Guild Wars 2

As someone who spends his days drawing conclusions from data (e.g. I do science me), I was highly puzzled when reading the following paragraph in the blog post about PvP Season 2.

Only 1% of all Ranked matches played in season one were a full five-person premade group vs. a group of five solo players, and even then, the win rate for those five solo player teams in those cases was consistently at or above 50% throughout the entire season. That being said, even though the instances of this specific type of matchup occurring were actually very rare during season one, we still felt that matchmaking would be improved overall if we made sure that this type of match-up was simply no longer possible in future seasons.

Translation: “Data shows that full premade v.s. full random matchups are not detrimental to the quality of our matchmaking. We will therefore make sure that this kind of matchup will no longer occur.”

It might be that the data presented in the blog post is not all there is to the story, but based on what is shown I can’t comprehend how one could draw the conclusion that preventing this type of matchup will improve overall matchmaking.

It is also possible that the people involved chose to take this measure because a majority of the players will still assume that premade v.s. solo is an unfair matchup despite data showing otherwise, which would be an understandable choice in my opinion. However, in that case I would feel that ‘by popular demand’ would have provided a more honest explanation than the current one.

In any case it may be clear that seeing such a questionable interpretation of data has rustled my kittens, and I mainly wished to share my woeful tale. I would kindly ask the people involved to spare me of such atrocities in the future, where it not that I am most likely the only person in this community who cares about something so utterly insignificant.

yeah, it was basically to stop community Q_Q ing, it didn’t effect much

PUG or guild For-Funsies premades were at a slight disadvantage because MMR put them against better opponents. Legit premades on voice comm have a huge advantage. Knowing that helps explain Anet’s confusing statement.

Yeah, or its simply people calling BS on those numbers given the simple fact that coordination is a big advantage in any team endeavor and the devs refusing to separate the queues, something that has been requested for as long as i can remember.

Fluffball.8307:

PUG or guild For-Funsies premades were at a slight disadvantage because MMR put them against better opponents. Legit premades on voice comm have a huge advantage. Knowing that helps explain Anet’s confusing statement.

Thank you. This is something I should have thought of, these situations are basically a scientist’s nightmare. Assuming that the ratio of serious to non-serious premades makes them cancel each other out it could indeed explain the apparent absence of an overall effect.

Though it is probably impossible to analyse it from match results alone, I would have most definitely mentioned it if there were reasons to believe that this was the case.

Bartender.1674:

It is also possible that the people involved chose to take this measure because a majority of the players will still assume that premade v.s. solo is an unfair matchup despite data showing otherwise, which would be an understandable choice in my opinion. However, in that case I would feel that ‘by popular demand’ would have provided a more honest explanation than the current one.

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Basically this. They know that according to the data, premades don’t have such a great advantage against solo players, but they also realize that perception is important in customer service, so they gotta make this change to please the customers. You can’t simply show the customers the data because they still wont believe it as is custom for human behavior.

I don’t believe for a second that they have actual statistically sound evidence that it is not a significant factor. I honestly am at a point where I’m starting to doubt they have any data whatsoever.

the 1% is only 5 pre vs pug, can’t make a choice based on the 1%, probably desition was taken from non mentioned data such as 4 pre vs pug … or 5 pre vs 2 pre + pug, etc, etc, etc…

Data is irrelevant without proper context. Which is why their “1%” comment was merely marketing ploy rather than logical representation. It presumes that full solo vs full premade is the actual and only issue represented by that complaint. However, the greater point being made by the player base and their complaints is that there is a perception of gross discrepancies in the match making, which isn’t limited to a full premade vs full solo q matches.

OP, you’re assuming they know how to read the data in the first place. If that were the case I’d like to think that we wouldn’t be on the same forum merry-go-round years after implementation.

They specifically used weasel wording and if the dev didn’t say 5v1-1-1-1-1, most people would have missed it.

Letting us know that 1% of the games are 5v1-1-1-1-1 doesn’t mean too much because most people that complain about having to fight premades consider 5v1-1-1-2/5v1-1-3 or any variations of 1-4/1-1-1-1-1 etc a problem. They specifically avoided giving out any more numbers to pretend they’re listening to the solo q complaints when in fact they made a change that basically means nothing (1%).

Their statement is an obvious case of cherry picking. They are considering only one type of extremely disadvantaged matchup when there are in fact several possible disadvantaged scenarios. They do not, for instance, say how many matchups were 4+1 vs 1s or 3+2 vs 1s or even 2+1s vs 1s. The logical fallacy is in fact theirs.

It’s not only if they win, it’s also how they win. If when they win it’s a 500vs100 and when they lose is a 500vs450, there is a problem: the situation would make half the matches not fun.

I don’t have data to assure it happens, just to point that 50% wins it’s not enough to make a proper conclusion.

This was never about logical interpretation of data or anything like that. It’s a PR move, it affects almost nothing in practice, the wording is intentionally vague, and it’s intended to deceive.

If anybody watched the guild chat, they said they would look at adding more queue restrictions over time if they could keep queue times significantly short, which they could monitor over the season.

You all should do your research before kittenting all over anet

Took them almost the entire season to address Amber Smurfing/OP specs/Stronghold farming etc. Forgive me for not believing a single word they say until they do it.

They already mentioned that they might be willing to make changes so that other forms of pre mades aren’t matched up against solo queue players, but that they are concerned about the queue times. Let us not forget that you guys like to complain about queue times too.

It would be the height of comedy if they made the changes you guys wanted only to then spit curses at anet over the queue times that you’ve created.

I don’t care what they claim could ‘maybe be on the table’ unless it is actually implemented, sorry. That’s just more of the same PR talk used in the blog post and with the same intent

Actually, what Anet could use more of is PR. With effective PR, you hardly have to make a change at all to satisfy customer complaints. This is a good idea, since oftentimes what customers want is completely impractical.

fishball.7204:

They specifically used weasel wording and if the dev didn’t say 5v1-1-1-1-1, most people would have missed it.

Letting us know that 1% of the games are 5v1-1-1-1-1 doesn’t mean too much because most people that complain about having to fight premades consider 5v1-1-1-2/5v1-1-3 or any variations of 1-4/1-1-1-1-1 etc a problem. They specifically avoided giving out any more numbers to pretend they’re listening to the solo q complaints when in fact they made a change that basically means nothing (1%).

That’s rather unfair.

If you actually read the various premade QQ threads, you’d notice that the most common rhetoric being used is “premade vs pure solos.” The devs where responding to that.