What do people think of Pilot Skill rating for lighter mechs?

[spartanspud]

I find that even if I survive, play the objective, get a couple of kmdd by backstabbing and win the match I am still losing PSR when I play lighter mechs, due to the fact my damage number are lower simply due to being more precise.

I was playing as a stealth armour assassin just there, got 2 KMDD and a KMDD with the final blow and won the game but I still lost pilot rating because I was playing the role properly. It feels like a further reason not to play light or mediums. I can have less of an impact in an Atlas but I almost never lose rating in it because it has an LBX20 and a ton of MRMs. It isn't as fun though.

I think the PSR needs different weighting for the different weight classes. The upper damage limit for a light is generally speaking lower than a heavy and it makes playing as a lighter mech feel like I am hindering myself.

[Harukage]

i play light mechs a lot. Usually fast backstabbers with lasers and machine guns. I also get positive to neutral match score pretty often, even in like 50% of lost games. You are doing something wrong.
And yes sometimes i do make mistake and get stupid deaths, and do get streaks of unlucky noob teams. Everyone does.
The main sources of score for me are: scouting, uav locked damage, hit and run, flanking and components destroyed. You might also not want to solo rambo much. It is always a good thing to be somewhere near your team mates when the main fight starts, that way you can get lots of assists, proximity protection and lance in formation score points.
I can understand struggling to score with support builds, but combat oriented mechs should not have that much trouble if you really know how to play lighter machines. If you still do not after a large period of training - lights are not your things. Sorry.

[boris.glevrk]

May I ask what your current rating is? The higher you are, the harder it is to maintain.

[Ishan451]

Originally posted by spartanspud:

I find that even if I survive, play the objective, get a couple of kmdd by backstabbing and win the match I am still losing PSR when I play lighter mechs, due to the fact my damage number are lower simply due to being more precise.

Damage is just one aspect. There are a lot other things you can get to keep your score up. Like Hit and run and flanking. Brawling rewards, scouting and a whole host of other things that will give you score.

Yes, as a light mech you have to work for a living and can't just faceroll over the keyboard. as some of the "competitive" heavy and assault builds have it, where you spit out such obscene amounts of damage that you don't even have to try anymore, as long as you can manage to be the mech the enemy isn't shooting at at that point in time.

Originally posted by spartanspud:

I was playing as a stealth armour assassin just there

The Assassin is a medium mech. Just saying.

Originally posted by spartanspud:

got 2 KMDD and a KMDD with the final blow and won the game but I still lost pilot rating because I was playing the role properly.

Or expressed differently, you were absent most of the match, as you snuck around the backfield, away from any and all opportunity to get score, then went through the 20 to 30 points of back armor and thus got in the most damage on the destroyed mech.

The problem is.. your score is compared to the score of the rest of the team and when you have a 3-4 players in there doing all the damage to 10 other mechs, then your paltry score won't compete.

Its the blessing of merging the group que with the solo que... you now get to compete against the enemy and your teammates for score :)

So when you are all sneaky like... going the extra mile and spending time away from the team and the enemy... you simply won't have the opportunity to get score. One could argue by design, or we'd have even more people AFKing at the spawn.

Originally posted by spartanspud:

It feels like a further reason not to play light or mediums. I can have less of an impact in an Atlas but I almost never lose rating in it because it has an LBX20 and a ton of MRMs. It isn't as fun though.

Because in that Atlas you will be with the team, getting Flanking, Lance in formation and protection rewards by sheer proximity to your team and lance mates (and because you'll occassionally be in a flanking position as the enemy murders someone else)

That is in addition to the damage contributing to your score. And because a single Alpha puts about as much damage downrange than 2-3 alphas of your light mech.

Originally posted by spartanspud:

I think the PSR needs different weighting for the different weight classes. The upper damage limit for a light is generally speaking lower than a heavy and it makes playing as a lighter mech feel like I am hindering myself.

I do agree that players should have different PSR based on their weight class, if only because i am a godsawful assault pilot and i always feel guilty when i play it on occasion. Piloting an Assault i really should be in Tier 5.... in a light mech not so much.

And yes, i agree with you, getting PSR is a lot easier in heavier mechs.

Originally posted by Harukage:

i play light mechs a lot. Usually fast backstabbers with lasers and machine guns. I also get positive to neutral match score pretty often, even in like 50% of lost games. You are doing something wrong.

This.

Originally posted by Harukage:

And yes sometimes i do make mistake and get stupid deaths, and do get streaks of unlucky noob teams. Everyone does.

And sometimes you get screwed over by the matchmaker and end up being the idiot stuck with capping duty whole 4 try hards in a group seal club the enemy.

[spartanspud]

Originally posted by boris.glevrk:

May I ask what your current rating is? The higher you are, the harder it is to maintain.

I am only tier 3.

The other guy is coming in a little hard since I have only just started using lighter mechs so I will try some of what was suggested but I feel like 3KMDD should give a good rating.

[salamatmahal]

The game has various traps in it, imo. I think one of the traps is the game modes. If you play conquest on polar in a light mech, you could easily think that capping the whole match would be the best way to contribute to your team winning. And you may even be correct...

But doing that will likely lead to you getting a down arrow.

[Dyex]

What kind of damage you have end score?
As long as you do 250+ DMG as a light you often get a green arrow as long as you do other team objectives like flank bonus, hit n run, defend team mates.

If you're a lone wolf player and ditch your team as soon as you drop whole game and not contributing to team assists, you better dish out 500+ DMG as backstabs as a solo.

That's what I experianced as a light pilot.

[Dyex]

Honest, if you play a light. Take full advantage of support the large mechs on your team. They will be focused fired and you will get free damage on the same target they are fighting.

An assaulte needs that extra damage from a team mate to easy kill the enemy because it pretty much comes down to 2 assaultes just face-wrecking each other with one comming out the victor.
Same with chasing off other lights that are trying to backstab your team.
(Well dont chase other lights that's a waste of your time and light vs lights often leave both hurt. Just scare them off and get some free damage in them.)

[spartanspud]

I know its a medium but functionally it is a light mech. XL engine, fast, hit and run, isn't much good in a stand up fight etc.

I was getting scouting awards, components destroyed, I don't really have the cbills to waste on consumables so I didn't have any help from those.

No actually I wasn't absent. I was the first to engage the enemy. I got like 300 and something damage with 3KMDD but I don't see the point in wasting my shots in the front side of an assault. I solo'd a Marauder, blew the backside of a Hunchback 2C out so it was almost a stick and I got a good backshot in on the enemy while they were enaged. It wasn't a very long match. The damage scores were fairly low all around.

In another match where I used a Jenner I did similarly to with the assassin but with the added benefit of getting four first caps and only half the people in both teams died because we won on points. So I was convinced I would get a plus rating but it went down then too.

My point being I feel like even when I am contributing significantly to my team it doesn't really matter and I go down anyway.

Whereas when i play in my quickdraw I almost always go up rating, even in a loss.

[spartanspud]

Originally posted by Dyex:

Honest, if you play a light. Take full advantage of support the large mechs on your team. They will be focused fired and you will get free damage on the same target they are fighting.

An assaulte needs that extra damage from a team mate to easy kill the enemy because it pretty much comes down to 2 assaultes just face-wrecking each other with one comming out the victor.
Same with chasing off other lights that are trying to backstab your team.

I have tried that too and doing that I feel like I am standing around too much and I don't really get the opportunity to get damage out.

In fact the times it goes up most often is when i suicide charge and just spray into the enemy. I am sure I need to practice some more but it feels like the scoring should be a bit more relative to your weight.

Originally posted by salamatmahal:

The game has various traps in it, imo. I think one of the traps is the game modes. If you play conquest on polar in a light mech, you could easily think that capping the whole match would be the best way to contribute to your team winning. And you may even be correct...

But doing that will likely lead to you getting a down arrow.

Yeah I have experienced that a couple times now. It is confusing because I know winning is better but often by trying to get the win it makes my PSR go down.

[spartanspud]

To be clear btw. I am not saying that I am a lighter mech grand master. I am just saying I think the PSR rating system doesn't really take the different roles into account very well.

[boris.glevrk]

Originally posted by Dyex:

What kind of damage you have end score?
As long as you do 250+ DMG as a light you often get a green arrow as long as you do other team objectives like flank bonus, hit n run, defend team mates.

If you're a lone wolf player and ditch your team as soon as you drop whole game and not contributing to team assists, you better dish out 500+ DMG as backstabs as a solo.

That's what I experianced as a light pilot.

Uh that's interesting, I get up arrow in my heavy/medium/assaults with less than 200 dmg... I only get reduction if I was like <100

Perhaps that's because I'm rank4 (only played a handful after the rank wash)

[James Bondage]

This has how it's been for the entire lifespan of the game, playing lights requires four times as much effort for half the reward.

[Dyex]

Originally posted by boris.glevrk:

I'm not saying you can't get a green arrow in other weight classes doing less than 200 DMG, I'm just saying that as a light you often have less fire power than any other class, so you need to support your team with that damage in key fights.

You need to boost your match score with tactical bonus instead of just pure damage score.
Again, hit n runs & flank damage is tactical damage and is more valuable to your team to disrupt enemies than just brawling dps as a light.

This is my take anyways on how score objectives can be misleading; If you play conquest as a light and you think you did a good job capping all 5 points but your team lost because you din't contribute to any fights, well than you know what went wrong, just cap enough to keep in the game and get right back into the team fights. You can always run around after and capture flags.

[Ishan451]

Originally posted by Imperial Guardsman:

This has how it's been for the entire lifespan of the game, playing lights requires four times as much effort for half the reward.

No, its not been this way for the entire lifespan of the game. Its a recent development. The PSR recent and change to how PSR is gained/lost it has become a lot more punishing to play light mechs. Not punishing by the enemy, punishing by the game mechanics.

Yes, light players have always been the idiots that have to play the objectives while everyone does whatever, ideally by having the light mech cowering behind a rock in the domination circle, hoping that nobody gets a line of sight as everyone and their dog on the team is playing "circle is lava".

But now the game actively punishes you.

[🍮]

none of it matters. just play the game in the mechs you wanna play and get over it. winning or losing in quickmatch isn't what the game is about. it's not an arena shooter with symmetrical teams. its a mechwarrior game. it needs an economy and mech loss and it doesn't have it. that doesn't matter either. you just play the mechs you want and have fun. it's that simple. ragers will never understand this basic concept. there is no such thing as mech balance. it isn't the case that assaults are equal to lights. i'm not sure why some people think that it's meant to be that way. most likely from a lack of experience with battletech and mechwarrior games. the game is meant to be a simulation and not an arena shooter. in the incarnation that is mwo its a fun game but is lacking those things i mentioned such as economy and mech loss that would make it more of a battletech experience. right now you just que in whatever mechs you like and have fun. im referring to quickmatch. factions is a much better mode overall because it has tonnage limits. psr is just a mechanic that tries to limit how much team stacking can exist and to help matches be more balanced for all players.