14 replies to this topic

[chaosshade2638]

I've been playing for... idk, years at this point. I think joined when the Sun Spider was the latest mech pack. Back when the old PSR system was in place, I made it to Tier 2 and was a decidedly solid pilot (at least I thought I was). When the new PSR system was in place, my PSR plummeted to Tier 5 and I've hovered around high T5, low T4 ever since. The game felt less difficult in T2, the matches felt more consistent.

Now, my piloting is WILDLY inconsistent, some matches I'll score well even if the team gets rolled, other times I'm one of the first dead... and honestly it feels like it's more often the latter. I was wondering if anyone had tips to help with consistently other than "gitgud"

[Boiled Peanut Dealer]

I think you are encounting the same issue I am. Smurf accounts.

[crazytimes]

Old PSR was an XP bar. New PSR at least sorts people into general buckets.

In tier 4, you're still in the matchmaking pool for tier 5-2, ie +90% of the population. If you end up in a mostly tier match, you are towards the end of the skill spectrum in the match and will suffer. If you get a predominantly tier 5 match, you're at the higher end of the spectrum and will perform better.

[Tarl Cabot]

The original/previous PSR, as notated, was more of an experience bar, and almost everyone would eventually make it to Tier 1 and 2. We had players, through brute force with game numbers of 25K+ games, was in tier 1 with an average 171 MS and 0.83% W/L ratio.

Below was the original PSR setup. To earn or lose PSR points, the current PSR ranks players against the other 23 players in a match, with a winning side earning a small percentage increase. I have seen matches (base rush) only 3 players on the winning side earned positive PSR points while the others lost points/received the down arrow. And each Tier has 1000 PSR points and the max PSR points a player can earn, the top performer, in a match is under 30 pts or so.

So Tier 3 to Tier 5 is made up of players who used to be in Tier 1 and 2 in the original PSR setup, or to put it another way, the old PSR was essentially a mini-range of todays Tier 1 to Tier 5 players. Even today though, Tier 1-2 players still have a wide range of skill, so you are not missing anything. Think of the current tiers more like Elite, Veteran, Regular, Militia and Green Troops.

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

Current PSR values:(Original or old PSR)

Player LOSES:

Match Score: 0-100 goes down in PSR by -2

Match Score: 101-250 goes down in PSR by -1

Match Score: 251-400 does not move.

Match Score: 401+ goes up in PSR by +1

Player WINS:

Match Score: 0-100 does not move.

Match Score: 101-250 goes up in PSR by +1

Match Score: 251-400 goes up in PSR by +3

Match Score: 401+ goes up in PSR by +5

The new PSR setup
https://mwomercs.com...ity-version-10/

[martian]

chaosshade2638, on 26 June 2024 - 03:13 PM, said:

I've been playing for... idk, years at this point. I think joined when the Sun Spider was the latest mech pack. Back when the old PSR system was in place, I made it to Tier 2 and was a decidedly solid pilot (at least I thought I was). When the new PSR system was in place, my PSR plummeted to Tier 5 and I've hovered around high T5, low T4 ever since. The game felt less difficult in T2, the matches felt more consistent.

Now, my piloting is WILDLY inconsistent, some matches I'll score well even if the team gets rolled, other times I'm one of the first dead... and honestly it feels like it's more often the latter. I was wondering if anyone had tips to help with consistently other than "gitgud"

The old PSR version was skewed heavily towards the upwards movement. Some people had reached Tier 1 just by the brute force of playing a massive number of games. The original PSR system worked more or less as experience bar and even PGI employees themselves admitted it. The actual pilot skill was a secondary thing.

In the end, a large portion of the player base reached Tier 1 (I vaguely remember number 60%). That fact made the matchmaker's work of creating balanced games all but impossible, since pretty much everybody was in the same Tier.

The current PSR version is not ideal, but it reflects the player's skill level much better than the previous version.

Some players - who reached T1 or T2 previously because they had spent of lot of time playing game - were quite surprised after the PSR reset. They have fallen to T4 or T5 because their skill was measured after every game without that upward bias. The more games they played, the faster their fall was.

[feeWAIVER]

Tell me we exist in an echo chamber, without telling me we exist in an echo chamber.

Spoiler

Tarl Cabot, on 26 June 2024 - 06:17 PM, said:

We had players, through brute force with game numbers of 25K+ games,

martian, on 26 June 2024 - 08:18 PM, said:

Some people had reached Tier 1 just by the brute force of playing a massive number of games.

[MrMadguy]

chaosshade2638, on 26 June 2024 - 03:13 PM, said:

I've been playing for... idk, years at this point. I think joined when the Sun Spider was the latest mech pack. Back when the old PSR system was in place, I made it to Tier 2 and was a decidedly solid pilot (at least I thought I was). When the new PSR system was in place, my PSR plummeted to Tier 5 and I've hovered around high T5, low T4 ever since. The game felt less difficult in T2, the matches felt more consistent.

Now, my piloting is WILDLY inconsistent, some matches I'll score well even if the team gets rolled, other times I'm one of the first dead... and honestly it feels like it's more often the latter. I was wondering if anyone had tips to help with consistently other than "gitgud"

Your piloting isn't problem. Matchmaking is. It works properly around 3-6pm. But it just stops working in the evening. And devs don't do anything to prevent it. Result? PSR deflation. When Tier 3 is invaded by Tier 1s, former Tier 3 players drop to Tier 4. While Tier 4 can't be invaded by Tier 1, hardcore players still manage to get to your matches. I'm not sure, how. May be via smurf accounts. May be release valves allow them to do it anyway. But Tier 4 starts to be unplayable too. But I still float between Tier 4 and Tier 3, because matches are good at least sometimes.

[AnAnachronismAlive]

The personal degree of "consistency in piloting" is strongly affected by 23 other people in your match. One should always keep in mind, that - frustrating as it can be now and then - that most MWO QP-matches tend to become a steamroll once a certain number of blue mechs (dps-output / armor-/HP-ressources) got fragged. Except for some players in the 95%+ bracket - and that is the exception too - no player or mech is able to gnaw away a certain number disadvantage.

While staying in T5/T4 over a certain period of time usually ain't the norm for solid pilots, one would have to check your match- / piloting-behavior / mech-selection to identify potential flaws keeping you from rising into higher tiers. Bad match quality / player behavior in T5/T4 matches can't be the only explanation though. Being the first one dead is usually a sign of getting yourself separated from the mainbody of your force (a.k.a. bad positioning and/or bad map- / movement-awareness), If not holding power positions with a couple of buddies, constant moving while firing on the opfor when possible / appropriate should be your goal to go.

Edited by AnAnachronismAlive, 26 June 2024 - 11:51 PM.

[Gasboy]

feeWAIVER, on 26 June 2024 - 09:15 PM, said:

Tell me we exist in an echo chamber, without telling me we exist in an echo chamber.

The truth can be said even in an echo chamber. There are numerous games where you can 'fail upwards' because the system is just exp. MWO used to rate you on the amount of xp you had, no matter how many games you played. If getting to teir 1 required 100000 xp, everyone would get there, whether it took 10 games or 100000.

There's only so many ways to say "you can get there by playing a shitload of games".

[feeWAIVER]

Gasboy, on 27 June 2024 - 04:52 AM, said:

The truth can be said even in an echo chamber. There are numerous games where you can 'fail upwards' because the system is just exp. MWO used to rate you on the amount of xp you had, no matter how many games you played. If getting to teir 1 required 100000 xp, everyone would get there, whether it took 10 games or 100000.

There's only so many ways to say "you can get there by playing a shitload of games".

I just thought it was funny, two posts in a row said "brute force".

[Gasboy]

feeWAIVER, on 27 June 2024 - 04:56 AM, said:

I just thought it was funny, two posts in a row said "brute force".

Since they both posted within a minute of each other, it shows great minds think alike.

[Stewbawl]

chaosshade2638, on 26 June 2024 - 03:13 PM, said:

I was wondering if anyone had tips to help with consistently other than "gitgud"

we can't control the quality of other players we're matched up with for a team, but we can control ourselves. my suggestions for climbing the piloting tier is the following:

1) pick 1-3 mechs that you're good with and drop in those frequently. i find that when i bounce around from mech to mech and build to build i am less consistent in my personal performance, and when i stick with one mech/build for a while i generally average a higher match score.

2) set aside personal preference for META. i personally love my CPTL-C1 with LRMS, and i play the heck out of it, but my average damage and match score is lower because sadly they just aren't up to snuff in the current META. if i switch things up and play a more widely accepted strong mech/build low and behold my average damage and match score improves.

3) REALLY listen to team chatter and team movement. i find the matches where more people are paying attention to team members calling out enemy locations and working as a group have significantly better results. a group working together even on a 'bad call' are going to have a better end result than a team that doesn't work together at all.

[feeWAIVER]

If he's often the first person to die, it can't be blamed on the match maker.
It's hard to give tips, other than to work in his situational awareness.

He's playing mostly heavies and assaults.. maybe look for a smaller more agile mech, and play as an assist to bigger, less agile teammates.

Edited by feeWAIVER, 27 June 2024 - 09:43 AM.

[foamyesque]

Consistently playing ECM mechs is worth basically a whole extra tier all by itself, though it can make you sloppy when you move back out of them

[martian]

feeWAIVER, on 27 June 2024 - 04:56 AM, said:

I just thought it was funny, two posts in a row said "brute force".

I am sorry, I just thought that it was a quite fitting description for one guy's effort (I am not going to name him) to claw his way to Tier 1 (or what Tier he had ended up). He needed some 12-15 000 games or so in the old PSR system to climb there.

When he finally got there, the great Tier reset came.

The new PSR system (more skill based than the old one) moved him to Tier 5 soon and he then spent two years complaining that PGI is punishing him personally.