15 replies to this topic

[Evil Elmo]

The leaderboards make no sense and don't seem to have any relation to skill. I have a higher average match score than a lot of the top 20 on the quickplay leaderboard. I have a higher K/D than a lot of the top 20. I have a higher W/L than a lot of the people in the top 20. I'm definitely not one of the top 20 best players, but neither are they. Can someone explain why the leaderboard is ranking people seemingly at random? What criteria is leaderboard ranking actually based on?

Edited by Plaid Ninja, 20 March 2018 - 08:22 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

Not random. It's done by Matches Won. The drop down box on the right side alludes to this


Also don't forget, generally, SoloQ will yeild a higher average match score and lower KDR where GroupQ is the opposite (for good players, that is).

Forgoing in-game leaderboard you can use the community made one:

https://leaderboard.isengrim.org

Edited by justcallme A S H, 20 March 2018 - 08:21 PM.

[Evil Elmo]

justcallme A S H, on 20 March 2018 - 08:20 PM, said:

Not random. It's done by Matches Won. The drop down box on the right side alludes to this


Also don't forget, generally, SoloQ will yeild a higher average match score and lower KDR where GroupQ is the opposite (for good players, that is).

Forgoing in-game leaderboard you can use the community made one:

https://leaderboard.isengrim.org

I feel stupid now. I didn't even notice the dropdown. Thanks. I didn't expect it to track such useless stats though. Half of them are stuff that's just based on how much you play. They should just delete every category but K/D, W/L and average match score, and then have a fourth category that averages those 3 to find the overall best players. Makes no sense the way they did it.

Edited by Plaid Ninja, 20 March 2018 - 08:35 PM.

[DeadEye COTP]

Plaid Ninja, on 20 March 2018 - 08:27 PM, said:

I feel stupid now. I didn't even notice the dropdown. Thanks.

Before you edited, yes, it's basically a measure of time played unless you go between different cats. Just like Tier rating, it's meaningless.

You could be someone that just waits for last hits to get a high K/D, if you're pugging the W/L is mostly luck based on the potato team you get, and match score, while the closest thing to a "skill rating" really shows nothing about how it was achieved.

[Evil Elmo]

DeadEye COTP, on 20 March 2018 - 08:31 PM, said:

Before you edited, yes, it's basically a measure of time played unless you go between different cats. Just like Tier rating, it's meaningless.

You could be someone that just waits for last hits to get a high K/D, if you're pugging the W/L is mostly luck based on the potato team you get, and match score, while the closest thing to a "skill rating" really shows nothing about how it was achieved.

Oh I'm well aware of how much you're at the mercy of PUGs. Yesterday I had a ~1000 damage game, followed by an ~800 damage game, followed by a ~170 damage game. I didn't somehow magically get that much worse in the 2 minutes I was in queue.

[Kiiyor]

Simple - ignore the matches won mechanic.

Your best bet is probably to sort by average match score - after all, damage is king.

Even that stat though probably isn't the best - some weapons (like SRM's, MRM's, some autocannons etc) can output lots of damage, but are in reality less effective than pinpoint weapons.

And KDR has always been a nebulous and ineffective stat - the leaderboards would be a much better indicator of a pilot's performance if they measured KMMD's and Solo Kills, IMHO.

One way to get a better indication of your position is to grab data from the leaderboards, and do a multi sort in Excel or open office - first on average damage, second on KDR maybe.

Or, you could use other tools - I like the Jarl's leaderboard. It actually attempts to use a weighted score system, and mines it's data from the leaderboards:

The Jarl's list said:

How Adjusted Score Formula is calculated:
((Season Average Match Score)*(Season#^1.8))*(-(1.007^(-TotalGamesPlayed)-1))*(ClassMultiplier)
This will give full score around 500 games and each new season is weighed higher than the last. After this, the score is adjusted based on classes played.

The MWO leaderboards are something you should take with a grain of salt, anyways - as the best performers are usually the 10 god match players - those that record a just handful of huge scores and generally take up a large portion of the top 20 - which probably isn't a decent enough sample size. Look for the guys in the top 50 with more than 50 games and you'll get an idea of who to tell your team to shoot at first if you drop against them

Edited by Kiiyor, 20 March 2018 - 09:12 PM.

[SteelMantis]

They used to sort it by highest K/D for the month as the default stat to track but most of the people in the top 20 were smurf accounts with 10-15 games played.

[PocketYoda]

I always thought the leader boards were used for finding the best botters and then banned them..

[justcallme A S H]

What botters? There are basically none in MWO. Last person banned was in Oct 2017 far as we can tell.

Most people at the top of leaderboards (jarls list) are the best players and their alts. If you know who they are, you know their alts.

Most people at the top of the in-game leaderboards are simply those who win the most which inherrantly means playing a LOT of MWO. I mean to get 500+ wins, to get high on it, that takes a few games work.

[Kiiyor]

justcallme A S H, on 20 March 2018 - 10:25 PM, said:

What botters? There are basically none in MWO. Last person banned was in Oct 2017 far as we can tell.

Most people at the top of leaderboards (jarls list) are the best players and their alts. If you know who they are, you know their alts.

Most people at the top of the in-game leaderboards are simply those who win the most which inherrantly means playing a LOT of MWO. I mean to get 500+ wins, to get high on it, that takes a few games work.

But if there were no botters in MWO, who would I blame for my own failings? ME? THAT'S OUTRAGEOUS.

[xRatas]

Kiiyor, on 20 March 2018 - 10:56 PM, said:

But if there were no botters in MWO, who would I blame for my own failings? ME? THAT'S OUTRAGEOUS.

No no no! It is a Team game, you'll never need to blame yourself!

Well with Solaris 1v1 you need to blame broken matchmaker instead of team. Because it's matchmakers fault that other people are better of course.

Edited by xRatas, 20 March 2018 - 11:55 PM.

[Vellron2005]

Kiiyor, on 20 March 2018 - 09:09 PM, said:

And KDR has always been a nebulous and ineffective stat - the leaderboards would be a much better indicator of a pilot's performance if they measured KMMD's and Solo Kills, IMHO.

I agree with this. KMDD and average matchscore are the best indicators of skill and overall usefulness. I stress the usefulness part, because sometimes you can have 0 damage but your amazing capping game wins the match, or again, zero damage, but that well-timed and well-placed UAV turns a loss into a win..

My best advice to anyone is - ignore the leaderboards. They, just like PSR tiers, are irrelevant.

Just play and have fun.

Edited by Vellron2005, 21 March 2018 - 01:19 AM.

[Tier5 Kerensky]

Plaid Ninja, on 20 March 2018 - 08:27 PM, said:

I feel stupid now. I didn't even notice the dropdown. Thanks. I didn't expect it to track such useless stats though. Half of them are stuff that's just based on how much you play. They should just delete every category but K/D, W/L and average match score, and then have a fourth category that averages those 3 to find the overall best players. Makes no sense the way they did it.

The leaderboard is not a conventional leaderboard. It doesn't separate solo from qroup, neither players of different tiers. The first one is much more bigger problem. As such you can't really compare different players with it.

[justcallme A S H]

xRatas, on 20 March 2018 - 11:54 PM, said:

No no no! It is a Team game, you'll never need to blame yourself!

Well with Solaris 1v1 you need to blame broken matchmaker instead of team. Because it's matchmakers fault that other people are better of course.

You left out the old chestnut... Server ping, rubber banding and everything else.

It's funny I okay with a higher ping than plenty who complain about it... Do just fine.

[Asym]

Good grief, Leader boards and metrics are for those who "need" something to compare themselves to.....some reason to find success or achieve "goals" self set....

Remove the leader board and what do you think happens? Someone creates something else that does the same thing a different way and that, is called success..........doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different outcomes also comes into play........ Remove them and watch what happens............are leader boards a metric that helps or hurts "fun".... What is the cause and effect of them? Do they make a difference?

Being studied at the moment in a human factors lab in a doctoral program.... Several FPS Video games are being used to collect data and then, compare them and figure out what "metric" the game mechanics uses drives "fun" and is that successful? And, why culturally?

[YueFei]

Asym, on 21 March 2018 - 06:11 AM, said:

Good grief, Leader boards and metrics are for those who "need" something to compare themselves to.....some reason to find success or achieve "goals" self set....

Remove the leader board and what do you think happens? Someone creates something else that does the same thing a different way and that, is called success..........doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different outcomes also comes into play........ Remove them and watch what happens............are leader boards a metric that helps or hurts "fun".... What is the cause and effect of them? Do they make a difference?

Being studied at the moment in a human factors lab in a doctoral program.... Several FPS Video games are being used to collect data and then, compare them and figure out what "metric" the game mechanics uses drives "fun" and is that successful? And, why culturally?

Because what you measure, you manage.

Do you even follow any sports at all? The kind of statistical minutiae that escapes most casual fans are the nuggets of data that coaches and their staff obsess over.

No one forces you to use or even look at the data, and the MWO leaderboard data is lacking in many ways, but if anything it just calls for better data, not no data.