147 replies to this topic

[arcana75]

Ok so upon joining I see alot of people say the Tier bar is a simple XP bar and everyone eventually climbs to Tier 1 eventually regardless of how bad they are. That could be factually correct, the operative word here being eventually?

I'm aware of a player who only just entered Tier 4 over the new year, and this person has been around since Season 1 of the Leaderboard, although I have no idea when Season 1 was. By my count this pilot has clocked thousands of matches I didn't add it all up but it's several thousands, with recent Seasons clocking over 500 matches.

If I went by what people said here, this pilot ought to be in Tier 1 by now. However as I stated this pilot just crossed Tier 4 over the new year. And not by design too, ie intentionally throwing matches. Scores aren't bad either, season 18 over 300+ matches average score of 200+.

If the Tier bar is merely an XP bar, then no matter how slow the climb shouldn't this pilot be at least Tier 3 or 2 or even 1 by now, and not just crossing into Tier 4 after 19 seasons?

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

How many matches total have they done? People can play since season one, but if they've only played like 20 matches a season then they haven't really moved much.


Still though, the tier bar isn't an XP bar. It just has very low standards compared to what many consider average. At first the general rule was that WL and KDR of 1 was average, but we've learned that the average KDR is only around 0.8. So people have some expectations that to get to T1 you should have a KDR of at least 2 or so, yet in reality having a KDR of 1 is enough. This results in the tier bar really being an XP bar of sorts, as it never really falls down and they just keep going up and never really find the tier where they'd stop, as there is no super high skill level tier.

[dario03]

Statements of it being an xp bar are exaggerations, though only a bit. Its just that once you get over a certain average level you will eventually climb up to T1. Doesn't matter if you are way above that average or just barely above it, only difference is the time it takes to get there. So a guy in T1 might just be ok or might be really good.

Edited by dario03, 02 January 2018 - 05:05 AM.

[El Bandito]

There are people who still cannot get to T1, after 2 years of actively playing the game. I pray they will not be in my team, ever.

[Bud Crue]

My stats are awful and If I’m tier 1 (and I am) then anyone with a pulse and the ability to hold and click a mouse will eventually get to tier 1 as well. It really is that simple. It may take a couple of years, but you will get there.

Ways to make that journey shorter (that is if getting to tier 1 is some sort of goal for you) that I wish I would have known:
- don’t spend a year playing Panthers, Jenners and Ravens and almost nothing else, especially if you are not good at playing those sorts of mechs in the first place (you want to stay in T5 though? Play a Panther 10P for 6 months, only mech I played consistently that allowed me to drop in the tier bar...admittedly even that took a while);
- don’t ignore the meta and convince yourself that your special snowflake build “works great for me” when in reality you have gotten lucky with that POS a couple of times;
- don’t ignore the advice given to you by better players;
-play heavies.

I took a couple of years to get there and I did it playing bad mechs with mostly awful builds, and with a tendency to rush in and fire at the first thing I see and then tunnel visioning until I or the target dies. Trust me. There was not and there is still not a whole lot of skill involved in getting to Tier 1. Skill just makes the advancement happen a lot quicker.

Edited by Bud Crue, 02 January 2018 - 05:15 AM.

[UnofficialOperator]

It takes a special type of player to stay in T5 over 19 seasons...

Should get a medal

[arcana75]

How many years is 19 seasons anyway? When did Season 1 start?

BTW my intention is NOT TO SHAME THIS PILOT. I'm trying to discuss the Tier bar being seen as an XP bar and managed to find evidence to the contrary.

Dakota1000, on 02 January 2018 - 04:58 AM, said:

How many matches total have they done? People can play since season one, but if they've only played like 20 matches a season then they haven't really moved much.

Still though, the tier bar isn't an XP bar. It just has very low standards compared to what many consider average. At first the general rule was that WL and KDR of 1 was average, but we've learned that the average KDR is only around 0.8. So people have some expectations that to get to T1 you should have a KDR of at least 2 or so, yet in reality having a KDR of 1 is enough. This results in the tier bar really being an XP bar of sorts, as it never really falls down and they just keep going up and never really find the tier where they'd stop, as there is no super high skill level tier.

As mentioned thousands. I wasn't so stalker-ish to check every one of those 19 seasons but of the few I checked, over 1000 matches across 3 recent seasons. And as mentioned, Season 18 300+ matches, average score 200+. Season 18 alone should have kicked this pilot up to T4 or even T3???

El Bandito, on 02 January 2018 - 05:07 AM, said:

There are people who still cannot get to T1, after 2 years of actively playing the game. I pray they will not be in my team, ever.

Not even T1... it's T5 to T4 here, after 19 seasons.

Bud Crue, on 02 January 2018 - 05:13 AM, said:

My stats are awful and If I’m tier 1 (and I am) then anyone with a pulse and the ability to hold and click a mouse will eventually get to tier 1 as well. It really is that simple. It may take a couple of years, but you will get there.

Then explain this particular case. T5 to T4 in 19 seasons.

The Leaderboard shows stats for both QP and FP combined? Is it possible that this pilot played exclusively FP and the FP stats don't move the Tier bar? At least when I do Scouting I don't see the PSR thing in the score summary.

Edited by arcana75, 02 January 2018 - 05:47 AM.

[MrMadguy]

It's XP bar, as it's extremely biased towards increasing. Rating drops with avg MS < 100 only, that is complete joke. And I climbed to Tier 2 during Christmas event via having this stats, that just isn't right.

Edited by MrMadguy, 02 January 2018 - 05:51 AM.

[arcana75]

MrMadguy, on 02 January 2018 - 05:45 AM, said:

It's XP bar, as it's extremely biased towards increasing. Rating drops with avg MS < 100 only, that is complete joke. And I climbed to Tier 2 during Christmas event via having this stats, that just isn't right.

If you went from start of Tier 3 into Tier 2 in only 30 games, then your "XP Bar" isn't working the same as mine.

[Bud Crue]

arcana75, on 02 January 2018 - 05:44 AM, said:

How many years is 19 seasons anyway? When did Season 1 start?

BTW my intention is NOT TO SHAME THIS PILOT. I'm trying to discuss the Tier bar being seen as an XP bar and managed to find evidence to the contrary.


As mentioned thousands. I wasn't so stalker-ish to check every one of those 19 seasons but of the few I checked, over 1000 matches across 3 recent seasons. And as mentioned, Season 18 300+ matches, average score 200+. Season 18 alone should have kicked this pilot up to T4 or even T3???


Not even T1... it's T5 to T4 here, after 19 seasons.


Then explain this particular case. T5 to T4 in 19 seasons.

The Leaderboard shows stats for both QP and FP combined? Is it possible that this pilot played exclusively FP and the FP stats don't move the Tier bar? At least when I do Scouting I don't see the PSR thing in the score summary.

Leaderboard does not include FP.
As far as staying in T5 for 19 seasons, you can certainly do it, it just takes effort.
If you are already a poor player, then making a couple of bad decisions (buy a Jenner with your academy and new player bonus (or some other abandoned by PGI mech, build it with some lore or mixed weapons load out, etc) and yes you may very well lose more than you win and perhaps do so dramatically. That sort of bad decision, mixed with bad play can keep you in T5 for a long time. Add booze, poor reflexes, physical ailments and other issues on top of that and you have a recipie for a very slow climb.

But...

If you learn from your initial game intrinsic mistakes, and buy a decent mech, build it for play in this game (as opposed to your wishful BT world); start making the occasional better decisions in actual matches and even your total noob with no skills and serious infirmities is going to start to climb in tier. Its inevitable. Only with real effort are you goin to stay T5. At that point it is a choice and not some sort of conspiracy of the game to keep you down.

[Sjorpha]

MrMadguy, on 02 January 2018 - 05:45 AM, said:

It's XP bar, as it's extremely biased towards increasing. Rating drops with avg MS < 100 only, that is complete joke. And I climbed to Tier 2 during Christmas event via having this stats, that just isn't right.

You have a positive w/l and kdr which means you are actually outperforming your current PSR standing, so it's absolutely correct that you should climb the tiers. Funny ho you post evidence contradicting your own claim.

PSR is not exactly an XP bar, it has an upwards bias but it also has cutoff performance where a pilot will drop in PSR. A pilot way out of his league will actually go down in PSR. "XP bar" is a meme referring the upwards bias (which is a bad thing that's true) and then some people are stupid enough to beleive it's literally an XP bar.

Edited by Sjorpha, 02 January 2018 - 06:00 AM.

[arcana75]

Bud Crue, on 02 January 2018 - 05:57 AM, said:

Leaderboard does not include FP.
As far as staying in T5 for 19 seasons, you can certainly do it, it just takes effort.
If you are already a poor player, then making a couple of bad decisions (buy a Jenner with your academy and new player bonus (or some other abandoned by PGI mech, build it with some lore or mixed weapons load out, etc) and yes you may very well lose more than you win and perhaps do so dramatically. That sort of bad decision, mixed with bad play can keep you in T5 for a long time. Add booze, poor reflexes, physical ailments and other issues on top of that and you have a recipie for a very slow climb.

But...

If you learn from your initial game intrinsic mistakes, and buy a decent mech, build it for play in this game (as opposed to your wishful BT world); start making the occasional better decisions in actual matches and even your total noob with no skills and serious infirmities is going to start to climb in tier. Its inevitable. Only with real effort are you goin to stay T5. At that point it is a choice and not some sort of conspiracy of the game to keep you down.

This pilot is no noob. This pilot is Group Dropping into QP, and can score 1000 damage in T5 QP games. And in Season 18, scored an average of 200+ match score across 300+ matches with a respectable W/L ratio of 0.9x, in fact better than my 0.89 over 233 matches, and yet I'm 3/4 into T3, and this pilot just crossed over into T4 over the new year.

This pilot is not intentionally trying to stay in T5, ie putting effort to stay in T5, nor is the pilot a noob by any measure.

Edited by arcana75, 02 January 2018 - 06:11 AM.

[UnofficialOperator]

PM me the name, I want to see the stats.

[Bud Crue]

arcana75, on 02 January 2018 - 06:10 AM, said:

This pilot is no noob. This pilot is Group Dropping into QP, and can score 1000 damage in T5 QP games. And in Season 18, scored an average of 200+ match score across 300+ matches with a respectable W/L ratio of 0.9x, in fact better than my 0.89 over 233 matches, and yet I'm 3/4 into T3, and this pilot just crossed over into T4 over the new year.

This pilot is not intentionally trying to stay in T5, ie putting effort to stay in T5, nor is the pilot a noob by any measure.

I don’t know what to tell ya. Perhaps they are discoing, or doing a lot of team damage or god knows what else. But if they are winning or even losing with decent scores than they should not be falling or staying where they are. I can only tell you that my stats are worse than most and yet I advanced. There must be something exceptional with your asserted T5 for 19 seasons player that we are not seeing that is resulting in the lack of advancement.

[UnofficialOperator]

Without a name, its all speculation. PM me the name

[a gaijin]

From my experience it is an XP bar. My score increases with every game I'm in where I'm on the winning team even if my own performance was subpar.

It should be just as easy to ''go down'' as it is to ''go up'' the psr 'xp' bar.

Right now it's waaay too easy to go up and not easy at all to go down.

[The Basilisk]

arcana75, on 02 January 2018 - 04:48 AM, said:

Ok so upon joining I see alot of people say the Tier bar is a simple XP bar and everyone eventually climbs to Tier 1 eventually regardless of how bad they are. That could be factually correct, the operative word here being eventually?

I'm aware of a player who only just entered Tier 4 over the new year, and this person has been around since Season 1 of the Leaderboard, although I have no idea when Season 1 was. By my count this pilot has clocked thousands of matches I didn't add it all up but it's several thousands, with recent Seasons clocking over 500 matches.

If I went by what people said here, this pilot ought to be in Tier 1 by now. However as I stated this pilot just crossed Tier 4 over the new year. And not by design too, ie intentionally throwing matches. Scores aren't bad either, season 18 over 300+ matches average score of 200+.

If the Tier bar is merely an XP bar, then no matter how slow the climb shouldn't this pilot be at least Tier 3 or 2 or even 1 by now, and not just crossing into Tier 4 after 19 seasons?

No the Tier bar isn't exactly an xp bar.
But since it is next to guaranteed that you gain PSR on a win and since the lowest PSR win on a won match where you performed underwhelming is higher than a PSR loss on a lost match where you just performed mediocre it is next to impossible to tier down.
Given that you've got a w/l ratio of around 1 with insecurity of 20% you will still gain PSR slowly when you only win 2/5 of your matches.

But since the PSR gains and losses are tied to matchscore and some not named othr factors it is entirely possible that someone that simply unintentionaly does things that keeps his matchscore low (like not using AMS, doing kills but little damge, no solokills, no protected XYZ or protection proxy and all the other things listed in the middle column of your EOG screen) will gain psr much slower that intentionaly doing what the game wants from him.
I'm not talking about contraproductive behavior here just about off character moves that just aren't rewarded by the game.

f.e.:
Use a Scout mech as exactly that.
Scout, spot and turn flags.
You will be a real boon to your team and often win matches but your PSR will no profit from it cuz your matchscore will not show much rewards for what you are doing.

Now use an Irondome Kitfox, do at least 150 dmg and be sure to stay with assaults and heavys and your matchscore will seldomly be under 200 - 250 in QP alone for the ECM cover and AMS you are providing. Now add all the protected light blips and youre done. Still the influence on winning matches will be negligible in most cases.

Other example:
You drive an Atlas K with dual AMS and a mixed weapons loadout featuring a HGauss, and a big MRM as well as some lasers.
The mech is too slow for most pushes and you will have to stay amids your team most of the time or you get focused down.
Never the less your AMS will shoot down some missiles and you will do at least some dmg in most of the matches.
You are still a wasted assault slot and a liability to your team in most cases.
Still your matchscore shows averange values and your poor judgement will most likely not get punished most of the time.

In contrary if you pilot a MADIIC-D with dual Gauss and dual ERLLaser you most likely will make some nice clean killshots, the Lurmyboys will leach the most dmg reward and your matchscore will be mediocre at best...even if you are doing what counts...removing enemy mechs from the field.

Edited by The Basilisk, 02 January 2018 - 07:08 AM.

[Asym]

Sjorpha, on 02 January 2018 - 05:59 AM, said:

You have a positive w/l and kdr which means you are actually outperforming your current PSR standing, so it's absolutely correct that you should climb the tiers. Funny ho you post evidence contradicting your own claim.

PSR is not exactly an XP bar, it has an upwards bias but it also has cutoff performance where a pilot will drop in PSR. A pilot way out of his league will actually go down in PSR. "XP bar" is a meme referring the upwards bias (which is a bad thing that's true) and then some people are stupid enough to beleive it's literally an XP bar.

OK, I'm confused.

Look at my Stats: less than a year playing and like many above, not even near average and yet, I'm a quarter of the way into Tier 2 and climbing no matter what happens???

It just doesn't make any sense to me?

(I'd attach the Stats but I can't seem to figure out a way to paste the Jarl's seasons outline into this post???)

[UnofficialOperator]

Like I said in the other thread I made, why isn't anyone petitioning or campaigning harder for a change in PSR/Tier/ELO/MM etc???

Everyone seems to have given up.

[Bud Crue]

UnofficialOperator, on 02 January 2018 - 07:54 AM, said:

Like I said in the other thread I made, why isn't anyone petitioning or campaigning harder for a change in PSR/Tier/ELO/MM etc???

Everyone seems to have given up.

Can’t speak for everyone, but, well...yeah they have.