95 replies to this topic

[Kshahdoo]

Of course I mean PUGs, because PUGs play for a personal statistics and units play for wins, but 80% of games (probably more) are played in PUGs, so they do about about 4 times better presentation of the game, than organized matches.

If you play with PUGs and think people are here for the same reason as you, i.e. win the game, it's a big mistake. Wining means nothing, if you have all the mechs you need and don't need XP and CBs anymore. And thinking that w/l is that meaningful, when you play mostly with PUGs, is about as right as thinking people become politicians because they love their countries. But of course the better player the better chance he will help his teams to win more matches, so his w/l can be pretty good as well.

Edited by Kshahdoo, 01 January 2017 - 03:50 AM.

[Baulven]

I do not agree with that statement for a variety of reasons. You can have one guy steal the death blow on six mechs in a game to pad his stats and an atlas lead the vanguard rush that breaks their formation. The atlas contributes a hell of a lot more than an scat sniping nearly dead mechs in this situation even if he didn't kill a single opponent.

High k/d ratio in pugs means you stand way back and hope your team is enough of a buffer between you and the enemy. It doesn't take much to maintain k/d ratios.

[Appogee]

We really need to see KMD stats. Between those and Kill stats, you'd get a more accurate picture of a players' performance.

Kill/Death isn't enough by itself, because some pathetic souls deliberately inflate their stats by kill-stealing.

Win/Loss isn't enough, because it's too much at the mercy of PUGlotto, and group carrying.

I think Match Score is probably the best proxy we have at the moment, even though it too can be artificially inflated by LRM usage (much superfluous damage), consumables usage (such as UAV spotting for the LRMers, strikes) and other weird oddities which may not necessarily indicate strong personal performance (eg. Lance in Formation, Hit and Run bonuses etc).

[James Warren]

I only drop solo, but I always prioritise winning the match with my team - because that's what I find enjoyable. Usually taking out the enemy 'mechs contributes towards winning, anyway.

I think what Kshahdoo really means is that players should have low expectations for their team-mates. If you play with the assumption that the team won't be covering your back, won't be following through with an aggressive push, would prefer to chase a weaponless target than focus a fresh 'mech, etc... you won't be disappointed.

I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt, however.

[Kshahdoo]

James Warren, on 01 January 2017 - 04:03 AM, said:

I only drop solo, but I always prioritise winning the match with my team - because that's what I find enjoyable. Usually taking out the enemy 'mechs contributes towards winning, anyway.

I think what Kshahdoo really means is that players should have low expectations for their team-mates. If you play with the assumption that the team won't be covering your back, won't be following through with an aggressive push, would prefer to chase a weaponless target than focus a fresh 'mech, etc... you won't be disappointed.

I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt, however.

You've forgotten about getting into your shooting sector under the risk to be killed by you.

[Mycrus]

Kshahdoo, on 01 January 2017 - 03:48 AM, said:

Of course I mean PUGs, because PUGs play for a personal statistics and units play for wins, but 80% of games (probably more) are played in PUGs, so they do about about 4 times better presentation of the game, than organized matches.

If you play with PUGs and think people are here for the same reason as you, i.e. win the game, it's a big mistake. Wining means nothing, if you have all the mechs you need and don't need XP and CBs anymore. And thinking that w/l is that meaningful, when you play mostly with PUGs, is about as right as thinking people become politicians because they love their countries. But of course the better player the better chance he will help his teams to win more matches, so his w/l can be pretty good as well.

why not both?

[jjm1]

We can change things that suck. First step is not to be apathetic and accept that what is wrong is the way it will always be.

[Wil McCullough]

i still remember in 2013, winning contributed a lot more to the paycheck and what functioned as the PSR back then. there were a lot of 0-0 games where capping points was actually a good strategy. back then, lights were also a lot more relevant, but i digress.

people got REALLY mad then for the reason that "they're playing a stompy robit game where their stompy robit smashes other stompy robbits or die trying". they didn't want to play stand-in-a-square simulator or "catch-up warrior online" where the match would be over before they even fired a shot.

so pgi gave us this version of stompy robit to assuage the rage.

funny how things come full circle.

Edited by Wil McCullough, 01 January 2017 - 05:00 AM.

[Shiroi Tsuki]

There was this one guy that threatened to team kill if we don't get off the enemy cap by PTFO'ing and instead encouraged us to spawn trap the enemy for that damage farm during a CW match. Yikes.

Honestly, more emphasis on standing inside squares PTO should be made than pew pews. Dishing a buttload of damage should be rewarded, and at the same time, the light that runs around and caps should also be rewarded nicely. The "problem" is that the game pretty much focuses a lot more on the pew pews. They should adjust the reward system similar to Battlefield (BF3 as an example)

Killing an enemy (without headshot) gives 100 points
Neutralizing an enemy flag gives 200 points
Capturing an neutral flag gives 250 points.

As you can see, capturing an enemy flag alone is equal to 4.5 kills. Do the same for MWO, adjust the score values to give pilots an incentive to PTO and perhaps, game modes will actually mean something other than just it devolving to "Skirmish but with X"

[Stormie]

Shiroi Tsuki, on 01 January 2017 - 05:20 AM, said:

There was this one guy that threatened to team kill if we don't get off the enemy cap by PTFO'ing and instead encouraged us to spawn trap the enemy for that damage farm during a CW match. Yikes.

Honestly, more emphasis on standing inside squares PTO should be made than pew pews. Dishing a buttload of damage should be rewarded, and at the same time, the light that runs around and caps should also be rewarded nicely. The "problem" is that the game pretty much focuses a lot more on the pew pews. They should adjust the reward system similar to Battlefield (BF3 as an example)

Killing an enemy (without headshot) gives 100 points
Neutralizing an enemy flag gives 200 points
Capturing an neutral flag gives 250 points.

As you can see, capturing an enemy flag alone is equal to 4.5 kills. Do the same for MWO, adjust the score values to give pilots an incentive to PTO and perhaps, game modes will actually mean something other than just it devolving to "Skirmish but with X"

Problem with all that is that the best bet for maximising the chance of your side winning is to murderball up with all 12 mechs and hope the other poor suckers had 1 or 2 mechs stupid enough to play the objectives. Either they also deathballed and it effectively becomes a skirmish game, or they had mechs run off, you kill the biggest group with your overwhelming numbers taking fewer losses because of focus fire and then you go clean up the dregs and or finish the objective whichever you prefer.
Sucks but due to the nature of the game it will always play this way unless fundamental changes are made. And all the changes PGI are looking to make (increasing TTK) makes a deathball/focus fire strategy even more mandatory.
Sucks for those of us that like to play objectives, but if you want to win its what you do.

[Shiroi Tsuki]

Stormie, on 01 January 2017 - 06:09 AM, said:

Problem with all that is that the best bet for maximising the chance of your side winning is to murderball up with all 12 mechs and hope the other poor suckers had 1 or 2 mechs stupid enough to play the objectives. Either they also deathballed and it effectively becomes a skirmish game, or they had mechs run off, you kill the biggest group with your overwhelming numbers taking fewer losses because of focus fire and then you go clean up the dregs and or finish the objective whichever you prefer.
Sucks but due to the nature of the game it will always play this way unless fundamental changes are made. And all the changes PGI are looking to make (increasing TTK) makes a deathball/focus fire strategy even more mandatory.
Sucks for those of us that like to play objectives, but if you want to win its what you do.

I can see this happening on the smaller maps, but on the larger ones where caps are more spread out, I could definitely see capping more viable.Definitely been on both sides when that last Mech won by caps.
Probably a dumb idea, but what if lights (or certain mediums) had a class bonus that they cap things slightly quicker?

[Van Hoven]

Since the best way to get a high k/d ratio is standing back and abuse your team mates .. no thx.

I always wonder why ppl think a high dmg number is equivalent to skill. Sure, it says something about the qualities of a player, but it is nowhere near the be all end all. If you break 1000dmg chances are high you played like a ***** and let the team do the heavy duty.

There always are exceptions ofc. But especially in FW matches I don't get why people feel like they did good when they are on their first mech, preferrably a light or medium, out of ammo since after the first 5 minutes, when the rest of the team is on their 3rd or 4th mech. Its just... doing it wrong. Even if your team is bad and suicide rushes.. staying back not supporting them is the worst decision you can make.

[El Bandito]

Kshahdoo, on 01 January 2017 - 03:48 AM, said:

Of course I mean PUGs, because PUGs play for a personal statistics and units play for wins, but 80% of games (probably more) are played in PUGs, so they do about about 4 times better presentation of the game, than organized matches.

If you play with PUGs and think people are here for the same reason as you, i.e. win the game, it's a big mistake. Wining means nothing, if you have all the mechs you need and don't need XP and CBs anymore. And thinking that w/l is that meaningful, when you play mostly with PUGs, is about as right as thinking people become politicians because they love their countries. But of course the better player the better chance he will help his teams to win more matches, so his w/l can be pretty good as well.

I already explained why WLR is better indication of performance than KDR, in solo-q in another thread. Pugs will be pugs, and do silly things, but in the end people prefer to win, than lose.

El Bandito, on 01 January 2017 - 06:01 AM, said:

On the contrary, high KDR can be easily gotten through devious means, such as intentionally kill stealing low HP targets by holding back your alpha until the right time, or intentionally hiding in a losing match until the enemy kills the VIP/caps the base/captures 750 points, or intentionally playing it safe until everyone is close to death then take the kills.

Only WLR is far more reliable indication of skill in the Solo-Q, because it requires real participation from you to have positive WLR on average, over hundreds of games.

El Bandito, on 01 January 2017 - 06:19 AM, said:

In small samples, yes, WLR can be skewed. Consistency is key. Over hundreds, and thousands of matches, the player's WLR in solo-q can be pretty accurate indication of his competence.

Appogee, on 01 January 2017 - 04:03 AM, said:

We really need to see KMD stats. Between those and Kill stats, you'd get a more accurate picture of a players' performance.

Kill/Death isn't enough by itself, because some pathetic souls deliberately inflate their stats by kill-stealing.

Win/Loss isn't enough, because it's too much at the mercy of PUGlotto, and group carrying.

I think Match Score is probably the best proxy we have at the moment, even though it too can be artificially inflated by LRM usage (much superfluous damage), consumables usage (such as UAV spotting for the LRMers, strikes) and other weird oddities which may not necessarily indicate strong personal performance (eg. Lance in Formation, Hit and Run bonuses etc).

KMDD is not enough, since Assault and Heavy pilots will be too biased compared to dedicated Medium and Light pilots.

Edited by El Bandito, 01 January 2017 - 07:08 AM.

[Oldbob10025]

IDK I thought the game was to have fun, or to relax in playing a game in the first place not pad your stats?

Just saying.

[Davers]

jjm1, on 01 January 2017 - 04:41 AM, said:

We can change things that suck. First step is not to be apathetic and accept that what is wrong is the way it will always be.

But it's true. We are trapped by 30 year old rules, player perceptions, and the core systems of MWO that are not going to change. The game is what it is. Its too late for any large changes, especially since the players would resist them anyway. Love it or hate it, this is the game.

[The Lighthouse]

Davers, on 01 January 2017 - 08:27 AM, said:

But it's true. We are trapped by 30 year old rules, player perceptions, and the core systems of MWO that are not going to change. The game is what it is. Its too late for any large changes, especially since the players would resist them anyway. Love it or hate it, this is the game.

Except none of the computer Battletech games actually exactly followed the rules, because they sucked for implementing into computer games.

Being stubborn and resisting to changes only bring even more ridiculous and even further from original lore, such as ghost heat.


If all previous four Mechwarrior games can ignore/alter certain rules, this game also can.

[jjm1]

Davers, on 01 January 2017 - 08:27 AM, said:

But it's true. We are trapped by 30 year old rules, player perceptions, and the core systems of MWO that are not going to change. The game is what it is. Its too late for any large changes, especially since the players would resist them anyway. Love it or hate it, this is the game.

They can change the scoring system anytime.

They can sit down for a day and come up with formulas that measure team-play and meaningful damage instead of all the exploitable metrics that tend to reward selfish strategies.

[Ted Wayz]

Appogee, on 01 January 2017 - 04:03 AM, said:

I think Match Score is probably the best proxy we have at the moment...

If there was role warfare I would agree. Right now quirks and the scoring system are preventing us from ever seeing that happen.

[Davers]

kwm1800, on 01 January 2017 - 08:40 AM, said:

Except none of the computer Battletech games actually exactly followed the rules, because they sucked for implementing into computer games.

Being stubborn and resisting to changes only bring even more ridiculous and even further from original lore, such as ghost heat.


If all previous four Mechwarrior games can ignore/alter certain rules, this game also can.

This game isn't changing. It is what it is.

jjm1, on 01 January 2017 - 08:54 AM, said:

They can change the scoring system anytime.

They can sit down for a day and come up with formulas that measure team-play and meaningful damage instead of all the exploitable metrics that tend to reward selfish strategies.

Oh, like people asked for since closed beta? Not going to hold my breath for that.

[Sorbic]

You've heard what happens when you use nothing but broad brush strokes right?

Yes some players focus on KD and hide/let others do the actual engaging and push the match forward. But others actually play a team game. Even if they at times get open CT happy and die chasing an easy kill they, up to that point, had been trying to work with the team.

jjm1, on 01 January 2017 - 08:54 AM, said:

They can change the scoring system anytime.

They can sit down for a day and come up with formulas that measure team-play and meaningful damage instead of all the exploitable metrics that tend to reward selfish strategies.

It sounds good in our heads but whenever there is a metric it can and will be exploited. It's always been that way. Yes I feel they can improve on their current metrics but don't kid yourself that any new system won't be exploited.

Edited by Sorbic, 01 January 2017 - 09:46 AM.