18 replies to this topic

[Relishcakes]

So i recently made a topic indicating that i had gone from tier 4 to tier 3. I've managed to solidify my position in T3 but i wanted to make some observations because many people just say its an experience bar and doesnt mean anything.

I have noticed a subtle difference in these matches, in lower tiers you see people standing in the open, more LURM boats, and its rare to hear anyone over VOIP, in some cases you dont even get chat.

In tier 3 there is at least 1 person in just about every match on the mic. most people communicate in some way and people at least attempt to twist off damage and take cover...especially when you see some LRMS in the air. Builds so far seem to be more concentrated...not more meta just more focused on one thing (ppc's, or lasers, gauss).

tbh though..things have gotten harder. which i welcome. so, thanks T3 for providing a fresh face for me to attack. The game feels fairly new.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

People saying there is no difference between the tiers are just lying. There's a huge difference. There are still bad players throughout all the tiers doing things that are just really weird, but the ratio of good to bad changes as you go up in tier.

[Monkey Lover]

It's a xp bar but play time still matters.

If you take a 100 people who have only played a few months and group of 100 who have player over a year.
group 2 will play better and have better mechs.

Moving up from tier 5 to 3 is a big change because you start playing with tier 1 or better put "experienced" players.
As you move up from tier 3 to 1 you will see less of a change.

[knight-of-ni]

With enough games under your belt, you will find it difficult, if not impossible, for your tier bar to go down. Why? Because it's an xp bar.

My tier bar cannot go up any higher, but no matter how poorly I might play, it does not go down either... not even by a pixel, not even if I lost 10 games in a row.

This does not mean there is no difference between tiers.

[Cnaiur]

There is a vast difference between the tiers, or at least a vast difference between T4/5 and T1/2/3. PSR isn’t literally an XP bar because given bad enough play, it’s possible to stall or go down, but that play needs to be very bad indeed. People like to gripe about bad play in T1, and there’s plenty of it, but compared to the level of play in T4/5, T1 is amazingly good.

[PocketYoda]

Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood, on 14 April 2018 - 10:36 AM, said:

People saying there is no difference between the tiers are just lying. There's a huge difference. There are still bad players throughout all the tiers doing things that are just really weird, but the ratio of good to bad changes as you go up in tier.

To be honest i'm in tier 3 almost tier 2, and well from tier 5 to tier 3 has been such a tiny difference its almost not there, yes the first day i had to get used to some slight variation but honestly its not a huge jump tier wise.. The poorer players are just as prevalent in tier 3 as they were in tier 4.

And as the populations are so small now all tiers are intermingled into tier 3 anyway.. 5 to 1.. nearly every game.

Edited by Samial, 14 April 2018 - 04:19 PM.

[EnochsBook]

@OP, It's good to hear you're liking it in Tier 3 so far. I spent some time there not long ago, and I can say that in my experience, match quality does tend to go up as you climb through the tiers.
As a currently Tier 2 player, I can tell most of the time when I'm in a Tier 1 match, and it feels like gameplay is more organized and co-op friendly then.

[Inatu Elimor]

Monkey Lover, on 14 April 2018 - 12:51 PM, said:

It's a xp bar but play time still matters.

It' s more complicated then just being an XP bar. I consider myself a good, steady, solid team player (cough) with matchscore above 250 more often then not (currently tier 2). However, the bar just creeps up. It' s not solely your experience that moves the bar up but also the proficiency of your team.

[Dragonporn]

I guess it depends. I've seen good leadership and more sensible tactical breakdowns over VOIP in T4-5, but rarely something like this happened in T3 or T2. F.e. when on Crimson Strait Assault, our side starts in the city area, it's a no brainer that enemy will be rushing base through the saddle. But our whole team slowly strolls through the tunnel. When me or somebody else tries to speak up and say that we're doing it wrong, explaining obvious things, people say stuff like: "STFU, you're not being helpful", and enemy team gets insta-win. Same on HPG. Everyone always mindlessly rushes to the top, standing there like idiots, get surrounded and shot from each side resulting in half of our team getting cored and instakilled. Or better yet, start idiotic nascar around the top, which turn into chaotic mess. Usually wins the side which has less slower mechs who can keep up with nascar, or some other cases of dumb luck... No strategy, no team play involved. I honestly don't see any improvement really...

[Tarl Cabot]

XP Bar - matches played - learning the importance of communicating, others willing to communicate and attempt to lead the cats - have learned how to utilize the maps more effectively - more players becoming more proficient in the mech lab and using said setup on the field.

On the other side players using potato systems (10-15FPS), not willing to go outside their comfort zone, playing the system to keep their matchscores low (see K*******) by setting up their mechs with sub-optimal builds, do not really care about teamwork but instead considers everyone else is simply a NPC.

There are more out there who have not had the pleasure to play enough games where there is leadership/dropcallers who change up how their forces to a non-standard location which setup the team for a better push instead of going to the "normal" pug go here and setup.

As for Crimson Strait, that one side should be moved to the opposite corner, imho.. but I also do feel your frustration when the team as a whole is moving to the tunnel.

[DeadEye COTP]

I'm going to let you in on two secrets:

There is very little difference between the tiers because even a below average player will eventually climb to tier 1 as it requires very little personal effort to do so. If the 11 other people on your team carry you, you've just tiered up. Even doing good on losing matches will make your PSR not move. Can't recall if you can rank up by doing exceptional on losing matches, however.

Second, the player base is so small that the tiers are mixed to a point where it's meaningless and there may as well not be a tier system.

How do I know this, you might ask? I made a new account the other day to try some variants without blowing my cbills before Solaris and as a T4 I was fighting not only T1 players, but some of the best players in the game. This was prime time on a Friday.

T1 has just as many potato matches as T4 because you're never actually playing with all T1's, and even if you were, it doesn't mean they're actually good. If you want good matches, find a friend or two who are decent at the game and jump in group queue, you'll never go back to QP again if you have the choice.

Edited by DeadEye COTP, 15 April 2018 - 03:04 PM.

[Prototelis]

Tier 3 was probably the most fun for me on days where pop was high enough to be nothing but Tier 3.

But I'll be honest thats probably only because I'm a natural lowish tier 2 and I barely edge out average level players.

[Escef]

I miss Tier 3. In Tier 2 you still see all of the horrible play habits that were in the lower tiers, but with less meaningful communication and more people getting salty in VOIP telling everyone how the loss is the fault of the 11 other guys on the team. From what I've been told, Tier 1 (which I'm dangerously close to), is like Tier 2, but with longer match making.

[Verilligo]

Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood, on 14 April 2018 - 10:36 AM, said:

People saying there is no difference between the tiers are just lying. There's a huge difference. There are still bad players throughout all the tiers doing things that are just really weird, but the ratio of good to bad changes as you go up in tier.

It's kind of funny. If you look up my stats on Jarl's, you can see the exact moment I shifted from T2 to T1 and the massive bat to the face I took to my performance. Eventually you start adjusting to how T1 works, but yeah, it's definitely not JUST an exp bar. You get matched up in a notably different way.

[Humpday]

You won't noticed much game-play difference when you're first progressing through the tiers.
Its only when you've been playing for a while and get up to T1 for a while, then create a new account and start again at T5-T3 where you'll see MASSIVE differences.

T5-4: as expected, this is Uber n00b territory. Standing out in the open, zero reaction to being plastered with lasers, no splashing, over exposing of chassis unnecessarily. No nascar here, just a lot of stagnant play.

T3: is where you feel the skill level jump a bit as you're being mixed with T4-1. My smurf is a T3 account, and by god I'm trying pretty hard to keep it there, but its not really working, stupid XP bar keeps going up.

T1: Nascar is very prevalent here, though I think people are starting to get really fed up and NOT doing it as much, or I've gotten really lucky lately and haven't had to deal with it. Many lopsided wins/losses, many of which due to map spawns you can reliable tell before the first shot has been fired who is more likely to win the game.

Honestly, forget about that bar. Just play. I can tell you very confidently that there are a plethora of T1 players that belong in T5 with training wheels. Many T1 players can't even consistently manage a ~1k/d or a match score of 250. Meaning, they are neither decent at causing "support" based damage(lrms, ac2s ect) nor can't they reliably remove players from the field...meaning, they are just dead weight. Leaving their only purpose on the field being to be a quick distraction.

[InspectorG]

T3/T2 when PSR dropped was great. Comms, coordination, players played the objectives, players pressed W...

Now, most the T1 pilots are as bad as the T4/T5.

I will float up to T1 very soon, despite my 15FPS and rusted aim, and i will have a sad on that day.

[Dragonporn]

Okay, this is getting really interesting. I'm currently T2, soon to jump into T1. From time to time I've seen really weird player behavior and overall team performance, wasn't really paying attention, because any of us can have a bad day, right?

But today, it went completely bonkers. In the match we had 3-4 guys on OUR team who've been playing for the first time, and they obviously weren't trolls, I'm 100% sure about it. Now it all starts to make sense: matchmaking system simply doesn't work. It doesn't match players relying on tiers, but all over the place, and now reports about some players starting fresh accounts and facing best pilots in the game doesn't seem as unrealistic.

Another thing: my match making usually doesn't go higher than a few seconds of wait, which means system doesn't even try to find players of similar tier, it just drops everyone in the same pool, and probably only busy with weight distribution, although still doubtful. Personally I wouldn't mind to have longer wait times, but to be matches with players +/- 1 tier, not sure about the others, but looks like current system is pretty broken...

[Brain Cancer]

Tier has becoming increasingly meaningless as 1) population declines and 2) the PSR system moves increasing numbers of less competent players into the higher tiers, meaning regardless of valves, people are getting mismashed regardless of skill level into the same matches.

[Dee Eight]

I hit Tier 1 on both accounts within a few days of one another. One account took 27 months and the other took 11 months and coincided with when I upgraded my PC (from one getting fps in the teens to one in the 60+). Between them I've played about 20k total matches across all modes except the comp one because I couldn't care less than a mushy ********** for having a "friends" list on here. It very much is a match score tracking bar and little else because I still seem the same idiocy in T1 matches as I did in T5 matches... only the user names have changed. People still haven't adapted to many maps and still make the mistakes that even I can easily exploit, and have been doing so since hitting T1 a couple weeks ago.