22 replies to this topic

[Atomic Hamster]

Not so long ago I was completely unaware that player stats were publicly visible (I only found out on these forums). And I seem to remember enjoying the game a lot more before I found this out! Before, if I had a run of bad matches I'd just put it down to experience and try to do better next time ; now a run of bad matches actually makes me want to stop playing (primarily due to their effect on stats), instead of just trying to learn from mistakes and carrying on.

Does anyone else think that public stats might have a negative effect on some people's enjoyment of the game and/or gameplay? Would making public stats an optional thing for each player alleviate this? As an intermittent/casual player, I don't think I'm in a position to answer this question objectively myself.

Edited by Atomic Hamster, 05 August 2017 - 03:12 AM.

[Luminis]

I see no reason to worry about it.

Mostly because I'm assuming people will very rarely go out of their way to look up my stats. On here, I've mostly seen them brought up when a person starts bragging, like claiming to average a certain amount of damage in their new build or when commenting on things that might require at least some understanding of the game to judge.

[Mystere]

Luminis, on 05 August 2017 - 03:14 AM, said:

... or when commenting on things that might require at least some understanding of the game to judge.even remotely disagree with them

FTFY.

[Tarl Cabot]

Don't really give a rat's derriere about my own stats. It does provide a glimpse into a player's performance but that is it, tis only a glimpse. It does not provide mech loadouts,, behaviors, etc. Nor does it say anything about whether or not that person playing on a potato using an integrated GPU instead of a real GPU , or even a decent machine with the integrated GPU, and a constantly distracting other half, etc, etc, etc...

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 05 August 2017 - 03:36 AM.

[Baulven]

The problem is people use stats as gospel. It doesn't take super stats to realize some things are screwed up. Though occasionally you get new players yelling LRMs are OP but that is due to inexperience usually. Or polar highlands because being narced there is being served up on a platter.

[HGAK47]

Dont worry about some numbers in a stats page mate. Just play for fun, play for the win, play for whatever. Just make sure its on your own terms.

[Sjorpha]

I think public stats are good. For example when people who haven't even played the game recently makes hyperbolic comments on balance, or if someone claims to be super good to bolster a claim, it's good that they are exposed.

It keeps the community more honest.

If the price is for some people to feel misplaced worry about their stats or if it's sometimes used in a bad way, well...I'll pay that price.

Tier should not be optional either IMO, just remember it's wrong/fallacious to always dismiss opinions purely on bad stats.

Edited by Sjorpha, 05 August 2017 - 04:10 AM.

[Mystere]

Tarl Cabot, on 05 August 2017 - 03:34 AM, said:

Don't really give a rat's derriere about my own stats. It does provide a glimpse into a player's performance but that is it, tis only a glimpse. It does not provide mech loadouts,, behaviors, etc. Nor does it say anything about whether or not that person playing on a potato using an integrated GPU instead of a real GPU , or even a decent machine with the integrated GPU, and a constantly distracting other half, etc, etc, etc...

Or joysticks. Don't forget about joysticks.

[jss78]

I was opposed to public stats/tiers in principle, but I don't seem them being much of a problem in practice.

There's very little stat-shaming that I can see, it's just a mature community by and large.

[Alexander of Macedon]

Mm, I really only ever seen stats brought up when someone is making radical suggestions about balancing or what's "OP" and they look like they went dumpster-diving for their stat spread or haven't played at all for months. It's a useful metric insofar as that it makes it easy to tell if someone actually plays the game and has half a brain, but not beyond that.

Do keep in mind that the way MS is calculated, the extreme stat-boosting possible in group queue, and the stat-boosting possible through hiding for most of the match in a janitor build all make stats much above 55% WLR or 2-3:1 KDR mostly irrelevant. Without the distortion of artificial factors WLR in games like this tends to normalize to a 50% +/- 10% band, with the vast majority within 5%, and the nature of MWO's damage system makes it extremely difficult to rack up lots of kills consistently without deliberate kill-securing or janitoring.

[sycocys]

Just speaking for myself here, didn't even realize stats were public and honestly don't care. As for it affecting my enjoyment of the game, well the state of the game (lack of development/leaving fw barely started for years after waiting years for it for instance) does a way better job of making me not enjoy it than if someone wanted to try to talk crap to me about my stats.

[Widowmaker1981]

I dont think so - stat shaming is actually pretty rare here, and in my experience tends only to be used when someone is saying "No really, <insert terrible build/mech/strategy here> works amazingly well, im constantly stomping with it" and then someone goes.. "really? You have an average matchscore of sub 100.. im pretty sure your definition of stomping is wrong"

I sometimes care about my stats, if im trying, but only for myself. Im not under the illusion that anyone else cares about my stats.

[Mystere]

Alexander of Macedon, on 05 August 2017 - 05:25 AM, said:

Mm, I really only ever seen stats brought up when someone is making radical suggestions about balancing or what's "OP" and they look like they went dumpster-diving for their stat spread or haven't played at all for months. It's a useful metric insofar as that it makes it easy to tell if someone actually plays the game and has half a brain, but not beyond that.

A person with a good brain but plays less is better than a person with half a brain and plays 2+ times more.

[Alexander of Macedon]

Mystere, on 05 August 2017 - 08:06 AM, said:

A person with a good brain but plays less is better than a person with half a brain and plays 2+ times more.

Yeah, but the point is that if someone hasn't played enough matches to show up on the leaderboards for three or four months they probably don't actually have a good idea of what the balance and meta looks like and are at best marginally more useful than someone who just sucks at the game.

[C4NC3R]

Who cares about the stats? Nolifers... might be.

[Coolant]

i pay no attention to public stats, I only care about game-to-game. What I dislike about public stats is that players shut down or suicide to protect their stats.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Mystere, on 05 August 2017 - 08:06 AM, said:

A person with a good brain but plays less is better than a person with half a brain and plays 2+ times more.

Experience counts for alot. The Tiering system alone is more based on experience than skill. Also because the Tiering is based quite a bit on experience, someone with a low amount of games has probably only been playing them in the lower tiers and that might not necessarily relevant to the same game experience that others are playing. The whole should be balance around the competitive or casual player argument revolves around this fact.

Also if you want to get right down to it, Tiers probably shouldn't be optional on the forums because if nothing else it provides the perspective of the person posting. I had a guy specifically point out to me that my experiences in FW weren't going to be anywhere near his experiences due to him being Tier 4. He posted his mech builds and quite honestly I immediately saw why he wasn't having the same experience I was having in FW and that was because his builds we very bad. In my opinion, if I had tried to use his builds in FW, my scores would have been about 1/4 what I achieved despite being an experienced player and would have likely resembled his scores. Basically in my opinion, his lack of experience in building out mechs seemed to be what was holding him back, not necessarily his actual piloting skills. The point here is that the game plays very differently at Tier 4/5 than it does at Tier 1.

[Mystere]

Viktor Drake, on 05 August 2017 - 08:26 AM, said:

Experience counts for alot.

So-called "experience" only counts up to a certain point.

Also, MWO's tier system being an "experience bar", at the very least, miserably fails to identify people who are either "botching" their rankings (deliberately or otherwise) or "hanging on the coattails of their teammates".

The former could be someone who simply "wants to experiment above all else".

The latter could be a lucky mascot you would want to be around with.

[DaMuchi]

Only your leager board stats though. If people can opt out of the leaderboard, then we should just dump the whole leaderboard altogether.

[Atomic Hamster]

Coolant, on 05 August 2017 - 08:20 AM, said:

What I dislike about public stats is that players shut down or suicide to protect their stats.

I've seen people suicide, shut down and disconnect, but can't see how it 'protects' stats - presumably they still get a loss, a death and a rubbish score if their team is being rolled?

Edited by Atomic Hamster, 05 August 2017 - 10:04 AM.