ELO and you.

       First I want to address something.  I have previously written about the way to pilot lights and mediums.  I have not written about heavies and assaults.  This is not because I dislike them or lack experience with them, those are my favorites, actually.  It is because so many, have written so much, and a lot of it is good, that I simply have nothing to add.

       I will say that for heavies: here be meta.  The min/max build reigns supreme and the jump snipers are the regents among regents.  Some assaults as well, but generally an assault's job is to be a menace, by any means necessary.  This means taking one for the team in a lot of cases.  It means being the priority target in every case.

On to the topic...

       I enjoy the occasional stat rest, and honestly, I am not sure how I feel about ELO.  Getting smoked is part of any game.  And by only battling those of your own ability level, you limit your ability to learn from your betters.  It is certainly frustrating to have pro-level gamers pound you into the dirt every game, and it would be discouraging to most.  But the learning curve, while steeper, is also shorter.  

       Before Mechwarrior Online I hadn't played a mech game since Microsoft picked up the franchise years ago.  (not anything against them, that's just when I had some major life events that prevented me from owning a good computer.)  Honestly I played more games at the Battletech Center at North Pier than I ever did the PC version.  

       If you have never been to one I will sum up the experience for you.  Strategy is non-existent, the points were awarded based on damage done, with very little penalty for dying.  You paid for ten minutes, and kept re-spawning until it was up.  It was not, as you might imagine, good training for competitive play.  

       There were leagues, of course, where strategy was employed, but my income was not reliable enough for me to commit to that weekly expense.  20 bucks for the game, 40 for parking, plus food and drinks.  It was most of my month's savings, after expenses, at the time, and really cut into my drinking money.  

       Although wasting money on 10 minutes in a pod, in imaginary robots ate up so much money I couldn't afford an engagement ring.  I eventually did buy a ring, but for someone infinitely better.  Given how happy I am now, I suppose that 6 bucks a minute was a hell of a bargain, but that is a post for another blog.  

        As a result I was rusty terrible.  If ELO was in place during that time I would not have (re)-learned the art of dodging behind cover when Betty told me I was being rained on.  I would have taken longer to learn twist-jutsu if I hadn't been smacked around by my betters, who employed this technique.  

       So while I accept that for many players, ELO is the way to ensure they don't get too frustrated, and come back; it does stifle learning.  Despite the complaints that, occasionally, you drop with new players; or that, as a new player, you drop with experts, ELO is working as intended.  In fact I would say it is working optimally, because the occasional mismatch is a golden learning opportunity.  If you take the time to watch your team, should you die early, you will undoubtedly see a technique, or a way of using a certain weapon, or maybe even observe a build, that might never have occurred to you.

Happy Hunting.