87 replies to this topic

[Widowmaker1981]

Meep Meep, on 12 May 2023 - 09:53 AM, said:

The leaderboards are doing their job. They display the players in the order of their relative performance. If alts are making it to the top then that only means that those alts are being played by good players? Making an alt isn't an auto leaderboard trump card that someone of any skill can do after all. Also most I would imagine that make an alt only focus on meta mechs and are applying all their previous knowledge and leveraging it on a fresh slate. I'd be higher ranked on this account if I only played meta mechs but I like to piss around and experiment or just log a few sessions of lazy play using lrms. The other accounts are pretty much pure meta one mech play only and you can get in a seriously good groove if you specialize in one mech. I mean its easy to make an alt so why not try it out yourself? See if its as easy to rise into the top 500 as you claim?

Im not going to do that, because i consider it to be extremely cheesy and borderline cheating (to be clear, im aware no rules are being broken)..

but ive seen how i perform in T5 games the occasional times i end up in them (due to a low tier unit mate in group) and Id pretty much guarantee that in meds/heavies/assaults, id comfortably be capable of top 10 by avg matchscore. Probably lights as well, though the only lights i ever play are things like Adders and Panthers which are effectively played like mediums, im sure id be terribad in a flea or locust.

As a T1 playing other T1s, i think im a bit above average, but im significantly outclassed by the really top tier players.

[Meep Meep]

Widowmaker1981, on 13 May 2023 - 03:19 AM, said:

Im not going to do that, because i consider it to be extremely cheesy

Guess I'm a cheeser then..

[Dark Fenrir the Fluffy]

Theirs a bigger related problem here. New player retention. Every singly snarky Tier 1 response is an example of how the community is killing off its base. Once you reach tier 2 you should simply only be able to start a new account at that Tier level and extra accounts shouldn't even be counted by the leader boards. If this game doesn't start giving new players fun instead of just being farmed by more experienced players then the numbers start to fail, as they have. Wait times keep going up while the system continues to reward exploitation of the game by people who don't need it but find it gratifying to dominate at the expense of new players fun and learning curve, vs have real competition with equally skilled players. The leader boards would be fine as long as duplicate accounts don't qualify for it. You cant use a duplicate account for competition so why not apply that to the leader board as one of many steps needed to keep the new players having fun at least until they have a few hundred games in.
another way to help new players is to have a "Rookie tier" That only real new players can fight each other and start to learn the game. Lastly, a completely new approach for upper tier players to strive for, IE maps only certain high tier players can access, game modes only for the upper tiers and designed from their suggestions. New Music, voice overs, added features and rewards for current and returning players so they don't need to farm newbies for fun. End goal is to rebirth this game into one with enough players that people are actually playing faction play, fighting one on one with challenge invites to fight and to spectate. concepts you already have just need improving. Please add ideas to this list and help us all keep this game around for a long time to come.

[kalashnikity]

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn resurrectuc threadus"

I had to check mine out, https://leaderboard....?u=kalashnikity
Season 93 (Apr '24) Rank 1464 91% Survival 38% K/D 1.78

I remember that month, stayed in an AS7-K3 until it smelled of sweat and old leather, with a hint of chili cheese nachos.

ETA:

Build Code...


A;=020a1|LG|LG|i^|Vg|i^p;1|X?q;1|[@|^<2|[<2rI0|i^|i^|GP|GPsW0|I@|I@|i^|@OtH0|GP|GPuH0|@O|@Ov<0|@Ow;09090

Edited by kalashnikity, 27 December 2024 - 10:22 PM.

[kalashnikity]

Dark Fenrir the Fluffy, on 27 December 2024 - 09:06 PM, said:

Theirs a bigger related problem here. New player retention. Every singly snarky Tier 1 response is an example of how the community is killing off its base. Once you reach tier 2 you should simply only be able to start a new account at that Tier level and extra accounts shouldn't even be counted by the leader boards. If this game doesn't start giving new players fun instead of just being farmed by more experienced players then the numbers start to fail, as they have. Wait times keep going up while the system continues to reward exploitation of the game by people who don't need it but find it gratifying to dominate at the expense of new players fun and learning curve, vs have real competition with equally skilled players. The leader boards would be fine as long as duplicate accounts don't qualify for it. You cant use a duplicate account for competition so why not apply that to the leader board as one of many steps needed to keep the new players having fun at least until they have a few hundred games in.
another way to help new players is to have a "Rookie tier" That only real new players can fight each other and start to learn the game. Lastly, a completely new approach for upper tier players to strive for, IE maps only certain high tier players can access, game modes only for the upper tiers and designed from their suggestions. New Music, voice overs, added features and rewards for current and returning players so they don't need to farm newbies for fun. End goal is to rebirth this game into one with enough players that people are actually playing faction play, fighting one on one with challenge invites to fight and to spectate. concepts you already have just need improving. Please add ideas to this list and help us all keep this game around for a long time to come.

Problem is that being in a coordinated group pretty much automatically raises you at least one Tier. Sometimes more.

You would get solid Tier 3-4 players getting stuck in T2.

[Tarl Cabot]

Talk about necro a thread that more than 1.5 years old.

[sycocys]

If PGI even considers it enough of a problem to care about, wouldn't the easiest solution be to just link accounts based on ip/machine id?
From there if they find problem accounts they can just stop tracking stats on the smurf accounts, if it continues just zero out the stats on the main.

If the goal is to produce leader board stats then there is a clear disincentive to smurf..

[VeeOt Dragon]

Tarl Cabot, on 28 December 2024 - 07:10 AM, said:

Talk about necro a thread that more than 1.5 years old.

perhaps but its still a relevant topic so i se nothing wrong with it. better than making a whole new one on it.


on another note i still think the best way to disinsentivise such abuse is to divide the leaderboards by tier. have it simply reset one's stats (as far as leaderboard looks at) once you reach a new Tier lvl. if nothing else it would show us how prevalent or not such abuse is. i don't think it would be all that hard to implement either. then again it would also require a leaderboard reset. hell PGI could then have rewards based on tier Leaderboard position. (not sure if there is any rewards for leaderboards or not since i have never looked at them let alone checked if there was.)