Is this a statistical anomaly? Or something else?

[AdamZ]

@Geryth - I'd call this just a streak of bad luck. Most people queue freelancer nowadays, so skill difference between GCs has been largely minimized. You can try changing your GC if you really think there's something going on, but any change you notice from it is likely to be placebo. My advice is to just keep on keeping on. We all have days like that once in a while.

It is more then a streak of bad luck. Basically this is a further magnification of issues we have always had in frontlines.

Pre freelancer you had the better players queing for the same GC, freeloaders would then follow behind into said GC and the better players move on to the next one

When freelancer hit it was then a pre-made is rolling in blank GC and crushing everyone, leading to some bad luck, but otherwise, you had close to a balance win rate as OP noted.

They changed pre-mades now, that you auto to freelancer, so people have gone back to solo que but the better players in the same GC. This has been made worse then it ever was by Bots and people just farming Xp. You now have min chance on this groups as a result, even if they are not bots, they are generally people who do not care for winning or losing, and you are lucky to get more then 2 healers out of the 24.

You also have the issue that a skilled player has alot less carry potential in frontlines now. It was never large, but a few good players use to make a difference. Now unless that skill is magically making everyone stay together and hit the same target, the skill of those few good players is moot.

[Geryth]

I think it definitely more than just a bad streak of luck. Last night was a lot better, but the prevailing theme of getting placed on flames is still very much a thing. Here are my games last night:

Game 1: Placed IF - Winner MS
Game 2: Placed IF - Winner IF
Game 3: Placed MS - MS
Game 4: Placed TA - TA
Game 5: Placed IF - TA
Game 6: Placed IF - TA
Game 7: Placed IF - TA
Game 8: Placed IF - IF
Game 9: Placed MS - TA/IF
Game 10: Placed TA - TA
Game 11: Placed IF - TA
Game 12: Placed IF - MS
Game 13: Placed IF - MS
Game 14: Placed TA - MS (turned freelancer off for this game)
Game 15: Placed IF - MS
Game 16: Placed TA - TA (turned freelancer off for this game)
Game 17: Placed TA - TA (turned freelancer off for this game)

My win % when I freelanced on Flames was 20%. My win % when I freelanced on Adders or Mael was 75% (not counting my non-freelanced adders games).

And when I freelance, my chances of freelancing to flames, over my last 50 games, has been around 75% (it was 71% last night and that was the most diverse night I've had in a while)

So right now on the Aether datacenter, freelancing means a pretty low chance to win. I think I'll put my fate into the Adders for a while and see how that goes.

[Vandril]

What you're saying makes a lot of sense, but I'd still guess it was a coincidence. Still, who really knows, maybe there actually is something to this. Just seems to me like things would have balanced themselves out by now given how long the Freelancer system has been in place.

As far as your experience goes, Geryth, if you think it'll help then there's really no reason to not transfer GCs (unless you're particularly loyal to yours). At worst, nothing happens. At best, improvement.

[Brownondorf]

Ok seriously anyone has an answer as to why Maelstrom is so freaking strong in frontline? This is making me want to pull my hair off seriously.

It might be a very, VERY bad streak, but on 9 games today, mael won 8 of them and most of the time by a large margin... (i'm on TA)
They seem to always have a balanced team, always coordinate their attack and move at the split seconds an ice spawn.

It doesn't help that the Flames are a total joke and dont seem to have a brain. Always attacking and preventing TA to do anything while Mael has total control of the ices... Even when mael has the lead with a LOT of points, what do Flames do? the most logical thing to do of course, attack TA spawn...

[Elamys]

Wouldn't it be more likely to get placed in a certain team if there's nobody really queueing with that team? If Flames have a reputation for always losing, it stands to reason that people may be avoiding queueing freelancer/joining Flames and PVPing because they don't want to be with the perceived losers. But Flames still needs to have a team the same size as Adders/Mael, so the freelancers are always going to get pulled there.

[Korihu]

They changed pre-mades now, that you auto to freelancer, so people have gone back to solo que but the better players in the same GC.

Wut. People don't solo queue into the same GC. We don't care what gc we end up in. When we premades well just carry whoever team we get in. Why would we risk being in separate parties and matches for the sake of being in one GC? Especially when we've been clamouring for freelancer for so long.

[Guesswhat]

My experience on Chaos:
Freelance = flames 8-9/10 times.
Mael wins the majority of the matches.

It's not coincidence, unless it's been a coincidence for over a month now.

[Geryth]

I'll put my fate into the Adders for a while and see how that goes.

In case anyone has been wondering how it's been going with queuing only for adders:



It's been a great week. Last week I was somewhere around 38-40% win, and it's 50% this week. I might get that red ADS mount sometime this century. Having a 22% win rate over 60-70 games was torture.

[Brownondorf]

My experience on Chaos:
Freelance = flames 8-9/10 times.
Mael wins the majority of the matches.

It's not coincidence, unless it's been a coincidence for over a month now.

i seriously dont know what happenned since stormblood release but maelstrom is steamrolling on everygames, flames always attack adders for some reasons and its nearly impossible to win. I had less than 15% win rate previous week. won 4 games out of 28 i think...

I'm at 50 wins away from the black ADS mount (most of it was prior to stormblood) and it might be impossible to get it before frontlines is deserted at this rate. Truly kills my motivation to play this mode anymore.

[Guesswhat]

i seriously dont know what happenned since stormblood release but maelstrom is steamrolling on everygames, flames always attack adders for some reasons and its nearly impossible to win. I had less than 15% win rate previous week. won 4 games out of 28 i think...

I'm at 50 wins away from the black ADS mount (most of it was prior to stormblood) and it might be impossible to get it before frontlines is deserted at this rate. Truly kills my motivation to play this mode anymore.

Change grand company! Seriously, if you want to win and never get in Mael with freelance on, just change (on Chaos freelance rarely puts you in mael). Once you got the mount just chanage back if you want to. You'll need 50k gil pr transfer though.

I just play for fun mostly, but I must admin being in Meal, getting all those wins helps on the fun factor.