance).

Do this first. If you have considerable success (hitting 100% in all levels of the Moving Targets, for instance), then AIM isn't your problem necessarily. But I suspect that, if you're saying that it's an issue, it very well may be. So go to the Academy and use the tools there to work on the aim bit. Say, take two or three turns at the Onslaught feature there, then go run ONE solo Quick Play drop. Rinse, repeat.

If you get to feeling pretty confident, then try running around the Battle Zone end of the Academy and blowing some stuff up while it shoots back at you.

Let us know how THAT goes. We can work from there.

[sycocys]

1. Do not start a new account. There's simply no way that its worth it, especially if you are still lacking in skillset.

2. Griffins + Blackjacks. If you have these pilot these almost exclusively for your next 600-1k+ matches.
Mediums and humanoid lights will teach you all the primary skills you need to apply to everything else you pilot in the game, from torso twisting to shot location and attack timing as well as terrain and map skills.

3. Ditch, and I mean completely ditch the LRMs. These are setting back your skill progress the most.

4. Since you are relatively new, make a build and test it for no less than 10 matches (much preferably 25-50 matches unless it has serious issues). Stick with a build and a mech for stretches of at least 10 matches in a row when you have a play session. Bouncing around constantly is also hindering your progression.

5. If you like CW, that's fantastic! It's actually somewhat easier to learn the tactical play there if you are rolling with a group of people. I'd recommend dropping with 3 of the same chassis (or 4 if your team doesn't need ecm) and a Raven-3L. This will give you 3 rounds of practice with a chassis per match. Consistency, and improving that consistency per mech is an easier goal to aim for in CW than the completely random standard drops.

6. Do at least some minor stat tracking for yourself. Don't trust PGI's stat page, jot down :kills, assists, damage - to have a quick reference of how your are doing.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

^^^

To his sixth point, I add that MWO has a screenshot feature that works just fine. USE THAT on the Match Summary screens. There's a post around here somewhere, maybe in the Guides and Strategies forum, that outlines what EXACTLY one must do to earn an instance of each bonus, like "Scouting" and "Brawling" and "Flanking". So you can compare your results later on, at your leisure, to that data and figure out what you WERE doing well.

Me? I have an old SD card that I stick in my machine. I transfer all my screenshots to it after playing, before I shut down for the night. Then I go over those on the couch on my laptop.

If you have the means to record video, too, that's even BETTER. But start with Match Summary screenies...

[MechWarrior3671771]

Also, if you want to raise your PSR, avoid playing light mechs. They have a low damage output and tend to die sooner than most. Since your match score (damage, kills, component destruction, etc) determines whether you move up or down in PSR, you'll have a harder time moving up.

But, as someone who loves lights and started T5, don't be in such a hurry. T5 was a bad experience because many of the T5s were still getting the basics down, but T4 was the most fun for me. As you move into T3-T1, you have to "work" more at the game to have an enjoyable time, and its very hard to drop down a level and stay there. For example, T3 is feels right for me, and I'm delaying moving up to T2 for as long as I can.

[bayoucowboy]

Definitely check ping and fps lag if you are still getting 0 damage and should be hitting in range. I have found that i have both issues when playing on the oceanic servers (but it's an old rig, AMD 1100T and a AMD 5870).

If it's an aiming issue, I agree with Lukje85's recommendation to stick with lasers at first - unlimited ammo, instant time to target, and no target locks required. I would also recommend sticking with only 1 or 2 weapons groups based on range and/or heat output.

Lastly sycocys is dead on about sticking with a mech through multiple matches. It really helps you learn the nuances of the chassis (damage output, range, maneuverability, armor strength, etc) which will help you decide when to engage (and when to run - er..reposition)

Good luck and see you on the battlefield

[MattNovaCat]

I am such an inept player, i just finished a match where a Dire Wolf, Catapult, and Ebon Jaguar ignored me to chase a Wolfhound through half of River City. Turned and walked away as I fired at them. :S now to turn this to my advantage.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Quote

now to turn this to my advantage.

THAT'S the spirit!

[S 0 L E N Y A]

1: are you having fun? If so nothing else matters

2: quality of competetion is not noticibly different at T4.

3: link up with some more experienced players