30-20. Naturally I'm going to call this anecdotal, just like your buddies list. You can't just go "oh this guy had a string of losses so solo queuing or pvp in general must suck and the matchmaking must be bad."

This "I lost X games" "Well, I won Y games" game misses the point. Assuming in each warzone one team wins and one teams loses, if we polled all players, the total number of wins and losses equal would be the same. In other words, we would expect the number of wins to be half of your games played**. What we want to look at is if the number of wins is as a whole is unusually large or small. I think the best way to test is the binomial test with p = 0.5. In your case k = 30; n = 50 which has less than a 4.2% probability based on chance alone. If we were to use an alpha of 0.05 (very common) we would reject the null hypothesis in your case and conclude there were other factors in your run that made the games "unfair".

And with that I have now contributed more to analyzing the current state of PvP in this thread than Bioware has.

** There would be very slight variations as a poor player would tend to lose more and a great player would tend to win more but part of our assumptions are that one player's individual skill should not be the determining factor in an 8vs8 warzone or that the mix of players will average out ability. That assumption is one that is being tested.

Looks like the math scared everyone off. lol

Tbh I wanted more of it as it seemed more or less correct, but I guess peoples are busy arguing in other threads now.

These forums also lack an "upvote" feature, which in that case could make sure that you grabbed players' attention.

Looks like the math scared everyone off. lol

I loathe math...but if you could better explain it that would be helpful. A statistician, I am not.

BTW, I largely agree with your complaints.

This "I lost X games" "Well, I won Y games" game misses the point. Assuming in each warzone one team wins and one teams loses, if we polled all players, the total number of wins and losses equal would be the same. In other words, we would expect the number of wins to be half of your games played**. What we want to look at is if the number of wins is as a whole is unusually large or small. I think the best way to test is the binomial test with p = 0.5. In your case k = 30; n = 50 which has less than a 4.2% probability based on chance alone. If we were to use an alpha of 0.05 (very common) we would reject the null hypothesis in your case and conclude there were other factors in your run that made the games "unfair".

 

And with that I have now contributed more to analyzing the current state of PvP in this thread than Bioware has.

 

 

 

** There would be very slight variations as a poor player would tend to lose more and a great player would tend to win more but part of our assumptions are that one player's individual skill should not be the determining factor in an 8vs8 warzone or that the mix of players will average out ability. That assumption is one that is being tested.

I'm not sure why you used the word "unfair" here - obviously a more highly skilled player will win more games. We don't know the mechanics of Bioware's hidden ELO/matchmaking for unranked PVP, but we can assume the intent is for it to match players with high win rates so they are balanced across both teams. Plenty of posts in this thread and others that demonstrate how the algorithm is flawed when calculating the hidden ELO for a group of players - since the hidden ELO of a DPS farming group may not reflect their actual skill level.

The primary issue in this thread and pretty much any other PVP complaint thread is an L2P issue. Players don't take stock of how good or bad they are in PVP and place all the blame on bioware. If you're worse than average, you're going to lose more than players who are better than average. At a certain point, you're going to lose A LOT more than above average players, because you're making every game a 3v4 or 7v8. I just don't see how this is so hard to understand.

And back to Snave's excellent takedown - the "premade detector" thing is so funny. As usual, people don't notice or care if the "premade" is poorly skilled players having fun together. They care when it's 4 players that are better than them, because that's just so unfair.

And back to Snave's excellent takedown - the "premade detector" thing is so funny. As usual, people don't notice or care if the "premade" is poorly skilled players having fun together. They care when it's 4 players that are better than them, because that's just so unfair.

to be fair, numerous premades of relatively skilled players (vis-a-vis everyone else in the match) ignore objectives completely which can help the outcome, but more often than not hurts the win/loss. it also makes victories hollow and losses frustrating. but yeah, premades are as often as not pve players with little or no idea what they're doing or the intricacies of the maps.

call it what it is, as a general rule, when the better players queue regs, they don't much care for objectives b/c objectives don't much matter in the pvp end game anymore.

to be fair, numerous premades of relatively skilled players (vis-a-vis everyone else in the match) ignore objectives completely which can help the outcome, but more often than not hurts the win/loss. it also makes victories hollow and losses frustrating. but yeah, premades are as often as not pve players with little or no idea what they're doing or the intricacies of the maps.

 

call it what it is, as a general rule, when the better players queue regs, they don't much care for objectives b/c objectives don't much matter in the pvp end game anymore.

Yeah, I tried to account for this with "since the hidden ELO of a DPS farming group may not reflect their actual skill level." earlier in that post.

Even with that taken into account, if you're up against a team farming for DPS/HPS, you can easily win if you choose to avoid the cleave ball. I queue solo all the time, as both DPS and heals, and when I get matched against a group of players who are farming and I don't have any help, I just play objectives and try to get SOMETHING out of the warzone.

you can win, but what's the point? tbh, I didn't play for the weeklies or the dailies, but I would use those as gauges to swap toons and then do them on my alts. that said, what's the point of winning a game that you only win because half the other team was ignoring the win/loss conditions? (i.e., ignoring objectives)

it's stupid. it leads to hollow victories and mind-numbing defeats (often defeats b/c you're unlucky enough to be stuck wth 4 dps farmers).

this isn't a premade issue. it's not even an issue of these silly new quest/deserter changes. the issue is that reg WZs are meaningless to end-game pvpers, and instead of playing the maps, they use them as a sandbox to do what end-game pvp does: TDM and make pretty numbers. I don't blame them. I don't like it, and I stopped playing long ago.

but then, I only got into pvp b/c pve updates were so slow and raid glitches went unfixed for so long. at least with pvp you could run into different enemies if the environs didn't change. but...yeah...iunno. this game is just a very bad clone of WoW at end game. the actual game play and content. same basic systems just...stale AF. better RP and non-competitive stuff (story, comps, etc.), but...man. if you're into game play, balance updates, and/or content updates...this is just the wrong place to be. shame cuz the story and aesthetics are fantastic for an mmorpg. but w/e.

anyway, just getting my $$$'s worth after paying to respond to alrik von gimpenbacher.

I'm not sure why you used the word "unfair" here - obviously a more highly skilled player will win more games.

I'm using the mathematical definition. With two outcomes "unfair" mean it is not a 50/50 chance to win. And a lot of things that are "obvious" are not ... that's why we test our hypothses.

The primary issue in this thread and pretty much any other PVP complaint thread is an L2P issue.

Actually that is the exact OPPOSITE of the complaints. If it were just better players won that would be one thing but players lose because of issues out of their control and independent of their ability. Things like bad matchmaking, 7 v 8 or 3 v 4, premades v pugs. And what if in am the best PvP ever in the history of SWTOR but on a team with seven idiots? Why should I not get any daily/weekly points? That is the point that in UNRANKED why should players get no reward for issues out of their control and issues other than their individual ability?

JackieKO has only recently joined the team in this role late last year to be a better conduit between us and the devs on the forums. I think you need to give her a break and let her show you she is doing what she says. So far I’ve only seen a positive influence from Jackie being active on the forums. The last thing we want or need is people attacking her integrity and we end up in the same old situation with no communication again.

Do you still hold to this opinion based on what we (haven't) seen from Jackie in this thread?

If I only won half the games I played, I wouldn't PvP. The entire premise of PvP is to win more based on skill, or why would ranked pvp even exist? So your test is based on a faulty premise, getting an expected result. Duh pvp win rates aren't 50/50.

As for Jackie, even I'm not going to judge someone based on what happens in one thread and when there was a freak winter storm in Texas where BW is located.

Do you still hold to this opinion based on what we (haven't) seen from Jackie in this thread?

I’m willing to give her the benefit of doubt for a few more weeks because of what’s been happening with Texas icecapades. Ask me again in a few weeks.

Edit: I just realised my sub runs out before then and I’m still not sure wether I’ll be resubbing. I was hoping to test out the patch changes to conquest before then. But my sub will run out on the 2nd, so I honestly don’t know if I’ll resub to test them.

If I only won half the games I played, I wouldn't PvP. The entire premise of PvP is to win more based on skill, or why would ranked pvp even exist? So your test is based on a faulty premise, getting an expected result. Duh pvp win rates aren't 50/50.

 

As for Jackie, even I'm not going to judge someone based on what happens in one thread and when there was a freak winter storm in Texas where BW is located.

It is a zero sum game, though. When calculating all the wins and losses, they ought to align.

I'm using the mathematical definition. With two outcomes "unfair" mean it is not a 50/50 chance to win. And a lot of things that are "obvious" are not ... that's why we test our hypothses.

 

 

Actually that is the exact OPPOSITE of the complaints. If it were just better players won that would be one thing but players lose because of issues out of their control and independent of their ability. Things like bad matchmaking, 7 v 8 or 3 v 4, premades v pugs. And what if in am the best PvP ever in the history of SWTOR but on a team with seven idiots? Why should I not get any daily/weekly points? That is the point that in UNRANKED why should players get no reward for issues out of their control and issues other than their individual ability?

Class stacking, premade groups that roflstomp solo players and more...all for the "thrill"...AND THEN mock the other team when they win. That is the nadir of disgusting behavior in a game.

I’m willing to give her the benefit of doubt for a few more weeks because of what’s been happening with Texas icecapades. Ask me again in a few weeks.

As for Jackie, even I'm not going to judge someone based on what happens in one thread and when there was a freak winter storm in Texas where BW is located.

Jackie last posted here on January 11th, over a month before she could use the ice storm as an excuse and she has been active in other threads since then ... just not here.

More drive-by community (non)management. aka Bioware culture.

If I only won half the games I played, I wouldn't PvP. The entire premise of PvP is to win more based on skill,

A) That misses the point. It is you and 7 others (let's ignore 4x4). Is only one player who is highly skilled going to make a difference between a win and a loss? Or as I've been putting it, what happens when a highly skilled player is on a team with 7 idiots? In other words, why do people in this thread use arguments applicable for playing solo to a team game. It's like saying LeBron James and 4 toddlers should beat a pro team because LeBron is the best player in basketball.

or why would ranked pvp even exist?

THANK YOU!!!!! I've been saying to the people that think these changes are great that they are right if talking about Ranked but not Unranked.

THANK YOU!!!!! I've been saying to the people that think these changes are great that they are right if talking about Ranked but not Unranked.

Lose farming is just as bad in unranked as it is in ranked and breeds the same type of toxicity and frustration regardless, BioChris posted an interesting article recently on how Bungie failed to combat mechanics to prevent losing farming in Destiny 2, would be a good read for people that think that you should be getting participating trophies.

I'm not sure why you used the word "unfair" here - obviously a more highly skilled player will win more games. We don't know the mechanics of Bioware's hidden ELO/matchmaking for unranked PVP, but we can assume the intent is for it to match players with high win rates so they are balanced across both teams. Plenty of posts in this thread and others that demonstrate how the algorithm is flawed when calculating the hidden ELO for a group of players - since the hidden ELO of a DPS farming group may not reflect their actual skill level.

 

The primary issue in this thread and pretty much any other PVP complaint thread is an L2P issue. Players don't take stock of how good or bad they are in PVP and place all the blame on bioware. If you're worse than average, you're going to lose more than players who are better than average. At a certain point, you're going to lose A LOT more than above average players, because you're making every game a 3v4 or 7v8. I just don't see how this is so hard to understand.

 

And back to Snave's excellent takedown - the "premade detector" thing is so funny. As usual, people don't notice or care if the "premade" is poorly skilled players having fun together. They care when it's 4 players that are better than them, because that's just so unfair.

By far the best post so far in this thread and most likely similar to the developer's mindset and opinion on this issue, shame it gets overlooked by so many posters

Lose farming is just as bad in unranked as it is in ranked and breeds the same type of toxicity and frustration regardless, BioChris posted an interesting article recently on how Bungie failed to combat mechanics to prevent losing farming in Destiny 2, would be a good read for people that think that you should be getting participating trophies.

I'll take a few interesting bits of this article if you'll allow me, because while I do agree that "participation trophy" isn't the best idea well...

One bounty in particular guarantees you the Trials item of the week simply for completing matches, win or lose. And since giving up and losing right away is quicker than trying your hardest and eventually losing anyway, many choose the quick death over the drawn-out one.

This part here is one interesting because from what I understand, you do get something worthwhile no matter if you win or lose, so players are indeed jumping the bandwagon and killing themselve fast to earn this.

However, another interesting thing is that this mode provides "good rewards" almost exclusively if you win, the case above being the only one where you don't need to win. And this is where we fall short with Swtor and probably "BioChris" point of view, as currently, unranked PvP offers strictly nothing for winning. Sure you get to complete a weekly quest, which gives you in 20 wins what three master mode hammer station would have given you anyway...

This is even worse when you see that the rewards you get from this quest is used mainly to... Get gear. The one you're supposed to have already if you won 20 games, because gear in swtor (at least set bonuses and tacticals) make that much of a difference in PvP.

Then there’s the problem with how the rest of Trials of Osiris’ economy is currently structured. By the end of the original Destiny, players could farm Trials gear simply by playing matches because they earned tokens after each one, win or lose. These tokens could eventually be traded in for the gear that other players obtained more quickly by simply winning several matches in a row. It was a nice workaround for Trials of Osiris enthusiasts with mediocre or negative KDAs. In the current iteration, however, you only get tokens for winning, and even then they are given out very sparingly.

I like this one, because it shows again that we used to have a superior model in the past, liked by way more players in the form of PvP Commendation, that you'd earn quicker and in bigger amount if you were good.

Interesting note about our old system but these commendations were used to buy gear, and more importantly, other rewards as well, which made even good players already geared interested in still earning those, either for the monetary value they provided (sold on GTN) or because they wanted "something more" to their stronghold or in their outfit.

Surprising to see that their old system worked better and that their current one, just like swtor's current, is struggling to meet the expectations of both veteran and newcomers. To be honest, I would be all in if they kept rewards to be win-only, only if said rewards were actually worth it. Then maybe would I have an interest in winning and not just having fun camping that poor commando on a node.

But I think that "BioChris" would surely have already seen the issues and interesting comparisons highlighted by this article, and not just the one paragraph that says "players will just kill themselves if you give them any reward for losing". Right ?

TL;DR - Good post indeed, but it also shows that you either need to provide players with worthwhile rewards available only for winning, and that surprisingly the commendations/token systems used in the past worked way better, as nobody used to kill themselves just to end a game quickly at the time.

I'm using the mathematical definition. With two outcomes "unfair" mean it is not a 50/50 chance to win. And a lot of things that are "obvious" are not ... that's why we test our hypothses.

 

 

Actually that is the exact OPPOSITE of the complaints. If it were just better players won that would be one thing but players lose because of issues out of their control and independent of their ability. Things like bad matchmaking, 7 v 8 or 3 v 4, premades v pugs. And what if in am the best PvP ever in the history of SWTOR but on a team with seven idiots? Why should I not get any daily/weekly points? That is the point that in UNRANKED why should players get no reward for issues out of their control and issues other than their individual ability?

You're applying a pure mathematical concept to a skill based game. We already know that for the entire community of PVPers there are an equal number of wins and losses. Applying the same logic to the win rate of an individual player is asinine. A player is either going to be below average or above average - a purely average player with a perfect 50/50 win rate does not exist. If a player is consistently losing far more than they are winning, the only person they have to blame is themselves.

Lose farming is just as bad in unranked as it is in ranked and breeds the same type of toxicity and frustration regardless, BioChris posted an interesting article recently on how Bungie failed to combat mechanics to prevent losing farming in Destiny 2, would be a good read for people that think that you should be getting participating trophies.

 

 

By far the best post so far in this thread and most likely similar to the developer's mindset and opinion on this issue, shame it gets overlooked by so many posters

I am going to disagree here. If you face a skilled pre made you're always on the back foot as a solo player no matter how skilled / good you are. Coordination always wins, taunts, guard plus pocket healer allows the pre made to absorb most pressure that anyone can throw at them. And once the first 2-3 min of a match pass and the cycle is established and then you can pick of the 1/2/3 players that spawn as they come in. Some maps even the playing field a bit, but mostly true statement.

Love these comments a bit further back along the lines "these guys cant even hit 3k dps" guess what hot shot, cant DPS when you're dead.

If BW released an option for solo gueue only unranked and queue unranked as is now (mixed grp/solo) the current queue would be dead compared to solo only.

You're applying a pure mathematical concept to a skill based game. We already know that for the entire community of PVPers there are an equal number of wins and losses. Applying the same logic to the win rate of an individual player is asinine. A player is either going to be below average or above average - a purely average player with a perfect 50/50 win rate does not exist. If a player is consistently losing far more than they are winning, the only person they have to blame is themselves.

Which gets back to the question: what is the impact of ONE player on their team's chances to win. This is the whole L2P argument that if I were to get better, that would significantly impact the teams I'm on. In other words 1 person's skill outweighs the 7 others on their team. What is asinine is that posters are continually using concepts in solo PvP and applying them to a team game. Like I said, that that logic to the extreme and LeBron James and 4 toddlers will tend to beat other NBA teams. Does that make sense? Do you have an answer for that? And before you say that's a ridiculous example, it is analogous to 2 players playing objectives to win with 6 murder-death-kill DPSs on their team. Does the Uber-skill of the 2 players outweigh the 6 anchors?

Let's say you're right and that better players tend to win more. This may explain the Premade vs Pugs we're seeing. As we showed, if you are an average player in a warzone and you have one premade of skilled players then you only have a 1/3 chance to be on their team and a 2/3 chance of being stomped. And remember I was testing for significance and not just is it 50/50 and it was just on 1 player with no way to judge his skill. to say applying global statistics to individuals to test for significance simply shows that you don't understand how significance testing works or is applied.

Which gets back to the question: what is the impact of ONE player on their team's chances to win. This is the whole L2P argument that if I were to get better, that would significantly impact the teams I'm on. In other words 1 person's skill outweighs the 7 others on their team. What is asinine is that posters are continually using concepts in solo PvP and applying them to a team game. Like I said, that that logic to the extreme and LeBron James and 4 toddlers will tend to beat other NBA teams. Does that make sense? Do you have an answer for that? And before you say that's a ridiculous example, it is analogous to 2 players playing objectives to win with 6 murder-death-kill DPSs on their team. Does the Uber-skill of the 2 players outweigh the 6 anchors?

 

Let's say you're right and that better players tend to win more. This may explain the Premade vs Pugs we're seeing. As we showed, if you are an average player in a warzone and you have one premade of skilled players then you only have a 1/3 chance to be on their team and a 2/3 chance of being stomped. And remember I was testing for significance and not just is it 50/50 and it was just on 1 player with no way to judge his skill. to say applying global statistics to individuals to test for significance simply shows that you don't understand how significance testing works or is applied.

To be honest, a significant piece of data would be to see how many wins a skilled player gets when in a premade, and how many wins the same player gets when he stops grouping. This way you have a direct vision of how grouping impacts your chances of winning if you're a really good player. Ideally, it shouldn't increase it that much, because matchmaking with ELO is here to prevent that.

And I'm still waiting for how issues like 3v4 or 7v8 or one side with healers v those without or all 306 + fourteen 286 augs v a team with some mid 200s with an incomplete set of low augs or having a member on team that actively sabotages you and cannot be kicked* have L2P solutions. The "these changes are great" posters keep ignoring those scenarios.

*All of which I have seen in PvP.