44 replies to this topic

[Inviticus]

Joseph Mallan, on 07 February 2013 - 07:29 AM, said:

Absolutely... Unless its cave rush! If i am in my D-DC I find a fellow assault or Cat and try to keep my bubble over them, If i am in other Mechs I look for the D-DC and provide extra long and short range fire. I do my part, but do not worry about the win as I cannot "make it happen"

Good question though!

I like your style. I always tend to follow and support the Assaults in my Mediums and Heavies. An ECM Atlas is great cover and I find that most players tend to primary the large mechs and leave me relatively free to blast away for a bit. Good times.

[Znail]

MischiefSC, on 07 February 2013 - 07:37 AM, said:

They're gathering Elo data already so that we don't all start at 1300. The idea being that newbies will trickle into the middle and their decline will help less skilled players rise. More skilled pug players will rise to a level that lets them largely play with each other.

Unless their is a huge constant stream of new players even at 1300 you're rarely going to encounter new players. most experienced players will generally fall off generally quite a bit over 1300. That's what for me is the 'sweet spot'. Not so high that it's all competitive team play but high enough that you're rarely dropping with new players.

You make it sound like new players will for some reason be more rare in the future then now. Unless this game starts to die out so will there still be new players joining, new players that uses Trial mechs. Unless ELO drives away new players so will it have no effect on number of new players that join the game.

No, most experienced players will be average and thus stay around the average ELO. That is basically the deffinition of average.

ELO doesn't have some magic means to actually judge player skill other then by how they actually play the game. Thus the people that will be near their correct ELO will be the ones that play a lot. New players will be given an average ELO despite not being near the skill level of an average player that have played 100s of games.

But there is a way to avoid this issue, and something that is used in Chess where ELO originates. That is to have new players not drop down below 1300. That does remove the zero-sum aspect of the system and makes it so that experienced players tend to gravitate upwardss from 1300 instead of spreading out around 1300.

[Inviticus]

Znail, on 07 February 2013 - 09:35 AM, said:

You make it sound like new players will for some reason be more rare in the future then now. Unless this game starts to die out so will there still be new players joining, new players that uses Trial mechs. Unless ELO drives away new players so will it have no effect on number of new players that join the game.

This might be a little off-topic but I certainly hope this isn't the case. With a larger pool of players, the better chance for more diverse matches within the ELO groups and the better the experience will be for everyone. I am holding out hope that the new ELO system is a huge success and provides a fun experience from the first time a newbie drops into a trial mech and indefinately throughout their many years playing this game. One of the things I loved about the old Multiplayer Battletech was the large playerbase and always meeting new players.

[HurlockHolmes]

MischiefSC, on 07 February 2013 - 06:53 AM, said:

Here's the funny thing about Elo though. Premade teams had the option to go to 8 mans and amazingly, after it was found that most the people in 8 mans were hardcore team players that ruthlessly crushed the teams that just showed up to farm pubs 8-mans were almost abandoned.

There isn't a way to opt out of your Elo score though. So you play with a team that is very, very good together (at least against pugs) and has a high win rate and high KDR. Remember all those groups in the 8-man queue you were avoiding? Well, no way to avoid them now. Drop with a team? That's who you'll drop with. Drop pug? Hey, guess what - it's like pugging in the 8-man queue now! At least until you get beaten so much so badly game after game after game, losing only 2 points or so each time you lose, that you drop down into a lower bracket.

We're talking something akin to 25 or 50 losses more than wins here just for a tiny, tiny position change. Given that it's more than win/loss in the system by the sound of it you'd have to not just lose but lose badly.

The best premade teams will rise to the top and kudos to them I say. Once there, that's where they will stay - inescapably more or less. The teams that seem to offend you the most will get beaten, again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again, tanking their stats all across the board, until they reach a level where they win about 50% of the time. No more 80/20 win-loss ratio, no more 6.0 or 7.0 KDR, no more steamrolling games. They'll have to play harder every single game just to break even and come out of a painful freefall in their stats.

Just wait. It'll be comedy gold.

For pugs the change will be the opposite. Imagine if every game where you got rolled because you had at least 1 AFK and 2 people who ran the opposite direction and died were instead replaced with people as good as yourself. No more watching your team scatter like pigeons. You play with teamwork in chat? You'll settle into a level where most everyone else you play with is looking for the same level of coordination.

Elo is going to be like christmas for someone like you. The people who really bug you, teams who are out to stomp pugs, are going to get beaten down until they quit trying to get up and accept their place. Pugs who like teamwork and play well together will fall into their own crowd, running together most game.

As to new mechs, I alternate matches now between a Jenner and an Atlas. It's.... interesting. Especially when I start the match and forget which I'm in. It's made me a better Atlas pilot that's for sure. Play around, have fun. Change is coming, it's just painful to wait sometimes.

That was beautifully said,10/10. Would cry again.

[Znail]

Inviticus, on 07 February 2013 - 10:12 AM, said:

This might be a little off-topic but I certainly hope this isn't the case. With a larger pool of players, the better chance for more diverse matches within the ELO groups and the better the experience will be for everyone. I am holding out hope that the new ELO system is a huge success and provides a fun experience from the first time a newbie drops into a trial mech and indefinately throughout their many years playing this game. One of the things I loved about the old Multiplayer Battletech was the large playerbase and always meeting new players.

Well, ELO might hurt with new players in the future due to the newbie side of this problem. The average players with 100s of games played tends to be less then happy to see a new player in a trial mech on his side so may say some rude words as welcome.