89 replies to this topic

[Nightbird]

Lockheed_, on 13 December 2020 - 02:58 PM, said:

Also, did you say you are shooting your team mates to reduce the competition?

Re-read

[Elizander]

The system requires you to shoot and do damage. Anything else is fluff.

[GuardDogg]

If more pi-zazz is what you are looking for. You to not have to take it. Not only a shoot a get points. Can help getting up there. Trying to make more videos, that I only have 4. Wished I had done this since beta. I have noticed tactics are changing since Tier reset.

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Edited by GuardDogg, 14 December 2020 - 12:09 AM.

[Ignatius Audene]

1. Your build is let's say suboptimal (ok terribad). The very moment your mech covers more than one range bracket, 9/10 it is prob one range bracket to much.

Same if true for your settings. For example, if your mouse setting is higher than 0.1 (depending on your dpi) its prob 2 high.

In the end mwo is a shooter.dmg kills are key. Delete the word support mech out of your vocabulary!

2. If u check your stats (no I don't try 2 shame u, but u can use ingame stats and better jarls list, to get a feeling for what is average), u should drop in tier. Currently your w/l and k/d are negative and your ms is not great as well. In theorie u should drop and get better matches with equally skilled players. Tier is not an achievement!
But since population is low, u can end up with players of all tiers, so the difference might be small.

Edited by Ignatius Audene, 14 December 2020 - 01:06 AM.

[Zaver11]

Ignatius Audene, on 14 December 2020 - 01:03 AM, said:

1. Your build is let's say suboptimal (ok terribad). The very moment your mech covers more than one range bracket, 9/10 it is prob one range bracket to much.

Same if true for your settings. For example, if your mouse setting is higher than 0.1 (depending on your dpi) its prob 2 high.

In the end mwo is a shooter.dmg kills are key. Delete the word support mech out of your vocabulary!

2. If u check your stats (no I don't try 2 shame u, but u can use ingame stats and better jarls list, to get a feeling for what is average), u should drop in tier. Currently your w/l and k/d are negative and your ms is not great as well. In theorie u should drop and get better matches with equally skilled players. Tier is not an achievement!
But since population is low, u can end up with players of all tiers, so the difference might be small.

You see, that's yet another problem. NARCing is one thing I did. But it's hardly the only thing. Any form of support (sniper build, streak spam, AMS, etc.) that isn't "brawl, brawl, brawl for days, to the point you would think this is Smash Bros with mechs!" is entirely dependent on the map for its viability, from the 3 years I've learned playing. And it's a completely crap-shoot on whether or not taking a specialized build is going to be viable or not, and why, from my experience, taking a single, exclusive range bracket is a really stupid idea. Because every time I've tried that (and I'd say a good 15-20 of my 59 mechs *are* specialized builds), 75% of the time, it ends horribly for me. Let me list examples.

1. I pick one of my LRM boats. "Oh. Would you look at that. Solaris city is one of the 4 maps. Why did I bother? Because that entire map is a gigantic expressive single digit towards anyone using LRMs."

2. I pick one of my close range mechs (Piranha, SRM Linebacker, Huntsman, etc.) "oh. Look at that. We're at polar highlands or Frozen city. I might as well disconnect and try for a different map with a different mech. Because it's going to be a sniper fest and I'll be dead before I can get in to range because any attempt at a flanking maneuver requires the enemy team to be so brain dead as to make a Somalian militiaman look competent."

3. I take a streak build. *Any stealth mech ever designed* is inevitably in the enemy team and attempts to do unto my leg what a very excited dog does upon seeing its Human. And I'm utterly helpless even though I've got a tag because for some reason, despite it being able to defeat specialized armor compositions and paints literally designed to absorb every spectrum of radiation, thermal, etc., etc., something as simple as a good old fashion WW2 era radar jamming somehow shuts a tag down, and on the one in a hundred chance there's actually someone on my team running ECM, they all seem to have found that some sneaky little gremlin has snuck into their home, and pried the "J" key off every keyboard they own...

So from my experience, no offense meant, but a highly specialized build is an extremely stupid idea because it is entirely dependent on having a competent, communicating, team in order to get it to work properly.

So you'll forgive me if I decide "you know, I should probably take a mech that can do more than just one thing, so I don't get absolutely butt-fraked by something as simple as the map I'm deployed at, or can be thwarted by 40% of the meta-mechs out there, since inevitably, every single light mech that I would want to use streaks against is running stealth/ECM specifically for the purpose of making anti-light mech streakers cry salty tears of pain as their 50-75 ton medium-heavy mech is reduced to a glorified paperweight to be mocked and ridiculed."

Swamp *** MkII, on 13 December 2020 - 11:05 AM, said:

The only thing that seems to affect rating, is damage done. If you run around, and cap ****, without damaging as you were capping, and spotting, you get dropped in PSR even if your team wins. This, in my opinion is an issue... You help secure the win, by capping, you should be rewarded. With this being said, why not just remove all the game mode, and leave it to skirmish.

This is my point. This. It's not just Narcing. It's *every* form of support. Scouting. UAV spotting. Base capping. AMS. ECM. *None* of it helps under the new system. You might as well replace everything with skirmish. Lord knows that's what gets pick 80% of the time it's up.

Capt Deadpool, on 13 December 2020 - 12:23 PM, said:

Sorry you are having a tough time, Zaver.

One thing that comes with experience and is important to MWO success is pattern recognition; you can many times tell within the first minute of a game by looking at your team's formation on the minimap if your team is going to be slaughtered or if you have a chance of victory. e.g., how many of your teammates are alone, going the wrong way, how divided lances are, etc.

Yes. And I'm utterly at it's mercy. I'm tired of trying to fight smart and being *punished for it.* Thus the question: why should I support the devs?

Quote

If you notice your assault lance is about to be eaten, I would say more than 50% of the time of you use comms and don't come across like an a$$ you can say, "Hey guys, let's hold up at (specific location) or we are gonna lose our fatties." And the team will listen. If they don't, you have to accept 'pug-life' and that you are probably about to lose, and try to make some fun for yourself before you die.

I wish I had your luck....

Quote

MWO is also very much paper-rock-scissors. As a flea, ebon jags are one of the easiest targets in the game for me if I can engage them in a manner where their team cannot assist them, based on their hitboxes, mobility, armor, weapon arcs. I don't even really care what loadouts they are carrying. You mention carrying medium pulses, but I don't respect those either unless it is a decent pilot in a fresh meta-medium. Burn time is still too long on clan m-pulses. So know thyself, and know thy enemy.

Agreed. Laser vomit is less than ideal for killing lights. But when you're the only one who notices the assaults about to be eaten, and you're pretty darned sure by now that everyone else has VOIP turned off...what the heck am I supposed to do?

And I'll admit. I struggle to know the enemy. Because there are literally hundreds of different mechs, and its almost impossible to keep track of what's meta right now and what they can all do.

Quote

Also, play what is fun and forget about ranking. If you like narc-raven, go nuts and who cares what tier you end up in.

Because it feels like a punishment. The game is saying "you suck."

[Gagis]

AMS damage is actually rewarded extremely heavily. You can cheese PSR by running an AMS mech.

Both ams damage and overall damage probably need to be taken down a notch for Match Score calculations, and the system would be fine.

When it comes to mixed builds, they are just a bad idea. You'll perform better in a long range mech than a mech that mixes long and medium range weapons, even if the map lottery gives you a brawl map. Even better, pick a medium range dakka, c-ERPPC or laservomit mech and do optimal damage from start to finish either way.

[MechWarrior414712]

You're not exactly pulling your weight if all you do is press R on targets.

As expected, the people that find it easy to climb are people that on average are better than 50% of the playerbase, or pure ATM mrm damage farmers

[Bud Crue]

I always feel a little bad when we lose players to their not enjoying the game, or not being good at this or that aspect of it, or hating the fact that they get left behind, or their teammates do XYZ and it sucks, etc. I get it though, for some the game can be an unfun burden that there is no reason to put up with. But the biggest error I see people making with this game essentially comes down to the fact that they refuse to play the game as the developer's have presented it.

It comes down to this: If you are good at the game, and I mean "good" in terms of you know the maps, you have good situational awareness, and don't bring dross to the match and you know how to play what you do bring, then you can have a great time in the majority of matches; and by "great time" I mean you will win more than lose, go up in tier, and generally be a force to be reckoned with when you play.

For the rest of us (and this is most of us) there is a choice to be made, and that choice is to play the game as you want to play it, or play the game as it is has been designed. If you aren't very good at the basics of the game and insist on playing it your way, you're going to have a bad time. It won't be fun, you will lose more often than win, you won't rise in tier, you will resent those playing with you; in short, you will come to hate the game.

The alternative is to stop playing how you want, and play with a basic understanding of the tools that will help you win. And there is lots of options here: min/max your builds, play the percentages with the skill tree, run two strikes and use them wisely, run AMS to pad match score, stick with your team, embrace the Nascar, etc.

In my experience, either you're good at this game and you can play it pretty much with whatever, and mostly however, you want and you'll have fun, but if you're [edit] like me, and are not very good, the easiest way to have fun is understand the basic mechanisms of the game and use/abuse them to your benefit. If you can't or won't do that, the game will simply not be enjoyable. Just my 2 cents.

Edited by Bud Crue, 14 December 2020 - 06:23 AM.

[GARION26]

I think others have covered understanding how PSR works now.
It's not perfect by any means but it's a more accurate representation of your average skill then it was previously where it basically just logged how many matches you had played.
Play around with the Jarl's listing and see who is on the top page for WLR KD and Match score - pretty clear patterns evolve for those measures they don't track perfectly together but there is a high degree of correlation on those measures.

My biggest point to make is don't worry about the PSR bar. Getting it 'maxed out' isn't a reasonable goal for most of us and doesn't lead to more fun - worry about winning games and having fun, and getting better (skilled) over time. The more you win the more likely you are to move up - particularly if you are more then carrying your weight on your team.

Nascar is more prevalent it appears in Tier 1 - and most folks don't think it really gives more enjoyable or tactical games.

Communication is worse at lower tiers though - in part because people who communicate better tend to win more matches. Keep communicating it will help and sometimes folks listen. I try to make sure I interact in the pregame screen - I can tell if we're likely to have a well coordinated team just by how many people respond there.

If you want more matches where a specialized support role might be valued join a unit and do faction or competitive play - you can actually coordinate people's roles there. That being said the bar is much higher then in quick play (at least at the low tier I play in!)

Edited by GARION26, 14 December 2020 - 12:19 PM.

[Zaver11]

Bud Crue, on 14 December 2020 - 06:20 AM, said:

I always feel a little bad when we lose players to their not enjoying the game, or not being good at this or that aspect of it, or hating the fact that they get left behind, or their teammates do XYZ and it sucks, etc. I get it though, for some the game can be an unfun burden that there is no reason to put up with. But the biggest error I see people making with this game essentially comes down to the fact that they refuse to play the game as the developer's have presented it.

It comes down to this: If you are good at the game, and I mean "good" in terms of you know the maps, you have good situational awareness, and don't bring dross to the match and you know how to play what you do bring, then you can have a great time in the majority of matches; and by "great time" I mean you will win more than lose, go up in tier, and generally be a force to be reckoned with when you play.

For the rest of us (and this is most of us) there is a choice to be made, and that choice is to play the game as you want to play it, or play the game as it is has been designed. If you aren't very good at the basics of the game and insist on playing it your way, you're going to have a bad time. It won't be fun, you will lose more often than win, you won't rise in tier, you will resent those playing with you; in short, you will come to hate the game.

The alternative is to stop playing how you want, and play with a basic understanding of the tools that will help you win. And there is lots of options here: min/max your builds, play the percentages with the skill tree, run two strikes and use them wisely, run AMS to pad match score, stick with your team, embrace the Nascar, etc.

In my experience, either you're good at this game and you can play it pretty much with whatever, and mostly however, you want and you'll have fun, but if you're [edit] like me, and are not very good, the easiest way to have fun is understand the basic mechanisms of the game and use/abuse them to your benefit. If you can't or won't do that, the game will simply not be enjoyable. Just my 2 cents.

I just don't know any more. I've even tried some of the metabuilds over the past few hours. I'm dying even faster now because they're super vulnerable to being back-shot because for some reason they recommend 99.999999% of the armor at the front. To the point where a locust with a pair of large lasers bloody near one shotted me because no one was guarding the flanks. These "metas" seem once again dependent on the idea that there are competent people on the team doing their job. I.E. the lights/mediums are guarding the flanks and watching for that. Rather than simply running forward like they're blood starved hounds that haven't eaten in a week. I literally cannot even stay alive long enough to check to see how these new "meta" builds perform because they're built around the idea that people are doing their jobs.

It's not fun to die in the first 30 seconds of a match because you get murder-balled and everyone's gone off to do their own thing, leaving you with the choice of "backpedal while facing down an armored charge because you've been left at the rear of the group" or "frantically attempt to catch up to guys 20-60 KPH faster than you and leave yourself open to being backshot by aforementioned murder ball." And it happens over. And over. And over again. Because apparently most of the people in this game think they're playing a TF2 Pyro, only without the complexity of having to know when to reflect a hostile rocket.

Edited by Zaver11, 14 December 2020 - 01:27 PM.

[Capt Deadpool]

Zaver11, on 14 December 2020 - 04:40 AM, said:

Because it feels like a punishment. The game is saying "you suck."

I promise you, if you just think of tier as a tool the matchmaker uses to attempt to create balanced teams and not some kind of reward, you will have a MUCH better time, my dude! And you will be placed in games that will be more fun for you. I really suggest you play whatever mechs are most fun for you and in the manner that is most fun and never look at tier again.

Personally, I have far too many years of playing faster-paced e-sports titles, so in MWO anything slower than 177KPH bores me to tears. The piloting aspect of MWO is what gets my dopamine firing far more than dealing damage or match score or whatever the hell Jarls uses to rank people, so I'd play 20-tonners regardless and couldn't give an F if that meant MM put me into Tier 5.

As konglord and nightbird detailed, there are plenty of ways that people farm inefficient damage and use other 'exploits' to rise in tier or on Jarls, so being high tier doesn't necessarily mean you are 'good'. Even attaching being 'good' in some tiny niche title like MWO to your ego/self-worth is an unwise proposition at best; play for fun my dude.

[Ignatius Audene]

You should rly start to look for your faults, and what u could have done better (yes this starts in mechlab and mechselection). Its easy to blame your team, but if someone can rear shot u it is mostly your own fault. U loose more matches than you win, and there is only one constant part in all matches...

Start with your own faults and soon u will carry your team to victory. My rule of thumb is I don't win if I don't score at least 600 dmg.
The carry is real. Prepare for it.

[Zaver11]

Capt Deadpool, on 14 December 2020 - 01:26 PM, said:

I promise you, if you just think of tier as a tool the matchmaker uses to attempt to create balanced teams and not some kind of reward, you will have a MUCH better time, my dude! And you will be placed in games that will be more fun for you. I really suggest you play whatever mechs are most fun for you and in the manner that is most fun and never look at tier again.

Personally, I have far too many years of playing faster-paced e-sports titles, so in MWO anything slower than 177KPH bores me to tears. The piloting aspect of MWO is what gets my dopamine firing far more than dealing damage or match score or whatever the hell Jarls uses to rank people, so I'd play 20-tonners regardless and couldn't give an F if that meant MM put me into Tier 5.

As konglord and nightbird detailed, there are plenty of ways that people farm inefficient damage and use other 'exploits' to rise in tier or on Jarls, so being high tier doesn't necessarily mean you are 'good'. Even attaching being 'good' in some tiny niche title like MWO to your ego/self-worth is an unwise proposition at best; play for fun my dude.

Nothing to do with ego or self worth. I should have mentioned from the beginning that I play this game with friends. One of them is about my skill level, with the exception of a Vulcan, in which he is a god among men. The other is a High 2/Low 1. It's frustrating to always feel like I'm never pulling my weight, because we do communicate. We do coordinate and take builds that synergize. We do things right. But...I'm still left out in the cold most of the time because "Nascar!"

Maybe I've got rose tinted glasses. I miss VIP. I miss modes that required strategy and thinking. I miss being rewarded for a clever flank or a precision long range snipe.

[Heavy Money]

This thread is an interesting case study in the attitude of this game's players, and also in the art of talking past each other on the internet.

Complaint: "The game has swung too much towards maxing damage, which makes other roles not worth playing."
Response: "Lol noob don't you realize the game is about maxing damage? Just do more damage."

The point seems to have been totally missed, at least within the first page that I read.

Part of what makes MWO good is that it has room for multiple playstyles and roles. The most optimal thing would be for everyone to drop in the same couple meta damage dealer builds. Perhaps we can make it so that only dakka Madcats and laser vomit hellbringers get played? That'd be more effective for everyone leveling their PSR, right? Would that be more fun?

I would like to see bigger rewards for playing other roles, and even changes to modes to reward playstyles other than killing as fast as possible. More objectives, reasons to defend specific points, etc.

Edited by Heavy Money, 14 December 2020 - 01:41 PM.

[Zaver11]

Ignatius Audene, on 14 December 2020 - 01:31 PM, said:

You should rly start to look for your faults, and what u could have done better (yes this starts in mechlab and mechselection). Its easy to blame your team, but if someone can rear shot u it is mostly your own fault. U loose more matches than you win, and there is only one constant part in all matches...

Start with your own faults and soon u will carry your team to victory. My rule of thumb is I don't win if I don't score at least 600 dmg.
The carry is real. Prepare for it.

https://mech.nav-alp...#6ca46e23_EBJ-A

https://mech.nav-alp...#3aa0faff_LBK-C

These are what I'm looking at. These are what the forums are calling the good lists/tier advice builds. I tried them both. In both instances, I got back shot because a stealth/ECM mech flanked us and no one was watching.

[Cherge]

The only "skill" in your Pilot """"""Skill""""""" Rating is your ability to netmech and nascar. That's it.

Basically until PSR only changes in a solo queue and is based only on wins and losses, it will be an easily abused joke

And this isn't to say there aren't skilled players in Tier 1. It's just that you don't have to be good to get there.

[Heavy Money]

What if the amount of money/xp/PSR earned in any given mech variant was scaled based on how many people have played it recently? Make unused mechs give huge rewards. Incentivize good players to go run fun novelty builds to mix things up a bit. (You don't need to penalize popular builds though.)

Edited by Heavy Money, 14 December 2020 - 01:47 PM.

[Zaver11]

Heavy Money, on 14 December 2020 - 01:47 PM, said:

What if the amount of money/xp/PSR earned in any given mech variant was scaled based on how many people have played it recently? Make unused mechs give huge rewards. Incentivize good players to go run fun novelty builds to mix things up a bit. (You don't need to penalize popular builds though.)

That's dependent on C-Bills actually being useful for something. I'm sitting on about 130 million because there's really no reason for me to spend them on anything apart from a new engine as I eternally attempt to find a good balance between speed and armor.

[Heavy Money]

Zaver11, on 14 December 2020 - 01:52 PM, said:

That's dependent on C-Bills actually being useful for something. I'm sitting on about 130 million because there's really no reason for me to spend them on anything apart from a new engine as I eternally attempt to find a good balance between speed and armor.

Well at a certain point everyone runs out of stuff to spend money on unless you like trying out lots of different mechs. That'll happen even if things were balanced better.

I could use more cbills as I need to buy engines for the 80million cbills worth of mechs I bought on that 50% off sale awhile back. I've moved into t1 mostly running novelty catapult builds and i want to try lots of other funky things.

Edited by Heavy Money, 14 December 2020 - 01:57 PM.

[Zaver11]

Heavy Money, on 14 December 2020 - 01:56 PM, said:

Well at a certain point everyone runs out of stuff to spend money on unless you like trying out lots of different mechs. That'll happen even if things were balanced better.

I could use more cbills as I need to buy engines for the 80million cbills worth of mechs I bought on that 50% off sale awhile back. I've moved into t1 mostly running novelty catapult builds and i want to try lots of other funky things.

Good luck, for what it is worth.