Does this game have a higher than average percentage of retarded players?

Chasing squirrels happens even at top tiers. Most (all) people don't know what's happening and address the immediate threat, assuming the scout is the lead of a lance / firing line. With 20/20 hindsight it's easy to say "of course you all wasted your time and lost the match because you tried to kill a light", but when you're back-stabbed and don't have lights or meds to fight it off, most pilots will address the threat. I would state that it would take absurdly low skill to just ignore a light and assume your team will take care of it for you, ignoring the risk of being cored before the fight even starts. On the other hand, watching two lances chase an Arctic Cheeta will make any player upset.

Fighting instead of capping is maddening for all involved, especially assaults and heavies who can't fly across the map. I don't believe this is low skill, but instead greed and playing Conquest against their will. Players are more interested in kill-to-death ratios and most damage dealt and would rather brawl it out with other lights than to play for the win. I think this speaks to how frustrating it is to want to skirmish and fight, and then getting stuck playing conquest. It seems it is more of the attitude of "I didn't pick this game mode, so I'm going to pretend it's skirmish" It's also very unsatisfying to win a conquest game, with the low scores, low kills, and low damage, which is why most of them turn into a center-of-map brawl and the survivors try to cap points. It would be nice to be able to only play the game-type you want to play.

The poor builds are certainly caused by players who don't feel it necessary to research their mech build. I assume that most new players choose a mech that looks cool and fits their play style, then load it up with what makes sense to them. Not everybody is obsessed with the meta, and not everybody min-maxs their mech to absolute optimal performance. Really, many players don't know the meta exists, and most people play for fun. Again, I don't think they are 'bad players', but instead this game punishes bad builds while rewarding good builds, and there's no real way to understand this meta unless you spend some time on the internet doing your research. Other games simply don't require doing homework.

The frequent AFKs and disconnects is upsetting. Does anybody know why this happens? It seems to happen far too much. Again, though, this game strongly rewards team-play while minimizing the impact a single good player can have on his team, making the 11 vs 12 (with 1 AFK) a serious handicap. In other shooters, missing a bad player can actually be a benefit, though in MWO a bad player can waste enemy ammo, absorb damage, and draw fire. It's not so much about terrible players, but more about the game being structured to make those AFKs so punishing to the entire team.

Low damage is almost unexplainable, though it seems to be the nature of the game more than the nature of bad players. I always assume its newbs who don't understand how to play and try to run-n-gun like other shooters, paying no attention to where they or their team are. Once again, I believe it's the game, because of the single life and no respawns. When a newb feeds in other shooters, he respawns and learns his lesson, hopefully to not repeat this mistake. In MWO its brutally obvious that someone got rolled up early, especially when you see a lance with two 0-damage, one 50-dam, and one 200-dam. Usually the result of a light lance squaring off with an assault or heavy lance. Again, the game is structured to have very different mechs, and new players don't understand that early game light-vs-assault matchups aren't difficult, they're impossible, and new players don't understand that retreat and re-positioning are the best or only options.

I would disagree about the average age being a factor. I play with older players and I profoundly prefer it more than playing with young players. Older players understand teamwork more, are more patient, and tend to be more comfortable communicating clearly and effectively. Saying there are A LOT of middle aged table-top MechWarrior players experimenting with experiencing their universe on-line is a stretch.

TL:DR The game is difficult and different from other shooters, most new players don't know the meta, MWO requires studying to truly understand, new players and traditional FPS players will struggle.

/r/mwo Thread