92 replies to this topic

[762 NATO]

In reply for the cry for help:

Check you mouse sensitivity first. Maybe you are just missing too many shots or waving lazors around too much.

After that, in tier 5 you can get away with some crazy stunts that are very bad habits, like running away from your team or getting isolated. As such, find the biggest group of blue doritos and stay in the middle or back of them. Follow their lead and poke (means shoot and hide, throw a torso twist in for good measure, this is not meant as condicending) as you can without hitting them. Later on, you can start tanking or leading charges. Everyone appreciates supporting fire on their target though as it keeps them from dying.

Never run more than 6 armor on your back as you should be facing the enemy, not running away. Back away instead.

Aim to do high alphas (until ghost heat changes). Run mechs at 1.2 heat management or better. There you can get two alphas before shutdown. High alphas are anything that generates 40+ (preferably more) damage. And keep the damage aimed at one spot, like a leg or center torso.

Never, ever, ever stop moving. In the words of every Drill Sergeant ever, "Shoot, move and communicate.". Let this be your mantra. A stationary target is a dead target.

Press "R" constantly. Or whatever you have tied as Target Enemy. Even if you are taking a potshot, target it so other people know it is there. If you have enough time, it will tell you where to aim. When in doubt, aim for the center torso.

Find your happy place build. Mine is currently ACs and lasers. Maybe you do better with shogun blast SRMs, or (God forbid) LuRMs. LRMs are easy, but hard to master. Bending missiles around or over cover and requiring lock mid-flight are some of the less derpy concepts. Also you may find PPCs to your liking. Some weapon systems click better with some people. Even pure lasers or guass + lasers is your thing (and very meta until recently).

Find a mech that feels right and you love to drive. Mine is the Centurion, but I have a crap load of mastered mechs that I sold because they were not fun.

Wow, sorry about the TLDR. Cheers!

[MOBAjobg]

I would like to recommend performing torso twist like a professional or fire and then, twitch away instantly.

These two actions will improve your piloting skills once mastered so watch videos for examples.

[KHETTI]

Hey matt, what might help you is doing some private matches with a bunch of willing and more experienced players.
This way, your play style/mech builds can be evaluated, and corrections can be made, without pressure or tanking your stats further.
I've got banked premium time i'd be willing to activate to do some private matches with you, we'd need a few more individuals to make it more like a realistic situation.

Send me a friend invite, and i will make a point of being online this weekend if you are interested, a little direction goes a long way.

[Moldur]

Accruing more matches on your account makes it harder to change tiers. Making a new account, you can blast out of Tier 5 in literally 5< matches.

An old account where you had to learn everything first, lost a lot of matches, etc. will take many more matches to move up a tier.

[Appogee]

At the moment you could be stuck in Tier 5 because reportedly very good players are creating smurf accounts so they can farm high scores in Tier 5 and win the Challenge.

Sad, I know.

More generally, I'm not really sure how it would be possible to stay in Tier 5. The PSR system is weighted so that everyone goes up. Ie. there are more ways for your PSR to go up rather than down.

What is your win/loss ratio?

[H I A S]

Look at the Leaderboard.

@MattNovaCat: if you are playing at EU primetime, sind me an friendinvite im sure i can help you.

[Dogstar]

On this account, which is for IS mechs only I really struggled to learn the game which meant my k/d ratio, and damage done, was utterly awful for hundreds of games. I've only just got into tier 4 after over a thousand games.

Levelling IS mechs means spending a lot of time with underpowered builds while you earn the money to buy Endo, DHS, Ferro, and XL engines on each mech.

My clan alt account hit tier 4 after 7 games. Yes thats right seven games, in trial mechs, and the k/d ratio was 2.0!

All that I can deduce from this is that the process of learning how to play massively hampers you later on with regards to tier procession.

Oh and of course that clan mechs are totally OP.

[FallingAce]

https://mwomercs.com...ser=Mattnovacat

Edited by FallingAce, 27 August 2016 - 12:19 AM.

[A Shoddy Rental Mech]

Dogstar, on 26 August 2016 - 11:57 PM, said:

On this account, which is for IS mechs only I really struggled to learn the game which meant my k/d ratio, and damage done, was utterly awful for hundreds of games. I've only just got into tier 4 after over a thousand games.

Levelling IS mechs means spending a lot of time with underpowered builds while you earn the money to buy Endo, DHS, Ferro, and XL engines on each mech.

My clan alt account hit tier 4 after 7 games. Yes thats right seven games, in trial mechs, and the k/d ratio was 2.0!

All that I can deduce from this is that the process of learning how to play massively hampers you later on with regards to tier procession.

Oh and of course that clan mechs are totally OP.

The 1st few games(PGI won't tell you how many) are heavily weighted to more quickly place you in an appropriate tier.

The clan trials are much better than the I.S. Best I.S. trial is probably the Thunderbolt.

Learn to pilot the Thunderbolt well, the clan mechs will almost feel like easy mode.

[vVaeVictusv]

Clan trial mechs makes things waaaaay easier. I grinded up the hard way using IS trials and bought IS mechs to play with and all the required DHS, endo, etc really made things hard to grind cash to make for quick effective builds.

THen i finally succumbed to the darkside and dropped with the clan trials and now im starting to not see the point of dropping with my IS mechs. Problem is those damn Clan mechs cost too damn muchs and the grind is simply unforgiving.

Edit: Also using the Clan heavies and mediums felt like easy mode as ihave the speed, armor, and firepower that make my equivalent IS classes feel stupid. Sure i pilot em unskilled but my god theyre so m uch easier to use.

Edited by vVaeVictusv, 27 August 2016 - 12:44 AM.

[KingCobra]

Matt I have had the same problem since after Closed beta 4 years ago I have a top line computer 70+ fps and consistently get 200-300 damage a match a few kills yada yada yada then about every 10th match I get a 1000+ match its like my client and PGI servers sync and the mech gods let me kick butt.

For some reason I'm assuming my ISP is to blame my ping is like 70-80 most days but the client to server sync is off its like I'm shooting blanks most of the time so basically I don't play MWO much anymore. I can play WarThunder-WOT most other games and do not have this problem so now if I play MWO its just for fun and not in a competitive way,

Edited by KingCobra, 27 August 2016 - 01:01 AM.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Dogstar, on 26 August 2016 - 11:57 PM, said:

On this account, which is for IS mechs only I really struggled to learn the game which meant my k/d ratio, and damage done, was utterly awful for hundreds of games. I've only just got into tier 4 after over a thousand games.

Levelling IS mechs means spending a lot of time with underpowered builds while you earn the money to buy Endo, DHS, Ferro, and XL engines on each mech.

My clan alt account hit tier 4 after 7 games. Yes thats right seven games, in trial mechs, and the k/d ratio was 2.0!

All that I can deduce from this is that the process of learning how to play massively hampers you later on with regards to tier procession.

Oh and of course that clan mechs are totally OP.

I had made an alt almost a year ago when clans hadn't been as nerfed as they are now because I wanted to go through cadet bonus and buy a Centurion to see how they do before buying one on my main account. I was in tier 4 in two matches after using the trial Atlas. Thousand damage games back to back with a K-D with no deaths.

If you're trying to play IS mechs that you bought and level them before you've bought their builds then you are doing it wrong. Clan mechs do good off the bat because they cost more just to get them with all the upgrades. Just use the trial mechs until you get the money for the XL and upgrades you want.

That said IS mechs regularly are able to stomp face against clan mechs if played to their advantages. IS mechs tend to have different playstyles than clan mechs that focuses on precision damage and tanking rather than speed and high damage output but harder to control damage spread that the clanners have.

[zagibu]

762 NATO, on 26 August 2016 - 09:38 PM, said:

Check you mouse sensitivity first. Maybe you are just missing too many shots or waving lazors around too much.

Yep, your sensitivity should be low in this game, because you mostly do small mouse movements only for aiming.

Don't worry too much about your tier. Gameplay only gets more boring the higher you rise (static peekfest). I am trying to stay low tier as hard as I can.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

zagibu, on 27 August 2016 - 01:12 AM, said:

Don't worry too much about your tier. Gameplay only gets more boring the higher you rise (static peekfest).

Quite the opposite really.

My friend who just started in T5 talks all the time about how people on his team just hide and sometimes don't even peek while I have matches where the team moves as one to complete the objective, rotates around the map, and even sends flanking parties from time to time. Move on up the tiers if you want good gameplay.

[zagibu]

Dakota1000, on 27 August 2016 - 01:15 AM, said:

Quite the opposite really.

My friend who just started in T5 talks all the time about how people on his team just hide and sometimes don't even peek while I have matches where the team moves as one to complete the objective, rotates around the map, and even sends flanking parties from time to time. Move on up the tiers if you want good gameplay.

Ok, maybe I haven't described it well. I don't mind people hiding. I can flank those and create mayhem in the back ranks. What I mind is the coordinated deathballs that just rotate about the map from cover to cover firing off alphas and disappearing again. You can't really flank that or do anything interesting. You just have to mimic it and hope that your team is the better deathball that's maybe orbiting a bit faster so that you can take a few of the enemies in the back.

[Appogee]

Your win/loss ratio is .87. Put another way, you win 4 matches out of 10.

Your average Match Score is 154.

For your PSR to be going up, you want to achieve 251 Match Score in both wins and losses. That way, your PSR will be going up by the 'Medium Amount' in your winning matches, and not dropping in a losing match.

The best way to achieve that in my experience is to take a tanky mech that delivers a lot of damage per second. A BNC-3M did it for me. But a KDK-3 with 4UAC10, or Heavies like Warhammers, Grasshoppers, Timbies, EBJs, Black Knights and the like loaded out for maximum DPS will do the job, too. ACs do this better than energy weapons, as they refire faster and have fewer heat issues.

Your goal in a match is to get as many shots on any target as possible. The Match Score is heavily weighted towards "damage dealt". So just deal a lot of damage and you will steadily progress even while only winning 40% of matches. If you can target damaged components, you will get 'bonus damage' when that component is destroyed.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

zagibu, on 27 August 2016 - 01:24 AM, said:

Ok, maybe I haven't described it well. I don't mind people hiding. I can flank those and create mayhem in the back ranks. What I mind is the coordinated deathballs that just rotate about the map from cover to cover firing off alphas and disappearing again. You can't really flank that or do anything interesting. You just have to mimic it and hope that your team is the better deathball that's maybe orbiting a bit faster so that you can take a few of the enemies in the back.

That's what a lot of people think, but its not entirely true.

A coordinated deathball can be countered by coordinated flanks very well. Deathballs focus all their mechs in one direction, having a deathball target what they consider the enemy deathball but happens to only be about half the team poking from cover leaves their rears open. This is where a coordinated flank comes in, you can't have the flank have members that ruin the ambush and you need proper timing and good skill, but starting a flank like that can kill off a few enemy mechs in an instant, allowing your pinned down team members to also rush into the chaos and crush a now weakened enemy.

Other than that if you are really good and build properly for the task you can just be a behind the lines commando alone or with a partner and pull enemies from their deathball one by one by attacking people in the rear from range or other means and generally just taking them out without much fuss. Soon the enemy team won't have many people backing up their focus fire and will be crushed by your team's main force easily while you and a buddy racked up half the kills that match.

Deathballing is just the simplest tactic to do that requires little communication, its very far from the most effective. Infact counter deathballing a deathball is just a toss up tactic in the first place with about a 50-50 win chance depending on who nascars badly when they shouldn't and leaves someone behind first.

[Yosharian]

Lemming of the BDA, on 26 August 2016 - 08:01 PM, said:

Hes. Asking. For. Help.

He didn't ask for help anywhere in his post.

If he wants help, I'm willing to tutor him.

[Exard3k]

There is no benefit in getting to higher tiers. If you get lots of red arrows so you dont progress to the higher tier....trust me, you dont want to face tier 2 enemies (you are matched vs. them as tier 4).

[Random Carnage]

Exard3k, on 27 August 2016 - 01:44 AM, said:

There is no benefit in getting to higher tiers. If you get lots of red arrows so you dont progress to the higher tier....trust me, you dont want to face tier 2 enemies (you are matched vs. them as tier 4).

This^.

If you're citing 100 point games as a good average in T5, and dipping to 20 point games often enough to talk about it, you will get crucified in a match with people that consistently get 500+ points in a T1 match.

As has been said before, tier is not really a skill measure, more of a games played measure for those that are consistently average. It is almost impossible not to progress up in tier over time, as the tier system is weighted upward - other threads have discussed this at length.

My money is on your play style. If you're getting 100 points or less and dying most games, this is very likely to be the way you play, nothing more. Learn some patience, and you'll likely do better.

Edited by Random Carnage, 27 August 2016 - 01:57 AM.