33 replies to this topic

[northpow]

I have played over 100 games now, but I don't really understand PSR and Match Score. This part of the game is kinda frustrating, because not only I am still stuck in Tier 5, but also the bar hasn't moved more than 1/8 of an inch the entire time I've been playing. It's moved about 1/8 of an inch *down* even though I've been getting better.

So maybe they have a super-precise system, but I would have expected it to move a bit more to give me some feedback on how I am doing.

I feel like I am improving (higher damage, better coordination with fellow units, etc) but my rating doesn't reflect that.

Sometimes I have matches where I deal huge amounts of damage to the enemy, thrashing 2-4 mechs with many unanswered blows, yet my rating goes DOWN after the match with a bad match score.

Can somebody give me some info to work with?

Edited by northpow, 09 April 2016 - 07:37 PM.

[Isabelle]

http://mwomercs.com/...-tiers-and-psr/

Just note that it's a VERY slow process (unless you are playing a brand new account).

[Weyen]

My information may be inaccurate, but to the best of my knowledge:

The biggest factor to PSR and Match score is generally your damage. You get bonuses for things like killing shots and spotting bonus and so on, but this is generally like five points or so per kill, while your damage / 2 the big part. So if you get 1 kill and deal 250 damage, 1 kill gets you 4 points and 250 damage gets you 125 points, so your total score would be 129. So damage is basically the most important factor in ranking up.

That's modified by you winning or losing the match, though. If you win, you can gain varying amounts of PSR depending on your match score, and at the very worst you stay equal (tends to happen if you do a lot of capping). If you lose, you can lose varying amounts of PSR or you can stay equal if you do OK while your team crumbles, or, if you do extremely well you can go up in ranking even if you lose. So you CAN gain ranking while losing, but it's super rare unless you're regularly getting like 800 damage per round or something.

If I remember right, the only thing that can make you lose PSR aside from defeat is team damage, team kills, and suicide.

The system is set up so that in the long run, you'll gain more than you lose on average, but it takes a significant amount of time to move the bar. If you're getting better, then I wouldn't worry about it too much. It's one of those super frustrating things that doesn't seem to move at all when you watch it like a hawk and then once you say "forget this, I'm just going to play the game and ignore this stupid progress bar" then the next time you check on it it's a month later and you've jumped up like half a rank.

This is old but still seems to be mostly accurate:

Edited by Weyen, 09 April 2016 - 07:56 PM.

[loopala]

Don't feel bad about not understanding PSR or the rating system because no one else does either.

Here is what I know.

Damage is only part of it. A big part but just a part
Every thing you do adds to match score.
Scouting, kill most damage, assists, and such figure in but nobody really knows how

Winning plays a huge part.
On a win 100 match score is an up
Winning match score of 200 plus is a bigger up

Now on a loss less then 200 is a down
Greater then 200 ish is an equal
Over 400 is an up

Good luck

[p4r4g0n]

The thread has more information that has been gathered by members of the community and seems to be fairly accurate at this time -> http://mwomercs.com/...-as-best-i-can/

If you wish to progress in Tiers quickly, do as much damage as possible. Getting 500 damage every match ensures that your tier progression will never be negative.

However, that is not easy.

Edit: Grammar

Edited by p4r4g0n, 09 April 2016 - 08:54 PM.

[Rogue Jedi]

Do not feel bad about your static PSR bar, since that bar has been viewable (I think about 6 months) my bar has not moved by more than 1cm (about 3/8 of an inch).

here is a quick breakdown on how PSR works.

On a win you cannot loose points, 150 match score, note that is match score not damage, cbills or XP, on a win gives a small gain, with higher scores giving higher gains, with my best games, 500+ match score, I have moved as much as 3 pixels ^{(for a while I was screenshotting the PSR bar after each gain to see if it moved at all)} on my 24" monitor.

In a loss if you score less than 250 you will go down, 250-450 you stay the same, 450+ you get a small gain.

Damage usualy makes up the bulk of your match score, as 1/2 of damage is added directly to match score, so if you can always do 500 damage you are guaranteed never to go down, however it is almost impossible to guarantee you will do 500+ every game especially as a new player.

[northpow]

Thanks all. BTW do you know, is there one PSR bar per tier, or does the PSR bar reflect all tiers?

In other words, right now my bar is at about 48%. Does that mean I am in the 48th percentile of Tier 5 players, or 48th percentile of all players?

[S 0 L E N Y A]

northpow, on 10 April 2016 - 06:15 PM, said:

Thanks all. BTW do you know, is there one PSR bar per tier, or does the PSR bar reflect all tiers?

In other words, right now my bar is at about 48%. Does that mean I am in the 48th percentile of Tier 5 players, or 48th percentile of all players?

the bar is per tier. Im not 100% on it being a reflection of ranking within the tier, but others have told me it is.

[Rhavin]

Don't think of it as a ranking system, it doesn't rank you in any way but to put you in matches with players closer to your skill lvl, and not really even that because a big part of being "good" at this game comes simply from knowing the maps, knowing your mech, and knowing what your enemy's mechs are capable of. So let's say it ranks you on knowledge and skill.

I was seeded as a tier 5 , about middle. Now i have played off and on since beta, i felt angry cause when called to get serious i could pUT up some numbers when grouped with friends or my unit or during a challenge that I wanted to complete . Now most times I played fun, somtimes outrageously stupid builds and pulled stupid stunts that would make or break my match score. Honestly more break than anything. But once I stopped trolling with fun builds, and went to playing fun but effective builds, and started leading the charge instead of being the charge I went from tier 5 to tier 3 in about 3 weeks. Now I am tier 3 and the going is much slower, haven't had but maybe 4 matches total with 1k+ damage when I had 4 or 5 a night in tier 5 and 4. I still break 500 most games, but getting 900 is hard.

I during that climb up I gave my uncle a Timberwolf pack and his first 25 games he grouped with me in Tier 5 and he ended up in Tier 3 near the top. And that is despite him haveing lower match scores than I did while we were grouped. He followed me, shot the targets I called, we won almost every match. My bar barely moved, his jumped like a spider mech. Then I left the game for a week for a business trip, came back and he had fallen almost to tier 4 playing solo drops. All because he lacked the knowledge and was dieing so fast due to mistakes he made In position and map awareness. The game had became so unfun in that short time that he just quit, and I can't talk him back. All of the things he would have learned going from T5 to T3 over time cost me a shooting buddy, so if you are in T5 enjoy it and learn and turn off that tier bar.

All that said , Damage is the best way to gain tier. Kill shots and kill most damage dealt means Solo kill cred and that is a big gain as well. If you gain exp doing it you are helping your tier, just cbill gains...it doesn't count. Being a spotter mech for lrm boats with tag and narc and just grabbing locks....it doesn't count for much. Capping a base or node gets you some gain, but nothing and I do mean nothing is as effective as stomping over the smoking chassis of your enemy's mech.

That doesn't mean you have to play a meta mech, it just means you have to play an effective mech effectively. That means not brawling with 2 enemy atlas when you are in an orion. Not standing still in a light mech, not firing from a flanking position when you are at the very max range of your weapon loadout, not poking from the same cover over and over. You will eventually find what works for you, and then you will have gains on that bar but by then hopefully you won't care about it as much.

Just have fun.

[northpow]

For the record, and this is highly liberating, I am actually *way* better at light mechs than heavy ones. I shied away from them because they're "weaker" but I decided to try a trial light, and I am getting about 2x damage compared to what I got in heavies.... not bad considering I only have Small ER lasers.

And that is 2x in "Trial Light" compared to "Mastered Heavy"!

I guess to each their own.

Edited by northpow, 10 April 2016 - 08:45 PM.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

northpow, on 10 April 2016 - 08:45 PM, said:

For the record, and this is highly liberating, I am actually *way* better at light mechs than heavy ones. I shied away from them because they're "weaker" but I decided to try a trial light, and I am getting about 2x damage compared to what I got in heavies.... not bad considering I only have Small ER lasers.

And that is 2x in "Trial Light" compared to "Mastered Heavy"!

I guess to each their own.

Then maybe you should spend a little more time with the light mechs, and see if that's not your niche to carve out in MWO. GOOD light drivers are a little tough to find these days. (By 'GOOD', I mean, 'contribute disproportionately well to the PUG team effort on a consistent basis.') I recently (today) bought a JR7-O 'Oxide', and it's instantly become my top damage/match mech. (In fairness, that's only because I had some rough group queue matches with the Black Widow, who YESTERDAY held a higher damage/match average.) Still, EASILY pulling over 400/match in a mech I've never played before today and that has fewer than half of its BASIC skills unlocked? And this being the first time out in ANY IS Jenner since 2014? Yeah, I dig it. And therefore, the JR7-IIC(O) is gonna get dusted off soon too. Is this what I've been missing?!

Even a JR7-D with 2x SRM-4, 4x SPL (or ML if you like 'em a little toasty), XL300, 1-2 JJ, and maybe a spare DHS, can be quite fun. The ACH is an OP beast right now, even after having some of its defensive quirks rolled back. The JR7-IIC chassis is pretty damned good, and FASTER than the IS JR7 by a good half-step or more. And I personally LOVE the Wolfhound, even if it does lack JJs and ECM, and 3/4 of them are slower than the JR7. They're the alt-account of the Firestarter. Try a WLF-1A (I think that's the one) with 5x SPL in the torso, and a LPL in the arm. Thank me later. And they can even run legit STD engine builds, which is just STUPID fun since most people ASSUME that a quick light MUST be running an XL. Making the enemy hit you through a destroyed LA and LT means taking 84% of their firepower away from them before it hits the most structure-dense part of your mech. FUN! TANKY little monsters. And they have cute little doggie ears on their heads.

Hey, go crazy with the lights. There are some MONSTROUS ones out there, and it's even MORE fun to do well in a low-tier light mech IN SPITE OF the naysayers. If you can wreck in a Commando, you can wreck in anything.

And Urbanmech is SO nuts!

[Appogee]

Here's a handy chart I prepared which explains PSR movements.

[Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky]

Let me give you some advice.

1) go into your game settings, and click the box: Hide tier in front end.
This makes it so you cant see the teir your in.

2) just enjoy the game- and enjoy the teir your in. Why? Because teir 5, 4 and 3 are great fun teirs to be in. Easier to farm cbills. Easier to do well during events/tournaments/leaderboards. Teir 5 is the no stress teir. (Im probably spelling teir wrong- sorry if i am). You can make mistakes, peak around random corners, solo flank in what ever mech you want, and generally get away with bonkers things you normally cant do in the upper teirs where everyone has fully built mechs with max modules.

Let me tell you, going up the teirs drastically makes the game harder to farm cbills. Trust me, just enjoy the game, and dont worry about what teir your in. You will eventually go up, it will all come in due time. And if it doesnt- who cares? No one else can see your teir unless you specifically show it to them in the forums.

[Solarise03]

tier 5 to tier 4 usuualy takes around 10 hours of game play, as long u do the most damage in the team try to aim for 500 + dmg done. Psr score is usuualy about damage.

[Rogue Jedi]

Solarise03, on 11 April 2016 - 04:14 AM, said:

tier 5 to tier 4 usuualy takes around 10 hours of game play, as long u do the most damage in the team try to aim for 500 + dmg done. Psr score is usuualy about damage.

that completely depends on how you play, I find if I am trying for damage I am unable to get it, where if I play for fun I usualy "accidently" do well.
I have been hovering around the t4/t5 boarder ever since the PSR system was introduced, I think my problem is that I frequently team up with much better players, and do not do great in those games, if I am playing solo my PSR goes up most matches but I have a high chance of going down if I group up, but group games tend to be more fun so I do not intend to give them up.

depending on how you play it could take days or years (or even all eternity) to go up a tier

[Roughneck45]

Honestly the best advice for PSR is to just not look at that bar.

It's like looking at the clock at work, the more you stare the slower its going to feel.

Try to win each match and aim for a 250 match score whenever possible. If you hit 250 in a loss your PSR should go up a little or stay the same. Survive as long as possible and keep the DPS up.

[LordSkyKnight]

northpow, on 10 April 2016 - 06:15 PM, said:

Thanks all. BTW do you know, is there one PSR bar per tier, or does the PSR bar reflect all tiers?

In other words, right now my bar is at about 48%. Does that mean I am in the 48th percentile of Tier 5 players, or 48th percentile of all players?

It's not a ranking system in comparison to other players. Think of it like an XP bar that you can lose XP off of if you have a bad match. The bar being at 48% means you're about 48% of the way through the XP bar that is tier 5. When you fill the bar up, you "level up" to tier 4. Eventually you'll end up in tier 1 unless you're an extremely below average player.

[Nightmare1]

northpow, on 09 April 2016 - 07:36 PM, said:

I have played over 100 games now, but I don't really understand PSR and Match Score. This part of the game is kinda frustrating, because not only I am still stuck in Tier 5, but also the bar hasn't moved more than 1/8 of an inch the entire time I've been playing. It's moved about 1/8 of an inch *down* even though I've been getting better.

So maybe they have a super-precise system, but I would have expected it to move a bit more to give me some feedback on how I am doing.

I feel like I am improving (higher damage, better coordination with fellow units, etc) but my rating doesn't reflect that.

Sometimes I have matches where I deal huge amounts of damage to the enemy, thrashing 2-4 mechs with many unanswered blows, yet my rating goes DOWN after the match with a bad match score.

Can somebody give me some info to work with?

Match Score is supposed to give a rough estimate of who contributed to the match the most. It's calculated using your kills, assists, damage, and special feats. Special feats include spotting, hit-and-run, flanking, protected light, etc. Essential, feats are anything you do that you receive C-bills or XP for, and are listed on PGI's Rewards 2.0 feats list. Lighter chassis also get a modifier to boost their match scores. Case in point, if a Light Mech and an Assault Mech have approximately equal performances (similar feats, damage, kills, and assists), then the Light Mech will likely have a higher Match Score because it's harder to acquire the same score as an Assault while using a Light Mech. At least, that's the reasoning.

As for PSR, that is like an XP bar to determine your overall gameplay experience level. The more matches you win, the faster it fills. Your Match Score will modify the fill rate, but the largest effect can be seen from winning. Appogee already posted PGI's PSR chart, so you have a good visual of how it works. Basically, you must do very well on a loss in order to maintain your PSR level. You almost don't even have to do anything on a win to boost it though. In this sense, PSR can almost be considered as a "win meter" to measure how many victories you've had in MWO. As long as your Win/Loss ratio is positive, your PSR will increase.

That's the Reader's Digest Condensed Version of it all. Hope it helps!

[avenger cannon]

Rating =/= skill, I can kill 4 mechs and deal 300 damage but that can result in V -rating with a loss.

This game punishes efficient aiming and damage dealing.

[Nightmare1]

avenger cannon, on 11 April 2016 - 06:56 AM, said:

Rating =/= skill, I can kill 4 mechs and deal 300 damage but that can result in V -rating with a loss.

This game punishes efficient aiming and damage dealing.

It's more like it punishes you for losing or for failing to take advantage of the Rewards 2.0 feats.