87 replies to this topic

[An6ryMan69]

Personally I couldn't care less about leaderboards or Jarl's list or whatever, but the point about T1 players squashing T5 players and ruining their experience IS a big deal, and affects the whole gaming experience and therefore the viability of the game.

I'm fine with alt accounts, but if the system is working right, anyone's accounts (no matter how many) should level out at the same tier very quickly, since tier should reflect how well they actually play.

I wonder if their is a better way to have strong players pushed up the tier system much faster, to be more fair.

Something like where if a "new" T5 player gets six kills and a match score of 500+ in a match, they jump up a third of a tier from that one match, so they can't keep stomping long.

[Widowmaker1981]

An6ryMan69, on 09 May 2023 - 09:26 AM, said:

Personally I couldn't care less about leaderboards or Jarl's list or whatever, but the point about T1 players squashing T5 players and ruining their experience IS a big deal, and affects the whole gaming experience and therefore the viability of the game.

I'm fine with alt accounts, but if the system is working right, anyone's accounts (no matter how many) should level out at the same tier very quickly, since tier should reflect how well they actually play.

I wonder if their is a better way to have strong players pushed up the tier system much faster, to be more fair.

Something like where if a "new" T5 player gets six kills and a match score of 500+ in a match, they jump up a third of a tier from that one match, so they can't keep stomping long.

The trouble with the idea that accounts 'should' end up in the correct tier is that it is very easy to work around. For example, you could make 2 alt accounts and rotate them. One account is in stomp mode for the leaderboard and the other is in suicide mode to reduce tier for next month. Or just make a new alt account each month.

Some kind of system that 'detects' people smurfing and gives them massive PSR increases would be great, but i strongly doubt PGI has the ability to create a system that does that without large numbers of false positives.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 09 May 2023 - 09:39 AM.

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

An6ryMan69, on 09 May 2023 - 09:26 AM, said:

Personally I couldn't care less about leaderboards or Jarl's list or whatever, but the point about T1 players squashing T5 players and ruining their experience IS a big deal, and affects the whole gaming experience and therefore the viability of the game.

I'm fine with alt accounts, but if the system is working right, anyone's accounts (no matter how many) should level out at the same tier very quickly, since tier should reflect how well they actually play.

I wonder if their is a better way to have strong players pushed up the tier system much faster, to be more fair.

Something like where if a "new" T5 player gets six kills and a match score of 500+ in a match, they jump up a third of a tier from that one match, so they can't keep stomping long.

from memory, this is already happening more or less.
back when accounts were being reset last time, I went from the then-t5 to t4 in 2, max3 games.
to t3 in around 6-10 if I remember correctly.
so, imo, it works.


the thing is: there's nothing stopping people creating new accounts once they hit a point where climbing up AND farming what is below gets harder. and there'll always be ways to do so.
there's little PGI can do about it really, and imo, that's a community-issue.

once everybody starts the name&shame-game ingame, this 'problem' (IF it really is one) could solve itself;


otoh: is this really a problem? and if it is: is it a mwo-problem? I don't think so;
every "society" in it has those who "live" and act within the rules, but still bend them where-ever they can.
especially in everything internet-related ofc; look at every other online-game and look no further;

there's nobody prohibiting the vast majority from ostracizing those who do so. and maybe that's the way things should go;
you won't stop anybody willing to do that, however.


the thing you CAN do, right now and in future, is to play the game and once you see somebody abusing things, you call them out. ingame. publicly.
don't expect a change however. you can't change people, especially in an online-game.

Edited by Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, 09 May 2023 - 09:49 AM.

[LordNothing]

always been a problem, will always be a problem. if you dont give high level players a platform, they will inevitably farm the general population. happens in pretty much every esports title, its nothing new. they appropriated fp at the expense of the general population, they sanitize their stats with alt acconts, they drag their games out endlessly to preserve kdr. its up to the developer to make sure it doesnt pose a problem. regular tournaments and strong custom games for training purposes are a must. pgi has been pretty inconsistent with that.

Edited by LordNothing, 09 May 2023 - 01:01 PM.

[epikt]

LordNothing, on 09 May 2023 - 01:00 PM, said:

if you dont give high level players a platform, they will inevitably farm the general population [...] regular tournaments and strong custom games for training purposes are a must. pgi has been pretty inconsistent with that.

There are regular community-run tournaments and leagues.
I don't think the problem is "high level players" clubbing seals in T5 - those who do that for the most part probably aren't that good.

(noob farming aside, I don't understand the interest of alt-accounts... I mean, you're earning c-bills without being able to transfer it tp your main to buy mechs and stuff, that's a waste of time)

[crazytimes]

Given there is absolutely nothing gained by position on the leaderboards... The best solution is to just not look at them. Ever. I'm aggressively average at best and putting a position number on my averageness changes nothing. Other peoples position matters even less.

The last time I looked at the leader boards was during the xxxp lurm Fafnir fiasco a few years back.

[LordNothing]

epikt, on 09 May 2023 - 02:00 PM, said:

There are regular community-run tournaments and leagues.
I don't think the problem is "high level players" clubbing seals in T5 - those who do that for the most part probably aren't that good.

(noob farming aside, I don't understand the interest of alt-accounts... I mean, you're earning c-bills without being able to transfer it tp your main to buy mechs and stuff, that's a waste of time)

were talking players so good they can glass most of the players in t1 with high levels of repeatability. its a shame the mm puts them in matches with t4s and t5s (which its not supposed to do, if not for low pop). a t3 player will play players both worse and better than they are, but at the top you usually can only play players that are worse than you most of the time unless you can organize a high skill match. comp is really the only place to test high level skill. but they still got to level mechs and acquire loot just like any other player, so they farm. tournaments are a good way to get them out of general pop so there is less farming, but it still happens. the thing is you want to make it rare enough that it doesn't drive people away.

the thing about alts is mostly so you can scrub your stats. look at mine, they are attrocious. i used my hotas the first 2 years ive played this game. a stat padder will want to scrub their noob experience from the record. for that kind of player stats trump all. you buy an mc package and buy a few mechs, bays, gsp so you start with known meta mechs, fully mastered and ready to go. then have your shot at climbing the leaderboards. they might do this multiple times to try and go for that coveted top slot. as they improve they got to keep their stats sanitized, so theres another mc package on a different account, possibly buying the exact same mechs and building them out the same way. for a pokemechs player this seems absurd, get everything on a single account, all the mechs, stats be damned.

i guess whatever brings players back to the game.

Edited by LordNothing, 09 May 2023 - 05:34 PM.

[Rondoe]

I only look at the leaderboards to gauge myself on how well or poor I do month to month. Don't really care about my position on them. As for psr I still bounce back and forth between T5 and T4, but proud of myself that I made it to T4 after 2+ years of playing.

I'm not a competitive person, just enjoy the heck out of this game.

[CherokeeRose187]

LOL, it's a self correcting "problem".

For season 81, I ranked 521st place on the leaderboard (~2%), yet Jarl's has me listed at ~66%.

That's because the tier system works well and Jarl's is no longer an accurate representation of absolute skill, but relative skill within your tier rank.

Edited by CherokeeRose187, 09 May 2023 - 07:47 PM.

[CherokeeRose187]

LordNothing, on 09 May 2023 - 05:31 PM, said:

were talking players so good they can glass most of the players in t1 with high levels of repeatability. its a shame the mm puts them in matches with t4s and t5s (which its not supposed to do, if not for low pop). a t3 player will play players both worse and better than they are, but at the top you usually can only play players that are worse than you most of the time unless you can organize a high skill match. comp is really the only place to test high level skill. but they still got to level mechs and acquire loot just like any other player, so they farm. tournaments are a good way to get them out of general pop so there is less farming, but it still happens. the thing is you want to make it rare enough that it doesn't drive people away.

the thing about alts is mostly so you can scrub your stats. look at mine, they are attrocious. i used my hotas the first 2 years ive played this game. a stat padder will want to scrub their noob experience from the record. for that kind of player stats trump all. you buy an mc package and buy a few mechs, bays, gsp so you start with known meta mechs, fully mastered and ready to go. then have your shot at climbing the leaderboards. they might do this multiple times to try and go for that coveted top slot. as they improve they got to keep their stats sanitized, so theres another mc package on a different account, possibly buying the exact same mechs and building them out the same way. for a pokemechs player this seems absurd, get everything on a single account, all the mechs, stats be damned.

i guess whatever brings players back to the game.

I get put to shame regularly by the top of the top T1 players. I'm sure hardware makes a difference, and I play on an old laptop with a crappy internet connection, but even then I know I'm in a totally separate class from the top of T1 players. Some of these people are just insanely good.

Edited by CherokeeRose187, 09 May 2023 - 07:47 PM.

[Leadpaintchips]

Seal clubbing will always be something that will happen. For some gamers, going into a multiplayer game and beating up people who are vastly below their skill level is the point, and every PvP game out there struggles with this.

[Meep Meep]

Well my bit of input is that if you really are a good player that can farm tier 5 you won't be in tier 5 long enough to matter. To keep up interest in the game I regularly make a new alt whenever there is a free mech event and pick a single mech to play and see how far I can get it before the next event. On average I'm out of tier 5 in 3~5 games then into tier 3 by around 50 games in and at that point you see all tiers so your clubbing potential has dropped to about the same as anyone else. I always make tier 1 before the event ends. So the entire hubbub of tier 1 farming low tiers is concern trolling from those who haven't actually made a new alt and see how quickly you gain tiers and leave the low tiers behind.

[Widowmaker1981]

Meep Meep, on 10 May 2023 - 12:52 AM, said:

Well my bit of input is that if you really are a good player that can farm tier 5 you won't be in tier 5 long enough to matter. To keep up interest in the game I regularly make a new alt whenever there is a free mech event and pick a single mech to play and see how far I can get it before the next event. On average I'm out of tier 5 in 3~5 games then into tier 3 by around 50 games in and at that point you see all tiers so your clubbing potential has dropped to about the same as anyone else. I always make tier 1 before the event ends. So the entire hubbub of tier 1 farming low tiers is concern trolling from those who haven't actually made a new alt and see how quickly you gain tiers and leave the low tiers behind.

This allows ~50 games of farming per alt

There are 'new' players in every month with under 50 matches and stats that seem.. out of place.. for a new player. What do you think is going on there?

Take a look at the number 1 ranked player on Jarls. Ever heard of that person? Ever see them in a game? Because i haven't. To me, this seems extremely suspect.. maybe im wrong, maybe there is a guy who is the best player in the game despite only playing 10-20 drops per month.

[Curccu]

TercieI, on 09 May 2023 - 09:13 AM, said:

Leaderboards will never mean anything so long as soup queue exists. But even if it didn't, the obvious answer is that leaderboards are only for players who were Tier 1 the entire period. No Tier 5 score is comparable.

Solution could be pretty much what Widowmaker suggested but maybe just show just T1 tag next to name in leaderboard, no need to show others tiers as knowing them is kinda irrelevant from ranking point of view IMO.

[PocketYoda]

I'm not competitive at all i play to enjoy a some what fun Battletech shooter.. That said couldn't they just remove the Leaderboards from Quickplay and only have it in Faction War? Is being top of the soup queue really that enticing to so many?

I forgot to say as a semi permanent fixture to tier 4 and 3 i do see a lot of crazy good players at least to most of us tier 3 lifers passing through the tiers.. quite a lot lately.

Edited by PocketYoda, 10 May 2023 - 04:41 AM.

[Leadpaintchips]

PocketYoda, on 10 May 2023 - 04:40 AM, said:

I'm not competitive at all i play to enjoy a some what fun Battletech shooter.. That said couldn't they just remove the Leaderboards from Quickplay and only have it in Faction War? Is being top of the soup queue really that enticing to so many?

I forgot to say as a semi permanent fixture to tier 4 and 3 i do see a lot of crazy good players at least to most of us tier 3 lifers passing through the tiers.. quite a lot lately.

The Jarl's List that most people are talking about is a 3rd party leaderboard. It grabs publicly available performance numbers off of here and compiles it into a leaderboard, so other then not making that information public or cracking down on APIs (I think, been a hot minute since I paid attention to this type of thing) there's not much that PGI can do to adjust the leaderboard.

And yes, epeen strok...., I mean rewardless leaderboards is that enticing to many players.

[Meep Meep]

Widowmaker1981, on 10 May 2023 - 02:31 AM, said:

This allows ~50 games of farming per alt

There are 'new' players in every month with under 50 matches and stats that seem.. out of place.. for a new player. What do you think is going on there?

Take a look at the number 1 ranked player on Jarls. Ever heard of that person? Ever see them in a game? Because i haven't. To me, this seems extremely suspect.. maybe im wrong, maybe there is a guy who is the best player in the game despite only playing 10-20 drops per month.

Well that makes the assumption I'm leaving a trail of tears and broken dreams behind me. Quite the opposite in fact for me at least. When I tear through tier 5 and have those handful of monster games(got ace on game two on one of them) all I get are heaps of praise from my team and kudos well played from the reds. My friends request list is filled to the brim from my quick run up to tier 3 of people wanting to lance up or recruit and I have yet once to ever get accused of being a farmer. At best they complain about the mech I'm in as ecm lights and mediums are a favorite to use. So that leaves stat padding jarls and I couldn't care less about jarls or any leaderboard. I play the game to run around in stompy mechs and blowing **** up not to chase arbitrary numbers.

[LordNothing]

CherokeeRose187, on 09 May 2023 - 06:41 PM, said:

I get put to shame regularly by the top of the top T1 players. I'm sure hardware makes a difference, and I play on an old laptop with a crappy internet connection, but even then I know I'm in a totally separate class from the top of T1 players. Some of these people are just insanely good.

hardware, not as much as you think. fast nvme storage, high refresh monitor and a top level gpu from this generation are nice to haves, but it just reminds you how old the game is. you find yourself first in match waiting on everyone else to load, realize you are shooting at interpolation (render 144hz, server tick is still 30hz), and you have new crash causing bugs that come with new video drivers. and you still turn down a lot of settings so you can actually see your targets. of all of that the thing i think that has helped the most is a fancy mouse. especially one that lets you tweak sensitivity on the fly.

Edited by LordNothing, 10 May 2023 - 01:58 PM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Meep Meep, on 10 May 2023 - 01:37 PM, said:

So that leaves stat padding jarls and I couldn't care less about jarls or any leaderboard. I play the game to run around in stompy mechs and blowing **** up not to chase arbitrary numbers.

In that case, i assume youd not have any objection to the suggestion i made in the first place (display player tier on leaderboard and change the forum option to 'Display tier on forum and appear on leaderboards'), so.. all good i guess.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 10 May 2023 - 01:59 PM.

[LordNothing]

PocketYoda, on 10 May 2023 - 04:40 AM, said:

I'm not competitive at all i play to enjoy a some what fun Battletech shooter.. That said couldn't they just remove the Leaderboards from Quickplay and only have it in Faction War? Is being top of the soup queue really that enticing to so many?

I forgot to say as a semi permanent fixture to tier 4 and 3 i do see a lot of crazy good players at least to most of us tier 3 lifers passing through the tiers.. quite a lot lately.

i dont think that is a good idea at all. people play for different reasons. i prefer pokemechs. some like to rank in the top 10. and removing the leaderboards is just going to make those players go elsewhere. there are other esports games with leaderboards to climb after all.

i think a goat ranking scheme would work better. its one thing to rank 1st place, its another thing to hold that place consistently. tweak the ranking rules so you have to have 6 seasons of stats to even rank, and only count the last 6 seasons. a player in rank one for several seasons will always rank hire than a player that made it there once.

but then again without a fair amount of churn in the leaderboards i dont think it would have the same player draw that it currently has.