114 replies to this topic

[TheCaptainJZ]

Also with a strike, if you are aimed at a mech, it should land at their feet, not go through them to whatever is behind them. So long as you don't get it between their legs or arm and torso or something.

[Void Angel]

Right - it's basically a raytrace to whatever target point, which also means it can get hung up on invisible wall edges, which still exist here and there.

[Rosh87]

* thanks for the additional info guys ! I wanted to provide another Update to my progress, along with a few more questions and thoughts on the game, as I have nearly another Month under my belt:


1.) First, on overall progress, my "Tier Bar" is now up to the letter "P" in "Pilot Skill Rating", in the main garage screen - and I am still in Tier-2 (heading towards Tier-1).

2.) As others have stated earlier, progress stalls tremendously once in Tier-2, compared to going from 5 up to 2. That said, since all this has occured since April-7th, when I was only around 1/4 filled up on the Tier-5 bar, I have been told this is considered good advancement / pacing - so I am happy

3.) I now have 95 mechs in my command, with Assaults the heaviest represented (mostly due to the Marauder-2 pack dumping so many on me, haha) - but I've actually come to enjoy the Mediums and Heavies, as well as select Lights - since expanding my horizons a bit. I tried to make Piranha work - but found it atrociously fragile and having a very wonky / limited style that I was awful with. I think my top-damage match was like 285 - with 2 kills, and I had many 100 or less - with fast deaths - so eventually put it into mothballs and went for some of the 'stronger' Lights, as odd as that sounds.

My Favorites (the ones I actually use now and rank up, daily) are: Adder: Cinder, Cougar: Blood Adder, Cougar: Prime (it's the same thing basically, as it's an omni mech, but I have it set up differently and it is the "S" variant that came with the Civil War pack, so it performs as a Hero and earns me 30% C-Bills each match), Urbanmech R63 (I use 3 LMG's and 3 Med Pulse Lasers), Urbanmech K9 (Hero) - this thing is AMAZING, insanely hilarious and fun to play, and I recently recorded a 500+ dmg match, with 3 or 4 kills - including a couple KMDD's, - and even better, for whatever reason, it earns outrageous C-Bills. On that match, for example, I think I had something like 518,000 C-Bills and 7000 EXP (first win of the day x2 bonus) - which was just amazing. Final one is a Wolfhound Grinner I got during the Lights Sale, a few weeks back. It has ECM and is Lore-friendly as the mech that Phelan Kell (a famous guy from the Lore) used - and it even has Kell Hound logo kind of on the side, and looks awesome.

That one is a "true Light", with a speed of 127-kmh with the XL engine I have in it - and it took me a while to get used to the play style. Now I run 5 ER-Med Lasers on it, and have finally gotten the full Skill Tree with the ECM boosting Nodes and Radar Dep filled in, and it's quite effective. I pulled off my finest game in it, just yesterday morning - recording 651 damage, 1 KB, 2 KMDD's, and 7 Kill Assists, on a Canyon Network battle !


4.) Questions / Issues: - Stormcrow... I have been struggling with this thing, since I picked it up during the Sale recently (had heard it was a somewhat good medium Clan mech, back in the day, and wanted to add to my Nova - for Med clan Mechs in the roster). However...I've had a rough go finding a good build for it. I have been running 6 Clan Medium Pulse Lasers of late - with "okay" results. I actually had my finest match just now (minutes ago 6-am CST appx), doing 525 damage with a few KO's on Hibernal Rift Skirmish, but that was because the map is quite close-range, and allows for semi poke and hide play, up top / center. On a prior match, on Polar Highlands, I was nigh-useless, did 82 damage .... and died without much impact, as my 375 meter optimal damage range was nothing before the mass of enemy ER PPC's, Gauss Rifles, and long-range Ballistics like AC-2's and UAC-5's, that the enemy were packing that round.

Basically, I struggle to find a setup that is a good "all-rounder" no matter the map / game mode for this thing. I also find it....troubling...that I have a 55 Ton Medium that has a weaker alpha strike (39 damage) than both my 50 Ton Nova (60 damage with six Heavy Medium Lasers), AND my 35-ton Cougar ! (48 damage, with 5 ER Mediums and a single Heavy Large Laser)

Is it just me ? or is there something odd about this particular Clan Medium, that makes it hard to find damaging setups that surpass much lighter mechs in my armory ?

---

5.) Should I play more Faction Play - instead of Quick Play ? I learned from In-Game Comms with other players this week, that if I do the "Drop Deck" mode where I bring 4 mechs in, and get a Win in that match - that it will 'count as' a win for ALL those mechs involved in the battle. So I could clear out 4 "x2 first wins of the day" - assuming we won (though of course the rounds are much longer, so your mileage may vary as to if that's faster or not than basic QP rounds, I suppose ?).

But...as I have no Unit / group ... I don't fully understand what I should pick (if anything) from the Faction lists. I think there was "Freelancer / Mercenary / and Aligned with a Specific Faction" - last time I looked at that section of the game, a few weeks ago. Can you guys help me better understand this, and what the pros / cons would be to playing it (as a Solo gamer), over just doing the basic QP matches ?


Thanks as always for your continual guidance !

[Ruccus]

Rosh87, on 29 May 2019 - 03:20 AM, said:

4.) Questions / Issues: - Stormcrow... I have been struggling with this thing, since I picked it up during the Sale recently (had heard it was a somewhat good medium Clan mech, back in the day, and wanted to add to my Nova - for Med clan Mechs in the roster). However...I've had a rough go finding a good build for it. I have been running 6 Clan Medium Pulse Lasers of late - with "okay" results. I actually had my finest match just now (minutes ago 6-am CST appx), doing 525 damage with a few KO's on Hibernal Rift Skirmish, but that was because the map is quite close-range, and allows for semi poke and hide play, up top / center. On a prior match, on Polar Highlands, I was nigh-useless, did 82 damage .... and died without much impact, as my 375 meter optimal damage range was nothing before the mass of enemy ER PPC's, Gauss Rifles, and long-range Ballistics like AC-2's and UAC-5's, that the enemy were packing that round.

Basically, I struggle to find a setup that is a good "all-rounder" no matter the map / game mode for this thing. I also find it....troubling...that I have a 55 Ton Medium that has a weaker alpha strike (39 damage) than both my 50 Ton Nova (60 damage with six Heavy Medium Lasers), AND my 35-ton Cougar ! (48 damage, with 5 ER Mediums and a single Heavy Large Laser)

Is it just me ? or is there something odd about this particular Clan Medium, that makes it hard to find damaging setups that surpass much lighter mechs in my armory ?

The MPL Stormcrow isn't really designed to go up against 70+ ton mechs, it's a knife fighter designed to skirmish with quick mediums and lights, and some lighter heavies. It's not about alpha striking capabilities, it's about pinpoint damage to a certain area (legs on light mechs, left torso on Hellbringers, any exposed structure on damaged mechs, etc.) with a quick burn time and quick recycle time.

For other build options the Streakcrow can devastate light mechs and the Splatcrow is potent if you want to aim the missiles yourself, but you have to stay in their niche and play to their strengths or you'll find yourself in a place where the enemy can hit you while you can't hit back. Maybe something like this build can be kind of a hybrid build to help deal damage at distance with the ERMLs while still having a potent SSRM alpha for lights coming in you harass your team. If you'd rather aim your missiles yourself there's this build which swaps the SSRMs for SRMs and artemis.

[Phoenix 72]

Just a side note, if you buy ECM capable Mechs, it makes sense to get the ECM enhancement skills nodes first. Nothing will make as much of a difference as quickly as those nodes.

95 Mechs is more than I own and I have been playing for about 1 1/2 years. Impressive.

I myself am not really a fan of Clan Mechs, because they just fall apart so very quickly, so cannot really give advice on that.

But playing FW by yourself will be a study in frustration management. FW is dominated my organised teams and with the recent changes to team seeding, I am told that solo players have a fairly long wait time AND there is a good chance that you will drop with other solo players / small teams against organised full teams, which will slaughter people like nothing else.

I am highly tempted to try out FW myself, but every time I do read up on the current state of the FW game it completely kills my interest. I think the concept is awesome, but the implementation leaves something to be desired.

[Void Angel]

Hero 'Mechs also give a 30% C-bill bonus, so that's a good part of why your K9 is making money - could also be that your loadout is good at smashing components and/or bad at killing things efficiently (see also: LRMs, SRMs, and LB-X Autocannons.)

As for the Stormcrow, that 'mech was arguably the best Medium 'Mech in the game Back in the Day. Although its hitboxes have been cleaned up since, its bobbing gait and gangly architecture still mean that the 'mech spreads damage just by walking, often making it more difficult to kill than you'd expect. If you're looking for a good alpha strike, well... it's dangerous to go with lasers alone - here, Take This! You'll need fire discipline for the lasers, but it's similar to a build I used back when Scouting Mode first came out for Faction Play; my teammates were killed by the enemy team, and one of my teammates urged me to run (we were collecting intel) and try to evade the four (somewhat damaged) enemies - I made a snorting noise at him over comms and proceeded to kill them all.

It won't hurt to try out faction mode - you'll want to bring the meta for most of your 'mechs (stay away from LRMs and go heavy on ERPPCs or Autocannons and you won't go far wrong.) Metamechs.com used to be a good starting place (and will still get you brutal, focused, and effective builds,) but is pretty out of date. I don't know what the go-to place is for those any more, but basically if you bring high-alpha, frontloaded pinpoint damage builds, you should do well. If you find yourself dominated by premade teams, try it at a different time of night or day, or else just put it on hold for now and focus on quickplay until the situation changes.

However, if you can find playable matches, Scouting Mode is a brutally effective Medium combat skills trainer. =)

[TheCaptainJZ]

I'm not sure why the Stormcrow has fallen out of favor with folks. I don't recall any buffs or nerfs to it practically ever. I think it actually started with a nerf on some of the omnipods like the Timberwolf but those negative quirks were all removed. Probably people just found other newer mechs that can do the same thing.

[Horseman]

TheCaptainJZ, on 01 June 2019 - 05:25 AM, said:

I'm not sure why the Stormcrow has fallen out of favor with folks. I don't recall any buffs or nerfs to it practically ever.

For a while Clans were capped to 50t in Scouting.

[Void Angel]

And after that, the Clans found things like the Huntsman that do medium brawling a little better (or at least I thought so at the time.)

[TheCaptainJZ]

Horseman, on 02 June 2019 - 02:57 AM, said:

For a while Clans were capped to 50t in Scouting.

That's true. But I don't see them in QP as much either. Guess there's just more options out there now.
I remember when FP first dropped and there were streakcrows everywhere. They were quite powerful.

[Omniseed]

Welcome aboard, I like your attitude!

I'm headed elsewhere right now and can't give a long response, but happily that Fafnir can also run quad LB10x and do a great job. I like HGauss, because I feel good about a nice headshot or satisfying one-shot light kill for quite awhile afterwards, but you are right, it's a big commitment to run them and on some maps they are just not very good.

As far as premium time goes, I ended up with a pretty big bank of it just from buying a good-looking mech pack every couple of months. If the pack in question has three variants you know you will use and comes with premium time, like the Rifleman or Vapor Eagle for instance, then that $20 feels like a better buy to me than buying premium time with MC or mechs with MC. I like to save MC for warhorn and mech bay sales, because I am a shameless nerd and also half-off mech bays are really lovely.

JC Daxion, on 18 April 2019 - 11:46 AM, said:

there are a bunch of mastery packs that are still solid deals which get even better when they go on sale, the thing is you really need to know which ones. The light ones as i stated before are around 15 bucks which include 3 bays, a month premium, a hero and 2 other mechs, one being a champion. A good champion can be solid if you like the mech to grind GXP. The griffin pack For a sparky which is a medium pulse boat, the treb witht eh coup de loure, a fun light hunter, and black jack with its arrow, (LPL+machine guns) are all solid mediums.. The light packages are a great way to get a month premium, and c-bills along with bays. 5 bucks cheaper than the normal mech packs, and have a hero.

the champion mechs give bonus GXP which can be used to help level any mech, so if you get a solid champion that you really enjoy combined with Premium time, or even better a double XP event+premium can be a great way to grind GXP which is actually quite useful.


It really has to do with how much you wanna spend, or how to get the most bang for your buck. for example, to this day one of the best deals around is the Resistance II pack. It has a wolfhound, crab, black knight and Mauler, along with a special version which is +30%-cbills.. +36 colors, +6 faction camoes for each mech you can change at any time, and 2 months premium! this package goes on sale at times for around 56 bucks, but even at 80 its still solid. It also sets you up for 2 new loyalty mechs down the road,, no clue what they will be at this time, but every year they give them away. So you will be eligible for a top teir IS reward.

If you prefer clan side, the Wave III pack is solid and so is the Origins package, as those set you up with top tier clan side. The difference is less faction camo, and the wave III pack only has 12 colors i think, the origins is 24 or 36. Wave III package has the arctic cheeta, shadow cat, ebon jag and executioner.. i enjoy all, but the EXE is very much a hit or miss mech for most. (that package costs more at 120) the IIC package has the Jenner, Hunchback, orion and highlander.. the HBK's are some of the top mechs in the game, One of the jenners is great, the highlander is solid, the orion is more hit or miss depending on the player, not a great mech, but not completely horrible. But again, your getting a lot of bays, premium and paint.. just the paint alone is worth more than the package if you buy lots of them. (Origins pack is 80 bucks)


another good deal is the Solaris pack over on steam. It is 20 or 25 bucks and has 7 heroes, with 4 that are really solid. It can go on sale for as low as 15 bucks which is great. It also gives you the MC loyalty reward. (typically a medium IS mech)

So what i'm saying is there are some old packs that are very much worth getting.. others not so much.. Those Heroes+premium can really boost your C-bills! I think my jester bought me 20+ mechs in bonus C-bills alone.

The Orion-IIC is one of the best combatants in the game, thank you very much.

Void Angel, on 02 June 2019 - 06:11 PM, said:

And after that, the Clans found things like the Huntsman that do medium brawling a little better (or at least I thought so at the time.)

UAC10+SRM18+AMSx2

[Void Angel]

Huntsman Pahket with SRM24, 4xERML, and good geometry. Don't get me wrong, though - the difference wasn't big, and your Stormcrow brawler build is almost identical to the one I was using in the above story about Scouting Mode. =)

[shaytalis]

On quirks: There are *some* quirks that are worth paying attention to for me, like +10% Range boost on a long-range mech. It can be a game changer if you outrange the entire enemy team on certain massive maps like Polar Highlands. It really depends upon the quirk and what you want to do. I agree with others who have suggested searching the database for "mechs that have X quirk" and seeing if something strikes your fancy.

[Rosh87]

So - just saw all the fresh comments and kind thoughts by you legends, and wanted to chime in with an over-due Update, on my status / progress, etc !!

I'll break it down in my point-by-point manner, as I find it easier to collect it all mentally (so I don't forget anything I wanted to say)

======


1.) Tier Progress - Well...my friends, I have made Amazing advancement, after another several weeks of fairly no-life MWO play (lol, seriously - like the only gaming I did for two weeks was MWO matches, after work / before going to bed - I work nights, so this would be like 6-am to Noon, most days of Meching. Sometimes 'only' 3-4 hours. ....ahem. Yes, I know it's awful, and I should be going to the gym more often - but this game has a strange addictive quality to me - such fun / tactics / variety in mechs - and it's quite unlike any "FPS" - that I've ever played. You aren't in a mere "tank" like WOT or WT...and you aren't 'just a soldier" like in most Modern Military Shooters... It has a unique Niche that is quite compelling.

After playing 5 or so matches this morning, I stopped and suddenly realized - I'm almost there !! Yes. My "Tier Rating" bar for Tier-2 is literally sitting just past the "G" of Pilot Skill Rating ... on the "progress bar" as you look at the main Mech Garage screen when you are in-game !

Like...if I get maybe 5 more (estimated) "Green Arrow Ups" after a battle, I think I will pass into Tier-1 ! This is, recall, all done since April-7th, 2019, when I began playing "a lot" - that one night, when I was off work - lol. So I went from maybe 1/2 bar filled Tier-5....on Apr-7th....and am now on the verge of Tier-1, as of June-10th. From what you all have told me, this is very good progress / etc - so I am edified by your encouraging words.



2.) As I had mentioned before, one thing I notice is that I am (often) able to do well enough - even in a loss, to get an "Equals Sign" - as opposed to Red Arrow Down. This, combined with almost always getting a "Green Arrow Up" on Wins (most of the time I am actually doing good work in them, but there have been some where I'm like - meh...I probably didn't deserve an Up Arrow, maybe an = sign at best...", but I guess it balances out in the end (sometimes I've done like 500 dmg and 2 kills in a Loss, and still gotten "Red Arrow Down", for instance).

I know the Rating thing is hotly debated by the community here, but from what I understand - PGI themselves have claimed it was less meant to be a "pure skill metric" and more meant to "keep the veteran pilots from regularly facing "Very New Pilots"'. This is done by making Tier-2's never able to see Tier-5's...and (correct me if I'm wrong) Tier-1's only ever facing 1's, 2's, and 3's...and no more 4's and 5's....correct ?


3.) On Group Play Q.... my buddy (the one who introduced me to the game) was trying to get some matches with me Sunday morning, and had even set his Searcher thingy to either NA or European (as it was more prime-time for them, theoretically). Even with that...we sat in the "SEARCHING" screen for (no joke) something like 10 minutes or more with no success. We eventually stopped and just tried to match our Quick Play searches so maybe we would be in the same fight (perhaps on opposite sides, or with each other - but at least we could be 'playing together', in that sense). Still...no luck (the problem is enhanced in that he is Tier-4, and I am Tier-2, so we very rarely would match up - I guess. He's optimistic that if he passes into Tier-3 at some point this summer, he and I would be able to match more often - even if I advance to Tier-1, as seems likely soon).

BUT...this attempt we had made me realize two things, and I wanted to briefly ask them here, of you guys. First... is it truly possible that there were not 22 other Humans on Earth, at that time of day (11:00 AM Eastern US Time, appx)... who were interested in playing MWO with friends / groups, such that we could not form a 12 on 12 single match !? That would seem....really concerning, if that was the case (for the Player Population), no ?

Secondly...why is PGI not allowing a small group like just me and my buddy to play in the "QP" thing, just so we can get into the fight ? (Since you can do this anyways by timing your Quick Play search button, to some extent, it seems odd that PGI won't just let you do it naturally via the Group System). This is a normal thing in War Thunder, World of Tanks, etc.... "Platoons" of up to 3 tankers in those games, can come in and play in a normal "Quick Play" battle. There can also be Solo players there, of course, or you could have (in those cases) as many as 5 Platoons of 3 each, per side (15 on 15)... .and the game runs fine (for the most part). Why does PGI not allow something similiar here ?

* The concern my buddy and discussed is that the game becomes Really hard to Introduce to a New Player, as you cannot "guide them along" with your main account, without having them forced into Group Q - which features (in theory) tougher and more coordinated enemy teams. We had this very issue trying to show my Uncle the game, the last few weekends. He could only reliably "play with us" by doing 3 man Group Matches...which forced him into fights where maybe 10 people on the other team were some EMP clan or such (something painful that slaughtered us, I forget exactly - lol, but the point was - he did like 75 damage and was so confused, as we got rolled). But this again made us wonder - why is the game system setup so that "playing along with" a New Player is not so painful (for them) ?



4.) Finally - some game thoughts ! I have 97 total Mechs and am mostly done (the only other ones I might want to get at some point are Warhawk - heard it has an amusing PPC variant that is popular), and Night Gyr (I love the look of the Jade Kite thing with the very cool artwork / design - and the idea that it can mount many Dakka / UAC's I read - was very tempting to me, as I love ballistics ).

* the 97 number is deceptive as that includes like all 6 or 7 Riflemen, Marauder-2 assaults, and Corsairs that I got when I picked up those packs (I have spent a bunch on the game, as I really liked it and hadn't bought any other Games at all for 2019, other than Resident Evil-2 remake, so I felt I was due for some $ recreational expenditure, lol). But at this point, I'm mostly done in terms of buying new stuff. I have Premium Time and appx 35,000,000 Credits, and that's fine for me - I can just play my Hero mechs (or even the normal ones with good matches / wins) and reliably make like 275,000-575,000 credits on Wins (depending on performance and such, of course).

So I'm in good shape, in that sense. My Top Performer continues to be the Direwolf, as I can just run that thing and "print damage", seemingly. Even in games where I get blown away shortly after getting to Top on HPG or Mining Station or such....I'm usually able to dole out 500-damage or so, and maybe 1 Kill too, before my Armor and Structure was blown through (by massed enemy fire). In the more normal / longer matches where things go reasonably well for our team, I've been able to put up more huge results. The very first match I played after work - on the day the Mechella went live - I took the old Direwolf out for a spin (had not used it for a week or so, as it's fully Skilled and just chillin' for me)..... and I produced 1007 damage and 4 KMDD's, with something like 15 Component Destroyed.... I got the 500-Match Score thing on my very first match after the event - lol. I was very fortunate, of course, in how it played out - but is it just me - or is the Direwolf uniquely powerful / devastating, when the stars align (and no evil piranha gets behind me) ?


- Also, my continued Self-Imposed Restriction against using LRM's has continued, all this time. As of now, in all the matches I have played, that I can recall (I leave the possibility in like my very first night when my buddy showed me, that I may have picked some Trial Mech that had them - but I really don't think so. Pretty sure I used a Kodiak-3 Trial Mech the entire first week or so that I was being taught the game by him)..... I still haven't equipped and fired a "LURM".

I'm considering ending the "ban" and using them at some point, once I reach Tier-1, as by then I might want to eventually "See what they are all about" - since some players rave about them (and against them !) , a lot.

But...in the meantime, I've made decent use of all the other "flavors" of missiles - like SRM's, Streaks, and MRM's...as well as Clan ATM's (on a very few mechs / battles).


What I've observed seems to indicate that....well...the Clan ATM's are kind of crap, on most mechs (or I'm just not great at using them). What I find is that the circle takes a while to close on most enemies...and then when you fire, the missiles just kind of fly straight forwards, with a slight arc, but if the enemy walks back (like if they are on the edge of a ledge or cliff), the missiles often just plow right into the ground, for no damage / effect. Because there seems to be almost no tracking (compared to what I see the LURM people doing with their missile salvos). My 'best ever' game with ATM's was one time I took two sets of 12 of them on my Scorch Marauder, to go along with LB-shotguns in his arms (I tried this for literally one match, on Mining Station, I think)...and I only got like 495 damage for the battle. I mean...decent...but it wasn't like mind-blowing or anything. I later replaced the ATM's with much more reliable SRM-4's or 6's (I basically close range with Scorch and then fire the two Shotgun arms,and then the Missiles, then try to turn to look away from enemy so they hit my arms or shoulders, instead of front area).

But...lest I get distracted (sorry -this is long already)... I basically just wonder if the LURMS for either side are just better / flatly with the way the ATM's currently work ? (one other thing with ATM's that seems not to be as much of a factor with the LURMS is that they have a longer range at which they cannot do damage to the enemy mech. Like, if the enemy is under 100-something meters, the missiles hit them but just fall to the ground - they don't explode or hurt them. I don't think this is as much of a factor for the LURM guys - or rather, they seem able to fire them straight at me, at like 400 meters or such, just like my ATM's would do. In other words, there seems to be nothing the ATM's do, that the LURM's cannot also do. Yet the LURMS also have the ability to strike things much farther away, reliably, because of their "Fly up into the air, sharply, then come down on the target, with relatively good tracking / accuracy", even if the target is not in actual Line of Sight with the firing mech !

So...am I missing something with the current ATM's, or are they truly "not as versatile" as the current LRM's seem to be ?

==========

Okay...I offer such apologies for long typing here. I hadn't said anything for a while, so am making up for lost time - lol. Thanks for all the great support and kindness you have all shown to me, since I started here though. It's such a great feeling to have Mech buddies to talk about the game with

[Void Angel]

ATMs I have not used since the new missile changes, so I can't tell you much - except to make sure that you have the Targeting Decay nodes from your Sensor skill tree. You have to hold your lock for the missiles to track, and indirect locks take a long time to achieve. So with any lockon weapon, if you lose the lock because Radar Deprivation or just normal targeting decay, your missiles will simply continue their trajectory and hit the place where the lock broke. This is one of the reasons why boating nonlaser weapons with LRMs is a Bad Idea - if you're using a ballistic on a moving target at range, you need to lead them, but maintaining a lock requires your reticle to remain on their 'mech.

The Dire Wolf, and a few other 'mechs of its weight, can mount an insane amount of weaponry at the cost of extreme slowness - if you and your team can bring its firepower to bear without flanking fast movers and snipers wearing you down, the upper limit of its damage potential is awesome to behold.

The game actually used to allow two-man teams to drop into Quickplay, partly for the reason that it would allow players to play with their friends more easily. However, there is an amazing disparity in the performance that a veteran player - particularly the top players in the game - can get out of a 'mech, as compared to a newbie just learning how torso twisting works. Eventually PGI decided that the problem of two veteran players matching with a bunch of newbs and clubbing them like baby seals outweighed the benefits of allowing new players to play with friends. In related news, this means that the group queue is generally comprised of groups, and depending on how many of what size groups there are out there, you can find times and days when your small team has long queue times - for example if all the team sizes are odd-numbered, there's no way the game can fit your two-man in a match.

Lastly, Tier level matching is done on a "one up, one down," basis. Think of it as a "spread" three tiers tall; all the players must fit within these tiers. So if a player is T1, he can only be matched with a T3 at the lowest. A T2 can be matched with a T1, T2, T3, or T4 - but not at the same time. A Tier 3 is the highest Tier that can be matched with a Tier 5 player. To my knowledge, we don't know precisely how a match is "seeded" and then built. It might take the first player in the queue, or do a survey of all searching players in order to determine what tier to start at - but the resulting match will usually fall within that three-tier spread. I say "usually" because there are release valves in the algorithm in order to account for low populations in a given tier: the game starts out trying to match everyone in the match to the same tier, then goes one up/down after a certain amount of time with no match. The game can go farther than one up/down if matchmaking is really bad, but normally PGI has these release valves turned off (last I heard.) They can adjust several parameters in matchmaking on the fly.

[Rosh87]

* Update !

For everyone who followed my journey here in the thread, since I started playing MWO in earnest, on April-7th (Tier-5 bar was less than 1/2 filled, at that point)....I completed my journey (so to speak), earlier last week - on June-11th, at approximately 11:39 am...I crossed the threshold, and reached Tier-1 !!

Now...I probably played an unhealthy amount of MWO in that roughly 2-month span, but I do think I actually performed relatively well and helped my team in the majority of my matches. I have tried to gain a rough perspective on how I've progressed - but using the profile search thingy someone mentioned that's here in the forum, showed some numbers that seemed crazy. Like, when I checked last week - it showed me at like #24 for whatever "Season" we are in....but that can't be saying I am "#24 in the World" - or such, that would seem crazy.

How can we assess our relative improvements and such ? (ps - thanks to all of you who guided me along the path - it feels really good to have benefited so much from your insights) !

[TheCaptainJZ]

Rosh87, on 19 June 2019 - 05:43 AM, said:

* Update !

For everyone who followed my journey here in the thread, since I started playing MWO in earnest, on April-7th (Tier-5 bar was less than 1/2 filled, at that point)....I completed my journey (so to speak), earlier last week - on June-11th, at approximately 11:39 am...I crossed the threshold, and reached Tier-1 !!

Now...I probably played an unhealthy amount of MWO in that roughly 2-month span, but I do think I actually performed relatively well and helped my team in the majority of my matches. I have tried to gain a rough perspective on how I've progressed - but using the profile search thingy someone mentioned that's here in the forum, showed some numbers that seemed crazy. Like, when I checked last week - it showed me at like #24 for whatever "Season" we are in....but that can't be saying I am "#24 in the World" - or such, that would seem crazy.

How can we assess our relative improvements and such ? (ps - thanks to all of you who guided me along the path - it feels really good to have benefited so much from your insights) !

Within the game are leaderboards. Offline, you can use Jarl's list which does pull data from the game.
It's important to change what field it's being ranked by. The default could be number of games which doesn't say anything about performance. Be sure to sort by the other metrics to get a better feeling. Also, the leaderboards only start counting if you have 10 or more matches in a weight class. So one match in a light mech for a season won't display at all.

[Void Angel]

PS: ATMs do more damage closer in - so they're actually more versatile than LRMs, but harder to use.

[Phoenix 72]

After nursing an intense dislike of the weapon system for about 15 months, I tried out LRMs myself a couple of months ago. There were multiple lurmaggeddons during the time I have been playing and especially in T5, I had been fighting in the shade a lot. So as not to compound the problem, I ignored LRMs for a fairly long time.

And when I started to try them out, I swore to myself to not use an Assault for it, either. So I purchased a Cougar, fitted it with an ECM head, slapped 2 LRM 20s (no Artemis) and 2 HML on it and took it out for a spin. First match I got was Polar Highlands. I provided ECM cover for my Assaults and just did indirect fire until my ammo ran out, then moved in with the lasers and helped clean up the rest of the enemy. The rotation helped a lot. I felt hugely powerful. Then the next match, I got Solaris City. We won that match again, and I ended up doing something like 280 damage. And that only because I did manage to hit an Artillery Strike to some Mechs. People were able to avoid my missiles pretty much at will, despite me doing my best to fight in LOS.

And that is the exact reason why I now do not actually play LRMs regularly. They are real feast or famine weapons, at least for me. Maybe the better players can put out huge damage numbers consistently, no matter the map, but I am not one of them. On the plus side, providing ECM cover is of some benefit for the team and at least I am not taking too much armour out of play. If the team depends on a 35t Mech to tank, we are screwed anyway.

Feel free to try out the weapon system to reach your own conclusions. But do your team a favour and do it with Light and Medium Mechs while you get a handle on the system. Getting the most lurm unfriendly maps while piloting an Assault while learning the system *will* get your team salty.

[Horseman]

Rosh87, on 10 June 2019 - 10:24 AM, said:

Yes, I know it's awful, and I should be going to the gym more often - but this game has a strange addictive quality to me - such fun / tactics / variety in mechs - and it's quite unlike any "FPS" - that I've ever played. You aren't in a mere "tank" like WOT or WT...and you aren't 'just a soldier" like in most Modern Military Shooters... It has a unique Niche that is quite compelling.

I remem ber my early period of MWO. Yes, it's quite an addictive game if one can manage the difficulty curve

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I know the Rating thing is hotly debated by the community here, but from what I understand - PGI themselves have claimed it was less meant to be a "pure skill metric" and more meant to "keep the veteran pilots from regularly facing "Very New Pilots"'. This is done by making Tier-2's never able to see Tier-5's...and (correct me if I'm wrong) Tier-1's only ever facing 1's, 2's, and 3's...and no more 4's and 5's....correct ?

Correct, but it doesn't seem to be reliable and sometimes still mixes T1s and T4s in the same match.

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BUT...this attempt we had made me realize two things, and I wanted to briefly ask them here, of you guys. First... is it truly possible that there were not 22 other Humans on Earth, at that time of day (11:00 AM Eastern US Time, appx)... who were interested in playing MWO with friends / groups, such that we could not form a 12 on 12 single match !? That would seem....really concerning, if that was the case (for the Player Population), no ?

The matchmaker favors larger groups, 4-6 people tends to be the optimum size. My best guess is that it tries to fit larger groups together first, so 2-mans are only matched once everyone else had their pass. I think PGI should add some kind of "pity timer" to the queue that prioritizes your group based on the amount of time you've been waiting.

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Secondly...why is PGI not allowing a small group like just me and my buddy to play in the "QP" thing, just so we can get into the fight ? (Since you can do this anyways by timing your Quick Play search button, to some extent, it seems odd that PGI won't just let you do it naturally via the Group System). This is a normal thing in War Thunder, World of Tanks, etc.... "Platoons" of up to 3 tankers in those games, can come in and play in a normal "Quick Play" battle. There can also be Solo players there, of course, or you could have (in those cases) as many as 5 Platoons of 3 each, per side (15 on 15)... .and the game runs fine (for the most part). Why does PGI not allow something similiar here ?

Because you'd end up with pairs of experienced players dominating solo QP far too easily. AFAIK it was the case at one point and is why we have separate solo and group queues now.

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* The concern my buddy and discussed is that the game becomes Really hard to Introduce to a New Player, as you cannot "guide them along" with your main account, without having them forced into Group Q - which features (in theory) tougher and more coordinated enemy teams. We had this very issue trying to show my Uncle the game, the last few weekends. He could only reliably "play with us" by doing 3 man Group Matches...which forced him into fights where maybe 10 people on the other team were some EMP clan or such (something painful that slaughtered us, I forget exactly - lol, but the point was - he did like 75 damage and was so confused, as we got rolled). But this again made us wonder - why is the game system setup so that "playing along with" a New Player is not so painful (for them) ?

You can do 1v1 in private lobbies and on Solaris. If you want to introduce a new player and give them some basic training, that's probably a better way to go instead of dropping them into Group Queue.

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But...lest I get distracted (sorry -this is long already)... I basically just wonder if the LURMS for either side are just better / flatly with the way the ATM's currently work ? (one other thing with ATM's that seems not to be as much of a factor with the LURMS is that they have a longer range at which they cannot do damage to the enemy mech. Like, if the enemy is under 100-something meters, the missiles hit them but just fall to the ground - they don't explode or hurt them. I don't think this is as much of a factor for the LURM guys - or rather, they seem able to fire them straight at me, at like 400 meters or such, just like my ATM's would do.

So...am I missing something with the current ATM's, or are they truly "not as versatile" as the current LRM's seem to be ?

ATM minimum range is 120m. LRMs have a 180m minimum range, but it varies in mechanics - for IS LRMs it's absolute same as for ATMs, whereas Clan LRMs get a damage penalty based on how close the target is.
IMO, ATMs are best for mechs with a very limited number of missile hardpoints - you can squeeze a lot of damage out of a single ATM launcher.
It's a problematic weapon, yes. To get the most out of them, you need to stay in a fairly close range band without letting the opponent cross in your minimum range.

Rosh87, on 19 June 2019 - 05:43 AM, said:

earlier last week - on June-11th, at approximately 11:39 am...I crossed the threshold, and reached Tier-1 !!

Congratulations!

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I have tried to gain a rough perspective on how I've progressed - but using the profile search thingy someone mentioned that's here in the forum, showed some numbers that seemed crazy. Like, when I checked last week - it showed me at like #24 for whatever "Season" we are in....but that can't be saying I am "#24 in the World" - or such, that would seem crazy.

How can we assess our relative improvements and such ?

The leaderboards found here ( https://mwomercs.com...oards/quickplay ) by default sort on wins (which are a function of your match number). You should sort by Win/Loss ratio for your overall impact on your team's winrate, although Kill/Death ratio and Average Match Score are also frequently used. (note: make sure you're viewing the stats of current QP season!)
You can also look yourself up on ISEN's leaderboard - it's built out of data scraped from PGI's leaderboards, so reasonably reliable: https://leaderboard....search?u=Rosh87

Another thing I sometimes do is save my mech stats from https://mwomercs.com...stats?type=mech and compare how they change over time.

Edited by Horseman, 21 June 2019 - 02:07 AM.