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[Flying Dice]

Also you're a much bigger target, both literally and figuratively. Everybody wants to shoot Assaults both because they're like damage pinatas and because they tend to carry a lot of nasty weapons. It's one of the reasons I still play none that aren't Stalkers, since those are on the small side and tend to take more of a beating than their tonnage would indicate.

Can't play my one Marauder at all though, it's way too slow for the poke game it's designed to play. The only heavies I have any success with at all are my Kilya, and my Quickdraw 5K when I play it as a laservomit poptart.

It's a dilemma, too. You're carrying lots of armor, so you need to be up front tanking, but you're also carrying lots of weapon tonnage so you need to stay alive to use it. In a group drop you can organize rotating people in and out of the front line, but with PuGs it's basically either camp and get blamed or tank and get blamed.

[Damiac]

Well I'm still in tier 5, so there's not much blaming that happens.  We know we're all a bunch of scrubs, so we just have fun most of the time.

With that said, I would like to actually get better someday... 

I have noticed if I use trial mediums and heavies I tend to do much more damage, and thus get a lot more points per match.  With a light my tier bar stays pretty constant (right about lined up with the E in minimize)

If I use mediums or heavies in a few matches, it seems to go up a bit more.  But I feel with a somewhat more organized team, which I'd hope to see a bit more of in tier 4, my scouting and flanking would actually accomplish a bit more.

[Kanil]

But I feel with a somewhat more organized team, which I'd hope to see a bit more of in tier 4, my scouting and flanking would actually accomplish a bit more.

Nope. Not happening. No way in hell.

Higher tier players aren't smarter, or work better in a team, they're just more competent at solo play. For example, it's not uncommon for a tier 5 to be completely oblivious to the fact that you're shooting them in the back (lights are particularly strong in high tiers because of this) but most T1s will react after the first shot. That makes them better players, but not better teammates.

Edit: Well, I mean, they're better teammates, but they're still really bad. There's no promised land where everyone is competent and works together well.

[MrRoboto75]

Honestly my tier meter hasn't moved since I started

[Rince Wind]

I recently played with a guy (the one I mentioned I blocked) who complained that t3 players were shit...I was still t5 at that point. So you don't just play with better players automatically.

Coordination is the biggest difference imo. A bunch of mediocre players that play together are stronger than the same amount of better players that play for themselves.

If you manage a positive win/loss ration you should get into higher tiers. If it is the same, then as well, very slowly.

I do pretty bad in CW. Where in a normal winning match I usually do 450 or more damage in QP (with Hunchbacks), I often only manage about as much in all 4 mechs together in a CW game.

[Damiac]

No, stop it.  At tier 4 everyone will be perfect teammates who play only to make me do really well and earn lots of CB and GEXP. 

At the same time, CW mode will become super popular and evenly populated, and matchmaking times will be reduced to 3-4 seconds.

Also, Donald Trump will finally admit that this whole campaign was really just a clever marketing ploy for the apprentice, and will drop out.

I assume around this time I'll find out my long lost great great aunt will have left me millions of dollars and three castles, and the title of Archduke of... somewhere.

[Flying Dice]

I had the exact opposite experience, I didn't even know that the tier meter could go down for the first year or so that I played, up until I started playing a lot more with 'mechs I suck at.

And it doesn't make a lick of difference beyond it being slightly more likely that someone who isn't you will carry. You don't need to be negative, but you need to go in with the assumption that if you don't carry a lance's weight or more your team will lose, and play to that. Obviously if the team is in comms and working together that's an exception, but if it's dead silent nascaring or whatever you gotta do the lift. Also, tier MM is wider than you'd expect: I've been matched repeatedly with people that I know for a fact are sat at the tier cap in tier 1, and I'm still only midway up tier 3.

Damiac, one thing to keep in mind with lights is that, since match score heavily orients around damage and kill assists, you have to play a lot more carefully in a light to get a good damage count but can also stay alive long enough to rack up assists (if your team doesn't instantly fold). 'Course you can also do stuff like running up to a forward vantage point (on certain maps) and hammering R for the scout points, but the easiest is to make sure to get some damage on as many targets as possible (for assist points) and try to stay alive while doing more damage.

It's especially easy with a sniper light, which is why I recommend the Raven-3L so much: super long range, very difficult to pin down and kill. With an ERLL/PPC light you should manage to get at least a 50-60% assist ratio once you know how to handle the 'mech, and it's often quite easy to get a full 12 assists (minus however many kills you secure) on good maps.

And assists are granted for any damage, even if you graze something at 1400m with an ERLL, while giving comparable rewards to kills (though without the extra from destroying components &c. that you'd get for bashing someone's 'mech to bits). Still not sure if it counts assists from enemy deaths that occur after you leave a match, so stay and spectate until the end - you can help your team, too, giving them call-outs and relaying information about what enemy 'mechs are left and where they're damaged.

But yeah, comms are actually really important. If you don't have one, think about at least picking up a cheapo boom mic to wear around your neck or something, even if you're just calling out obvious targets for focus fire or letting people know where that ECM light was heading you're helping keep people organized. PuG play in MWO is different from a lot of other games in that most people are actually willing to work together if someone steps up to call the drop.

[Wiles]

Also, tier MM is wider than you'd expect: I've been matched repeatedly with people that I know for a fact are sat at the tier cap in tier 1, and I'm still only midway up tier 3.

I've read on the MWO forums that people in tier 3 will get put into matches on both sides of the spectrum. I'm tier 3 as well and I've had matches where someone says "this is my first game!" but I've also had matches where I've played with streamers that I know are in tier 1.

[Flying Dice]

TBH it's probably because there are so few people playing, relatively speaking. 

Still befuddled at how there are so many matches on SEA servers with 2-3 people in that region and the rest of the match with 300ms+ ping because they're in the Americas or Europe.

[Wiles]

I like the style of the Mektoberfest event. Some of their events lately have required you to play the game an awful lot if you wanted to get the top tier rewards. This one is more reasonable in play time requirements. 400 MC is a pretty nice reward, enough to get a mechbay and a one shot camo for one of your mechs.

[Rince Wind]

It is also nice that both faction play and quick play count this time around. And it will mean not everyone plays in the same weight class, unlike the heavy event.

[se5a]

I'm T5 and I've come across players who are first timers.

[Rince Wind]

Maybe because it is the lowest rank?

Anyway, trying the Marauder 5M with 5 ER LL and so far I am doing better. The low arms take getting used to when you usually use the Hunchback.

[se5a]

wait, it's reversed?
doh.

[Flying Dice]

I think I play my Locusts too much. I just played a match in my XL 340 Cicada - 138 kph - and it felt like I was wading through molasses. :/