105 replies to this topic

[himself]

The current implementation of PSR is lazy.

Not only is it NOT a good gauge for how much skill a player has, it only serves to segregate the new players and the ultra baddies from the old players and the tryhards. It needs to be removed and replace with a system that doesn't pretend to be keeping new players safe.

New Idea:

PXI [pik-see] (Pilot Experience Index): Works exactly like PSR, but doesn't pretend to be a skill rating. It serves as a decent indicator that a player has learned the basic mechanics of the game and can apply them with some modicum of efficiency.

Instead of locking tiers out, use PXI to balance the teams.

Current:

[5-3][4-2][3-1] Locked Tier MM

You're segregating your already limited player base.

Suggested:

Use PXI to ensure that both teams have a near-equal amount of newer players and experienced players to avoid total steam rolls.

Congratulations, now you also aren't screwing over people bringing in their friends by pitting them against tryhard groups every time they want to play with you, because they're PSR5 and you're PSR2.
You're welcome.

[Sandpit]

himself, on 28 February 2016 - 09:32 PM, said:

The current implementation of PSR is lazy.

Not only is it NOT a good gauge for how much skill a player has, it only serves to segregate the new players and the ultra baddies from the old players and the tryhards. It needs to be removed and replace with a system that doesn't pretend to be keeping new players safe.

New Idea:

PXI [pik-see] (Pilot Experience Index): Works exactly like PSR, but doesn't pretend to be a skill rating. It serves as a decent indicator that a player has learned the basic mechanics of the game and can apply them with some modicum of efficiency.

Instead of locking tiers out, use PXI to balance the teams.

Current:

[5-3][4-2][3-1] Locked Tier MM

You're segregating your already limited player base.

Suggested:

Use PXI to ensure that both teams have a near-equal amount of newer players and experienced players to avoid total steam rolls.

Congratulations, now you also aren't screwing over people bringing in their friends by pitting them against tryhard groups every time they want to play with you, because they're PSR5 and you're PSR2.
You're welcome.

uhm
so you just basically said keep the same system but rename it...

Also, if you group up, it should be an average of the team's PSR to find opponents. It works both ways ya know. It's not fair that a bunch of new players should be facing off against a bunch of Tier 2s simply because their buddy made an alt account to keep it at Tier 5 so they can run roughshod through Tier 5 players

The current PSR system is fine in my opinion. It just needs to be weighted a bit more on individual match scores as opposed to W/L. (Which Russ said they're going to be tweaking)

The "segregation" of the players in this regard is the same thing most any other online multiplayer game does. It seeks to help mitigate new and lower skilled players from running into experienced and/or higher skilled players on a regular basis. It also already tries to help ensure "even" numbers of players on both teams. That's how the MM works as far as I know.

If your'e grouped up it takes the average of all players' PSR, it doesn't take the highest in the group and use that. So if you're dropping in a group with a Tier 5 buddy, you're going to average out to either Tier 3 or 4 depending on whether they round up or down.

As a Tier 5, that player is already facing Tier 3 opponents on a regular basis. The only thing that would change based on being in that group is having to play some Tier 2 sometimes as well. If you're in a larger group and the PSR averages out higher than that, then you and your group should be more than able to help "carry" those new players because you're there specifically helping them out as you said.

[El Bandito]

himself, on 28 February 2016 - 09:32 PM, said:

Suggested:

Use PXI to ensure that both teams have a near-equal amount of newer players and experienced players to avoid total steam rolls.

Congratulations, now you also aren't screwing over people bringing in their friends by pitting them against tryhard groups every time they want to play with you, because they're PSR5 and you're PSR2.
You're welcome.

I don't want to group with complete newbies who doesn't even know where the "lock" button is, or shooting SRMs against target beyond 400 meters. Also the reason why I do not want trial mechs allowed in CW queue. Small groups have tonnage advantage in group queue so there is that.

Edited by El Bandito, 29 February 2016 - 12:27 AM.

[MrMadguy]

What I realized, is that good MM system should have decent prediction part in order to simulate matches. Real match results should be used as feedback mechanism to adjust simulation parameters. System should predict, how good would every player perform in specific match and build as balance match, as possible, via taking it into account. Also system should try to measure absolute players' skill, cuz relative skill is way to unreliable, when playerbase is unstable - relative skill floats, following fluctuations of playerbase. For example some solo queue event starts - crowd of hardcore tryhard Meta players are flooding solo queue. Some players, who don't play often enough, start playing game too. It shifts relative skill level of ordinal solo queue players and completely messes up matchmaking .

[c0de4014]

Pilot skill rating is crap, it ONLY goes up if your team wins... how does that judge an individuals skill level!? it is ridiculous...
i have a screenshot of a spreadsheet that shows in detail how ridiculous it is. the rating ONLY goes up if your TEAM wins a match...

https://gyazo.com/19...912ed91107d05c0

[Moldur]

himself, on 28 February 2016 - 09:32 PM, said:

it only serves to segregate the new players and the ultra baddies from the old players and the tryhards.

That's called matchmaking

himself, on 28 February 2016 - 09:32 PM, said:

ensure that both teams have a near-equal amount of newer players and experienced players to avoid total steam rolls.

That's called no matchmaking.


The idea that it would avoid rolls is not an accurate prediction.

Edited by Moldur, 28 February 2016 - 11:59 PM.

[kesmai]

@c0de4014: Your assumption is wrong. Psr goes up on losses too. Just hit a 400+ match score and bingo your psr is raising.

[MrMadguy]

kesmai, on 29 February 2016 - 12:58 AM, said:

@c0de4014: Your assumption is wrong. Psr goes up on losses too. Just hit a 400+ match score and bingo your psr is raising.

But bias towards increasing - is terrible thing anyway. Simple example. There is daily playerbase fluctuation - population is much better in the evening, then in the morning, so matches are much better in the evening. What happens, when your MM has extreme bias towards increasing? You advance in the evening and...can't drop back in the morning. So game just simply becomes unplayable for you in morning. And then your rating become based on your BEST games - not AVERAGE ones, as it should be in proper matchmaker. So... You have just narrow window, when game is playable for you (Sunday's evening, as yesterday's one, for example) - all other time game is literally unplayable for you. That's what happens with me - yesterday game was relatively good and now it's unplayable again. This just can't be right.

Edited by MrMadguy, 29 February 2016 - 01:40 AM.

[Savage Wolf]

I just want good old ELO back. It didn't do much, but it was the most accurate you could ever measure player skill in any way.

Also, there will always be lots of steamrolls because of the game mechanics. The game is designed to snowball quite naturally. Matchmaking cannot change that.

[MrMadguy]

Savage Wolf, on 29 February 2016 - 02:01 AM, said:

I just want good old ELO back. It didn't do much, but it was the most accurate you could ever measure player skill in any way.

Also, there will always be lots of steamrolls because of the game mechanics. The game is designed to snowball quite naturally. Matchmaking cannot change that.

Snowball argument is proven to be false, sorry:

[Savage Wolf]

MrMadguy, on 29 February 2016 - 02:05 AM, said:

Snowball argument is proven to be false, sorry:

Proven false by a match result screen? How can that in any prove or disprove snowballing? Snowballing is a process, not a result.

[Paigan]

Also see the link in my sig:
PSR over-values raw damage over actual contribution (at least the easily measurable parts of it) .
It could be SO simple to make it WAY better.

[Thunderbird Anthares]

match win/loss factors WAY too much into PSR to ever be considered a "skill" rating

its just a win/loss rating that is pretending to be something else - everyone hates it and everyone is attempting to avoid higher tiers to dont get tangled up with the tryhards and cheaters

[Savage Wolf]

Thunderbird Anthares, on 29 February 2016 - 02:41 AM, said:

match win/loss factors WAY too much into PSR to ever be considered a "skill" rating

Odd. I have the opposite observation. That damage and kills factors way to much into it. In my opinion, the only thing that should be a factor is winning. Only way to measure all the required skills that contribute to victory. Being able to measure an individual players contribution to victory in any meaningful way is a fantasy.

[Karen Supreme]

Tier system calculation needs to be 0 based.
That is: summing the total PSR about the 24 players in a match must be zero.
In that way someone (the skilled) goes up, and someone (the underhive) goes down.

Now even the potatoes can be tier 1 by playing a lot.

Edited by I want a shadowcat, 29 February 2016 - 02:55 AM.

[p4r4g0n]

Paigan, on 29 February 2016 - 02:26 AM, said:

Also see the link in my sig:
PSR over-values raw damage over actual contribution (at least the easily measurable parts of it) .
It could be SO simple to make it WAY better.

People keep saying or implying that it is "simple" to improve PSR but never actually suggest anything credible.

The fact that you can make tons of money if you create a perfect player rating and matchmaking system would appear to be a great incentive to do so but I still have not heard of any game / competition that has attained this goal.

Maybe that is a clue that it is not "simple"?

[Paigan]

p4r4g0n, on 29 February 2016 - 02:56 AM, said:

People keep saying or implying that it is "simple" to improve PSR but never actually suggest anything credible.

The fact that you can make tons of money if you create a perfect player rating and matchmaking system would appear to be a great incentive to do so but I still have not heard of any game / competition that has attained this goal.

Maybe that is a clue that it is not "simple"?

Maybe just read the link and the pages of reasoning and suggestions before writing nonsense?

[Sjorpha]

Savage Wolf, on 29 February 2016 - 02:49 AM, said:

Odd. I have the opposite observation. That damage and kills factors way to much into it. In my opinion, the only thing that should be a factor is winning. Only way to measure all the required skills that contribute to victory. Being able to measure an individual players contribution to victory in any meaningful way is a fantasy.

You are 100% right about this, the most accurate system would only measure your long term tendency to win matches.

The strange thing is that people here don't understand how measuring trends through isolation of constants work, and are stuck in a delusion that winning and losing can't be used because they are staring themselves blind looking at specific match screens thinking "I shouldn't go down/up in this match, omg!" without understanding how completely irrelevant it is.

They also don't seem to understand that using wins and losses to measure trends is completely different from win/loss ratio, and therefore believe that since win/loss ratio is a bad metric therefore wins and losses must also be bad for measuring skill trends.

Making both or either of these mistakes of course makes it impossible to understand how ELO, PSR or any other matchmaking system works, which is why we get the ******** comments like "It measures wins not skills!!!" and other such nonsense all the freaking time.

I have tried to explain this to no avail, and so far I haven't heard many answers showing any semblance of understanding these relatively simple math, except from people who already understood it before, and this is why PGI should completely ignore any and all forum discussions on this subject.

Edited by Sjorpha, 29 February 2016 - 03:13 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

himself, on 28 February 2016 - 09:32 PM, said:

You're welcome.

No thanks.

I'd rather play with and against hordes of tryhards and angry neckbeards rather than playing with and against weekend warriors who have no idea how the game works. I've grinded really hard to get to Tier 1, not because it's a good indication of skill, but only because it reduces the number of steering wheel mechwarriors in my games. That's the most important thing.

As an XP system designed to separate the experienced from the inexperienced, PSR has only two major flaws:

• A misleading name
  
• No way to separate group queue accomplishments from solo queue accomplishments (similar to Elo). Some people get to Tier 1 really fast because they're mostly playing with big groups using VOIP, which inflates their stats way beyond what they could do in the solo queue.

Another flaw is that heavy mechs (and assault mechs, in the group queue) generally receive bigger PSR increases due to the way match score works. Light mechs generally have lower match scores.

[Savage Wolf]

Paigan, on 29 February 2016 - 03:00 AM, said:

Maybe just read the link and the pages of reasoning and suggestions before writing nonsense?

Because your link is only a slight adjustment to how damage is rated. It does not address the focus that PSR have on damage and kills in any way. It does not fix that on average, everyone will rise in tier eventually. It does nothing to address all the contributions to victory that cannot be measured and so is not rewarded.
PSR will still reward people who focus on damage and kills at the expense of objectives despite the fact that these are bad players and should drop in rating, yet makes them rise.

There is no simple way to measure player skill except for wins. And the reason for that is complicated.