33 replies to this topic

[SharDar]

How does the game play differ between each tier? I'm moving up from Tier 4 into Tier 3. What can I expect different there?

[Bassault]

Tier 5 is quite literally a free for all with LRMs in the background. You can do ridiculous and risky things and no one will punish you, maybe except for LRMs. Silly and ineffective builds are common. Everyone has terrible aim and no situational awareness. Tier 4 people ball up together and have a minimal amount of awareness. Still, people run ridiculous builds, LRMs are still in the background, and you can get away with anything. People take forever to notice you if you aren't right infront of them, people don't have good aim. Fighting occurs randomly around the map, sometimes there are 3-4 fronts at once.

Tier 3 players in my experience NASCAR like hell. NASCAR is when the team rotates around a piece of cover like a hill or a large central building, but as they do this, the enemy is doing the same thing. This causes one side to have their slow mechs or mechs who are shooting get left behind and eaten by the incoming NASCAR from the enemy team. It is very annoying when it happens, and usually you can't stop it. People in tier 3 will have better aim, so expect to get punished if you peek in a dumb spot or you mindlesslly rotate right into a sniper sightline (for example low ground of viridian bog, if you right-hand rotate you will meet sniper fire when you reach the halfway point). People usually NASCAR because they are running away from the enemy on purpose due to reasons we can only speculate, and also because they may see one straggler and lose all sense of map awareness in a blood crazed frenzy. Regardless, BEWARE of the NASCAR. You either have to ride it to not be left behind, be a sniper, or cooperate with your team to stop it via mic and UAV's (uavs blow up the map with enemies so they can pay attention to the rear line).

Tier 1 and 2 still has a lot of NASCAR because tier 3 players fight tier 1s, but in tier 1, map knowledge is important. You can predict where snipers will be with map knowledge, and you can take measures to avoid sniper fire. You will be punished for walking out in the open, maybe even maimed or killed if you don't immediately back down or rush to cover, whether it be from lasers, cannons and often LRMs. If they don't mindlessly NASCAR, many times players will flock to the same fighting spots on each map as they have grown accustomed to these ideal positions. Some players will be adept at aiming, will exploit your mech's weaknesses (for example, if you are a hunchback they will focus your right torso) and these same players will torso twist well. They will also be very aggressive when you are vulnerable and/or outnumbered. Many of them will peek and poke until you punish them with return fire. Thing is, players like these aren't filling entire teams, maybe only 1/3 or half of the enemy/teammates will be like this. There are still tier 3's that will act as normal opponents you are used to. Builds will usually very focused on doing one thing (brawler, sniper, dakka, medium range laser vomit, PPFLD, etc). The thing is, you can become like them when if you keep asking questions and learning from experience, and you should if you really want to enjoy the challenge and experience.

Edited by I LOVE ANNIHILATORS, 08 January 2022 - 09:22 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

SharDar, on 08 January 2022 - 09:01 PM, said:

How does the game play differ between each tier? I'm moving up from Tier 4 into Tier 3. What can I expect different there?

Games will be harder, generally. You can match T1-T5. As the bulk of population is T3-T5, it won't be every match you'll play higher tiers.

When you do...

If you position poorly/walk over open ground/vertically stick your head up over ridges without know what is there - you will be punished more.
If you are not reading the minimaps and get let yourself be isolated, you will be punished.
If you do not torso twist better aim of players will drill your Torsos more accurately.
Loadouts will be less kitchen sink style and more tuned/synergistic on each mech. So you won't see mechs as often with 3-4 different weapon types and mixed range.

[Duke Falcon]

Shortly:
The higher the tier the more benefit this is NOT a battletech game.

Why?
RL, I mean real life. If you not target something with direct-pointing (like Elementals with their lasers) you can not hit anything without a target lock by the weapons' targeting systems. Otherwise you would shot snap shots like a quickdraw just against moving targets.

That is the difference: Learn to exploit the failed implementation of physics.

[ScrapIron Prime]

In brief, the higher Tier you are:

1 - The more quickly you are punished for positioning mistakes
2 - The less LRM fire you will see because targets have learned to minimize their exposure
3 - The less build variety you will see and the more meta, as continued PSR gains require better performance
4 - The harder it is to "catch up" in your match score after a long period of not firing at things. Aggressiveness pays, loitering does not.

[Davegt27]

OP go to you stats page
take a screen shot and save it
then in 6 months to a year and see if it has changed

I am probably on twitch watching streamers 18 hours a day
and T1 can be pretty brutal
I started saying to my self wow I am glad I am not playing

half the time MWO sends me into a depression
how you do in the upper tier just depends

[PurplePuke]

In Tier One we wear smoking jackets and sip Pimm's Number 1 Cup while the servant dusts off our keyboards. We smoke cubans and we have our own secret voice servers where we discuss Russell's Teapot and Man's Inhumanity to Man. We fund our favorite political candidates then lobby them to give us tax breaks after the rubes vote for them. We have mistresses, mansions with Tesla's in the driveway, and when our kidneys fail we buy new ones from China.

Get up here!

[LordNothing]

i find in the lower tiers there are a lot more support mechs, a lot more 'do your own thing' and a lot more objective chasing. higher skilled players tend to focus more on effective combat and survival. that usually means builds capable of holding their own, but with more coordination between them.

both matches sometimes have drop callers, and you can tell the skill level by the calls. if someone says "let them come" its a surefire indication that the caller doesn't know what they are doing. the bloody history of siege warfare and its general inefficacy is the proof. mechs have legs, use them. even when you are actually defending on siege i find how likely you are to lose is proportional to how far away from the gates they want you to set up. setting up too close to the gens reveals an objective mindset which tends to not be the case with skill.

[KaptinOrk]

I LOVE ANNIHILATORS, on 08 January 2022 - 09:19 PM, said:

Tier 3 players in my experience NASCAR like hell. NASCAR is when the team rotates around a piece of cover like a hill or a large central building, but as they do this, the enemy is doing the same thing. This causes one side to have their slow mechs or mechs who are shooting get left behind and eaten by the incoming NASCAR from the enemy team. It is very annoying when it happens, and usually you can't stop it. People in tier 3 will have better aim, so expect to get punished if you peek in a dumb spot or you mindlesslly rotate right into a sniper sightline (for example low ground of viridian bog, if you right-hand rotate you will meet sniper fire when you reach the halfway point). People usually NASCAR because they are running away from the enemy on purpose due to reasons we can only speculate, and also because they may see one straggler and lose all sense of map awareness in a blood crazed frenzy. Regardless, BEWARE of the NASCAR. You either have to ride it to not be left behind, be a sniper, or cooperate with your team to stop it via mic and UAV's (uavs blow up the map with enemies so they can pay attention to the rear line).

As someone that's bouncing between T4 and T3, the NASCAR in T3 is real, it's like someone flips a switch and the NASCAR starts. I'm working on the microphone option, unfortunately, asking the team to actually shoot the enemy instead of running like mad is only rarely effective.

[Meep Meep]

KaptinOrk, on 12 January 2022 - 04:13 PM, said:

I'm working on the microphone option, unfortunately, asking the team to actually shoot the enemy instead of running like mad is only rarely effective.

Nascar is going to happen regardless of what you say. However you can entice them to go left instead of right so that it turns into a head on brawl instead of two blobs chasing each other. Doesn't always work but its the simplest way to try to break the cycle with a reasonable measure of success.

[SharDar]

PurplePuke, on 12 January 2022 - 01:48 PM, said:

In Tier One we wear smoking jackets and sip Pimm's Number 1 Cup while the servant dusts off our keyboards. We smoke cubans and we have our own secret voice servers where we discuss Russell's Teapot and Man's Inhumanity to Man. We fund our favorite political candidates then lobby them to give us tax breaks after the rubes vote for them. We have mistresses, mansions with Tesla's in the driveway, and when our kidneys fail we buy new ones from China.

Get up here!

Best post of the week!!!

[R Valentine]

Tiers 4 and 5 are where people are completely clueless about the game. Builds are silly, people are slow to react, map positioning makes absolutely no sense, and most people don't even have a grasp of the mechanics of the game. These are the tiers where you can stand in front of people in a stealth locust and they won't shoot you, because they don't understand you're an enemy.

The biggest difference between tier 3 and tier 4 is that now tier 1 players can appear in your games. That changes pretty much everything. You can't get away with silly non-sense builds because you'll lose too many trades or get out-DPSed very quickly. More typical tactics(Nascar) appear suddenly. Players are over-all more mechanically sound, but less flexible in what they actually do. You won't get away with mistakes as often. You'll still have the potential to get matched up with tier 5 players, so you won't see tier 1 games as often until you hit tier 2.

There's no discernable difference between tier 1 and tier 2, aside from the occasional game where there's a lot of tier 4 players and it's like you're back in potato land. The majority of the time tiers 1 and 2 feel the same.

[Duke Falcon]

I know I had a rather "dark mood" reply earlier here, sorry.
But it seems most posters remember their good old days from the top. No problem, sure they deserved their tier.
I myself play in almost all league from T5 to T1.
I am in T5 carefully watch not to leave it again because T5 is fun.
In FP I usually play against teams of T1-2 players, what hurts, but also fun.
If I drop with groups I could meet literally any tier players (martian from T1, e.g.) but usually T4-3 in group matches.
What the difference through the rise of tiers? As I see and experience: mostly experience and massed knowledge.
- A high tier player knows the maps by heart. Knows literally everything, so they intentionally chose places to fight to exploit their knowledge. Low tier players usually wandering around and fight where they met with the oppforce.
- Low tier players tend to move but not fire even if get hit. I saw many wandering forth with piranahs bite their butts calling for help. High tier players immediately react and turns toward you to retaliate. They not hesitate they react.
- Low tiers usually matches with lone persons bunched but not groupped. Companies of loners usually. Higher tiers often lone wolves but learned not to block each others and if groupped they use their mechs to complement each others. No "I am a lurmer, get me locks!". If they have lurmers those get their locks.
- Low tier players not get well with metas. Most not have the necessary skill or experience. Metas are for skilled pilots. Because they know how to use them not only to hit the enemy but to counter any retaliation. Example: I with a meta lasboat HBR could deal about 100-200 damage on a target. A skilled player could slaughter with the same build because learned trigger discipline, heat management and how to MANEOUVER with the mech. Things I still learn and untill I not learn them meta builds would be just crude tools.
So...
The difference is skill they learned and use plus experience they exploit. I thinks most top players know each others well enough to know how to deal with the other. I learned the playstyle of a few players in FP what enable me do deal more damage on them, sometimes even surprise them. Learning, watching, learning, those worth more than meta-builds and general skills, because with enough excercise almost everyone could become an ample marksman.
This is my opinion built on what I experienced and saw. Not say I am utterly right, sure not. But I think it is a tid bit closer for the answer you could use before jump into the deep water. Come and play some FP, like me, against the tops and you would learn more than you thought.

[Brizna]

KaptinOrk, on 12 January 2022 - 04:13 PM, said:

As someone that's bouncing between T4 and T3, the NASCAR in T3 is real, it's like someone flips a switch and the NASCAR starts. I'm working on the microphone option, unfortunately, asking the team to actually shoot the enemy instead of running like mad is only rarely effective.

You can predict when and where a Nascar train will come, you can counter it, very hard by placing yourself in an adequate vantage point, not in the nascar's path, preferably somewhere hard to reach to avoid being trampled and of course ECM always helps as does using gauss (a lot more inconspicuous than laser fire). You will punish NASCAR players and do good games, and it's not as hard as it may seam.

[w0qj]

Recently posted this, worth repeating as same question posed:

Different tiers play differently... and if you don't care about your win/loss ratio, don't care about kill/death ratio... this game can be fun, strange as it may seem!

T5: What's that player with no red rectangle, his he my team mate? (Seconds before I blasted him into oblivion).

T4: ECM is the best! And your 12-man team goes off in different directions on the map.

T3: You start to get punished for obvious mistakes; it's painful enough for me already.

T2/T1: I'll let others chime in

The point is, just find a Tier that you would have fun playing in!

[Meep Meep]

I think that in mwo much like in old soviet russia tier picks you instead of you picking tier.

[SharDar]

Since posting this topic, I think I've begun to experience some of the difference in the play in the upper tiers. I recently crossed into Tier 3 (meaning I will now be playing with Tier 1 players--I even played with TTB the other day!), and the nature of many of the matches is dramatically different. I see an increase in the following:

• Less passive behavior. In the lower tier matches, more time was spent getting into position before encountering the enemy. Since becoming Tier 3, I see more matches where the enemy engages rapidly hitting our flanks when I would normally be trying to figure out where best to position myself. I play lights and fast mediums the most, so I'm often the person trying to hold the circle initially. I've gotten some rude surprises where I get clobbered really quickly--so I have to be on my toes sooner. Do mechs have toes?
  
• Having a harder time getting in my kills and damage. I have more matches where my team wins but I just can't get enough kills or damage to get a decent match score. I chalk this up to my teammates having a higher level of skill and more aggressively getting the kills and damage than when I was Tier 4. This could also be due to mech selection and configuration. Maybe there's a higher percentage playing top meta mechs and I need to find better performing mechs.
  
• Having more matches where I am killed sooner. I've been playing a lot since I retired--I'm number 11 on the leaderboard for the number of matches played. Sadly, this is the only category in which I'm a leader. I think I have upped my game considerably, but I have really plateaued since reaching Tier 3. That could be a natural plateau due to skills not improving in a linear manner. It could also be that the skill of the players I now face is higher. Again, I don't have detailed metrics. Tracking this kind of thing rigorously is too much like work, and I'm enjoying be retired. Maybe that would be another metric for the leaderboard: time in match.
  
• Greater frequency of coordinated attacks. I see this both on my team and on the enemy team. Pushes are more likely to be coordinated. I've seen furious pushes by the opposing team that fall on us like a hammer! Occasionally, I get to participate in such a thing. Of course, being the victim of this stands out in my memory, as is human nature.
  
• Greater number of people having factions. I don't know if this says anything about the quality of players or the gameplay, but I frequently see the majority of players in the match belonging to a faction. When I was in the lower tiers, I recall that there were fewer faction players.
  
• More groups? This is hard to determine since that information is not provided on the match screen. I would really like to see that provided. But when I see 4 players from the same faction in a match, it suggests that they came in as a group. I still have reservations about playing with people in groups due to their common usage of private comms and their greater likelihood of playing as a unit--often distinct from the team. As a solo player, I don't feel that anyone has my back, and it's hard to compete against a coordinated group for kills and damage.

Much of this depends on the time of play. I haven't tracked it, but it feels like there are periods with a greater number of higher tier players. I'm retired and have difficulties sleeping, so I play at pretty much all times of day (US Eastern time). It would be interesting to see metrics about the distribution of tiers for various times of the day and days of the week. Part of me wants to avoid playing when there's so many top tier players; part of me thinks that I should play more with them to up my game. Maybe I need to create some alternate accounts to club baby seals--but that's not my style.

Anyway, those are my non-scientific observations, so let's avoid the usual demands for screen shots and proof.

[Mr Nice Mech]

Once you hit tier 3, you enter the feeding pool. There are many, many posts on this topic, but the forum trolls do everything they can to downplay the reality.

You will play with and against tier 1 players - and cadets at tier 3.

You will play with tier 1 players who farm cadets to tier 4 players by dropping in groups with low tier alts.

You will play with salty veterans who 'roleplay'...somehow as a house mechwarrior valiantly fighting the good fight?

Clan ERLL is not the problem - the Piranha is.

gg scrubs.

[SharDar]

Mr Nice Mech, on 23 January 2022 - 09:00 PM, said:

Once you hit tier 3, you enter the feeding pool. There are many, many posts on this topic, but the forum trolls do everything they can to downplay the reality.

You will play with and against tier 1 players - and cadets at tier 3.

You will play with tier 1 players who farm cadets to tier 4 players by dropping in groups with low tier alts.

You will play with salty veterans who 'roleplay'...somehow as a house mechwarrior valiantly fighting the good fight?

Clan ERLL is not the problem - the Piranha is.

gg scrubs.

I really wish that matching was limited to +/- 1 tier. If the tiers are made up of an even distribution of players--20% in each tier--then everyone should be able to get a match in a reasonable amount of time. As a Tier 3 player, I am matched against Tier 1 players, and I don't think that's equitable. One of the issues is that the game is driven by Tier 1 players, whose opinions drive most of the decisions. While that is good for them, I don't think it is good for the game as a whole. Any game players population will comprise a vast difference in playing ability. Providing good gameplay for players at all levels is important to keep a game healthy.

On the other hand, since you can't stop people from creating alternate accounts just to club baby seals, perhaps all this discussion is futile.

[Meep Meep]

Mr Nice Mech, on 23 January 2022 - 09:00 PM, said:

Clan ERLL is not the problem - the Piranha is.

What about a piranha with c-erll?

DOOMFISHY


But seriously I don't see many piranha yet every match has laser vomit snipers poking out from every rock and ridgeline.

Edited by Meep Meep, 24 January 2022 - 10:03 AM.