33 replies to this topic

[Paigan]

Accused, on 03 March 2016 - 05:50 PM, said:

I'm sick and tired of being stuck in this tier. All these people do is nascar endlessly - leaving their assaults to die or cower behind a rock waiting for the enemy to finish them off. Please tell me it gets better than this? The maturity of these people is unbelievable.

Seriously though I'm stuck at the last pixel and I can't get over it. It always seems like just when I'm about to advance I get a series of stomps holding me back. I have a positive kdr which should mean something but apparently not.

#puglife

The idea that you "play" in a certain tier is wrong.
PUG teams always consist of mixed tiers.

Even if you're tier 1, you still have to beg people to not abandon their assaults, etc.
Most of the time, they will listen. But I've also had the response "please go faster".

Supposedly, tier 1 never play with the lowest tiers, but I've had a match not long ago where people started chasing the squirrel and even complained about not the whole team helping them and another one in the same match that shot me when I came around the corner because oooh, scary mech, better shoot it. I suppose that team was full of new players.

I suggest to see tiers just as some XP bar with a SLIGHT tendency of experience/skill, but not a reliable skill-o-meter.

[Mawai]

I'd suggest speaking up and suggesting a rendezvous that is along the route where folks usually head. Even just saying "Stick together and focus fire" in chat often has a positive influence.

Also, suggesting folks wait for the assaults to catch up also often works in my experience.

Finally, a lot of the "NASCAR" has to do with folks blindly following light mechs that have run off to scout. It is unbelievably freaking stupid and when pointed out most folks realize it and will form up on heavies or assaults.

In addition, when I play lights I will wait 10 seconds before running off to scout since by that time the mass will usually have chosen a direction and are far less likely to trundle off behind me. The 10s delay doesn't mean much since at 150kph I will pass most of the mechs in less time and most of them ignore me because they are already trundling off following someone else. It would be interesting to see how different things would play out if light mechs could not move for 10 or 15 seconds after the match started .

[Mawai]

Paigan, on 04 March 2016 - 05:47 AM, said:

The idea that you "play" in a certain tier is wrong.
PUG teams always consist of mixed tiers.

Even if you're tier 1, you still have to beg people to not abandon their assaults, etc.
Most of the time, they will listen. But I've also had the response "please go faster".

Supposedly, tier 1 never play with the lowest tiers, but I've had a match not long ago where people started chasing the squirrel and even complained about not the whole team helping them and another one in the same match that shot me when I came around the corner because oooh, scary mech, better shoot it. I suppose that team was full of new players.

I suggest to see tiers just as some XP bar with a SLIGHT tendency of experience/skill, but not a reliable skill-o-meter.

Personally, I think that the tiers just reflect more the number of games played rather than the inherent skill of the pilot.

As an example, almost anyone can grind their way to tier 1 using LRM boats. They are in fact, probably the most efficient build for grinding PSR. When used properly, LRMs can generate large damage numbers with little risk to the pilot, they garner alot of assists and some kills as well. They also have a higher fraction of components destroyed since the damage is distributed. Getting good damage on a loss is an important aspect of not losing PSR.

However, LRMs are apparently panned by the competitive community ... they spread damage, they are not aimed and cannot focus damage on weak components. All of which are true. However, the PSR change is based on match score and W/L. The match score has a large weighting to damage done. Any weapon that can do a lot of damage will preserve your PSR.

So the folks who want a PSR change that is more related to match score and less related to W/L have a problem in that the match score can not distinguish between folks with good aim and those just doing a lot of damage.

To be honest, in my opinion, the best players do not always put up really high damage numbers. 500 focused damage is sufficient to take out 4 or 5 mechs depending on which ones. Some of the best matches I have been in where the team all works together well have LOWER match scores and less damage done/person since each is doing their job, aiming, focused fire and killing opposing mechs. When I see someone who did 1200 damage, has 10 assists and 1 kill ... it is the sign of someone who is either using LRMs or can't aim. They will get a huge bump to PSR though .

PSR is basically broken ... so all of the "bad" players you might likely see in tier 1 matches ... aren't "bad" ... they are tier 1 ... it is the system that is broken.

[Johnny Z]

Mawai, on 04 March 2016 - 06:10 AM, said:

Personally, I think that the tiers just reflect more the number of games played rather than the inherent skill of the pilot.

As an example, almost anyone can grind their way to tier 1 using LRM boats. They are in fact, probably the most efficient build for grinding PSR. When used properly, LRMs can generate large damage numbers with little risk to the pilot, they garner alot of assists and some kills as well. They also have a higher fraction of components destroyed since the damage is distributed. Getting good damage on a loss is an important aspect of not losing PSR.

However, LRMs are apparently panned by the competitive community ... they spread damage, they are not aimed and cannot focus damage on weak components. All of which are true. However, the PSR change is based on match score and W/L. The match score has a large weighting to damage done. Any weapon that can do a lot of damage will preserve your PSR.

So the folks who want a PSR change that is more related to match score and less related to W/L have a problem in that the match score can not distinguish between folks with good aim and those just doing a lot of damage.

To be honest, in my opinion, the best players do not always put up really high damage numbers. 500 focused damage is sufficient to take out 4 or 5 mechs depending on which ones. Some of the best matches I have been in where the team all works together well have LOWER match scores and less damage done/person since each is doing their job, aiming, focused fire and killing opposing mechs. When I see someone who did 1200 damage, has 10 assists and 1 kill ... it is the sign of someone who is either using LRMs or can't aim. They will get a huge bump to PSR though .

PSR is basically broken ... so all of the "bad" players you might likely see in tier 1 matches ... aren't "bad" ... they are tier 1 ... it is the system that is broken.

PSR reflects the pilots experience at this game and also skill and equipment. Which is what it is supposed to do right?

Anyone can grind to tier 1 in a LRM boat? Really? I think a player has to win a few matches to do that and get a few good scores. So quit disrespecting players efforts. Thanks.

Edited by Johnny Z, 04 March 2016 - 06:20 AM.

[Almond Brown]

sycocys, on 03 March 2016 - 08:29 PM, said:

Well it does and doesn't get better to be totally honest.

But to your point of getting out of the tier (I'm just going to go ahead an assume 4 or 5) - the trick is simple, especially simple in those two tiers.
Pick one of the following mechs -
Timberwolf - I prefer dual uac10 and a few srms
Mauler - 4 ultra5 or 5 ac5
KGC - 4 ultra5
Warhawk - 2 ultra10, 2-3 srm6
Direwolf - 6 ultra5 or 4 ultra5, 2 ultra10, or 4 ultra5, 1 ultra10, 1 ulltra20

Then drop in and proceed to dump 600+ dakka damage into the faces of your enemy in every match until you reach your desired tier. Tier 5 and Tier 4 will be an absolute breeze. Tier 3 will take some work, but 50% of the time you'll drop against low tier opponents which will give you huge boosts - and against the better ones just aim for ~500 damage or a little less and 1 kill.

Don't f around with LRMs, its a waste of your time if you are trying to tier up. Don't be a sniper. And don't be scared of lasers - just get in these mechs dump out piles of damage and if you are out early exit and drop in the next one.

Yup, it is best that you don't actually just "PLAY" the Game, one should "GAME" the Game. That is the best way...

Oh and then you get to boast about the new growth on your "E-Peen" after you move up a Tier as well. Good times... LOL!

[sycocys]

Almond Brown, on 04 March 2016 - 06:25 AM, said:

Yup, it is best that you don't actually just "PLAY" the Game, one should "GAME" the Game. That is the best way...

Oh and then you get to boast about the new growth on your "E-Peen" after you move up a Tier as well. Good times... LOL!

Seriously, go play in T4/T5 for a while - if you have any amount of skill at the game you will quickly understand why people don't want to be stuck in derp-ville.
Getting to tier 2 and eliminating tier 5 from your matches makes a huge difference in the quality of play, I'll be quite happy when I hit 1 and can get rid of tier 4 as well - I shouldn't ever be playing against people that belong in that tier.

Don't move up if you don't want to, if you want to face better skilled pilots and removing the worst ones from the pool you drop against though advancing tiers is the only way to make that happen.

[SplashDown]

the only diff between the high tier and low tier matches is that the high tier have played long nuff to unlock everything.
Some players try to call this skill..but it isnt..the high tier matches are basicly the same

[Mawai]

Johnny Z, on 04 March 2016 - 06:16 AM, said:

PSR reflects the pilots experience at this game and also skill and equipment. Which is what it is supposed to do right?

Anyone can grind to tier 1 in a LRM boat? Really? I think a player has to win a few matches to do that and get a few good scores. So quit disrespecting players efforts. Thanks.

I am not disrespecting people's efforts. However, a reasonably competent player can reach tier 1 in pretty much any mech or build without really learning how to work as a team. I don't play much, my W/L is about 1 but my PSR keeps going up over time if slowly just because I don't play much (too many real life activities with family and work).

There are quite a few tier 1 folks who use LRM mechs regularly (some have stated that they do so here on the forums) .. however, LRM mechs are generally derided as not being effective despite the fact that from the perspective of PSR they are effective.

So when folks use player behaviour in matches as evidence that the match contained players from different tiers (which was what I was replying to) ... I have to disagree ... grinding to tier 1 is not a guarantee of competence or being a good player ... just that the player has played alot and has a decent amount of experience ... not that they necessarily have good aim, good situational awareness, the ability to design good loadouts, or any ability at all for team work. On the other hand, players who DO have those abilities WILL also end up in tier 1.

Which is the point I am making ... being in tier 1 or having a high PSR is used by the matchmaker to place folks in matches ... but PSR is not a guarantee of skill. For some folks it is and for others it isn't and the matchmaker has no way to tell the two apart.

So
- you get tier 1 folks using LRM spam ..
- you get tier 1 folks chasing squirrels ..
- you get bored tier 1 folks ramboing ...
- you get tier 1 folks doing their own thing ...
- you get even more bored tier 1 folks trying joke builds for the lols ...

All the complaints about matches containing folks from a wide range of tiers based on how they play are inconclusive since most of those behaviours are present in the population of people making up tier 1. The only ones that know for sure are PGI ... but if the matchmaker has to regularly form matches stretching across several tiers then there is something wrong with the population or the matchmaker ... which is unlikely to be the case based on the following (admittedly speculative) numbers.

-Consider that at the lowest time Steam cites about 1500 concurrent MWO players ... add another 1500 who don't use the steam client. 3000 players altogether going up to about 8000 at peak times.

-Say 25 players/match just for even numbers. Say 50% in NA ... that gives about 60 (1500/25) matches going on simultaneously at a minimum on the NA servers. Say matches take 10 minutes on average. In an hour about 360 matches are completed at the minimum level. For 8000 players, that goes to 160 simultaneous matches or 960 matches completed in an hour for NA.

- this means that the number of matches completed every minute ranges from 6 to 16. This means that between 150 and 400 players enter the matchmaking pool every minute or 300 to 800 over a 2 minute span. A pool that is constantly refreshed.

- This is the pool that the matchmaker has available for selecting players for the next match. The matchmaker attempts to group players by mech weight class and PSR. If the tiers are evenly distributed then you have between 60 and 160 tier 1 players in the queue at one time. However, we have no information on the population distribution across tiers and it is likely not even.

However, the point I am making is that there should be a large enough pool of tier1 and tier2 players (depending on the mech weight class distribution) that the matchmaker should rarely have to go outside the tier when making a match. So most of the complaints about play in tier 1 are most likely other tier 1 or tier 2 players rather than lower tiered players. In addition, in the PUG queue, tier 1 can not be dropped in a match containing tier 4 or tier 5 ... which further limits who folks can complain about

Edited by Mawai, 04 March 2016 - 08:27 AM.

[sycocys]

Mawai, on 04 March 2016 - 08:24 AM, said:

tier 1 can not be dropped in a match containing tier 4 or tier 5

This is the primary reason people want to tier up. Playing with the low skilled players that are stuck in t4/5 because they don't perform well enough to advance makes for terribly non-competitive matches.

The entire point of having a higher rank is so you don't get dropped in against the new or worst players in the game AND so they don't get stuck dropping against you which sucks equally for both parties.

[3xnihilo]

Mawai, on 04 March 2016 - 05:57 AM, said:

I'd suggest speaking up and suggesting a rendezvous that is along the route where folks usually head. Even just saying "Stick together and focus fire" in chat often has a positive influence.

Also, suggesting folks wait for the assaults to catch up also often works in my experience.

Finally, a lot of the "NASCAR" has to do with folks blindly following light mechs that have run off to scout. It is unbelievably freaking stupid and when pointed out most folks realize it and will form up on heavies or assaults.

In addition, when I play lights I will wait 10 seconds before running off to scout since by that time the mass will usually have chosen a direction and are far less likely to trundle off behind me. The 10s delay doesn't mean much since at 150kph I will pass most of the mechs in less time and most of them ignore me because they are already trundling off following someone else. It would be interesting to see how different things would play out if light mechs could not move for 10 or 15 seconds after the match started .

I like to circle past the assault lance before leaving to scout. This usually draws anyone prone to following me over to the assaults first. It often prevents nascaring in my matches when I am in a light mech.

[Grimlox]

If you really want to move up in tier just play your best mechs for a bit to get that last pixel. Even if your team sucks and you lose you should be able to have a decent enough game not to drop PSR on a loss with your best mech(s).

My advice would be to forget about PSR, it's a terrible tool for tracking skill and widely regarded as meaningless. The only people that will even know your PSR are those you show/tell and as long as you are tier 3 you can play with anyone in the game so getting to tier 2 won't suddenly improve the quality of your allies/opponents all that much.

[CDLord HHGD]

FupDup, on 03 March 2016 - 09:02 PM, said:

I'm not sure why people have to insist on climbing the bar in the first place. The point of the PSR thingy was "supposed" to be about trying to increase the quality of your matches by putting you with the people who are "on your own level." It's not supposed to measure your worth as a human being or if you are worthy of ascension to the golden master race.

...But in reality, it's just turned into a glorified XP bar.

Yeah, I'm Tier 3 but very close to tier 2... I don't want to go tier 2 though it doesn't really matter, I already fight tiers 1 and 2 in tier 3. Wish they'd segregate the tiers and make the number of tiers dynamic depending on population. IE the game hit 1000 players so we have 5 tiers of 200 players each. Oop, we're down to 500 players so now we have 2 tiers of 250 players each. Update it hourly on the back end so there be no more epeen displays.

[Burke IV]

After your past about tier 3 it starts to feel like it did when i left years ago. Occasionally start to see names i recognise from back then. Tier system might actually be doing a fair job. Tier 5 is miserable, some people would quit from it if they didnt really lke the game in the first place, dunno maybe thats working as intended

[Appogee]

SQW, on 03 March 2016 - 06:39 PM, said:

Play pub queue builds character. =)

And gives you high blood pressure.