Weekends - Do teams "feel" worse or are they exactly the same as mid-week for you?

[IanH755]

My previous "undiplomatic thread" was removed last weekend but I feel that the basic premise is valid. There are a lot of people who can/do only play at the weekends and, of these, I believe that there will be a number of those who are less "skilled" than the average player and this leads to a situation where it "feels" like I lose more games at the weekend than during the week and often my WR stats back this up. Now this thread isn't a slight to those players, this thread is about whether there *is* a difference in team performance or not.

 

I mean, I'm an average player with an average 51% WR overall so it's not like I'm able to carry a team of lesser performing team-mates and looking my stats for last weekend my WR was 35% and mid week was 56% (I think) and it's been like that for a high percentage of weekends for me. Strangely this particular weekend has been better as I've played very early in morning (10-11am GMT) and did really well against teams of (obvious to me) "weekend teams".

 

Now what do I mean by "weekend teams"? Well I tend to notice that at the weekend there is a higher percentage of teams being wiped out but only killing <5 of the enemy, which is an indication of poor team performance, rather than those matches where the final tally is down to the last 5 per team for example. These still happen mid-week but the "rate" at which they occur seems higher at the weekend. When I'm on one these teams being wiped out I notice a few things - lack of a plan, lack of comms, yolo'ing, 4 DD's going for 1 cap (I'm looking at you Estury!) then giving some salty chat if you ask any of them to CAP etc. If I see those things I can usually say it'll be a difficult game with a surprising accuracy rate! Again this can and does happen mid-week but the *rate* at which it happens at the weekend feels higher.

 

Now one of things I notice is that people will say "it should even out" and that "better players should actually win more" but someone else posted a very good analogy that I'll borrow "Good players are the Sergeants and the poorer players are the Privates. All it takes is a few Sergeants to organise the privates and the team will do well" only what I find is that there's a team with 90% Sergeants versus a team with 90% Privates most of the time and if you're on the Sergeant team it's almost an insta-win!

 

So those are my thoughts, what are yours? Do you think the teams are worse/better/same at the weekends? Does your WR suffer at the weekend? Is there any difference at all in your weekend to mid-week matches?

[Mayv]

No. I get bad teams any day of the week. Sometimes my best teams have been at the weekend.

[ColonelPete]

It is different every day. I had 30% winratio days on weekdays and weekends. I had 70% winratio days on weekdays and weekends.

[AmazingBeaver]

Random Battles at weekends are just, well... more random because there are more players because of the playermass that only plays at weekends and most of these guys just are there to have fun, make fail divisions, watch cool looking naval battles, hear their big BB guns roar while they surf at the edge of the map, afraid of getting the paintjob scratched.

 

I haven't played much but I've been doing just fine during weekends.

 

 

[txtspeak]

No. I get bad teams any day of the week. Sometimes my best teams have been at the weekend.

 

 same here

[Akula971]

Weekends are far too chaotic. Lots of children , bless 'em. Just mucking about. School holidays too. I found the best games where the teams just did not melt away in minutes where mid morning or mid afternoon when the schools were open. Otherwise it is late night playing. I've just had the worst streak of luck with these teams, 3 days of constant losses, while a friend of mine who rarely plays and is still low tier told me that he'd had constant wins. When I have days like that, always losing but top of the leader board, then I just quit and play Fallout 4 instead, but I'm bored with that and need something new!

[Scawl_D_Balls]

So those are my thoughts, what are yours? Do you think the teams are worse/better/same at the weekends? Does your WR suffer at the weekend? Is there any difference at all in your weekend to mid-week matches?

 

This is me so far today... 

 

Average tier 3 with an average damage of 38,806. 

 

This is you...

 

Average tier 7.3 with an average damage of 35,619.

 

 

What do you make of that? 

[Kastike]

Personally my win rates vary greatly day to day basis, never seen anything special about weekends. I'm confused about that analogy thing. I understand others when they say that better players have higher impact when surrounded by far worse players, and somehow saying that amount of better players in team counters that argument. These two things have very little if anything to do with each other. To put it simply argument one is "Better > Worse" and argument two is "2 > 1".

 

All that aside, if there really would be significant drop in WR every weekend that would imply that those "weekend" players are ALWAYS in one team, the friendly team and enemy teams would remain the same as always. And that is tinfoil hat territory where I dare not to enter.

[xXx_Blogis_xXx]

weekend is worst 2 days to play this game

[Cosseria]

I've often had my longest losing streaks during the week, most frequently on thursday evening. Yet I do perceive a more casual attitude in gamers during the holiday/WE critical times.

[ajappat]

I just don't understand how weekend could affect winrate. If there are more bad players and I mean if. There certainly are more players, but has anyone ever made any research if larger percentage of them are actually bad players? Even assuming there are more bad players, they will be scattered in both teams and thus they will have negative impact on winrate only if one already fully relies on team to do the job towards victory.

[IanH755]

 

This is me so far today... 

 

Average tier 3 with an average damage of 38,806. 

 

This is you...

 

Average tier 7.3 with an average damage of 35,619.

 

What do you make of that? 

 

That I'm playing Atlanta and MK killing DD's for the EU challenge, and now I've finished I'm in the Molotov setting fires for the same challenge - plus as I've already said, I'm an average player doing average stuff but my KD ratio this weekend was pretty good though!

 

[Egoleter]

The same topic every weekend.

 

No there is no difference unless you yourself are the source. Maybe you are so convinced that on weekends there must be worse players that your own performance is reduced. Or because of that believe you notice the losses and bad actions of other players more while paying less attention to your own shortcomings.

[IanH755]

So just to be clear, you are saying that there is absolutely NO difference, at all, what so ever, in any way shape or form between weekend and mid-week play generally and therefore it must surely be me that plays differently for only 2 days of the week.

 

Fair enough if that's your opinion.

[eliastion]

Ok, let's put things straight.

Let's imagine, as a bit of a thought exercise, that there are only two kinds of players, "good players" and "bad players". It stands to reason that if we throw a bunch of random people into two teams, the one that gets more "good players" should win. If one is blessed by MUCH more "good players", we can expect a landslide victory.

Now. Let's imagine the match where one team got 7 good players and the other got 2. As expected, good players cut through bad players and two worthy opponents easily, bringing their team a victory. What happens to the stats?

The stats of 7 good players record a win, thus they improve.

The stats of 3 good players record a loss, thus they worsen.

On average, good players (from this one match!) improve their winrate significantly. 70% of good players from this match won!

 

Now let's imagine a game where the % of potateos is much smaller. We have a dream-team of 12 good players vs a team of 8 good players and 4 bad ones. Here the result seems much less obvious - team of 12 have advantage but most of their enemies know how to not expose broadsides etc. The victory won't be a landslide this time. After hard-fought battle PROBABLY the better team will win. But what happens?

The stats of 12 good players record a win.

The stats of 8 good players record a loss.

This time only 60% of good players got to win the match and increase their WR.

 

That's the thing. Good players in fact SHOULD win more if bad are more numerous. If they don't - perhaps it means they aren't as good as they think? Perhaps they are familiar with the meta but can't adapt to more chaotically unfolding situation where a whole flank can crumble because a couple good enemies ended up facing a bunch of tomato allies? Perhaps the gameplay looks differently on weekends, that's pretty possible. And it COULD negatively affect some ship types - carriers tend to do well in prolonged battles, if everything's over too soon they simply won't have enough time to contribute to victory OR they'll be hunted down when a flank crumbles without warning (or when some hole opens up for some enemy DD...).

But, generally speaking, a good player in a see of bad players is at an advantage. Perhaps some unicum-gods could be disadvantaged a bit due to more randomness, but people around 50-55% winrate? These should be able to benefit from "weekend players". If they can't, the problem probably lies with them - they're too stuck up in their normal way of playing that they are unable to adapt to different gaming environment.

It's a bit like... well, imagine some Moba game with solid meta - I've played some at my time and there tends to be commonly known agreed-on way of playing. Like "everybody knows there should be a solo caster on the middle lane". It's common sense in that particular game, it's based on practice. But, somewhat surprisingly, the somewhat-good teams can really struggle if the enemy does something stupid. Like putting TWO characters on the middle lane instead of having a roaming character to attack different lanes. The latter role is very important and two characters in the middle mean less XP/items for the two but this choice - while certainly sub-optimal - needs to be exploited. That caster in the middle NEEDS to be able to react to the fact of facing two enemies. The roaming character NEEDS to take advantage of not having an enemy doing the same. If the team can't do that, it may end with the inferior tactics winning because the enemy team was so used to the meta that it failed to counter the advantages of "wrong" approach and punish supposedly fatal weaknesses that approach left.

 

So.. long story short...

If you are winning less than you should, the answer isn't "more bad players". It might be "more good players" but that seems somewhat unlikely, as I don't think you're wrong assuming that weekend=more players lacking experience and/or regular "practice". But if not that, it's not the lack of skill of other players - it would most likely be you. It might be that the game is a bit different during weekends but as the better player you should be able to adjust - your situational awareness and purely "technical" abilities of aiming and angling your ship should give you significant edge over worse players doing things good players wouldn't normally do.

Or, of course, it might be that - for whatever reason (too much free time, family distracting you, bad ping due to other people using the net, take your pick) - you just play worse on weekends. That's possible too. 

[IanH755]

So another vote for - "nothings different you're just a bad player at the weekends" which is fine.

 

Now bare in mind that my *personal* stats i.e. how "I" play, are very slightly above average as seen above, yet how the *team" plays (my WR) usually lowers. So if my personal performance doesn't change yet the team loses more then where is the problem, me (who stayed the same) or the team?

 

Now I'm perfectly happy to admit my own personal weaknesses in the game (there are many) and if my personal stats (XP/KD/DMG etc) had shown a drop off at the weekends I could agree that it must be me that's the issue, but they don't. As shown above taking the MK for example my *team* only won 1 out of 4 games despite all my stats being green in those matches.

 

What I will admit to is that I watch what the team does very carefully and, even if I see them making poor tactical choices, I tend to back them up rather than do my own thing. The MK was a prime example where the T8 team's decided not to cap after the friendly DD's died but to sit back and border surf leaving the enemy DD's to take the caps and win (3 times!). Now if I had charged in to take a CAP myself I would have been focused and died alone, so I stayed with the team and wittled the enemy down whilst watching the team perform badly whilst ignoring any advice in chat (I was even polite!). Now I did OK in those matches even if the team lost but it's still a loss. 

[eliastion]

So another vote for - "nothings different you're just a bad player at the weekends" which is fine.

 

Now bare in mind that my *personal* stats i.e. how "I" play, are very slightly above average as seen above, yet how the *team" plays (my WR) usually lowers. So if my personal performance doesn't change yet the team loses more then where is problem, me (who stayed the same) or the team?

(...)

 

The bad players are distributed into both teams. And there are only 11 spots left on your team to be filled with mind-boggingly bad players and 12 spots on the enemy team.

Let's say that your skill level is 51 and normally average player is 50. So you're ever-so-slightly above average giving your team a SLIGHTLY better chance to win usually - since the enemies have, on average, skill level of 50, your allies - also 50, giving (on average) two teams where one has the average skill level of 50.08 and the other: 50.00

Now, imagine skill level dropping drastically, so that average ally and average enemy has a skill level of 40. This gives you average skill level of your team 40.92 and the enemy: 40.00. Note how much more pronounced your team's advantage is.

 

So yes. Assuming your stats are to be trusted (we're talking really small samples here, I'm afraid) it most definitely seems that you play worse on the weekends. Because it it was ONLY other players being worse, it would make you win more. Perhaps other "average players" are better at dealing with bad enemies and helping bad teammates suck less. Perhaps you're unable to adjust to different dynamics to make your presence felt where it's most important. Perhaps you're less focused on weekends or lack some crucial intangible quality that would let you get victories with bad teams against bad enemies. MAybe you even just play bad ships for the task.

The thing is, if your winrate drops, you can't just blame it on bad teammates because you also get bad enemies. And yes, sometimes you'll get a really bad team or the enemy will get a really good one, but these things DO even out over time.

[ColonelPete]

Your winrate during this weekend is better than your average. Where is your problem?

[krautjaeger]

It's not worse per se, it's just more of the same as there are more people on in weekends that just sails and shoots. Winning is not really part of why they play, it's shooting guns and sailing ships. It's to take the edge off stress that comes from work, and that's that. On weekdays, they are there after work until ten or so pm but then the game winds down anyway. On weekends, and especially Sundays, they're all here.

[IanH755]

Your winrate during this weekend is better than your average. Where is your problem?

 

Quoted from the OP which you haven't read - "looking my stats for last weekend my WR was 35% and mid week was 56% (I think) and it's been like that for a high percentage of weekends for me. Strangely this particular weekend has been better "

 

 it most definitely seems that you play worse on the weekends.

 

Yet my "personal" stats don't show that, they show I'm still average. I will agree that however that, being an average player, it is difficult to know "HOW" to alter a battle because, well I'm average and despite your belief that as an average player I can turn battles with poor teams because my team becomes 1% "better", I think it's incredibly difficult for an average player to be able to swing battles that often whereas good players (which I'm not) can do this more often.

 

Anyway, thank you for your input.

[eliastion]

(...)

 

Yet my "personal" stats don't show that, they show I'm still average. I will agree that however that, being an average player, it is difficult to know "HOW" to alter a battle because, well I'm average and despite your belief that as an average player I can turn battles with poor teams because my team becomes 1% "better", I think it's incredibly difficult for an average player to be able to swing battles that often whereas good players (which I'm not) can do this more often.

 

Anyway, thank you for your input.

 

Personal stats are a poor gauge of contribution to victory. It's not a very popular opinion but I stand by it: the only statistic that actually matters is win% because all the others can be buffed at expense of actual contribution. To provide an extreme example:

Imagine that there are two enemies spotted: a cruiser steaming full speed and shooting an allied DD and a second cruiser, AFK for the whole game. A battleship can shoot either of them: an easy target to be deleted from the surface for full XP reward, lots of damage and a kill? Or a hard to hit target that he maybe will kill, but perhaps just damage (that guy is moving and angling against obvious threat of BB) a bit to let the rest of the fleet finish him off.

The first choice guarantees a nice XP boost. The second increases chances of victory (since it can be that shell or two that make enemy go down BEFORE friendly DD dies).

 

Now, there are many choices like these, less obvious, but the thing is: XP is a reward for individual damage; hit% is a reward wor picking easy targets; Kill/Death ratio is a reward for camping and killstealing. Etc, etc. They all are stats that show some part of the story but they don't really reflect how much you help your team win.

And for that we have win%. It's not ideal, it can (if you look at the glopal, not tier-based stat) be padded by sealclubbing. It is, however, the one and only stat that shows whether a player, on average, helps the team win or if he's just a deadweight the team must haul along.

Of course, better players TEND to deal more damage (though it's very class-specific - it would be better if it was counted as %hp taken from ships but sadly that's not the case), have better hit ratios (again, depends on preferred enemy and distance of engagement of various ships/classes), more aveage kills etc. But these are, at best, supporting stats.

[Ferry_25]

I am not that good in stats and numbers. Statwise and feeling I consider myself an mediocre player. My style is agressive though not too reckless. I consider a GG in which there was much action, tense and good teamplay in which players fulfill their role to their best abilities. Winning or losing isn't that important to me: I've had epic loss battles!  IMO the weekend matches are more extreme: in much cases either very bad or very good.

[the_dude33]

 

Quoted from the OP which you haven't read - "looking my stats for last weekend my WR was 35% and mid week was 56% (I think) and it's been like that for a high percentage of weekends for me. Strangely this particular weekend has been better "

 

 

Yet my "personal" stats don't show that, they show I'm still average. I will agree that however that, being an average player, it is difficult to know "HOW" to alter a battle because, well I'm average and despite your belief that as an average player I can turn battles with poor teams because my team becomes 1% "better", I think it's incredibly difficult for an average player to be able to swing battles that often whereas good players (which I'm not) can do this more often.

 

Anyway, thank you for your input.

 

Very simple:

 

It's called the law of large numbers.

Your number of battles over one weekend is not high enough to have your average (Winrate, damage...) approach an expected value for your skill. Further, as you've been saying yourself, your average contribution cannot swing enough battles in your favour.

 

Two solutions:

1) don't get too hung up on statistics

2) if you do, play loads more to get your average closer to the expected value (motivation for that might be difficult to muster)

[ColonelPete]

 

Quoted from the OP which you haven't read - "looking my stats for last weekend my WR was 35% and mid week was 56% (I think) and it's been like that for a high percentage of weekends for me. Strangely this particular weekend has been better "

 

 

Your WR was 45%.

https://warships.today/player/536286779/eu/IanH755/custom-interval/184f76fa-c202-4369-846d-eda38ea7df4d/e93e205e-f77e-446a-82da-2ee91002a466

 

Yes, make a thread every time you get a lower WR than average in 20 games!

[Shagulon]

This is basic psychology.

 

When you win, you're a great player, getting better, things are good.

 

When you lose, you got a bad team, it wasn't your fault. It must be kiddies or weekend warriors.

 

Denial and confirmation bias rolled into one.