23 replies to this topic

[Snardo]

I've been playing this game for at least 2 years now and I'll admit that I'm certainly no genius at it. In that time I've only managed to make it to Tier 4, but at one point last summer I thought I was well on my way to Tier 3. I've got a handful of fully mastered mechs that I think I know how to play pretty well at this point. However, some time in the past few months I went from about 50-60% win percentage and scoring at least 300-400 damage per match to a point now where I'm winning more like 20-30% of matches and I'm lucky to break 200 damage, even with my best mastered mechs.

What happened here? Has there been an influx of new, highly skilled players? Have a lot of Tier 1 players started new accounts so they can slaughter the rest of us at will? I'd like to think that there's more to it than just a degradation of my own skills relative to my PSR peers. Has anyone else noticed a similar trend?

Edited by Snardo, 02 March 2017 - 07:03 PM.

[Ruccus]

Did you happen to change your shoes?

[Ragnahawk]

What mechs are you having trouble with?

[Robinhood78]

There has clearly been some poor matchmaking of late. Just guessing, but you're probably not encountering tier 1 smurf accounts, but rather more and more tier 1 and tier 2 players. My games have been incredibly lopsided lately and I'm still not waiting more than 30 seconds for a match, usually under 10. I'd rather wait a bit more for a decent match personally.

There isn't much you can do but git gud, and I mean that respectfully because if you do make it to tier 3 there is a noticeable and immediate change that you'll either adapt to or fall back into tier 4. Though maybe your experiencing some of that now with the matchmaker restrictions loosened. Just really focus on where you are and who is around you. Obviously work on aim, but positioning makes a huge difference to survival and the longer you live the more potential you have for damage. Good luck!

[Snardo]

Ragnar RedHawk, on 02 March 2017 - 07:35 PM, said:

What mechs are you having trouble with?

Um, all of them? That's part of my confusion. I seem to have become categorically worse in every build of every mech I own - mastered or otherwise.

[Old Fart 61]

Dont feel bad I thought I was on my way to tier 4 but the last 2 weeks or so I m getting worse. I do know we are playing with higher tiers. I was in matches that were tier 3 players.

[mailin]

I think the latest patch did a number on MM. I've been getting very strange matches lately as well. Dropping with and against teams that many players obviously had no clue what they were doing. If that happens consistently I find that if I leave a match as soon as I die and then drop in another mech it sometimes helps, although that could be entirely psychological.

[SnagaDance]

Maybe something has changed for you personally?

One of the most important aspects of doing well in a match for me personally has been patience.

Patience for when to commit in a Light, patience to wait for the right moment to push in an Assault, patience for everything else in between.
I find that when I'm stressed, because of work or other reasons, or whenever I'm tired, I tend to regard MWO as a way to blow off steam. Patience goes right out of the window and performance is right on its heels.

I'm much better off picking up the single player campaign of some shooter instead and mindlesly gunning down AI opponents. MWO rewards patient play, not recklesness.

(But stompy robots feel sooo goooooooood for smashing face, some decent AI opponents would be great in this regard, saves me from getting myself wrecked when I just want some stomp-stomp, boom-boom, pew-pew)

[MrHail]

MM took a turn for the worse imo.
More and more low tiers get matched with high tiers...

But here is my 2 cents.
If you are tier 3-4 how can you improve? Look at good players and see what they do.
If you have tier 1-2 in your match try to learn from them. Also try to learn from good enemies.

Since you want to get to tier 1 probably I think that you can learn a lot from good players in your team.
If there's a guy in your team that looks like he knows what he's doing and leading try to follow his lead.
After you die look how he plays and if you think he's a good player try to see what he did good.

[Tarl Cabot]

Snardo, on 02 March 2017 - 07:37 PM, said:

Um, all of them? That's part of my confusion. I seem to have become categorically worse in every build of every mech I own - mastered or otherwise.

What are the mechs and load outs?

How often are you playing, and it is just in the solo queue? Last month shows 66 (160 avg score) games and the previous month 91 (171 avg score), and the month before that 167(164), and the last two seasons (months) your K/D avg around 50% mark. Simply noting that the number of games being played have decreased while your avg score has not fluctuated much.

[TooDumbToQuit]

I went through the same thing the last month or so. I "think" I'm improving again.

As SnagaDance said, patience is HUGE.

One of my many bad habits is always being out front, always taking point, trying to save others etc....

[Ragnahawk]

If you come back, and you suck in certain mechs, those mechs may have been altered heavily or other stronger mechs arrived and made your older mechs worse. I know the jenners were hurt pretty bad. I know the spider is obsolete. The thunderbolt is no more use. Kodiaks, timberwolves, stormcrows all have strong builds. Certain IS mechs have really good quirks.
If you say what mechs you are having issue with, there may even be a pilot that happens to do really well in that mech and maybe they have some advice for you.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

I've asked my fellow mechwarriors ingame.

It appears that we have a decline in playerbase and the matchmaker is compensating it by putting everyone from t1-4 into one queue.

That means that previously, you fought your own skillclass t3-4 but now you are up against t1-4. Might not sound like much but t1 players even 1 or 2 of them can decide a match pretty fast with the right mech and decisionmaking.
You might want to adapt your tactics/playstyle to t1-2 pug games because t4 tactics won't help you much nowadays (better player will know and identifiy it and take advantage of it pretty noncharlantly).

[Amatsukaze]

Old Fart 61, on 02 March 2017 - 07:45 PM, said:

Dont feel bad I thought I was on my way to tier 4 but the last 2 weeks or so I m getting worse. I do know we are playing with higher tiers. I was in matches that were tier 3 players.

Cooking your core 5 sec into a match wont do much for your score...



Yeah I saw that LOL

[Horseman]

mailin, on 03 March 2017 - 01:16 AM, said:

I think the latest patch did a number on MM. I've been getting very strange matches lately as well. Dropping with and against teams that many players obviously had no clue what they were doing.

Observing the same here. It's perhaps not as much that the MM is pairing bad players with good ones as that it's not balancing the skill levels between teams. Thus we end up with one team of seasoned players and a potato farm on the other side.

...*mutter* timid direwhales doing 52 damage *mutter* ...

[Jables McBarty]

Snardo, on 02 March 2017 - 07:02 PM, said:

I've been playing this game for at least 2 years now and I'll admit that I'm certainly no genius at it. In that time I've only managed to make it to Tier 4, but at one point last summer I thought I was well on my way to Tier 3. I've got a handful of fully mastered mechs that I think I know how to play pretty well at this point. However, some time in the past few months I went from about 50-60% win percentage and scoring at least 300-400 damage per match to a point now where I'm winning more like 20-30% of matches and I'm lucky to break 200 damage, even with my best mastered mechs.

What happened here? Has there been an influx of new, highly skilled players? Have a lot of Tier 1 players started new accounts so they can slaughter the rest of us at will? I'd like to think that there's more to it than just a degradation of my own skills relative to my PSR peers. Has anyone else noticed a similar trend?

Like others here, I've experienced a lot of clearly badly matched games, where as a tier 2 player was def playing w some tier 5s who were still mastering the basic movement controls.

So as you move up - or get matched with higher skill players - pay closer attention to your positioning. Knowing how to move gets you wins in tier 5, knowing how to aim gets you wins in tier 4, but knowing WHERE to move ( positioning) gets you wins in tier 3. Beyond that it's a matter of optimizing builds, progressively improved skills, and of course teamwork.

[Jables McBarty]

Source Mystic, on 03 March 2017 - 09:02 AM, said:

The answer is simple there is no matchmaker currently? why do I say that the community is so small now that to get people to have games it is just throwing everyone in the same game no matter what. so your beginner and casual are being thrown in with your competitive teir 1 players. This should never happen and will kill this game as people run into the steam roll the other team or be steam rolled dynamic ... welcome to the new mwo ....

if you are wondering why the commuinity is so small alot of peopel were waiting for the skill tree to drop and when it did not they did not come back. and the new skill tree 2.0. is a complete mess. if that hits live servers I will uninstall mwo and look for another game.

Dude this is called "New Player HELP"

How does this post help anybody?

Please reserve gripes for GD.

[Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky]

I am going to be brutally honest in this post. Please forgive me...

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Are you playing in a group?

If you are, then expect to play against better players... because that's the nature of the beast that is group que.

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If you are playing solo, and having a problem... then you have probably become complacent. If this is so, you might not realize you might be making subtle mistakes in your game play because you have entered a relaxed state of mind.

Sadly, not being a "try hard" means your "not trying hard"... if your not "trying hard", then you can't expect good results.

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If for some reason, none of these apply to you, then maybe you can blame it on lag?

[Ayaka Quinn]

I heard they turned off match making.

[Rogue Jedi]

Ayaka Quinn, on 04 March 2017 - 02:25 PM, said:

I heard they turned off match making.

They have turned off matchmaking for the Public Test Server only, matchmaking still works fine in live, but with the 15 minute wait for a game on the PTS matchmaking is a problem.

however matchmakings requirements get less strict the longer someone is in the queue, to the point that at 5 minutes wating that teer 1 player can be put up against almost anyone, including you who clicked launch 2 seconds earlier