113 replies to this topic

[crazytimes IIC]

BLUF-
Alt account, 99% solo journey to tier 1 in the last ~7 weeks, many forum/reddit posters are self delusional, this game is okay.

Situation:
I took personal offence at the repeated claims that individuals were being held back at tier 5/4/3 by "bad matchmaking" and "comp groups" and "always getting matched against tier 1 when in tier 4". So I made a new account. Original is crazytimes- I'm an aggressively mediocre player with a habit of mostly drinking whilst playing, definitely not a top 10% player. Jarls will confirm.

Mission:
Play to tier 1 with no real world money, no cheesing builds, almost no grouping (~5 games in a group), and no salt.

Execution:
I started during the beach party overlap, so I got a huge boost to initial economy. I ground most of the way with three mechs: TBR-BH with LPL/ERML, QKD-5K with 4xLL and WHMIIC-3 with LPL/ERML. A few other AC5/LPPC/MRM builds. Absolutely no AC2/gauss/LRM,/ATM/stealth or heroes until upper tier 2.

Admin:
Just me except for a handful of matches at tier 4. They seemed nice. We had fun.

Overall experience:
My fun was obviously skewed by bring a bit of non-potato to the table, but it was still good. Cadet bonuses are generous, and it only took me a few matches to build a decent laser vomit timberwolf. From there, it was easy sailing all the way through.

Tiering:
I did not run into any definite tier 1s until I hit tier 3, and then it was only a handful of matches. Tier 2 was a bit of 50/50 - usually some known players, but enough obvious lower tier matches as well that it was still fine.

Groups:
Way more groups at low tiers than I expected. The groups were almost always undertonned, and almost always potato. That's fine, they were having fun and everything. The problem is people assume any 4 clan tags together = comp group of "Sweaty" tier 1s. It doesn't. Mid tiers had plenty of mid range groups, didn't run into "known" groups regularly until tier 2.

Builds:
Lower. tier were as expected. Still lots of bracket builds in the mids, didn't start getting sensible until tier 2. Surprisingly- a lot of stealth in tier 5/4. As in sometimes 4-6 mechs total per match. I felt there was a lot of people trying to abuse new players that couldn't target stealth mechs. That became less common once I hit tier 3.

Economy:
The cadet bonuses are good. The beach party event was massive. It would be nice to see a free mech or two given to new players- an IS and clan medium would be ideal, maybe a selection of the trial mechs- but to anyone non-potato the grind to new mechs is pretty painless, especially during an event.

Seal clubbing:
You can't seal club and stay low tier for long. I peaked at 999MS in a tier 3 match, but my average PSR for the lower tiers very quickly put me in tier 3 and I tried hard not to farm anything until I hit tier 3. I saw a handful of other people that were either grinding alts or just clubbing, but it wasn't a super common thing.

Conclusion:
Tier progress is not a goal unto itself. If for some reason you want to "improve" your tier- just don't play potato builds in a potato way. There is no evil matchmaker holding you back, <tier 3 almost never faces tier 1, groups in lower tiers are largely a hindrance and not a positive.

You are the master of your own destiny. Stay in school. Drink milk.

[Meep Meep]

I do this all the time to keep up interest with different alts. I usually wait till there is some event that rewards gsp and mc and cbills then run a single mech and see how long it takes to get to tier 1. Easy mode is meta mechs that will turbo you there super fast and hard mode is light mechs unless you have phenomenal skill and only a handful have that. I think someone managed to make it to tier 1 in a bit over a hundred games in a spider but thats not something even the current top players can easily replicate.

[VaelophisNyx]

counter point: you have extensive gamesense, knowledge, and good luck. New players may only have luck at best.

the matchmaker is a joke and does regularly give teams that couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. When 3/4ths of your team pulls at most 120 damage, what are you supposed to do? Mechs have limited health, often limited ammo. You can only carry so hard before you're pulled down and held down by 8-10 people just Not Playing at all.

[crazytimes]

VaelophisNyx, on 26 August 2023 - 08:12 PM, said:

counter point: you have extensive gamesense, knowledge, and good luck. New players may only have luck at best.

I know that- but it isn't new players claiming after +5000 games that MM is holding them back. It's well experienced players- some with many more games than me.

Quote

the matchmaker is a joke and does regularly give teams that couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. When 3/4ths of your team pulls at most 120 damage, what are you supposed to do? Mechs have limited health, often limited ammo. You can only carry so hard before you're pulled down and held down by 8-10 people just Not Playing at all.

What are you meant to do? Instead of whinning about it, just shoot the enemy a lot. If you lose, you still get bulk credits, XP and PSR. I literally just made an account to prove a solo non-potato can control their own destiny... and here you are already claiming it's not your fault when you choose to potato.

[martian]

crazytimes IIC, on 26 August 2023 - 07:44 PM, said:

BLUF-
Alt account, 99% solo journey to tier 1 in the last ~7 weeks, many forum/reddit posters are self delusional, this game is okay.
You are the master of your own destiny. Stay in school. Drink milk.

crazytimes, on 26 August 2023 - 08:24 PM, said:

I know that- but it isn't new players claiming after +5000 games that MM is holding them back. It's well experienced players- some with many more games than me.

Do you remember old - well, one player - with his regular threads: "Everybody is conspiring to keep me down!!!!!? Low players!!! Top players!!??!! PGI!!! Matchmaker!!! Everything! Myself am a awesome pilot."

[VaelophisNyx]

crazytimes, on 26 August 2023 - 08:24 PM, said:

What are you meant to do? Instead of whinning about it, just shoot the enemy a lot. If you lose, you still get bulk credits, XP and PSR. I literally just made an account to prove a solo non-potato can control their own destiny... and here you are already claiming it's not your fault when you choose to potato.

Ah yes just shoot the...6? 8? people firing back at me? do 20 more damage? sure that'll totally help! (It did not. it does not. Bad teams will keep you down like concrete shoes)

[martian]

VaelophisNyx, on 26 August 2023 - 11:49 PM, said:

Ah yes just shoot the...6? 8? people firing back at me? do 20 more damage? sure that'll totally help! (It did not. it does not. Bad teams will keep you down like concrete shoes)

If you are really so good that you deserve to be in higher Tiers, then you will quickly leave those "bad teams" behind thanks your much better match score, while you move up a Tier.

[Oh My God Chandler Bing]

So you decided to farm some noobs, and it went well.

[PurplePuke]

crazytimes, on 26 August 2023 - 08:24 PM, said:

I know that- but it isn't new players claiming after +5000 games that MM is holding them back. It's well experienced players- some with many more games than me.




What are you meant to do? Instead of whinning about it, just shoot the enemy a lot. If you lose, you still get bulk credits, XP and PSR. I literally just made an account to prove a solo non-potato can control their own destiny... and here you are already claiming it's not your fault when you choose to potato.

Some people have a whining complaining mindset about life, including gaming, and they can never let go of it. Nice try on your part, though.

[Tarl Cabot]

VaelophisNyx, on 26 August 2023 - 11:49 PM, said:

Ah yes just shoot the...6? 8? people firing back at me? do 20 more damage? sure that'll totally help! (It did not. it does not. Bad teams will keep you down like concrete shoes)

Crazytimes is correct, even on a lose one can and do move up since the MM/PSR rate the player against the other 23 players in that match, with the winning team earning slight percentage boost, ie 255 MS on the win team gets a +1 PSR point while a 346 MS the losing team earns a -1 PSR point.

With that said, VaelophisNyx, it appears you just started the game this month, provided this account is not an alt nor used your free 1x name change . Greetings!! And via your profile you can select to have your tier visible on the forums. As for myself, I consider Tiers more in battletech terminology Green - Militia - Regular - Veteran - Elite. It is easier to view it that way, thus tis not a race to Tier 1, which is what the MM uses to form matches.

Prior to the PSR reset in June/July 2020, anyone could make their way to Tier 1 (shudders) because the PSR was not even close to being a zero-sum setup.

Below is the current setup after the PSR reset, which rates the players in a match against each other. Not perfect but definitely better than what PGI had been using for many years. The original PSR setup was more of an experience bar than anything else.

https://mwomercs.com...ity-version-10/

Below is the initial change PGI was reviewing before the above took effect. It shows how the PSR was originally being generated, which explains how someone with a 171 Matchscore, simply by brute force by playing a huge number of games (25K+) and reaching Tier 1.

https://mwomercs.com...anges-jun-2020/

Oh My God Chandler Bing, on 27 August 2023 - 07:19 AM, said:

So you decided to farm some noobs, and it went well.

Check his profile, that alt is in Tier 1 after 255 games and completed in last month in July 2023, primarily in Heavies 71% and Assaults 22% of the time. And with Cadet Bonus he was out of Tier 5 after a few games then not long thereafter through Tier 4. And Tier 4 and 5 are not made up of just newbies, there are players who have been playing the game since it went live who are in Tier 4, for a variety of reasons. A few due to medical reasons, some due to systems that are at or below minimum requirements, but for many due to different mindsets. Even though many like or enjoy MW5, there is a different feeling when one is playing with and against live players, even if said live players are not even close to as good or worse than MW5 NPCs

[Oh My God Chandler Bing]

"different mindsets" is a polite way of putting it

[Baba Yogi]

I can confirm what Crazytimes is saying, came back after long hiatus quit during 2017. In my first season back, i went back up to T2, and my alt to almost T3. T1 is just a grind bar at this point. While matchmaking is bad in a way that, a lot of matches are stomps which is not fun even on winning side, it is not enough to hold you back if you are better than others, believe me. If you are good you'll go up. Although going above T3 is going to be slow, that natural for everyone.

Edited by Baba Yogi, 27 August 2023 - 08:15 AM.

[crazytimes]

the check engine light, on 27 August 2023 - 11:27 AM, said:

Can confirm T2 is slow as ****.

Crazytimes, for whatever else is true of him, is not a new player. Experience/knowledge gap exists and alone can account for a lot.

Absolutely. This wasn't about the time it took or my curiosity if match score is capped at 999, it was about seeing if new players are actually facing "all tier 1 comp groups" from tier 4.

I firmly believe MM is almost exclusively working with the 3 tier gap, and tier 3 are much more likely to see tier 4 players than tier 1 in their matches. The same people who say PSR is their goal are the ones who claim they are being artificially held back by evil MM.

My words of wisdom are either play for fun and enjoy yourself, or play for progress and accept personal responsibility for your own outcomes.

[crazytimes]

Oh My God Chandler Bing, on 27 August 2023 - 07:19 AM, said:

So you decided to farm some noobs, and it went well.

I'm not going to pretend to tier 5 wasn't brutal, but I was well into 4 before I even finished the cadet bonus, and I self imposed no component farming or headshots until tier 3. Yes I ruined some people matches- but I never pretended to be anything other than an alt account.

According to the forums and Reddit, I was supposedely facing "sweaty tier 1 comp teams" farming people from the outset, so really, I am the victim here

[VaelophisNyx]

The fact that you people just leap to go look at leaderboard positions is kinda cringe, ngl

also those numbers are wholly indicative of the bad teams the majority of t5 gets stuck with.

0 communication
0 coordination
minimal use of the quick-response wheel
team-wide awful positioning that you have to yell at them to get them to change half the time
you can only carry so hard, and because pilot rating is match rating based, and a zero sum system for some damn reason, even pulling 500-900 damage games one will struggle to make any progress.

Every single match being a steamroll from one side or the other is part of the problem as well. 0 chance to learn from any mistakes because you're dead too fast to learn anything or react half the time. pair that with the fact that you will indeed run into players with 5000+ hours in MWO as a fresh account with 15 minutes on record, and it's a perfect recipe for permanent stagnation

this doesn't even count games where you were the winning factor (base caps, incursion damage wins) but because you didn't do stellar damage to enemy mechs, you get slapped with a rating loss. Objective gameplay is punished and the game is horrible at communicating that to new players

[VaelophisNyx]

Oh right also there's the whole issue of HAGs existing now too, so the "shoot them a lot!" angle doesn't work. You get deleted by 4-6 enemies in short order if you aren't backed by a half competent team

[KursedVixen]

VaelophisNyx, on 26 August 2023 - 08:12 PM, said:

counter point: you have extensive gamesense, knowledge, and good luck. New players may only have luck at best.

the matchmaker is a joke and does regularly give teams that couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. When 3/4ths of your team pulls at most 120 damage, what are you supposed to do? Mechs have limited health, often limited ammo. You can only carry so hard before you're pulled down and held down by 8-10 people just Not Playing at all.

yeah i feel shamed when I do higher damage than an assault. in a light mech.

VaelophisNyx, on 27 August 2023 - 01:49 PM, said:

The fact that you people just leap to go look at leaderboard positions is kinda cringe, ngl

also those numbers are wholly indicative of the bad teams the majority of t5 gets stuck with.

0 communication
0 coordination
minimal use of the quick-response wheel
team-wide awful positioning that you have to yell at them to get them to change half the time
you can only carry so hard, and because pilot rating is match rating based, and a zero sum system for some damn reason, even pulling 500-900 damage games one will struggle to make any progress.

Every single match being a steamroll from one side or the other is part of the problem as well. 0 chance to learn from any mistakes because you're dead too fast to learn anything or react half the time. pair that with the fact that you will indeed run into players with 5000+ hours in MWO as a fresh account with 15 minutes on record, and it's a perfect recipe for permanent stagnation

this doesn't even count games where you were the winning factor (base caps, incursion damage wins) but because you didn't do stellar damage to enemy mechs, you get slapped with a rating loss. Objective gameplay is punished and the game is horrible at communicating that to new players

not only is objective gameplay punished but so is efficent killing i can kill 5 people in one game do abou 500 damage total so about 100 per kill and the guy who gets 1000 damage get's a higher match score than me, you'd think killing which is taking enemy players and guns off the field would be more rewarding than straight out farming for components and damage...

VaelophisNyx, on 27 August 2023 - 01:59 PM, said:

Oh right also there's the whole issue of HAGs existing now too, so the "shoot them a lot!" angle doesn't work. You get deleted by 4-6 enemies in short order if you aren't backed by a half competent team

Hags are only dangerous to new players and dummies who stand around being target practice, if your in a fast mech HAGs are the least of your worries you have to worry about tracking missiles and huge single shot high damage ballstics like the IS AC-20 guass rifle and such.

[Meep Meep]

Someone is confusing win rate with psr gain. One is team dependent and the other ~player~ dependent.

Losing matches due to potato teams is something EVERYONE at EVERY tier has to deal with.

Losing psr however is only due to one thing. Poor personal performance. Period.

[Plato J]

VaelophisNyx, on 26 August 2023 - 08:12 PM, said:

counter point: you have extensive gamesense, knowledge...

You're making their point for them: If you have better game sense and knowledge then you tier up. Yes its hard and slow to do. To stay in T1 people mostly fight other T1. To be honest there is a massive skill gap between T1 quick play, and any player with decent competitive experience. Statics say the better luck and worse luck games all even out.

I remember the tier reset, with everyone dumped into T3, it was chaos. Everyone experienced the same thing. VaelophisNyx I dont know what tier you're in, but these 12-2 stomps are very common right now in T1, sometimes I'm on the winning side and sometimes I'm on the losing side. I think the stomps are because the new weapons are very [perhaps too] strong and people are still adjusting to them.

as always the locus of control is within

[Tarl Cabot]

Plato J, on 28 August 2023 - 01:28 AM, said:

You're making their point for them: If you have better game sense and knowledge then you tier up. Yes its hard and slow to do. To stay in T1 people mostly fight other T1. To be honest there is a massive skill gap between T1 quick play, and any player with decent competitive experience. Statics say the better luck and worse luck games all even out.

I remember the tier reset, with everyone dumped into T3, it was chaos. Everyone experienced the same thing. VaelophisNyx I dont know what tier you're in, but these 12-2 stomps are very common right now in T1, sometimes I'm on the winning side and sometimes I'm on the losing side. I think the stomps are because the new weapons are very [perhaps too] strong and people are still adjusting to them.

as always the locus of control is within

Game play, even in Tier 1, can be very dependent on time of day. With said, it is not just the new weapons but the amount of weight that can drop, especially assaults. And controlled aggression + W key wins games, not trying to nascar away while not firing back wins games. Then there are also no firing lines to focus fire. It also does not help if one side willingly concede the high ground and become fish in a barrel. I do wish though that the endgame totals also included a live mech's Health Percentage. I have had a few games where we finished 12-3, and being dead (haha) cycled through the team and most were one or two shots away from dying from red CT, yellow/red remaining leg, one ST gone and the other in the red.