226 replies to this topic

[FRAGTAST1C]

w4ldO, on 17 January 2020 - 12:06 AM, said:

stats dont draw the whole picture in a game where so much randomness can happen to you or your team or the opponent

you might get paired up with 10 exceptional players in your team. your KD goes down, WL goes up
or you could face those 10 players in the opposing team which will lead to both your stats going down
or you might happen to be the best player on the field and drop a 2k dmg match
there is no ELO calculation anywhere. stats used by jarl does not factor in the skill of your teammates or your opponents

as long as this game does not have a proper matchmaker, this discussion is a bland topic

The Jarl's List isn't a calculation of the skill of the Match-Maker. It's the calculation of your personal skill.

If you're good, you'll have a good ratio in any stat. That's why the top players in that list will perform well in any match in almost any mech and loadout.

If you're going to bring up the probabilities of teammates' skills and placing you in evenly/unevenly balanced teams, then you're looking at it wrong.

[GoatHILL]

I like Jarl's. I fit in about where I thought I would.

I played GQ till it died our group there was a couple guys that were a good bit better than me and a couple guys that were not as good as me so I was the 1st to give up weight.

I tried to fill a tank roll ( do as much dmg as I could while taking as much fire as possible) give the better guys time to get their dmg in while also trying to keep the other guys alive as long as possible.

[Dee Eight]

There's also the player who grinds NOTHING but one weight class... then will bark orders (or salt) on comms and when its pointed out that he's wrong... he'll play the "are you #th on the heavy leader board..." card for example as justification. If ALL you play is one weight class and you play hundreds of matches per month on only one account... and the default sorting of the leaderboard is by total wins... they'll end up ranked pretty high even with a barely above average W/L ratio... same way they floated their way up to Tier 1 originally.

[PhoenixFire55]

_Magno_, on 16 January 2020 - 12:16 PM, said:

At this point, I was expecting you to chime in.

I am not mad whatsoever. Please don't make dismissive assumptions to sound grand.

In all honesty your thread did get turned into a "mad coz bad" thread by the usual suspects. The same baddies, bringing same excuses and the same arguments that has been proven utterly wrong dozens and dozens of times before, yet here they are again, doing classical trump and repeating their silly lies over and over in hopes somebody will believe them.

What I do want to point out in your initial post, is that for some reason you assume that people in the 90% don't share their accounts, only play meta sniping from the backrow using teammates as meatshields. And I do have bad news for you indeed, most high percentile players do the exact same things as low percentile players, i.e. play all mechs including some silly loadouts and generally play this game for fun. Because if highly skilled players want to get serious they play in comp, QP is just for doing silly stuff and skilling up mechs.

According to Jarl's I'm a career 99%+ player. I don't share my accounts with anyone, but I have 400+ mechs, all skilled via actually skilling them up in QP, I play a lot of them regularly, all the way from what can be considered "meta" Fafnirs and Piranhas to trash mechs such as Vindicator and Firestarter. And you know what? Doesn't stop me from producing at least 350 average matchscore even in trash mechs, because trash mechs are usually the ones with the biggest quirks, and if played to their strength suddenly they aren't trash at all. But it takes a little bit of brain to figure out said strengths and respective loadouts and tactics. You think Viper is junk? Well, according to the mech stats page my Vipers have between 1.4 and 2.3 W/L and between 2.6 and 3.4 KDR. That is pure solo QP, since 99% of the matches I've played in MWO are solo QP. MystLynx? ... MLX-G (the only one I own), 3.29 W/L, 6.00 KDR.

Oh and for the record ... sitting behind teammates using them as meatshields doesn't boost your average score. Because in order to boost your score you still gotta win, and that behavior tanks W/L rather than improves it.

Long story short ... a high percentile player isn't any different from a low percentile player in terms of what he does in the game. There are of course cases of players artificially boosting their rank by playing only meta mechs or playing only few mechs they are good at, but then again, there are extremely few of them, simple because it is outright boring and can't realistically be sustained for more than a month or two. Plus, people who actually play the game should know all these cases by now given how low population is.

[PhoenixFire55]

Johny Rocket, on 16 January 2020 - 02:55 PM, said:

I wish Jarl's List would weigh KMDD more than a Kill. Yeah I know its reflected in the Score but the score in game doesn't weight it as much as a kill. You run by and shoot a guy once and get the glory while the poor sod who did the work doesn't.

First. It doesn't matter. If all you do is sneak those killing shots without actually doing significant damage your W/L will drop. Jarl's perfectly reflect that.

Second. KMDD is just as meaningless. A lurm-boat can farm 500 points of damage of the front armor of an Atlas that a light is gonna kill with 70 dmg into the back, making all that damage into the front utterly worthless.

Edited by PhoenixFire55, 17 January 2020 - 02:17 AM.

[PhoenixFire55]

VonBruinwald, on 16 January 2020 - 04:21 PM, said:

Couple more qualifiers for you:

• Plays on a potatoe
  
• Disabled

Some people aren't bad by their own fault. Unless you consider 'prioritising food and rent over a new gaming rig' self inflicted.

I've played on a potatoe for quite some time, when it started dieing up to about 15-18 FPS when you were getting shot at my ranking dropped indeed ... to mere 94% percentile player in December 2016, which you can see in Jarl's. I've bought a new PC in January 2017 and since then both my W/L and KDR significantly improved, but the difference in % you lose due to playing on a potatoe is marginal.

As for being disabled ... I have a unit-mate who stopped playing a while back, he had one healthy arm and a stump. He could only play a one-button-builds like a dual-AC20/dual-Gauss Jager/Catapult back in the day and alike, but boy did he master those mechs indeed. Needless to say, I'm easily a 90%+ player, but I wouldn't bet on myself in a 1v1 against him in a similar mech.

A lurm-boat I can probably play with my feet instead of hands and still rank in 90%+ zone.

Edited by PhoenixFire55, 17 January 2020 - 02:56 AM.

[PhoenixFire55]

_Magno_, on 16 January 2020 - 04:32 PM, said:

Here's a legitimate question about getting better.

4 games in a row. I go out with decent mechs.

4 games in a row I stay close with the team, am patient, and watching out for targets, looking for soft spots, positioning well, not getting caught in artillery strikes, etc..

4 games in a row, comms telling players to be careful over extending.

4 games in a row 2 mechs on our side go down immediately. We're on our heels, and 4 games in a row it gets down to 4 v 9 and then its surrounded and just go down swinging.

How would "good" players recover from these conditions in game?

Because these conditions put you in positions to:

lose
limit damage output
limit kills when dying to focus fire

I know there is still plenty to learn and master in this game, its why I love it, but often times there are conditions that are very difficult to surmount for the purposes of protecting a good ranking.

1. Your understanding of "decent" might not necesserily correlate with them actually being decent. You need to be specific.
2. Staying close to the team isn't good positioning. It is barely acceptable positioning at best.
3. Being patient isn't necesserily good either. In fact I would say its counter-productive in most cases. Waiting till stuff happens instead of making stuff happen yourself the way you want it to happen.
4. Talking to people who don't listen doesn't achieve anything either. Instead of trying in vain to reason with the brainless yolo'ers you should focus on how to exploit their yolo'ing in your and your team's favor.
5. Losing team doesn't limit your damage output. In fact its the winning team that limits your damage output. On a losing team you have to do damage yourself, make kills yourself and generally carry yourself. But of course if you wait for stuff to happen sticking with the similarly passive team your damage output will indeed be limited.

There is only that much stupid one player can overcome on his team. But some players can overcome more than others because they are able to adapt to any situation and maximize their output. The amount of advice that can be given here is nearly limitless, so unless you want to ask something specific I suggest you browse the forum, its all have already been said many times. And while browsing I would also suggest you pay more attention to the advice given by the people up in the 90%+ of Jarl's, coz yeah ...

[PhoenixFire55]

_Magno_, on 16 January 2020 - 06:06 PM, said:

Well, that's pretty much what happened in 3 of these 4 matches. I had range builds, positioned on the side of the murderball, kept eyes out for true visibility movement, saw said movement, informed the team, the team does not respond.

That's the mistake No.1. Expecting your team to not be useless.

_Magno_, on 16 January 2020 - 06:06 PM, said:

In two games, warned that we were going to be flanked by a lance, we need to contract back into a specific zone and form a fire line.

Going back is generally a bad idea. Because if your frontmost mechs are already engaged they can't go back and couldn't care less about any flanking enemies because they quite frankly already have enemies right in their face.

_Magno_, on 16 January 2020 - 06:06 PM, said:

Team keeps marching on, my mech is not fast enough to keep pace, and I either got singled out or cut off and surrounded.

There is no mech in the game that isn't fast enough to keep up with QP dynamics. Unless you put 180 engine in your 100t mechs. But thats on you.

_Magno_, on 16 January 2020 - 06:06 PM, said:

1 game I got too fixated on shooting at a target and didn't watch the minimap to see that the oppossing side re positioned to single me out.

Another game I was in deep zoom and an artey striek was placed on or behind me and couldn not see the smoke and no team members informed me of the smoke.

These are your individual mistakes that you seem to already be aware of, so just fix those. Being aware of your surroundings, be it friendlies, enemies, strikes, uavs and whatnot is very important. If advanced zoom gets in the way of that, then stop using it.

[PhoenixFire55]

Kodyn, on 16 January 2020 - 11:49 PM, said:

Ricky, you are just intent on crushing my soul today, aren't you? First destroying my nascar theory, now I'm a potato.

We are all potatoes to someone ...

[w4ldO]

FRAGTAST1C, on 17 January 2020 - 01:26 AM, said:

The Jarl's List isn't a calculation of the skill of the Match-Maker. It's the calculation of your personal skill.
If you're good, you'll have a good ratio in any stat. That's why the top players in that list will perform well in any match in almost any mech and loadout.
If you're going to bring up the probabilities of teammates' skills and placing you in evenly/unevenly balanced teams, then you're looking at it wrong.

Jarl does not display skill. rather it displays what numbers you can manage to archive using your personal skillset (stats are cheeseable afterall)
top players perform well in any match? what about when they face other top players? one team has to lose for the other be able to win, remember that
in a world where we had a proper matchmaker with even teams, top player would only face other top players.
the expected result of that would be top players having a 1.0 W/L

Aidan Crenshaw, on 17 January 2020 - 04:22 AM, said:

Correction: Winning as much matches as losing results in a W/L ratio of 1

math checks out, corrected. dunno why i was messing up metrics

Edited by w4ldO, 17 January 2020 - 05:05 AM.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

w4ldO, on 17 January 2020 - 03:55 AM, said:

the expected result of that would be top players having a .50 W/L

Correction: Winning as much matches as losing results in a W/L ratio of 1

[iLLcapitan]

w4ldO, on 17 January 2020 - 03:55 AM, said:

Jarl does not display skill. rather it displays what numbers you can manage to archive using your personal skillset (stats are cheeseable afterall)
top players perform well in any match? what about when they face other top players? one team has to lose for the other be able to win, remember that
in a world where we had a proper matchmaker with even teams, top player would only face other top players.
the expected result of that would be top players having a .50 W/L

Forest -> Trees

+1 for SWOL power ratings only

[Horseman]

PhoenixFire55, on 17 January 2020 - 02:49 AM, said:

There is no mech in the game that isn't fast enough to keep up with QP dynamics. Unless you put 180 engine in your 100t mechs.

It may not be the speed as much as the choice of pathing .
I've seen players spending excessive time to find "safe" routes, oblivious to the fact that this took them out of the fight for way too long.
Sometimes you have to accept that a riskier route may result in taking some damage (including leg damage if it involves dropping off a cliff) but is necessary to put you in a position where your mech will be contributing towards the match outcome faster. It's all a math game in the end, and timing is part of the equation.

w4ldO, on 17 January 2020 - 03:55 AM, said:

Jarl does not display skill.

Objection, your honor. Performance is a product of a player's knowledge and skill. That argument is, therefore, invalid.

Quote

it displays what numbers you can manage to archive using your personal skillset

No except yes? Um, okay.

Quote

(stats are cheeseable afterall)

It's quite difficult to cheese WLR.

Quote

top players perform well in any match?

Yes. That doesn't mean they win every match, mind you, but even on a loss they're typically one of (and usually, THE) top performers on their team. They usually don't die like a **** two minutes into the game either.

Quote

what about when they face other top players?

In a typical QP game the worst players tend to die earliest. You can expect both top players to be skilled and cautious enough to be among the last 3-4 mechs on their respective teams.

Quote

one team has to lose for the other be able to win, remember that in a world where we had a proper matchmaker with even teams, top player would only face other top players. the expected result of that would be top players having a .50 W/L

slap with a Piranha
You're confusing win/loss ratio (which is what Jarl's displays) with a percentile win/loss rate . They are two different things.

Edited by Horseman, 17 January 2020 - 05:38 AM.

[PhoenixFire55]

w4ldO, on 17 January 2020 - 03:55 AM, said:

Jarl does not display skill. rather it displays what numbers you can manage to archive using your personal skillset (stats are cheeseable afterall)
top players perform well in any match? what about when they face other top players? one team has to lose for the other be able to win, remember that
in a world where we had a proper matchmaker with even teams, top player would only face other top players.
the expected result of that would be top players having a .50 W/L

The fact that top players do not necesserily face other top players does not mean match is unbalanced. And given the population there might not be enough top players left to fill one match, let alone do it regularly.

[RickySpanish]

Kodyn, on 16 January 2020 - 11:49 PM, said:

Ricky, you are just intent on crushing my soul today, aren't you? First destroying my nascar theory, now I'm a potato.

In the eyes of the almighty matchmaker, we're all potatoes!

[Horseman]

RickySpanish, on 17 January 2020 - 05:18 AM, said:

In the eyes of the almighty matchmaker, we're all potatoes!

+++Divide by potato error+++

[w4ldO]

Horseman, on 17 January 2020 - 04:30 AM, said:

Yes. That doesn't mean they win every match, mind you, but even on a loss they're typically one of (and usually, THE) top performers on their team. They usually don't die like a **** two minutes into the game either.
In a typical QP game the worst players tend to die earliest. You can expect both top players to be skilled and cautious enough to be among the last 3-4 mechs on their respective teams.

i was talking about matches that are filled to the brim with top players. someones gotta die first, someones gotta lose.
you should not quote single sentences and act like each stands as a seperate statement. context is important

Horseman, on 17 January 2020 - 04:30 AM, said:

You're confusing win/loss (which is what Jarl's displays) with a percentile win/loss They are two different things.

strange how i messed up the metrics. yet you were still able to understand my message. only for you to completely neglect my message.

PhoenixFire55, on 17 January 2020 - 04:55 AM, said:

The fact that top players do not necesserily face other top players does not mean match is unbalanced. And given the population there might not be enough top players left to fill one match, let alone do it regularly.

it does mean a match is unbalance. if there is a gap in personal skill level the outcome of a match becomes predictable.
top players should face only top players
all players should face only those players of a similar skills. that's what matchmakers typically do.
if you'd outdo your foes and friedlies on a constant basis you would rank up into another group
if there are not enough players of equal skillset the matchmaker should balance out the teams. right now 24 players get lumped into a match, first come - first served style. no team balancing at all. this WILL skew stats.
group queing with good players will boost your W/L but lower your avg. MS. the same is true if this pairing happens randomly via solo Q.

if there was a proper matchmaker with proper skill groups. you could consinder the top performers within the top group to be the best players in this game

Quote

we dont have enough players to support proper matchmaking groups

sounds like a hen <-> egg problem to me

edit: stupid forum software

Edited by w4ldO, 17 January 2020 - 07:22 AM.

[John Bronco]

w4ldO, on 17 January 2020 - 06:53 AM, said:

if there was i proper matchmaker with proper skill groups. you could consinder the top performers within the top group to be the best players in this

If only there were like tournaments where the best players could form teams and play controlled matches against each other.

That would be neat.

[w4ldO]

BlaizerP, on 17 January 2020 - 07:20 AM, said:

If only there were like tournaments where the best players could form teams and play controlled matches against each other.

That would be neat.

yeah we should have those regularly. and the finals could be played on a convention like once a year or so.

[PhoenixFire55]

w4ldO, on 17 January 2020 - 06:53 AM, said:

top players should face only top players
all players should face only those players of a similar skills. that's what matchmakers typically do

That is your opinion and nothing more. A matchmaker that produces close, balanced matches is a proper matchmaker. Distribution of player skill across teams doesn't matter.