Tier 8 MT/HT MM statistical analysis from reddit

[Archaic_One 1,853]

A contributor of reddit has done a 99% UCL calc on a personal data set and came up with the following:

https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldofTanks/comments/6dg5tf/the_918_matchmaker_saga_part_two_new_data_and/

Quote

Both the original and the current analysis show that matchmaker in 9.18 can produce very skewed results, at least for some players. There are several implications of this. First of all, a matchmaker treating some classes differently is straight out not fair from the game balance perspective. Every player should have equal opportunities, regardless of the class they play. Second, it would seem that many owners of premium tier 8 HT got shafted in 9.18. Since real money was paid for these tanks, it is essential that WG makes sure these vehicles are fairly treated in the new matchmaker. Third, tier 8 HT, premium or not, should have fair matchmaking, that puts them at top tier the appropriate amount. WG should fix any mechanisms that discriminate them. Fourth, it may be a good time to play tier 8 TDs, if you want to dominate lower tiers.

I have no idea of whether this could be discerned from the API, but this kind of ninja nerf would be such a WG kind of thing to do.  I wonder if the OP is a member here, it'd be interesting to have him present to our math guys.

[Android25 962]

Besides the fact that his sample size is far too small (150 games for HT's and 90 games for TD's wtf is that), I think he's drawing the wrong reasoning for the conclusion of the data. He claims that all tanks should have a 20% chance of being top tier, which would make sense in a perfect system as 3/15 is 20%. However, we know that tier 10 and tier 8 are the most heavily played tiers in the game at any given time. I think you would be very hard pressed to find any given time where the proportion of tier 6 tanks was 2.33x that of tier 8 tanks, or even the proportion of tier 7 tanks 1.4x that of tier 8 tanks.

According to what WG has claimed, the system attempts to make 3/5/7 games as often as it possibly can, unless it is unable to produce this scenario, in which case it will start creating 5/10 games and then just whatever it can throw together that follows the tank MM rules in order to find you a game quickly.

The simple fact is that there aren't enough tier 6's or 7's playing the game for the system to make as many 3/5/7 games with tier 8 on the top as it can with tier 9 or 10 on the top. Because tier 8 is one of the most played tiers and unlike tier 10, can be bottom tier, it just makes sense statistically that tier 8 in general would have a higher probability of being the majority of the team, and with the mm's current attempt to make the majority of the tanks lower tier, tier 8 tanks tend to not be top tier.

The other conclusion he draws is that HT's are being treated differently than TD's because, based on his data, it's obvious that TD's appear as the top tier more often. I think that this also has to do with uneven distributions within the MM itself rather than WG specifically punishing heavy tanks. Just as more players tend to play tier 10 and tier 8 than other tiers, more players tend to play HT's than they do TD's. The patch notes specifically state that "The matchmaker considers the number of light tanks and tank destroyers." That generally means that the number of TD's on either side should be +/- 1 of each other but tier usually isn't accounted, and that would be where most of the skewing is going on. Any TD that gets on one side is almost guaranteed to pull another TD into the match to put onto the other side.

I think it's likely that TD's tend to get into the more prime 3/5/7 (Which initially would be pretty evenly distributed until the MM runs out of tier 6 and 7 tanks) games because there are fewer of them than the flood of HT's, and then once all the prime spots are taken, they still have a better chance of getting into the 5/10 MM (which would favor tier 9 and tier 8 vs tier 8 and tier 7 based on tier distribution, especially later when all the tier 7 tanks are used up) before all the rest of the HT's and just a few TD's are simply dumped into whatever the MM can come up with (Which is why in his data HT's got single tier MM more than twice as often as TD's did per game).

TLDR: Tier 8 HT's get shafted more often than Tier 8 TD's not because WG did something to specifically punish tier 8 HT's, but because there are generally more of them than any other specific class/tier in the MM queue at any given time and so they tend to get thrown into whatever the MM can come up with rather than WG's "fair distribution".

[Archaic_One 1,853]

I edited my OP to reflect the small data set.  Is there a way we could generate a larger sample size internally and put his numbers to a more rigorous test for lols?

(FWIW I don't know why anyone would ever use a 99% UCL instead of a 95% UCL for something like this.  The extra order of magnitude for σ isn't needed with this kind of data)

[8_Hussars 348]

Firstly, there needs to be a consensus on what Top, Mid and Bottom tier mean.  For me 15 same tier is Top Tier, all small sample data I have seen to date effectively ignore it.

It's a paradigm shift but I think of MM as "Top Tier", "-1 Pref MM", and "-2 MM".  Realistically, if WG said you could have -1mm or better 70% of the time I think players would jump at it... 

* estimated because the Reddit data does not distinguish between the two.

	Tier 4	Tier 5	Tier 6	Tier 7	Tier 8	Tier 8
			TD		TD	Heavy
Total Games			100		100	150
3/5/7 - Top			12		36	10
3/5/7  - Mid			26		20*	24*
3/5/7 - Bot			48		18*	44*
Total 3/5/7			86		74	78
Other (2,5,8) - Top			0		0	0
Other (2,5,8) - Mid			1		0	0
Other (2,5,8) - Bot			0		0	0
Total Other			1		0	0
5/10 - Top			5		1	1
5/10 - Bot			3		19	45
Total 5/10			8		20	46
15 - Top			5		6	26
Total 15			5		6	26
Top Tier			17.0%		37.0%	7.3%
Mid Tier			27.0%		20.0%	16.0%
Bot Tier			51.0%		37.0%	59.3%
Same Tier			5.0%		6.0%	17.3%
			100.0%		100.0%	100.0%
"Top Tier MM"			22.0%		43.0%	24.7%
"- 1 Pref MM"			30.0%		39.0%	46.0%
"-2 MM"			48.0%		18.0%	29.3%
			100.0%		100.0%	100.0%
Total 3/5/7			86.0%		74.0%	52.0%
Total Other			1.0%		0.0%	0.0%
Total 5/10			8.0%		20.0%	30.7%
Total 15			5.0%		6.0%	17.3%
			100.0%		100.0%	100.0%

 

 

 

 

[Android25 962]

2 hours ago, Archaic_One said:

I edited my OP to reflect the small data set.  Is there a way we could generate a larger sample size internally and put his numbers to a more rigorous test for lols?

(FWIW I don't know why anyone would ever use a 99% UCL instead of a 95% UCL for something like this.  The extra order of magnitude for σ isn't needed with this kind of data)

Unfortunately there's nothing in the API that can give you this type of data, you're limited to games you play, or that people share or upload. You might be able to look at an uploading website, but data would be skewed towards people who actually want to upload their replay.

[zarphag 4]

No surprise tier 8 is the most played, games have 5-10 prem tanks each, we all need to earn teh silver.

[Stige 103]

9 hours ago, zarphag said:

No surprise tier 8 is the most played, games have 5-10 prem tanks each, we all need to earn teh silver.

And somehow the MM is still fucked up for T8 when you are bottom tier every game, except when you play arty for some reason and are top tier every game to fuck you over on missions...

I swear I can't get T10 games in a T8/T9 arty...

[Android25 962]

6 hours ago, Stige said:

And somehow the MM is still fucked up for T8 when you are bottom tier every game, except when you play arty for some reason and are top tier every game to fuck you over on missions...

I swear I can't get T10 games in a T8/T9 arty...

You just need to platoon wi... Oh right, they ruined that.

[zarphag 4]

its fucking up missions well.

Took me ages to do a MT one where I had to kill a HT + 2 tiers, purely for the fact I only ever saw 3 +2's often no HT.

So ended up chasing a defender down in a vk3001p...

[CarbonWard 3,529]

Currently, the most fucked up mission is HT-6, that requires you to kill 2HTs thats 2 tiers above you.

In the old days what i did was buy a kv-85, mount 122mm, and toon with a protected MM tie r8 like IS6, get that shit done in like 3 games top.

nowadays you need to pray that your tier 6 heavy get into a 3/5/7 that end up having 2 heavies at the top, which basically makes HT-6 more difficult than the other 14 missions combined.

 

but on the flip side tho, MT-15 is easy af now, since you can just get a bat, and toon up with 2 E3s, this way the MM will always put 2 tier 10 Tds minimum on the other side.

[Hally 126]

HT-6 isn't that bad if you do it on a T34 or Lowe... Chances to find 2 t10 HTs to kill isn't that low. At least a lot more likely than the 3 arty kill missions with LT.

[hazzgar 730]

On 28.05.2017 at 7:18 AM, Hally said:

HT-6 isn't that bad if you do it on a T34 or Lowe... Chances to find 2 t10 HTs to kill isn't that low. At least a lot more likely than the 3 arty kill missions with LT.

I'm on it and I cry. Just after patch it seeemed doable but somehow I never managed to find a hole to break through in my type64

[igorCRO 45]

Ok... played like 20 games per day last couple of days.... Tier 8 platoon... Never seen tier 6 (never been a real top tier).

[BlackAdder 1,390]