406 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

Dimento Graven, on 17 October 2019 - 05:16 AM, said:

They should be where ever their skills, consistently played, rank them.

Some people play just barely well enough to slowly creep up the tiers.
Some people play consistently well enough to quickly tier up.
Some people play consistently badly enough to never go up in tiers.

Yes, the Tier system from its origination SHOULD have been more 'harsh' in its rankings, and damn near all of us constantly said as much to PGI.

For years we were ignored.

And Russ/PGI some how doesn't understand the animosity of the player base... Weird, huh?

I think you have a serious misconception of the tier system's intent. the tier system was never intended to be an ELO based ranking system. the only purpose of the tier system was to keep newer players out of the same games as more experienced players. And for the most part the tier system does an excellent job of doing that. Working as intended.

The problem isnt the tier system per say. The tier system is basically part one of what shouldve been a two part system. The problem is that theres no ELO based ranking system that kicks in once you reach tier 1.

Most other games that do something similar will have basic ranks like bronze, silver, gold, diamond, etc... and usually just playing the game enough gets you through those basic ranks. But then once you get past those basic ranks thats when they actually start ranking you on ladder using an ELO based system. The whole point of the non-ladder ranks is to ease new players into the game gradually so by the time they start getting ranked they at least know the basics of how to play.

Of course that requires that your game actually has players... because ELO cant work if you cant draw from a big enough player pool to make sure the higher end of the bellcurve always has opponents. Which is why PGI never bothered with ELO because the game's population was declining so heavily at that point that they figured it wouldve been detrimental to add ELO. You cant add more buckets if you cant fill up the buckets you already have.

I suppose its possible PGI could still make ELO work if they eliminated some of the buckets instead of dividing an already small population between quickplay, group play, solaris, scout mode, and faction play, and custom games. Youd have less buckets with more players and a bigger player pool to draw from for ELO to work properly. Certainly group queue could be rolled into faction play. And solaris/scout mode could be removed to help bolster quickplay and faction play.

Edited by Khobai, 18 October 2019 - 12:11 AM.

[Prototelis]

ORLY?

https://mwomercs.com...-1430-18aug2015
"Pilot Skill Rating - The Elo Replacement


The purpose of the new Pilot Skill Rating (PSR) system is to make your pilot skill values based more on individual performance, rather than the binary win or loss outcome of a match."

Although you are correct it is not an ELO system (it replaced elo). It was absolutely intended to be a skill rating; and it is absolutely busted

Edited by Prototelis, 17 October 2019 - 11:59 PM.

[Sjorpha]

GuardDogg, on 16 October 2019 - 12:42 PM, said:

I am starting to Agree. That the Tier system is more of a category system for types of players.
T5 = Intro pilots
T4 = To win or lose, but for the fun. Everyone is all over the map. No nascar here
T3 = To win, or lose, Team work. Tactical, everyone agrees with each other. Even if team loses because a planned was brought up, and everyone followed it, the round is fun. No nascar here.
T2 = Sorta for stats, match/damage scores. Even with they lose, stats is not important but sorta important. sorta Team work. The Sorta Tier. Hoping to make it top of stats.
T1 = More for stats. match/damage scores. Even when they lose, their stats is very important. They still win on numbers. Very high damage score. They only think about themselves, not the team. These pilots need to be top stats. They are always angry, frustrated.

So yeah. Maybe T3, T4, Or not even on a Tier system, now that would be kewl. But myself thinks about protecting team mates even if they are a-holes. Depending where they are on map.

If that was true the system would be ok. While I don't agree with your way of describing types of players, and your obvious disdain for people whose only crime is being good at something, it would be fine if their performance actually put them in those different separate tiers.

This is how it really is though:

Tier 2-5: New players on their way to tier 1, and a few extremely bad players.
Tier 1: everyone else, probably more than 90% of the players.

Thats the problem. The upwards bias is extreme, everyone gets to tier 1. You don't need to be good, you don't need to be competitive, you don't even need to be average. You can be in the bottom 30%, pretend the game is tabletop and role play in stock mechs, you will still be tier 1 sooner or later.

Edited by Sjorpha, 18 October 2019 - 02:35 AM.

[Kroete]

Prototelis, on 16 October 2019 - 07:24 PM, said:

That's not an attempt to belittle you; the length of time you have played the game is completely irrelevant. You simple just are not good at the game, and should not be playing in the highest tier. It is just as unfair to you as it is to everyone else matched with and against you.

After the time you have played the game, you should know that the tiers are not ranks but only levels.
Everyone can be level 5 (tier1) if he gets enough xp, only the time to get there is different.

Maybe the term "tier" is what lots of people let missunderstand the system?

Edited by Kroete, 18 October 2019 - 03:03 AM.

[Dr Cara Carcass]

FRAGTAST1C, on 16 October 2019 - 10:22 PM, said:

I think the misunderstanding can be eradicated by removing the ".... not deserving" part when talking about reaching T1 and simply saying, "...not even planning to reach". If you'd consider an analogy, if we take those 500 MS challenges, you need to plan to get that challenge done whereas reaching T1 can be achieved simply by playing long enough.

I dont get the analogy, the 500MS also happens so often, you dont plan for ot, at the end of the evening when you stop palying you have had a good few of those games. It just happenms.

[dario03]

MischiefSC, on 17 October 2019 - 01:40 PM, said:

In fact I think I managed a through armor crit.

[Sjorpha]

To those saying something like: "you're misunderstanding the system, it's only supposed to be an xp bar etc..."

The tier system/psr has one purpose, one reason to exist, and that is to provide the data needed for the matchmaker to create two roughly balanced teams in each match. The is no other reason to have it, if it doesn't do that job it's completely pointless.

An xp bar leveling like we have now doesn't do this job. Saying that the system is supposed to be that way is exactly the same as saying "it's not supposed to work". That's nonsense, despite not working now it was clearly made to replace elo and be the new basis for matchmaking. While pgi might have predicted and designed the upwards drifting effect in general I don't believe they predicted the extent of the current situation with almost every player being in tier 1 and practically random matchmaking as a result.

Even if it's true, and the tier system was indeed designed to not work as a matchmaking basis, that still leaves us with completely dysfunctional, you could say non-existent even, matchmaking. The problem isn't dimished whether it's there by design or not.

In short: it would be pretty nice if the game had a matchmaker, regardless of why it doesn't.

Edited by Sjorpha, 18 October 2019 - 06:20 AM.

[Dimento Graven]

Khobai, on 17 October 2019 - 11:49 PM, said:

I think you have a serious misconception of the tier system's intent. the tier system was never intended to be an ELO based ranking system. the only purpose of the tier system was to keep newer players out of the same games as more experienced players. And for the most part the tier system does an excellent job of doing that. Working as intended.
...

Nope, sorry, you've got a slight misconception (though you are partially correct).

The PSR system replaced the Elo system, a system that almost everyone hated for various reasons:

#1 - not reducing the perceived number of stomps people were receiving
#2 - for being COMPLETELY obscure, nor ever REALLY explained well, no one ever really knew what their elo was
#3 - elo doesn't work well when applied to RANDOMLY derived teams
#4 - AND as you mentioned not keeping "new" players away from experienced players

With elo, you could have had a GREAT match, 1000+ damage, 8 or 9 kills, etc, and if the rest of your team sucked balls and still managed to potato their way to a loss, your elo went down regadless of your great performance.

People HATED the concept and wanted a performance based system.

Unfortunately what PGI delivered us was something so 'light' on negative hits to the PSR for poor performance that it's possible for players who aren't actually Tier 1 to eventually get there.

EDIT: What I have come to realize is that in a PERFORMANCE based ranking "winning" and "losing" should have zero effect on the 'bump' up/down you receive.

If you've just managed to get 1000+ damage, 8 or 9 kills, with all the spotting, targeting, and other bonuses, your skill increase should go up the same amount win or lose.

That's not the system we have.

If your performance is regularly 200 (or less points of damage), no kills (and/or very few KMDD), no spotting, targeting, or other bonuses, your score should go down THE SAME amount regardless of whether the rest of the team won or lost. PERFORMANCE WISE, win or lose, that 1000+ damage and those kills and everything else you did, is equal value as the player on the opposite team doing the same thing.

Unfortunately the current system puts weight on (adds PSR) based on the rest of your team's performance.

That's what is broken about PSR and that's how bad players can slowly climb their way out of Tier 5, 4...

Edited by Dimento Graven, 18 October 2019 - 06:48 AM.

[Inatu Elimor]

justcallme A S H, on 15 October 2019 - 02:49 AM, said:

It's always been possible. As long as in your first say, 10 games you:

- Win at least 3 out of the first 5 matches.
- Win a further 6 out of the first 10 matches (total)
- Average at least 350 match score

You will make Tier 3. For an average player, getting 350 match score in Tier4/T5 matches is pretty easy. I was getting well north of that but the principle is the same as users in Tier 4/5 are only outputting 100 match score.

Easy to see how it works and the whole point of bonus/higher EXP during the first matches. To move players that are average or of above average skill, away from those that are super low skill.

I don' t get the point. Why don't you assist the lower tiers at risk loosing game with your high performing skills? What matters ? You could help those peeps so much. What else would be the use of you high performer getting into low tier games only to proof your so good ??

Edited by Inatu Elimor, 18 October 2019 - 09:20 AM.

[Red Potato Standing By]

If my memory serves me, I think he has in the past helped new people with his knowledge. I think he was doing weekly drops where he would give people pointers and such( as long as they were serious on learning of course) I could be wrong though and thinking of someone else my memory is hazy in my old age...lol

[Prototelis]

Ash and a lot of other highly skilled peeps have invested a lot of time giving good tips and training people in this game.

The sad fact is most of the bads left playing the game don't believe they have anything to learn and will continue to more or less be bad on purpose.

[John Bronco]

+1 I did the Ash training night at the beginning of this year when I was trying to potato less. He and the other experts were quite helpful to the class of noobs.

[thievingmagpi]

Inatu Elimor, on 18 October 2019 - 09:18 AM, said:

I don' t get the point. Why don't you assist the lower tiers at risk loosing game with your high performing skills? What matters ? You could help those peeps so much. What else would be the use of you high performer getting into low tier games only to proof your so good ??

you must be unaware of the extraordinary manner in which a large amount of people who play this game are absolutely against any kind of improvement.

[Dimento Graven]

thievingmagpi, on 18 October 2019 - 10:12 AM, said:

you must be unaware of the extraordinary manner in which a large amount of people who play this game are absolutely against any kind of improvement.

OMFG, too true.

Crimany just watching others give the most simple attempts at providing advice in VOIP, or attempting to call a match typically results in crankitastic responses...

[Kroete]

Sjorpha, on 18 October 2019 - 06:19 AM, said:

To those saying something like: "you're misunderstanding the system, it's only supposed to be an xp bar etc..."

The only purpose is to divert the new players from the olders and try to match at least the classes a little better together, but it has nothing to do with skill or ranks or performance.

Thats why i said the term "tier" let the players missunderstand the system,
there is no performance based system for matchmaking in mwo.

Its a typical pgi:
Trying to invent the wheel again but with minimal effort and minimum viability.
"Forgett flat-less bycicle tyres and just use our new tree disc!",
could be some slogan from them, if they would be promoting.

Edited by Kroete, 18 October 2019 - 11:02 AM.

[Prototelis]

Kroete, on 18 October 2019 - 10:49 AM, said:

The only purpose is to divert the new players

Uhm no. Go read the original news post about PSR, I linked it.

[Kroete]

Prototelis, on 18 October 2019 - 10:56 AM, said:

Uhm no. Go read the original news post about PSR, I linked it.

Thats what the matchmaker was intended to do but not build for,
its only purpose is to divide the old and new and try to bring 3 of each class,
because it cant do more how its build.

The real questions are:
Did they hoped it can do more or did they know it cant do more but hoped noone will find?
Whats more worse?

Edited by Kroete, 18 October 2019 - 11:45 AM.

[Prototelis]

Kroete, on 18 October 2019 - 11:30 AM, said:

Thats what the matchmaker was intended to do but not build for,

It is exactly what it was built for. It's in the post.

[Mystere]

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Quote

Player Skill Rating (PSR) is a player experience score. The intent is to protect new players from playing the most experienced players on the battlefield before they understand the game mechanics

[Prototelis]

Oh thats cute. The wiki written after the fact by not PGI.