76 replies to this topic

[EasyPickings]

How about weighting the PSR based on how close the match is for both winners and losers?

So, if one team wins by a single mech, then their "bonus" is much less than if they had all 12 of their team still standing. Same thing with losing. If you've lost the match with only one of the enemy left, then you obviously fought well and should not be penalized to the same degree as if you had lost 12-1.

This should encourage greater team efforts and satisfy those who have fought well, even in loss.

[nehebkau]

@ OP

I have thought about it and i think that wining should not be included at all. Since we have scores in game you can easily determine who did better than whom. Players that score better than the average should go up, players who are around the average should not change and players below the average should go down. Over time you should get to a point where you are considered an average skill player among your skill group. PGI has already acknowledged this by allowing your PSR to go up if you lose but score really well -- so why not remove the win entirely?

[Lugh]

Tristan Winter, on 02 March 2016 - 10:05 AM, said:

In the latest Town Hall, Russ explained that PSR will be adjusted to put more emphasis on personal accomplishments as opposed to winning matches, because this will reward the more skilled players.

Prediction: When you adjust any rewards (C-bills, XP, PSR) with more emphasis on personal accomplishments (e.g. damage or kills) and less emphasis on victory, you increase incentive for selfish behavior and reduce incentive for teamwork.

Have you been in matches where 2-3 harassing light mechs manage to get around and behind the enemy, causing a panic and then distracting half the enemy team, so their teammates are basically fighting a 10 vs 6 battle on the front line? Or matches where someone rushing back to stop a base cap bought your team enough time to either counter-cap or defend base?

In the solo queue, those kinds of selfless acts aren't exactly standard, but they'll be even more rare if you put less emphasis on winning the match.

Altruistic suicide doesn't pay C-bills, it doesn't give you XP, and your precious WLR stats are invisible to everyone but yourself. So right now, the only incentive is a slight PSR increase if you can get a match score above 100. However, if PGI puts more emphasis on damage and kills, then it's probably going to be easier to just accept defeat and focus on shooting bad guys. In the long run, it's going to give you more C-bills, more XP and higher PSR.

So yeah. I know everyone doesn't like PSR, but even if we accept that it's here to stay, it seems unwise to put so much emphasis on personal damage and kills.

TL;DR - On a match-by-match basis, it probably seems more fair to reward the guy who did 500 dmg on a losing team. He may have carried like a boss. But in the long run, rewarding those players more than the guys who consistently win matches will increase selfish behavior in the solo queue.

Night before last a buddy and I were duo dropping in mediums, he was showing me what he does in an IFR and I was in a SHC Prime I had PPCs he had srms and mpl.

Map was Mordor(Terra Therma) We were dropping for the second time that night with the same 10 man. We knew they could handle themselves well, and they needed someone to help 'turn' the enemy team away from the up into the bowl ramp to give them enough to push out into the enemy team.

We played skirmishers and kept 4+ medium and light mechs (all with horrible builds btw SHAME or horrible aim JnR ICC (0) so predictable in his fire I was able to dodge him for most of the match).

we did paltry damage PPCs sucked for hit reg for some reason, saw them go right through the bodies of these mechs several times. 180 or so for me (taking most of the fire ) and 280ish for him.

However, the 10 man did not let us down, and they cleaned up the other 8 and positively annihilated the 4+ in mere moments.

That 'taking one for the team' set up isn't measureable by any metrics that they have in place now. They also aren't going to be able to measure Leadership, moving in unison, firing in unison on called targets, and good focus fire.

Remember it only takes 250 damage and 1 kill for all 12 guys to beat any other 12 guys on any given day.

That's a game score of 180 or so if you are good enough to get some scouting or flanking bonuses in there.

That wasn't (until an outcry went up) regarded as a good score for the contest earnings.

[Lugh]

EasyPickings, on 02 March 2016 - 12:34 PM, said:

How about weighting the PSR based on how close the match is for both winners and losers?

So, if one team wins by a single mech, then their "bonus" is much less than if they had all 12 of their team still standing. Same thing with losing. If you've lost the match with only one of the enemy left, then you obviously fought well and should not be penalized to the same degree as if you had lost 12-1.

This should encourage greater team efforts and satisfy those who have fought well, even in loss.

Why would the bonus be less for the team that worked very hard to overcome the even matching? Most of that losing team is probably earning the = with 350ish damage and assorted other boni to make it that close.

When you lose 12-1 it's because the 12 on the other team, rolled damaged mechs back to protection of fresher mechs successfully (covering one another) and they FOCUSED better than the team that got just the 1. So they may all be at 50% or less health, but still alive.

There are so many intangibles so many of you miss accounting for in your tales of ROFL stomps and how unfun it was...

[Lykaon]

Tristan Winter, on 02 March 2016 - 10:05 AM, said:

In the latest Town Hall, Russ explained that PSR will be adjusted to put more emphasis on personal accomplishments as opposed to winning matches, because this will reward the more skilled players.

Prediction: When you adjust any rewards (C-bills, XP, PSR) with more emphasis on personal accomplishments (e.g. damage or kills) and less emphasis on victory, you increase incentive for selfish behavior and reduce incentive for teamwork.

Have you been in matches where 2-3 harassing light mechs manage to get around and behind the enemy, causing a panic and then distracting half the enemy team, so their teammates are basically fighting a 10 vs 6 battle on the front line? Or matches where someone rushing back to stop a base cap bought your team enough time to either counter-cap or defend base?

In the solo queue, those kinds of selfless acts aren't exactly standard, but they'll be even more rare if you put less emphasis on winning the match.

Altruistic suicide doesn't pay C-bills, it doesn't give you XP, and your precious WLR stats are invisible to everyone but yourself. So right now, the only incentive is a slight PSR increase if you can get a match score above 100. However, if PGI puts more emphasis on damage and kills, then it's probably going to be easier to just accept defeat and focus on shooting bad guys. In the long run, it's going to give you more C-bills, more XP and higher PSR.

So yeah. I know everyone doesn't like PSR, but even if we accept that it's here to stay, it seems unwise to put so much emphasis on personal damage and kills.

TL;DR - On a match-by-match basis, it probably seems more fair to reward the guy who did 500 dmg on a losing team. He may have carried like a boss. But in the long run, rewarding those players more than the guys who consistently win matches will increase selfish behavior in the solo queue.

If a balance can be struck between the current win weighted PSR and a PSR that more heavily favors individual performance I would be rather pleased.

I can not count the number of matches where a few (but enough) of my team mates get shot up before doing anything useful leaving me and the other 5-7 players on my team wondering how are going to not lose PSR because half of our team were terrible.

It's no fault of our own but we will be stuck with a loss and a drop in PSR because of other players on our team's poor performance. There is only so much you can do and frequently not enough to counter a terrible matchmaker team.

[Votanin FleshRender]

I Kinda don't care how PSR is calculated. As long as it's evenly weighted for increases and decreases.

Currently, PSR has a strong bias towards increasing, based on the assumption that the longer people play the better they get. Which I think is freaking ********.

[Mystere]

nehebkau, on 02 March 2016 - 12:36 PM, said:

@ OP

I have thought about it and i think that wining should not be included at all. Since we have scores in game you can easily determine who did better than whom. Players that score better than the average should go up, players who are around the average should not change and players below the average should go down. Over time you should get to a point where you are considered an average skill player among your skill group. PGI has already acknowledged this by allowing your PSR to go up if you lose but score really well -- so why not remove the win entirely?

As I wrote previously:

Mystere, on 02 March 2016 - 10:43 AM, said:

How are people who play vanguard rated?
Are spotters richly rewarded?
How do you reward people who consistently divide, disrupt, confuse, and delay the enemy enough for the rest to take advantage and win, but ends up having poor damage scores and/or gets killed for the effort?

These things are not measured or properly rewarded but they are significant factors on a win.

Edited by Mystere, 02 March 2016 - 02:03 PM.

[EasyPickings]

Lugh, on 02 March 2016 - 12:53 PM, said:

Why would the bonus be less for the team that worked very hard to overcome the even matching? Most of that losing team is probably earning the = with 350ish damage and assorted other boni to make it that close.

When you lose 12-1 it's because the 12 on the other team, rolled damaged mechs back to protection of fresher mechs successfully (covering one another) and they FOCUSED better than the team that got just the 1. So they may all be at 50% or less health, but still alive.

There are so many intangibles so many of you miss accounting for in your tales of ROFL stomps and how unfun it was...

Yes, there are so many intangibles. There are too many to consider in a simple PSR calculation. But rather than doing nothing, let's look for something that improves the current system.

My suggestion is to lessen the weighting for the winning team based on how much they won by. It cannot take everything into account that happens in every situation, but it's better than what we've currently got.

[Jman5]

One way to make PSR less reliant on wins and losses would be to remove the automatic +20 points to matchscore everyone on the winning team gets.

[wanderer]

Does this change mean it's harder to get to tier 1?

Does it mean it's easier to slip down tiers if you do badly?

No?

That's nice, but it doesn't fix the inevitable march of derp up the ranks.

[J0anna]

First off we don't know what the new formula is going to be, but I didn't get the idea they were throwing out w/l completely. Just that they were going to weigh personal performance a bit more. Besides who cares? It's a matchmaking tool. If it gets me better matches I wouldn't care if they base it on shoe size...If it gets better matches with the new formula, lets keep it, if it doesn't then continue to tweak it and make it better.

Edited by J0anna, 02 March 2016 - 03:45 PM.

[Sjorpha]

Sandpit, on 02 March 2016 - 12:14 PM, said:

maybe I missed it, can you show me where anyone is suggesting W/L not be considered in the formula for PSR?

W/L has NEVER been part of the PSR formula in the first place, winning and losing is a factor but not W/L.

Those are different things, and that conflation is a constant source of confusion.

But yes there are lots of people suggesting that winning or losing the match should be less of a factor, it's a stupid suggestion for sure but it's common.

[wanderer]

Um, yes W/L IS part of the PSR formula.

W/L records aren't, but that's not what he's talking about.

The same match score that makes a decent +PSR bump on a win is a PSR LOSS if the team loses. And you can never go -PSR on a win.

Edited by wanderer, 02 March 2016 - 04:58 PM.

[oldradagast]

The game currently pays out utter trash for losses, and while you can squeak out an equals sign if you're able to live long enough on the losing team to get a good score, it is still appalling.

If the game's rewards systems are designed even reasonably correctly, the "personal achievements" that should be directly rewarded by the system are the same basic types of things that, if everyone was trying to achieve, would likely lead to victory. Brutally punishing losses with trash rewards is just an artificial inflation of the grind and serves to minimize the payout for even trying. Too many games are lost thanks to the actions of a few potatoes - or a misplaced disconnect - that it's just bad game design to give out trash to everyone else, even if they tried their best.

[nehebkau]

Mystere, on 02 March 2016 - 02:03 PM, said:

These things are not measured or properly rewarded but they are significant factors on a win.

That is a good point... in theory ... but how relevant are they in the game? Not trying to be a **** but I don't think, in the current game, they play much of a role. Now, this is coming from a light pilot, myself, who often is there to confuse, confound and annoy the enemy. I have found that the things that score points are the things that win matches.

[Sjorpha]

wanderer, on 02 March 2016 - 04:57 PM, said:

Um, yes W/L IS part of the PSR formula.

No, there is no part of the formula that looks at wins divided by losses, it only looks at whether you won or lost the specific match it is currently calculating a PSR change for. The formula only looks at one match at a time, it's a bottom up formula of which PSR is the emergent value. It has no "memory" of your match history. Winning or losing in this case is always a single binary value and therefore there can be no "ratio".

W/L is a function of your total (or since the stat reset) match history and may or may not be indicative of your PSR depending on when those wins and losses happened and how your tendencies to win have progressed, which W/L does not show. Even when W/L correlates to your PSR it still isn't the cause of it.

Quote

W/L records aren't, but that's not what he's talking about.

If he isn't talking about W/L ratio he should not use the term "W/L" since that's confusing

Quote

The same match score that makes a decent +PSR bump on a win is a PSR LOSS if the team loses. And you can never go -PSR on a win.

I wasn't disputing that, so what's your point?

Edited by Sjorpha, 02 March 2016 - 07:21 PM.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

Kinda self-serving to me.

The more team work = better personal performance (usually)

So, whatevs..

[Bishop Steiner]

L A V A, on 02 March 2016 - 10:26 AM, said:

One that really only rewards damage isn't much better.

Nor are fallacious arguments. No one, in particular Russ, had intimated at such.

But if PSR is supposed to be indicative of skill, that is a personal accomplishment, and one that already gets impacted if your team is bad. Poor teamwork will still make raising PSR harder, because bad team, losing matches are harder to score well in than ones where the tab works together.

But Tryhard solo Rambo heroes will be a detriment to the team no matter the scoring system.

[Mystere]

nehebkau, on 02 March 2016 - 07:18 PM, said:

That is a good point... in theory ... but how relevant are they in the game? Not trying to be a **** but I don't think, in the current game, they play much of a role. Now, this is coming from a light pilot, myself, who often is there to confuse, confound and annoy the enemy. I have found that the things that score points are the things that win matches.

And I would argue that someone who has a propensity to winning more than losing is doing something right. And that is why I think winning and losing still has to be the biggest, if not the only, determination in calculating PSR.

I'd say a winner is much better than someone who is constantly losing whenever he is the biggest scorer.

Edited by Mystere, 02 March 2016 - 08:08 PM.

[Sandpit]

Sjorpha, on 02 March 2016 - 04:26 PM, said:

W/L has NEVER been part of the PSR formula in the first place, winning and losing is a factor but not W/L.

...
I almost resisted...

really?
you know darn well what everyone is talking about in regards to W/L,or at least you should because of the context of their posts, the thread, and a little common sense...?