68 replies to this topic

[Belacose]

First few months of playing MWO I was about to throw in the towel same as my real life friends had already done after the shock of moving up a Tier rank. Wasn't fun getting Gauss/PPC poptarted to death playing late at night after hitting Tier 3. So instead of quitting I created an alt account simply to drop Tier. The game became fun again. Was back where I should have been as opposed to fodder for the bear_claws and foxes with shotguns in the middle of the night.

One thing that inspired me enough to keep going was a post I read from a good player claiming he "sucked" for the first couple years or so. Pretty sure that was El Bandito? Tried to use his post to boost the morale of my friends but they gave up anyways. Before that they would never play after 9:00 PM due to getting thrown in with much better skilled players during the early morning wee hours.

So... please tell me how long it took you yourself to become a good player? Did you already have experience playing the previous Mech Warrior video games? What walls did you hit along the way? When did you make the move to join a UNIT, etc...?

MWO is my first go at this sort of game. Previously I had mostly just played typical MMOs. Generally remain a pug for a good year before ever joining a guild but have been at this for about 15 months now and still have yet to do so.

Edited by Belacose, 01 August 2017 - 10:48 AM.

[Mole]

Well I found myself pretty decent at piloting a 'mech straight from the start. My first 'mech was a Locust and my second was a Raven, third was a Centurion. That being said I have tons of tactical shooter experience under my belt from playing Red Orchestra, Call of Duty, and Call of Duty 2 back in the day in competetive units under tactical realism rulesets that disallowed things like run n' gun and such and forced you to think about what you were doing.

I also had experience playing every previous Mechwarrior game except the very first game, meaning I started with Mechwarrior 2, and also have been playing video games since I was a toddler, so a lifetime of reflex training and just gaining an insight of how video games usually work that I can't really teach to someone if I tried.

The only real learning curve I had was figuring out what weapon systems suited me best in MWO and learning things like how to counter things unique to MWO that previous MW titles didn't have like countering LRMs and such, which came quickly to me.

My first 'mech was really rough, I remember feeling very discouraged about the game when I started because I got killed so often and was rarely able to score a kill of my own. As it turned out though, my mistake wasn't that I was bad but was piloting a bad 'mech with a bad build.

My first 'mech ever was a Locust LCT-1V and I put a Medium Laser on it with 4 Machine Guns. This was back in the day before quirks were a thing too so it wasn't even any good with its signature single Large Laser or Large Pulse Laser build.

Thing's didn't get much better when I moved to the next Locust, the LCT-3S. I ran it with 4 SRM2s and a Small Laser. It was pretty terrible too. Then eventually after eliting those two because this was back when rule of 3 was still a thing, I picked up the LCT-3M next and put 5 Medium Lasers on it and holy hell did that thing do some damage. I was able to make that 'mech sing and my troubles dissolved. I imediately sold my 1V and my 3S and kept the 3M, mastering it as my first mastered 'mech.

It was at that point that I began feeling competent as a pilot and also realized that I loved the rush of piloting a light 'mech. My LCT-3M served me admirably until I was forced to sell the old girl because I only keep one of each chassis and the LCT-1E was later released with 6 energy hardpoints and I was forced into the realization that the 1E could do anything my 3M could do but better.

Anyway, the real homecoming for me was finding a weapon system that really spoke to me. Lasers were what did it for me. This was back before laser vomit was cool. Perhaps your problem is less that you lack piloting skill and more that you lack understanding of what kind of build works for you? Share some of you builds with us. If that is the problem then maybe us veterans will be able to steer you toward some more effective builds.

Edited by Mole, 01 August 2017 - 11:02 AM.

[Stf Sgt Marblez]

I started off cutting my teeth on this game last year (august), my first mech ever straight out of my cadet bonus matches was a KGC-000B, the oh so slow 100 ton assault that we all know and love/hate. Needless to say I never made it out of T5 in that thing, in fact it put me further back than before I had bought it but I liked it enough that I saved the c-bills up and bought the other two King Crab Chassis (still own all three to this day =]) but after piloting those a while i got sick of being sooooooooo slooooooww and constantly left behind. So I switched it up, looked at the trial mechs and lo and behold theres a Raven 3L with 2 ERLL, I thought well hell one arm on my King Crab prly weighs as much as the whole Raven, and 2 lasers? Thats it? MEh, try it anyways...once again I fell in love with the complete opposite reason of buying the 3 Crabs, its tiny, nimble, and had ecm whats not to like? For me I wanted massive gun platforms when I started bc that to me was fun, and it ended up costing my team many a game, I ended up piloting lights almost exclusively just because of the rush of running around in a mech that is a complete thorn in the enemys backside (provided you know what you're doing, and I still prly dont). Long story short Find what works best for you, take it and run with it. This game is only punishing if you let it be that way. Chin up, reactor online, lets blow some stuff up shall we? o7

[Cranial Enigma]

It took a long time to get decent at the game, looking back at my archived stats I had a .79 K/D ratio, now after thousands of games I sit at a 1.49 K/D. The biggest wall I found was that I wanted to only play mediums when I first started out, after getting my butt kicked a lot I branched out and found out that I like mechs between the 50-65 ton range a lot more then the lighter ranges, but the hunchback will hold a special place in my heart since it did get me my first kill.

It probably took me a few months after the stat reset to get decent/good at the game, since I was playing on and off at the time. But the major things that will help you get better at the game is figure out the map layouts, knowing what paths to take and where to position yourself. Once you have that down focus on the different mechs. Take the hunchback (best example but I hate using it because I love it) most of the weapons are in the right torso, so the obvious place to aim if you are trying to disarm it would be to aim at the right torso. Knowing what weak spots on mechs would be extremely helpful. And finally, find your play style. I personally love laser vomit builds over brawler/lrm/ballistic/ or mix builds, its what I enjoy and what I do well in.

Finally, a great piece of advice that I got from people, any damage you can deal without getting hit back is good damage. Even if you are only tickling your opponents, if you can hurt them and they can't hurt you they will be forced to move and you will be able to control their movements in a way that is favorable to you.

I actually didn't join a unit, I joined a clan that originated from warframe and created a side branch over in mechwarrior to get clanmates that wanted to play this game to be able to hook up easily. Play with friends rather than trying to be competitive. After playing soccer for 13 years I burned myself out and lost sight of what was fun. Now I don't have a reason to be competitive, I just try to give my all while having fun.

MW2 was my first game of the mechwarrior series I played, loved it but was horrible at it because I was really young when I first played it.

Also another huge piece of advice, jump onto the public test servers when they come out, they give you huge amounts of MC, CBill, and EXP while on them to mess around and find mechs that you want to test or play with that you might have otherwise avoided.

[jss78]

"Good" is relative I guess. But I remember for the first 100 games or so I just struggled with the basic controls. How to to move in combat without bumping into others, keeping track of where the legs are pointing etc.

After that, I'd say somewhere between 500-1000 to start to grasp what I'd consider "basic" skills -- stuff like torso twisting, smart positioning, game mode tactics, mech building, identifying and targetting vulnerable components.

For a long time I had this feeling of information overload while playing this game. It took me a long time to get so fluent with everything else that I felt I could really focus on enemy paper dolls, and to use that information effectively (=where to hit, optimal engagement range in terms of his and my weapons).

I had not played any of the earlier MW titles.

[vettie]

4 or 5 years, still working on it....sigh

[ocular tb]

It took me a few months just to get a feel for the game and how all the mechanics worked. A lot of it was learning about weapons and how some work better together than others. Not to mention that in my early days before quirks, the mech rescale, and the new skill tree, there were a lot of mechs that just weren't that good and I didn't know which was which so that took some time as well to figure out. And of course not being familiar with the maps was a factor.

I was never in a unit and didn't have anybody to help me so a lot of what I learned was through the forums and videos. I saw a video of a guy that showed how he used a joystick for throttle and turning and I thought it was a great idea. So that's how I came to use a Saitek ST290 that I modified for left hand use that controls throttle, turning, vision/zoom modes, jump jets, torso centering, and command wheel. It works for me better than WASD. I also don't like regular mice, so I've always used a Logitech M570 trackball. Once I got that figured out I got a lot better since I felt less clumsy and more comfortable. This game also compelled me to build a computer myself, which I had never done before. I did that around Jan 2014 and just this summer I upgraded again (I had an accident of sorts when cleaning out the cpu fan and so I decided to just upgrade the whole thing). Having a rig that is capable of running this game helps a lot.

I would say I'm probably the best I've ever been skill and knowledge wise just from experience, but I'm certainly not comp level. In short I would say I started getting close to the top of my skill ceiling after around 5 or 6 months of playing almost everyday.

Edited by ocular tb, 01 August 2017 - 09:18 PM.

[davoodoo]

I consider myself pretty average, so meh.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

I had played the Mechwarrior 4 series quite a bit before MWO, so when I got into MWO I already was good at piloting, but the meta was far different in this game than MW4.

I started up back in open beta as a total free to play for over a year, back in those days the new player experience was brutal, I had to grind using a beat up old Hunchback 4p with bad laser hit reg and weaker lasers than now a days against 8 man Atlas deathsquads since there was no solo and group split. I never even got to try an XL engine because the things were so expensive and back then it was hard to even get 100k credits a match in a medium mech fighting the odds. Eventually I stopped even trying to grind for an Atlas and bought a Catapult K2 that I still own, I loaded it up with builds like dual AC20s and dual Gauss and was finally not so limited by my equipment so I could put out decent scores, eventually bought a Cataphract 4x and loaded it up with quad AC5s for a bit of fun.

By this point I wasn't really doing all too bad, but the terrible matchmaker, balance, hit reg, and other core problems pushed me off to greener pastures in other games for a couple years.

I ended up coming back in 2014 or 2015, bought myself a King Crab, loaded up on UAC5s, and went to town, had quite a bit of fun again and eventually went ahead and bought myself a Clan Wave III pack as my first purchase and loved all the mechs out of it and I've just been moving up constantly since that point. When I got back PSR still wasn't a thing, but when PSR started I was placed in T3, though it was mostly due to my lack of matches, since the tier system becomes just a grind to T1 when you get to the point where you only go up.

So after a few months of killing half the team every few games in T3 and T2 now I'm in T1 killing a lance ever other game with a little over 2000 matches played.

Rather than joining a unit, I made my own with a few friends who play and occasionally field a 4 man squad.

I learned pretty quickly, looked at any mistakes I'd make in matches so I didn't make them twice, theory crafted good builds and tested them ingame, and played well and had gone through the fire and flames of being a hard core beta free to play player, so nothing since then has been a challenge to me ingame.

[Metaccini Alfredo]

Belacose, on 01 August 2017 - 10:41 AM, said:

First few months of playing MWO I was about to throw in the towel same as my real life friends had already done after the shock of moving up a Tier rank. Wasn't fun getting Gauss/PPC poptarted to death playing late at night after hitting Tier 3. So instead of quitting I created an alt account simply to drop Tier. The game became fun again. Was back where I should have been as opposed to fodder for the bear_claws and foxes with shotguns in the middle of the night.

One thing that inspired me enough to keep going was a post I read from a good player claiming he "sucked" for the first couple years or so. Pretty sure that was El Bandito? Tried to use his post to boost the morale of my friends but they gave up anyways. Before that they would never play after 9:00 PM due to getting thrown in with much better skilled players during the early morning wee hours.

So... please tell me how long it took you yourself to become a good player? Did you already have experience playing the previous Mech Warrior video games? What walls did you hit along the way? When did you make the move to join a UNIT, etc...?

MWO is my first go at this sort of game. Previously I had mostly just played typical MMOs. Generally remain a pug for a good year before ever joining a guild but have been at this for about 15 months now and still have yet to do so.

Having ground a bunch of accounts up to t1, I'd say that often the problem is the loose definition of "good". You can start the game and run nothing but meta, hit tier 1 pretty quickly and put up respectable numbers on a regular basis... all while not understanding *why* meta stuff works - but I think a really truly good player should be able to "deliver the goods" running things *other* than meta. You can usually tell the difference between meta shortcut-good and "ground through beta with single heatsinks" good by heat management abilities and how smoothly they move. If you see someone moving very comfortably with their legs and torso totally disassociated in a smooth manner you can generally guess that they've been playing for quite a while. On the flip side, a number of "good" players that are routinely running into terrain, teammates, overheating, and moving all herky jerky... Those are probably people that shortcutted by going straight to meta builds and never deviating.

You're *going* to suck at something when you first start doing it - that's a huge part of learning. If you start doing something and you never really fail, you can quite happily chug along doing "ok", but never have any idea that you should be improving. If you fail, and learn from it, you come out better equipped for improvement. The thing is to learn from failures, and avoid taking shortcuts. There's a vast difference between knowing that something works (i.e. laser vomit, for example) and knowing *why* something works (i.e. synergy between erml and lpl).

I get that people wanted public stats and tier, etc. for bragging rights, but I firmly believe that it harms overall enjoyment of the game... people are afraid to have fun, because it might hurt their stats. Then again, thats what alt accounts are for

Edited by Metaccini Alfredo, 01 August 2017 - 12:13 PM.

[Belacose]

Mole, on 01 August 2017 - 11:00 AM, said:

Perhaps your problem is less that you lack piloting skill and more that you lack understanding of what kind of build works for you? Share some of you builds with us. If that is the problem then maybe us veterans will be able to steer you toward some more effective builds.

My problem isn't so much with my own self as it is with trying to keep my friends from quitting. They're actually the ones with the problems. As far as I myself am concerned I made this thread more so looking for a yardstick of where I should be as one who's been playing for about 15 months.

Still have a long ways to go but feel as though I'm at least a little bit better than the average player relative to those around me. This may well indeed change when I hit Tier 1, though I'm already being placed with the Tier 1s fairly often due to being a late late night player. See the big names in my games frequently. Funny thing is that late at night I find myself placed with the top dogs regardless of which account I'm on.

To slow my advance up the ranks I've been juggling 5 accounts with this one originally being the main. Have 3 Tier 2 accounts and 2 Tier 3. The plan now is to go ahead and get this original one into Tier 1. Sparing y'all the long story of why so many accounts. I'm Belacose, Egg Fu, Fish Baby, Vorpal Bunny Rabbit and Clown Stomp my 100% F2P account. Play most weight classes pretty evenly except with the exception of lights which is less frequently.

Hope none of the above curbs posts from others pertaining to the subject.
Again, still have a long ways to go. Much better targeting enemies than before but still needs work. Have much room to improve as far as battlefield awareness too. Guess I have a problem of getting too aggressive too often. It's just that I still tend to get impatient when I'm on a bunched up camping team.

Couple months or so ago I discovered how to record my own games which became a nice tool for self improvement. Even if I put up good numbers in a game I still cringe watching myself play afterwards and it gets worse with each viewing. Why didn't I target this guy? Stopping firing blindlt! Find their weakness already! Stop shooting the ground/wall! Target the legs you idiot! Pay attention to the fact that your team is running away! Stop trying to exchange with the dude who's better at it than you. Move to the other side of the hill! Etc, etc, etc...

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Belacose, on 01 August 2017 - 12:07 PM, said:

My problem isn't so much with my own self as it is with trying to keep my friends from quitting. They're actually the ones with the problems. As far as I myself am concerned I made this thread more so looking for a yardstick of where I should be as one who's been playing for about 15 months.

The friends that still play with me tend to be around because I help them with their builds so they're running the most optimal config they can for what they're trying to do. I also suggest good mechs for their playstyles and try to help them avoid rough patches that a player without guidance would have. For this reason they haven't just rage quit from getting completely outclassed in matches and they usually are top performers. I also give guides on some things you got to watch for with certain builds and other things they should be aware of so that they already know what they're doing the moment they start something.

Some people also just don't like the somewhat hardcore nature of this game in that if you aren't building competitively or playing competitively you'll just do bad, some people want to do good with no effort, but it doesn't work here. It sort of reminds me of RTS multiplayer where if you get into the high tiers but are still playing like you're in the low tiers you get thrown right back to the ground floor.


Anyway, as for self improvement, you're doing good with recording and looking over your games for self improvement. I usually just take a moment to look over why I died if I die in a match myself rather than record it all. Controlled aggression and awareness is one of the most important things in this game. You can't be too aggressive compared to your team or you'll just take unneeded damage, make bad trades, and die early, but if you remain aware of the battle lines and the movement of the players and focus aggression at the right places at the right times in a match you'll be the one crushing the enemy.

[Belacose]

Crap! Did I just kill my own thread?

Very interesting posts. Helpful too! Just what I'm looking for. Anything at all that can help one improve!

Going to get the friends of mine who have quit to read these posts. Seriously. So... Keep them coming!

[Novakaine]

Still a work in progress.

[Metaccini Alfredo]

Belacose, on 01 August 2017 - 12:24 PM, said:

Crap! Did I just kill my own thread?

Very interesting posts. Helpful too! Just what I'm looking for. Anything at all that can help one improve!

Going to get the friends of mine who have quit to read these posts. Seriously. So... Keep them coming!

Just remember - "Kaizen"

It's a japanese philosophy of constant self-improvement. Success is found within failure and all that - at it's core, constant self review and adjustment will keep you on the path of improvement.

[Toothless]

Around 1996.

[Aim64C]

I've seen a number of exceptional players get shredded by a team that knew how to be a team.

I think that is the "get good" aspect of this game. It's learning to use your mech and its weapon systems in a way that benefits the team. You can be the best player in the world - but if your team wipes while you're playing on your own program... you're going to get rolled in the end.

I've almost always been fairly decent at the piloting - grew up playing MechWarrior, so the idea of legs/torso wasn't really new to me. Occasionally, I'll find myself trying to back into a building or something stupid that comes from a lack of situational awareness or my own lack of play time on a specific map... but piloting - and learning how to keep from blocking your team mates while positioning yourself to minimize your exposure while maximizing your own potential to engage the team... that takes some time and is the most critical skill. I have generally been rather competent in that regard... but I've a lot of room for improvement, so I don't consider myself "good." My standards for myself are god-tier... until then, I'm just competent.

Mech loadout... that one is another key part of competitive play and comes down largely to experience. Generally speaking, I try to maximize 'synergy' among weapons. They should be hitting for max damage near the same range and should be able to be fired as close to the same time as possible while being similarly likely to strike the target. Missiles and gauss rifles, for example, are radically different weapons that are not necessarily going to be able to be focused onto the same target effectively. That's not to say that you can't pair the two - but that you're effectively splitting the roles of your mech in doing so - which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending upon its maneuverability and your idea of how you're going to play.

As for exactly how long it takes... I don't think you ever really get to a point where you are 'good.' It's kind of like the Red Queen Theory of evolution - you have to run as fast as you can just to stay put. It's not a static metric we are playing against - it is people with other skills and ideas that we are pitted against. As they develop better skills or become adept in new strategies, it changes what we are playing against. Strategies that were effective, before, are now less effective... or come with greater risk.

[Judah Malganis]

It never happened for me lol.

[Khobai]

Quote

Just remember - "Kaizen"

It's a japanese philosophy of constant self-improvement. Success is found within failure and all that - at it's core, constant self review and adjustment will keep you on the path of improvement.

I thought if japanese people fail theyre supposed to fall on their swords.

[Aim64C]

Khobai, on 01 August 2017 - 12:53 PM, said:

I thought if japanese people fail theyre supposed to fall on their swords.

That is really only in the case of extreme failure or incompetence - typically in war - and typically instead of becoming a prisoner.

I'd have to actually look at the customs behind seppuku, again. There was a parody site my friends found years back where it talked about swallowing a frisbee - and such has pretty much dominated our group's conversations involving sepuuku ever since.