490 replies to this topic

[JackHarkon]

I play this game since 2016 constantly. 1.162 h playtime; 5782 Matches; 2946 won; 2836 lost.
With the new system will I not be able to move up to tier 1 again. Furthermore with the combined queue one horror match follows the next. From 8 Games today I have lost 7. You say your goal is to make the teamplay more important. But how, if people are not respondiong to commands, because they are connected via discord and simply do not care for the team? How, if i get matched with players that just want to cheese and make a group drop with 4 urbis? It would be nice to leave the players a choice, if they want to drop in group matches or not.
You allready ****** up big time in the past, like the laser nerv or the time it took you to balance IS and Clan mechs. But this crap is too much. I will not play under this circumstances this game anymore. It ins current state is it just pain and no fun. And for pain I have the real live.

[Brom96]

Brauer, on 05 June 2020 - 08:21 AM, said:

The purest measure of personal performance is whether or not you are winning or losing. Anything else is subject to being gamed or could improperly weight different actions in game.

My issue is this - a single player can have limited to no effect on the match. Again, it is team that can drag a single player down through its incompetence. I will be honest, while I do see some games where there is coordination in randomly created team, as the teams are in this game, in most cases there is zero or almost zero communication and coordination is mostly instinctive -based on the experience and expectation that other will have the same experience, i.e. they played before and have seen what goes and what doesn't on each of the maps...

Well, good luck with that. No matter the number of matches, you will see players who have good personal score being damaged by teams they play with and the only way to ensure you have a good score will be to team up with someone, creating groups and clans. In the end, the game will strongly favor playing in groups, not leaving the place for single players, which will, I fear, make game more unfriendly for new players. Past month had shown me that group people usually are not better then the average single player, do not communicate over game voip, or do it rarely, and have poor understanding of the tactics required for the maps. Or in general. On the other end of the spectrum are the groups that leave the rest of the team to die and do not interact with them in any manner, playing their own game, whether the eventual outcome is a loss or a win.

So, we end with the team ratings, not personal ones, because the personal achievement in the match is extremely outweighed by playing of the others. Do not call it player skill rating because it ain't.

[Tranderas]

I would prefer that doing particularly poorly on a win lowers your PSR and doing particularly well on a loss raises it, but besides that this is the first time since march of last year you've done something even halfway good so thumbs up

[ERSmurf]

@All: I am not at all sure about this as a whole. I 100% agree that something needs to be done, but unless there is massive variation in everyone's match scores, this is going to turn out really weird as follows...

Player A has an avarage match score of 223 and variation of +-25... Unless he is able to win about 80% of the time, he will go down.

Player B has an avarage match score of 276 and variation of +-25... Unless he loses over 80% of the time, he will go up.

Player C has an avarage match score of 250, but variation of +-100... Whether he goes up, down or stays in place does not actually depend on him / her, but rather whether the team wins or loses... or ties...

Which leads to the following questions to PGI:

What happens in the (admittedly very rare) cases of ties? Or is the system being altered in a manner in which a tie can no longer happen under any circumstances? What happens in the future, if the end score is, for example, 11-11, when the clock runs out?

Additional note... I checked some of my very recent screenshots... and the result was that I have had a low of 39 and a high of 393... and over a longer time, I know I have been down to something like 13 at worst and have had some highs of 499 and and 498 on my main account. In other words, my results are very, very volatile. Is that typical to anyone else at all???

[Leidulfr]

Therax, on 04 June 2020 - 09:55 PM, said:

...boating AMS can significantly increase a players match score, but I am unconvinced that it contributes to a win to the same degree that it boosts match score.

My Purifier Kitfox definitely can get some inflated match scores just because of the AMS, irregardless of the PTW high mounted lasers. And, what's funny about AMS is that if it is doing work, you and your team are already benefiting from it, because you aren't taking as much damage from missiles, so why the hell does it affect match score so heavily? Earning additional CBills and XP from the win is enough of a positive gain from AMS. It takes zero skill to use. It is automated and makes me further question the authenticity of the MechWarrior universe. If we've got systems that can automatically identify and take down enemy targets within an instant, why are we putting potatoes in silly legged humanoid tanks with cockpits with glass and no rear view camera, and low slung weapons? I assume it's pulled in from the table top and that's its nonsensical reasoning along with everything else (please, mech dads, don't try to explain it all to me; I don't care; it's fantasy). Tangent aside, AMS is not a guaranteed aid to you or your team due to never knowing what you're dropping against nor where, whereas, if you're skilled enough to put them to use, taking additional heat sinks, weapons, armor, and accompanying skill tree points will always be an aid to you and your team.

[atrosone]

I want to lift this one up because it's the only way I've seen suggested that actually stands up to the litmus test of sum-zero (to the PSR, anyway):

Kamikaze Viking, on 04 June 2020 - 08:43 PM, said:

This got me thinking, though. If the PSR change from a match is relative to the other PSR's, should not rank itself be relative? I've heard the number 60% as the amount of the active player-base that is rank 1. Relative ranks would seem to protect to anomalies in the PSR, such as drop-out rates, which I'm going to guess disproportionately effect the lower ranks. (No data on this, it's just a general observation from other games: people doing poorly are more likely to quit.)

Anyway, I wanted to give another voice to relative calculations.

[Brom96]

I assume you talk about match score? It depend son what happens in the game, of course, and games were gone all over the place since the merge. Just had a win where whole team worked fine and we stomped the enemy. My match score is 389. Not much but I would be satisfied with that. I had a match with 0 score, since postman came to the door and I was killed on spawn point in 30th second of the match. Or I had 126, since, for whatever reason, team decided to spread all over canyon, and we were hunted one by one within 2 mins from the start.

[Snowhawk]

Brauer, on 05 June 2020 - 08:21 AM, said:

The purest measure of personal performance is whether or not you are winning or losing. Anything else is subject to being gamed or could improperly weight different actions in game.

Yes... that's true for games like Tennis (1 v1 ) where your personal Performance is indeed crucial. Here in Mwo you are one of 12 Players.... and unfortunately there are Epic-fail-Teams which can not even be saved by Proton or Bowser. This Teams will soon decide your psr.

[OneTeamPlayer]

Cluster Fox, on 05 June 2020 - 08:35 AM, said:

Unpopular opinion.

I was reluctant at first, but the more I think about it, the more I think Win up/Loss down is fine. With one caveat.
Because:
- This is an average over time. Don't think of it as single match outcome.
- As a secondary objective to get better teamplay, this is done correctly.

Caveat. This system only works if the middle value (250) is exactly the average matchscore for the whole population. Even then, using absolute matchscore is flawed since someone with constant (say) 255 match score will always trend upwards, while 245 would trend downwards - this pushes people to the extremes.
The system would be fair if it was using a factor of the average score of the team from a match, rather than a fixed value.

Example:
WIN
0.0-0.4 Average team score : no change
0.4-0.8 Average team score : + 1
0.8-1.2 Average team score : + 2 (Zero sum here)
1.2-1.6 Average team score : + 3
1.6+ Average team score : + 5

LOSS
0.0-0.4 Average team score : - 5
0.4-0.8 Average team score : - 3
0.8-1.2 Average team score : - 2 (Zero sum here)
1.2-1.6 Average team score : - 1
1.6+ Average team score : no change

This results in a relative movement of all players based on team performance, effectively sorting out players inside the match, and teams against one another rather than moving them based on fixed values based on outside factors.

As for why I think not going up on loss / down on wins is fine:

Ability to go up on losses would skew some builds / drivers downwards or upwards.
What is usually the last mech standing on a loss? Usually a light, other times a LRM boat that's been ignored or an ECM poker. What is usually the last mech standing on the winning side? I honestly can't see that big a trend.

Example with the two extremes:
Having a high match score in a light for a loss is relatively easy, since lights arguably depend less on teamplay, however they can influence the outcome of a match heavily when used right.
On the flip side, assaults are the most dependent on teamplay. They usually have to use the team around them and sometimes follow the general trend of the team. Their score is more affected by W/L.

I think this may be one of the only suggestions that:

1. Does not try to fundamentally change the system back to the old system through giving psr to the losing team, something PGI said the specifically aren't planning to do

2. Keeps the underlying intent to make PSR based on team based metrics while making accommodations for variations in said teams.

While the majority of the posters are determined to color outside the lines here, good on you for putting up a change that you want to see in a format which just might be considered and implemented.

To everyone else who is still starting from the ground up with statements like "win/loss shouldn't matter here's a system that is literally opposite of what you've said your intention to implement is" do you seriously think PGI is about to dump the system that took them over a month to test in a game they openly state is on its last legs?

[Slothasaurus]

I don't think W/L outcome should be weighted so heavily vs one's performance. Yes winning or losing should still count and have value but just not as much. Putting skill and all other things aside I have seen quite a few matches where there might be 1-2 AFK players and a disconnect. That puts one team in quite a hole to start the match at. A pilot on that team could go out and play really good in the loss, but under the new system proposed they will only end up ranking-wise right where they are at. They should not be penalized for things out of their control like other players being AFK or disconnects.

[kapusta11]

Kamikaze Viking, on 04 June 2020 - 08:43 PM, said:

Game 1:
24 bottom 50% players in the game

Game 2:
24 Top 20% players in the game

Error: even the top player in game 1 != bottom player in game 2 skill wise.

I'm exaggerating of course but you get the idea.

Edited by kapusta11, 05 June 2020 - 09:54 AM.

[Leia]

So, I'm pretty new, though my husband, Leidulfr, had played for a long time. I thought it would be cool to play something together while we've been kinda stuck due to the virus crap. He showed me some websites to help out. I'm already decent at FPS games, so my experience here has been... weird.

It definitely feels like the skill gaps are massive between players and I get that the Tiers will be reset, but is it going to change anything? I can gather from this post and the past one that the players that have been around for a while know the current system has been bad for a long time. I can also see that the one you're proposing probably will not work. My husband is frustrated and probably won't play for much longer. I can see he doesn't really enjoy the game anymore. He likes to play the big slow mechs, but feels like he can't really anymore. I've seen him land way away from the team and be ganged up on by an opposing group so many times. He can do really good with the "good" mechs like the MCII-B that I like a lot, but it bores him. We'll probably go back to EFT soon. I'm just addicted to skilling up my mechs right now I think. Trying to knock out the events can be fun to me too, but I have nothing compared to my husband. He has like 100 mechs.

I'm only Tier 2 so far after about two months of playing pretty much daily, but, just look at these two examples:

Do you really think I should be bunched up with these players? This effort would keep me in place. I see games like this a lot. I do pretty good compared to the others, but lose. I only took a screenshot of this one I think because it was the first time I did over one thousand damage and I wanted to show off to Leif.



And, look at this one. It was a really close match and I did even better, probably because I was on the slightly better side, but why did it put ME against a whole bunch of players who literally just started playing? And, if I had not been on the side that did win because of me, they would have lost. If I had not been in this match at all, my side probably would have lost, unless someone else took my place who would've carried equally as well. Or, if I had been on the other team and still lost, I would not have moved up to play with players I belong with. The system should be better at balancing the teams. Way better. This felt just wrong and may have discouraged those new players from ever returning, even with it being as close as it was. I get that there aren't very many players left for the game to deal with, but it could have at least put some of the cadets on my side.

[VonBruinwald]

ERSmurf, on 05 June 2020 - 09:19 AM, said:

Additional note... I checked some of my very recent screenshots... and the result was that I have had a low of 39 and a high of 393... and over a longer time, I know I have been down to something like 13 at worst and have had some highs of 499 and and 498 on my main account. In other words, my results are very, very volatile. Is that typical to anyone else at all???

You're looking at the wrong numbers, most players will have outliers. What you need to look as is the standard deviations.

~70% of your games will occur within that first deviation.

[DaniBot]

Hey, i just want to thank you for making these changes transparent and in dialogue with the community.

Now i am super corious how things will feel after a few weeks when people get into their Tier sections.


And to all those sweaty +90% bois out there: Be nice when you get those first allignment matches with the "aces" :potato:


[ö.ö]7

[Omegasys]

I really dislike the idea of a skilled player placed on an unskilled team losing PSR for something that ultimately wasn't their fault. Meaning no matter how hard he tried or how good he does as an individual, he will still either lose rank or fail to gain any, so he just get's stuck in a loop of being with unskilled players until he gets lucky enough with his team to win enough to leave the tier. Either that or that player has to teach EVERYONE on that tier level to play better in order to progress. It's just not realistic or fair to the skilled player in my opinion.

[Negat1ve Nancy]

In soup queue using win loss to rank soloes vs players in groups
Must be dreaming
If proton struggled with win loss as a solo what hope do regular soloes have

Edited by Negat1ve Nancy, 05 June 2020 - 10:22 AM.

[DeathlyEyes]

Leia, on 05 June 2020 - 09:59 AM, said:

It definitely feels like the skill gaps are massive between players and I get that the Tiers will be reset, but is it going to change anything? I can gather from this post and the past one that the players that have been around for a while know the current system has been bad for a long time. I can also see that the one you're proposing probably will not work. My husband is frustrated and probably won't play for much longer. I can see he doesn't really enjoy the game anymore. He likes to play the big slow mechs, but feels like he can't really anymore. I've seen him land way away from the team and be ganged up on by an opposing group so many times. He can do really good with the "good" mechs like the MCII-B that I like a lot, but it bores him. We'll probably go back to EFT soon. I'm just addicted to skilling up my mechs right now I think. Trying to knock out the events can be fun to me too, but I have nothing compared to my husband. He has like 100 mechs.

You're experience with pugs isn't all too surprising. Many people playing this game don't play fps games. They are either using joysticks or their mouse settings are very wrong. They refuse to run optimal mech builds and lose matches before they even start. Idk if Mechwarrior could ever fix this without the game recognizing who is actually playing to win and making sure that even numbers of players trying to win are playing on each side.


Edit: also pgi needs to fix spawns so everyone spawns together. People are death balling regardless. Spawning people spread out only encourages yoloers to Yolo and increases the chances of a stomp.

Edited by DeathlyEyes, 05 June 2020 - 10:36 AM.

[Anomalocaris]

OneTeamPlayer, on 05 June 2020 - 09:47 AM, said:

I think this may be one of the only suggestions that:

1. Does not try to fundamentally change the system back to the old system through giving psr to the losing team, something PGI said the specifically aren't planning to do

2. Keeps the underlying intent to make PSR based on team based metrics while making accommodations for variations in said teams.

While the majority of the posters are determined to color outside the lines here, good on you for putting up a change that you want to see in a format which just might be considered and implemented.

To everyone else who is still starting from the ground up with statements like "win/loss shouldn't matter here's a system that is literally opposite of what you've said your intention to implement is" do you seriously think PGI is about to dump the system that took them over a month to test in a game they openly state is on its last legs?

Dude you're in the wilderness now. PGI didn't spend a month testing a new PSR system. In fact, they're not changing anything except for how much you go up or down in a loss for a given matchscore. The changes people are asking for are looking for a more balanced, zero sum setup. The system proposed by Paul does nothing to help balance and is far from zero sum. It's going to end up with a dumbbell distribution, and because of low player population, will be kept there.

Here's a little tidbit for you. The average match score in this game is around 225. The average WLR for players is just under 1.0. You would expect this in a balanced system since you should be facing people of similar skill and the occasional draw will drop you under 1.

If a perfectly average player plays 100 games, what happens? He will win 49, lose 49 and draw 2. His PSR will drop 100 points.

Now, you might say, "sure he drops, but now he'll move down in Tier and play easier opponents". Except he won't. The population size says otherwise. In fact, unless he drops all the way to Tier 5, he'll be facing the same opponents and generating the same stats. Does it really help our matchmaking to have a player like this continuously drop in PSR until he bottoms out in Tier 5? I mean really, if that's the goal, why don't we just separate the population into 2 queues? Top 50 and bottom 50, and never the two shall meet.

The goal here is to accurately rank players on their match contribution so that we can keep playing games with mixed tiers and at least make sure that we have a similar array of player skill on each side. That's the only workable option for our population size. And we still haven't addressed the group factor in match making. This is looking more and more like another cluster****

[OneTeamPlayer]

Negat1ve Nancy, on 05 June 2020 - 10:21 AM, said:

In soup queue using win loss to rank soloes vs players in groups
Must be dreaming
If proton struggled with win loss as a solo what hope do regular soloes have

I failed to see an argument as to whether the system was great as opposed to whether the system is going to be implemented.

The point is that whether the system is good or not is irrelevant, anyone with a history with this game knows that when PGI has a design idea, PGI goes with that design idea come hell or high water.

These doctoral thesis trying to do alternative math all amount to nothing if they don't start at the premise that PGI has decided the problem with current matchmaker and is going to use their solution to "fix" new matchmaker.

If your suggestion is any variant of "well yeah, but how about we do the old style where losing teams can still win" it's literally ignoring the fact that PGI has stated they believe that aspect to be a core problem of the current system and is a complete waste of time because PGI didn't spend a month just to basically put in the same system with the slightest of tweaks.

It also misses that apparently their foundational preference for the PSR system has to do with team activity and team metrics over all other considerations.

Right or wrong, this is what is going to happen.

Tell me you believe that PGI is going to trash the system on the first page based on commentary, charts, figures, and calculations on this thread, if you think that what i'm saying is wrong.

Now if you can work within their parameters like the person i quoted did just maybe you can effect a change, but otherwise what you're doing is...

[Horseman]

JackHarkon, on 05 June 2020 - 09:09 AM, said:

With the new system will I not be able to move up to tier 1 again.

And are you - is anyone - entitled to that ranking? Remember, the point of tiers and PSR was matchmaking. With players more widely distributed across the tiers, you should end up placed at a point where you'll face equal opponents instead of getting rolled repeatedly.

Brom96, on 05 June 2020 - 09:10 AM, said:

My issue is this - a single player can have limited to no effect on the match.

A single AFK or simply bad player can sink you the entire match that would otherwise have been close.