Dragonscar, on 08 September 2017 - 01:36 PM, said:
Umm, No.....
Not in my case :-(
I have been playing since like may and have over 160 matches and I have yet to break out of T5
I start to go up and then lose a few games and go right back down?
So, someone tell me please?
What affects your rating??...your personal match performance / damage, or if you live or die or if you win or lose the match??
I have done over 300 damage in a match, team loses match and my rating goes down?
Just asking what factors affect your rating so I know :-)
Winning the match affects your PSR massively. You basically can't lose PSR on a win and you're very, very likely to go up. You can break even when losing - I can't tell you the exact threshold, but it ought be somewhere around the 300 Match Score ballpark. So, a lot of stuff goes into your rating in addition to winning the match, as almost everything you do affects your Match Score - excepting actually surviving in and of itself, but living to see the end of the match gives you the maximum amount of time to ramp up your score.
The biggest contributors - and the ones you can influence most reliable - are usually damage, kills, kill most damage dealts, assists and component destructions. There are some others that can ramp up your score, such as shooting down incoming missiles with an AMS but honestly, I wouldn't bank on that. Inflating your score by running a triple AMS Kit Fox might feel good at first, but ranking up that way might have more negative effects than positive ones.
From my experience, you can do one of two things to improve your Match Score and, as a result, PSR. First, you can try to use overall good builds and try to get better at using them to their fullest over time. Second, using weapon systems that can take advantage of the lack of experience and / or skill of your fellow players. The most common examples of the latter are probably LRMs and ECM (even though that's not weapon) - and I feel the same way about Rotary Auto Cannons, too. For the former, well, there's lots of options, so it's a little more difficult to give pointers - depends on what Mechs you have on hand, for one.
As for general gameplay tips, watch your positioning. MWO is - in my opinion - relatively forgiving as far as aiming goes because targets are usually slow and large and due to the availability of hit-scan weapons in the form of lasers. Bad positioning, such as moving away from the team or exposing yourself to multiple enemy Mechs is typically being punished more severely.
I'd also argue that learning to recognise an enemy build's strengths and weaknesses from the loadout info you get is a good skill to have, as it allows you to make better decisions on whether to engage, what range to engage at, whether to try and force a brawl or whether you want to try and poke / trade at range and so on.
Lastly, try to focus your fire. Both by shooting the same Mech as your team and by focusing on a single component as best you can; drilling through the Center Torso might be the quickest way to kill a Mech, but only if you actually pump all your damage into the CT instead of spreading it unnecessarily. However, taking out the weaker Side Torso to severely cripple your opponent might be the better choice in numerous cases, which harks back to learning to judge your enemy based on the info you're given.
Sorry if this isn't super specific, it's just what I can think of off the top of my head.