We got 4 huttballs in a row last night on Ranked Warzones. Something is definitely up with the map cycling.

Hey everyone,

 

We reviewed the data behind the Warzone queuing system in order to identify the recurrence of streaks of identical Warzones popping for players entering the system. If you assume a basic random Warzone assignment model you would have a 1 in 5 chance of repeating the same Warzone after queuing for any given Warzone. The probability of a streak of 3 identical Warzones using random assignment would be 0.2^2=0.04 or 4%. Again the probability of having a streak of 4 or more goes down precipitously.

 

We queried the data an examined the current streakiness of a random sample of players participating in Warzones currently and plotted the probability of certain streaks occurring against the random probabilistic model. The actual data is on par with basic random chance. Recent Warzone players have had a little over 15% chance of repeating the same Warzone compared to the assumed 20%, and subsequent streaks probabilities are also on par with random chance.

 

Does this mean that you won’t get a streak of the same Warzones? No! In fact, of the sample of 250,000 Warzones we examined, there were 35 streaks of 6, but this is truly the exception rather than the rule and it falls within the confines of the design model.

 

Also we examined the current trends of number of Warzone instances being generated by the system pre and post ROTHC launch and we have almost the identical number of Warzone instances being generated across Warzone types throughout the whole time frame. This helped confirm that, overall, there isn’t any one Warzone being “favored” over time.

 

However, we are still looking at ways to improve the design of the warzone matchmaking system in order to maximize the end user experience. Our designers are hard at work looking in details at ways to optimize the system in order to reduce further the likelihood of streaks occurring.

 

Thank you all for the comments on this topic. We appreciate your passion for the game and are glad to get constructive feedback. This allows us to investigate potential issues that we might not have caught otherwise. Keep the feedback coming.

 

Did swtor just break the universe?

You know what, I don't play War Zones at all...

 

I'm just in here to say that's one freaking awesome response. Perfect communication - describes the expected result of the feature, the methodology you used to research the player concern relative to expected result, and the result of that research. Thank you.

snip

 

Seeing how big the WZ sample these streaks are not weird.

However, I have a question what is the RNG that you guys use ? Is it Mersenne Twistor ?

Edited April 24, 2013 by znihilist

Don't get me wrong i notice times where their is an occurrence of a streak of the same war zones but it does cycle this cannot be widespread

Hey everyone,

 

We reviewed the data behind the Warzone queuing system in order to identify the recurrence of streaks of identical Warzones popping for players entering the system. If you assume a basic random Warzone assignment model you would have a 1 in 5 chance of repeating the same Warzone after queuing for any given Warzone. The probability of a streak of 3 identical Warzones using random assignment would be 0.2^2=0.04 or 4%. Again the probability of having a streak of 4 or more goes down precipitously.

 

We queried the data an examined the current streakiness of a random sample of players participating in Warzones currently and plotted the probability of certain streaks occurring against the random probabilistic model. The actual data is on par with basic random chance. Recent Warzone players have had a little over 15% chance of repeating the same Warzone compared to the assumed 20%, and subsequent streaks probabilities are also on par with random chance.

 

Does this mean that you won’t get a streak of the same Warzones? No! In fact, of the sample of 250,000 Warzones we examined, there were 35 streaks of 6, but this is truly the exception rather than the rule and it falls within the confines of the design model.

 

Also we examined the current trends of number of Warzone instances being generated by the system pre and post ROTHC launch and we have almost the identical number of Warzone instances being generated across Warzone types throughout the whole time frame. This helped confirm that, overall, there isn’t any one Warzone being “favored” over time.

 

However, we are still looking at ways to improve the design of the warzone matchmaking system in order to maximize the end user experience. Our designers are hard at work looking in details at ways to optimize the system in order to reduce further the likelihood of streaks occurring.

 

Thank you all for the comments on this topic. We appreciate your passion for the game and are glad to get constructive feedback. This allows us to investigate potential issues that we might not have caught otherwise. Keep the feedback coming.

 

I find it really hard to believe that we all just suddenly have the bad luck of getting the same WZ 2-3 times in a row, multiple times per night, and that it's consistent and noticeable enough to fuel this discussion. The numbers might be balancing out on a large scale to look like each WZ is appearing an equal number of times (and they very well may be), but something is going on that is causing people to get the same one back to back a lot more often than before 2.0. I've been playing the game since launch and haven't seen this frequent of repetition since same-faction Huttball games.

Hey everyone,

 

We reviewed the data behind the Warzone queuing system in order to identify the recurrence of streaks of identical Warzones popping for players entering the system. If you assume a basic random Warzone assignment model you would have a 1 in 5 chance of repeating the same Warzone after queuing for any given Warzone. The probability of a streak of 3 identical Warzones using random assignment would be 0.2^2=0.04 or 4%. Again the probability of having a streak of 4 or more goes down precipitously.

 

We queried the data an examined the current streakiness of a random sample of players participating in Warzones currently and plotted the probability of certain streaks occurring against the random probabilistic model. The actual data is on par with basic random chance. Recent Warzone players have had a little over 15% chance of repeating the same Warzone compared to the assumed 20%, and subsequent streaks probabilities are also on par with random chance.

 

Does this mean that you won’t get a streak of the same Warzones? No! In fact, of the sample of 250,000 Warzones we examined, there were 35 streaks of 6, but this is truly the exception rather than the rule and it falls within the confines of the design model.

 

Also we examined the current trends of number of Warzone instances being generated by the system pre and post ROTHC launch and we have almost the identical number of Warzone instances being generated across Warzone types throughout the whole time frame. This helped confirm that, overall, there isn’t any one Warzone being “favored” over time.

 

However, we are still looking at ways to improve the design of the warzone matchmaking system in order to maximize the end user experience. Our designers are hard at work looking in details at ways to optimize the system in order to reduce further the likelihood of streaks occurring.

 

Thank you all for the comments on this topic. We appreciate your passion for the game and are glad to get constructive feedback. This allows us to investigate potential issues that we might not have caught otherwise. Keep the feedback coming.

 

Have you looked at the data from APAC servers? Because I haven't got back to back same map wzs in a LONG time due to our limited population. Perhaps you should take a look using the data from some APAC Servers as this might give you a clearer idea due to less simultaneous wzs.

The previous poster is correct. For a 4% chance to repeat the same warzone 3 times in a row, I sure as heck have spent the past week or so getting multiple such streaks. For the first few days after 2.0 went live, I don't think I actually had any streak less than 3 warzones in a row. I'm sure there were exceptions here and there, but my point is that it sure as heck felt like it was very, very consistently 3 Voidstars in a row, 3 Huttballs in a row, 3 Civil Wars in a row, etc. This was also the experience for just about everyone I have spoken to - upwards of 20 - 25 people.

 

It may well be that over the course of the total sample the streakiness may not demonstrate itself to be outside of expected probability, but that it is a problem in more particular instances. For example, perhaps on a given day or a particular server there was greater streakiness than in the whole. It may even be that this is a bug which affects only certain players and so disappears in the mix of the data as a whole.

 

In any case, there are far too many people complaining about this issue to simply regard everything as working correctly. Something definitely seems to be going on somewhere.

We queried the data an examined the current streakiness of a random sample of players participating in Warzones currently and plotted the probability of certain streaks occurring against the random probabilistic model. The actual data is on par with basic random chance. Recent Warzone players have had a little over 15% chance of repeating the same Warzone compared to the assumed 20%, and subsequent streaks probabilities are also on par with random chance.

 

Did that include the occurrence of players getting streaks of, e.g., only two numbers or generally a low number of distinct warzones, over time? Some complaints were, e.g., "only Voidstar and Huttball with only rare occurrences of neither of those".

 

IMO the matchmaking system should take some care to generate "short-term" variance, since (pure guessing) the majority of players only play too small a number of warzones in sequence to really care for long-term fairness.

Hey everyone,

 

We reviewed the data behind the Warzone queuing system in order to identify the recurrence of streaks of identical Warzones popping for players entering the system. If you assume a basic random Warzone assignment model you would have a 1 in 5 chance of repeating the same Warzone after queuing for any given Warzone. The probability of a streak of 3 identical Warzones using random assignment would be 0.2^2=0.04 or 4%. Again the probability of having a streak of 4 or more goes down precipitously.

 

We queried the data an examined the current streakiness of a random sample of players participating in Warzones currently and plotted the probability of certain streaks occurring against the random probabilistic model. The actual data is on par with basic random chance. Recent Warzone players have had a little over 15% chance of repeating the same Warzone compared to the assumed 20%, and subsequent streaks probabilities are also on par with random chance.

 

Does this mean that you won’t get a streak of the same Warzones? No! In fact, of the sample of 250,000 Warzones we examined, there were 35 streaks of 6, but this is truly the exception rather than the rule and it falls within the confines of the design model.

 

Also we examined the current trends of number of Warzone instances being generated by the system pre and post ROTHC launch and we have almost the identical number of Warzone instances being generated across Warzone types throughout the whole time frame. This helped confirm that, overall, there isn’t any one Warzone being “favored” over time.

 

However, we are still looking at ways to improve the design of the warzone matchmaking system in order to maximize the end user experience. Our designers are hard at work looking in details at ways to optimize the system in order to reduce further the likelihood of streaks occurring.

 

Thank you all for the comments on this topic. We appreciate your passion for the game and are glad to get constructive feedback. This allows us to investigate potential issues that we might not have caught otherwise. Keep the feedback coming.

 

So what you're saying is. You didn't bother to have someone queue up for an hour to tell you that yes, it is broken.

 

reminds me of a joke:

A mathematician, a physicist and a statistician went hunting for deer. When they chanced upon one buck lounging about, the mathematician fired first, missing the buck's nose by a few inches. The physicist then tried his hand, and missed the tail by a wee bit. The statistician started jumping up and down saying "We got him! We got him!"

Edited April 24, 2013 by RyanReagan

So what you're saying is. You didn't bother to have someone queue up for an hour to tell you that yes, it is broken.

 

reminds me of a joke:

A mathematician, a physicist and a statistician went hunting for deer. When they chanced upon one buck lounging about, the mathematician fired first, missing the buck's nose by a few inches. The physicist then tried his hand, and missed the tail by a wee bit. The statistician started jumping up and down saying "We got him! We got him!"

 

^this

Mighty Mr. Metrics says - all ok with wz queue...

Hey everyone,

 

We reviewed the data behind the Warzone queuing system in order to identify the recurrence of streaks of identical Warzones popping for players entering the system. If you assume a basic random Warzone assignment model you would have a 1 in 5 chance of repeating the same Warzone after queuing for any given Warzone. The probability of a streak of 3 identical Warzones using random assignment would be 0.2^2=0.04 or 4%. Again the probability of having a streak of 4 or more goes down precipitously.

 

So bioware thinks this is just bad luck... How about 5 same wz in a row? Or 6?

Seeing how big the WZ sample these streaks are not weird.

However, I have a question what is the RNG that you guys use ? Is it Mersenne Twistor ?

 

It's weird that everyone I know who PVPs is getting them, then .

 

Bioware ****ed up their math or their methodology, because it is in fact an issue. I queued for 9 warzones last night. 5 were Novare Coasts. My warzone order was: Novare, Novare, Novare, Voidstar, Novare (I skipped this one), Hypergates, Huttball, Huttball.

 

This is pretty typical.

how about this for a fix: Release more new wz maps!, thus reducing the percentage of getting the same match in a row even more, or even not caring as much if you got a new map several times in a row because it is new.

 

I guess it just falls into what type of gamer you are:

playing cs_office, or de_dust over and over and over, or jumping on one of those servers with a map rotation of 1000 custom maps.

 

I know this might be a game breaker but sometimes if you can't find a solution to the problem, take a totally different approach. What if the metrics were collected and the next match would be decided based on how many of that map had been played on the server since last patch/reboot. example if RNG decided on Novare the programming would first check the variable collected on how many times that map had been played. So if the wheel in the sky landed on Novare it would check %novaretimesplayed% and compare to the other map variables. If the numbers where within 5% or so it would load Novare, if not then it would drop Novare out of the RNG and run the spin again ensuring that one map type was not excessively used.

 

Granted I'm not a programmer in the least so the above may be a terrible idea.

Edited April 24, 2013 by smellmop

Hey everyone,

 

We reviewed the data behind the Warzone queuing system in order to identify the recurrence of streaks of identical Warzones popping for players entering the system. If you assume a basic random Warzone assignment model you would have a 1 in 5 chance of repeating the same Warzone after queuing for any given Warzone. The probability of a streak of 3 identical Warzones using random assignment would be 0.2^2=0.04 or 4%. Again the probability of having a streak of 4 or more goes down precipitously.

 

We queried the data an examined the current streakiness of a random sample of players participating in Warzones currently and plotted the probability of certain streaks occurring against the random probabilistic model. The actual data is on par with basic random chance. Recent Warzone players have had a little over 15% chance of repeating the same Warzone compared to the assumed 20%, and subsequent streaks probabilities are also on par with random chance.

 

Does this mean that you won’t get a streak of the same Warzones? No! In fact, of the sample of 250,000 Warzones we examined, there were 35 streaks of 6, but this is truly the exception rather than the rule and it falls within the confines of the design model.

 

Also we examined the current trends of number of Warzone instances being generated by the system pre and post ROTHC launch and we have almost the identical number of Warzone instances being generated across Warzone types throughout the whole time frame. This helped confirm that, overall, there isn’t any one Warzone being “favored” over time.

 

However, we are still looking at ways to improve the design of the warzone matchmaking system in order to maximize the end user experience. Our designers are hard at work looking in details at ways to optimize the system in order to reduce further the likelihood of streaks occurring.

 

Thank you all for the comments on this topic. We appreciate your passion for the game and are glad to get constructive feedback. This allows us to investigate potential issues that we might not have caught otherwise. Keep the feedback coming.

 

Look again Jon...just last night my son and I, along with at least a few other Pubs, had Ancient Hypergates pop 3 times in a row. There's no chance this is suddenly "random" bad luck and to blame it as such is rather offensive to those of us who know it's a freaking bug and an issue that YOU need to fix.

This is just another hit against my confidence in Bioware. This is a problem. Everyone I know is experiencing this. It is since 2.0 only. On PTS it was a huge issue, and it was complained about in numerous threads, with the faint hope that it would be fixed in live.

 

Right now it is happening all day, everyday. There has to be something your metrics aren't telling you.

My warzone order was: Novare, Novare, Novare, Voidstar, Novare (I skipped this one), Hypergates, Huttball, Huttball.

 

This is pretty typical.

 

That's not unlikely with a random generator. If you read the description of the investigation, it sounds pretty solid.

 

With a large population, some will get streaks. They'll be the ones who post in this thread. So posts about it don't confirm it.

 

Here's some probability for you before you decide you've seen evidence of a streak: you've got a 20% chance of getting the same warzone twice in a row, and if you get it twice you've a 36% chance of getting it again in the next two - if selection is random.

 

Maybe there is a bug that locks people into certain warzones - but given they checked a large number of people at random and shown no evidence, I doubt it. A thread that has only people posting WHO HAVE ALREADY EXPERIENCED A STREAK isn't proof that there is a bug. You'd need a selection starting from scratch and recording their warzone pops, then analysing whether the number of people with streaks is greater than expected (and that's why it's easier for Bioware to do it than us).

 

One possibly unrelated anecdote: I've occasionally done searches of how many people are in which warzones, and it's common to get multiple instances of some while others have none. Not proof of anything, but it made me wonder how which warzone comes up is decided and if it's truly random, or goes in cycles for everyone queueing at the same time.

So what you're saying is. You didn't bother to have someone queue up for an hour to tell you that yes, it is broken.

 

reminds me of a joke:

A mathematician, a physicist and a statistician went hunting for deer. When they chanced upon one buck lounging about, the mathematician fired first, missing the buck's nose by a few inches. The physicist then tried his hand, and missed the tail by a wee bit. The statistician started jumping up and down saying "We got him! We got him!"

 

LOVE that joke!!!! Absolutely applies in this situation of lazy investigation.

So hold on.

 

They just explained, IN EXTREME DETAIL, some of the things they've done to check this out.

 

AND said they're continuing to look into it.

 

Strangely, I also didn't see anything that said this COULDN'T be a problem -- only that, one of the more obvious tests they've done showed otherwise.

 

Considering past track record, I'm nothing but excited about this response. Why? They're giving you what you asked -- detailed information on how they're looking into a bug.

 

THIS is why we don't get more info from them. You're unhappy with the information you're given, and start attacking them. Once again -- STILL looking into it. Maybe they could've worded this better -- but they aren't finished with investigating it. What MIGHT help is for someone to take initiative, ex:

 

Write down the times you enter a WZ and what WZ it is (Server Time). Locate any strings of more than 2, or any string that is back-to-back strings. Post it up here on the forums with that information, as well as character level (more, what bracket) and what server you're on.

 

They're always going to be MORE likely to look into something we perceive as a bug, if you can show them "proof" or "evidence" that something is wonky.

 

Also -- I apologize for not grabbing this information myself, but I haven't encountered this issue. Might be that I don't queue up for WZs non-stop -- so I don't really get to see it.

 

Hopefully some additional data being handed over from the playerbase will get more attention, and help to get it fixed faster.

Sorry, try again. Coming from someone who has accumulated 7k + kills towards that new manhunter achievement, it's borked. Trust me, it started the night before you patched to give everyone access to makeb.

 

3 consecutive huttballs=ok. 3 consecutive novare's=craft for a while. It's to the point I feel like starting a spotter team to announce what phase is going on at the moment.

So what you're saying is. You didn't bother to have someone queue up for an hour to tell you that yes, it is broken.

 

reminds me of a joke:

A mathematician, a physicist and a statistician went hunting for deer. When they chanced upon one buck lounging about, the mathematician fired first, missing the buck's nose by a few inches. The physicist then tried his hand, and missed the tail by a wee bit. The statistician started jumping up and down saying "We got him! We got him!"

 

Because a sample of 5 would be much better than the sample of 250,000 they menioned.

I've also been noticing this issue getting the same maps over and over again. This doesn't seem to just apply to warzones either, as its affected my ques for flashpoints as well. Since the launch of ROTHC when I've set the que to random between the 4 new 55 HM FPs between my 2 current 55s Ive done cademimu 24 times, athiss 18, mando raiders 3, hammer station 0 (I've done hammer station 3 times but I specifically qued for it all 3 times). You cannot say that's random.

 

When I do Warzones I tend to get a lot of consecutive hypergates in a row more so then any other followed by a lot of novare coasts back to back. Ive done maybe 1 huttball match in the last 2 weeks and maybe 3 voidstars.

I have determined from my statistics that every time I queue for a warzone, I will repeat a map that I have played too damned many times. Unless it is Huttball

So hold on.

 

They just explained, IN EXTREME DETAIL, some of the things they've done to check this out.

 

AND said they're continuing to look into it.

 

Strangely, I also didn't see anything that said this COULDN'T be a problem -- only that, one of the more obvious tests they've done showed otherwise.

 

Considering past track record, I'm nothing but excited about this response. Why? They're giving you what you asked -- detailed information on how they're looking into a bug.

 

THIS is why we don't get more info from them. You're unhappy with the information you're given, and start attacking them. Once again -- STILL looking into it. Maybe they could've worded this better -- but they aren't finished with investigating it. What MIGHT help is for someone to take initiative, ex:

 

Write down the times you enter a WZ and what WZ it is (Server Time). Locate any strings of more than 2, or any string that is back-to-back strings. Post it up here on the forums with that information, as well as character level (more, what bracket) and what server you're on.

 

They're always going to be MORE likely to look into something we perceive as a bug, if you can show them "proof" or "evidence" that something is wonky.

 

Also -- I apologize for not grabbing this information myself, but I haven't encountered this issue. Might be that I don't queue up for WZs non-stop -- so I don't really get to see it.

 

Hopefully some additional data being handed over from the playerbase will get more attention, and help to get it fixed faster.

What!? Proof?! My own freaking experience is my "proof". They have the flipping logs, let them actually do some freaking work rather than just looking to see if the maps are still rotating. The maps may very well "rotate", but it's more than obvious that this isn't random chance suddenly, it's an OBVIOUS bug and problem THEY need to fix, not make excuses for...which is all Jon did by saying "mathematically it may be working...", which, it ISN'T!

 

This is SLOPPY and LAZY on their part. It IS broken and it needs to be fixed. If their record keeping is this freaking bad, they need a better system.