44 replies to this topic

[Nightbird]

How MWO handles match making and tiers is just thoughtless. A skill ranking system is needed to make better matches, but there was never any need to share it with the players. As taught in psychology, the portion of people that strive on adversity is 5-10% of the population, most people react adversely to honestly feedback. This is why pretty much every other game hides the ranking from the player, as it prevents the so called "skilled players" from acting uppity, and the rest from being discouraged.

Instead of the Tier system, pretty much every other game has figured out that to encourage player participation, just have a XP bar with levels that reset after each month and give a small reward after each rank progression. More skilled players will earn rewards faster, but even the worst player will get positive reinforcement. Give a big reward like a free month of premium time after a certain rank in each month, and it's easy to greatly increase player participation.

Finally, exposing the PSR mechanics to the players is an act of incompetence. Statistical modelling should be left to the pros, and matches made with teams as balanced as possible without regard to whether the players like the formulas or not. Since it's all hidden, it doesn't matter. Getting the player base to approve the PSR formula gets as great results as getting open heart surgery from an average Joe off the streets > a dead patient.

Edited by Nightbird, 21 February 2021 - 01:28 PM.

[VonBruinwald]

Nightbird, on 21 February 2021 - 01:27 PM, said:

Finally, exposing the PSR mechanics to the players is an act of incompetence. Statistical modelling should be left to the pros, and matches made with teams as balanced as possible without regard to whether the players like the formulas or not. Since it's all hidden, it doesn't matter. Getting the player base to approve the PSR formula gets as great results as getting open heart surgery from an average Joe off the streets > a dead patient.

I'm getting flashbacks here...

[The pessimistic optimist]

Nightbird, on 21 February 2021 - 01:27 PM, said:

How MWO handles match making and tiers is just thoughtless. A skill ranking system is needed to make better matches, but there was never any need to share it with the players. As taught in psychology, the portion of people that strive on adversity is 5-10% of the population, most people react adversely to honestly feedback. This is why pretty much every other game hides the ranking from the player, as it prevents the so called "skilled players" from acting uppity, and the rest from being discouraged.

Instead of the Tier system, pretty much every other game has figured out that to encourage player participation, just have a XP bar with levels that reset after each month and give a small reward after each rank progression. More skilled players will earn rewards faster, but even the worst player will get positive reinforcement. Give a big reward like a free month of premium time after a certain rank in each month, and it's easy to greatly increase player participation.

Finally, exposing the PSR mechanics to the players is an act of incompetence. Statistical modelling should be left to the pros, and matches made with teams as balanced as possible without regard to whether the players like the formulas or not. Since it's all hidden, it doesn't matter. Getting the player base to approve the PSR formula gets as great results as getting open heart surgery from an average Joe off the streets > a dead patient.

Wish the PSR took more factors in to account. For one damage is factored way to much in to the PSR. There very little reward for quick efficient kills. You can do a lot of damage to a mech and it will still have all its weapons working and be a threat or do very little damage to a mech and kill it out right. You are right about not show player how the sausage is calculated

[Wildstreak]

I can agree with hiding ranks in QP simply because that is a industry standard.

A lot of games have a Casual and Ranked modes. Casual has a rank but you never see it in the game, some games you can find it through sites related to the game that manage to access the game data but most do not really care.

Ranked you see in game.

Result of this is Ranked is where serious comp people are expected to go and everyone else winds up in the Casual pool of Hell.

This game had that when it had ELO, couldn't see it but only comp people cared. You then got PSR and it was made visual, made it worse partly due to all the demands made among players to, "Show Tier!" like a bunch of teenagers comparing **** sizes in locker rooms.

Solaris should have fixed things by doing as other games did, separating serious players from casual allowing Tier in QP to be hidden, anyone wanting to see Rank should have been playing Solaris.

Sadly it seems they have messed Solaris up, never tried it myself but from what I read it is a mess.

[LowSubmarino]

Skrapiron, on 17 February 2021 - 09:00 AM, said:

I ask, because I cannot explain how the new PSR actually works!

Last match, 1 kill, 3 KMDD, 673 dmg, 378 match score (second on the team) in a 6-12 loss. Yet when the totals were added up, my PSR went DOWN again.

You must have been close to the threshold. 3 kmdd and almost 700 dmg with 1 deathblow is not bad, specially if you got rolled in that match. Just do that or better in most matches and youll go up very quickly.