Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
It just doesn't seem to be anything much to do with skill. My proportion of wins hasn't gone up over time, and everyone else wants the same thing so everyone improves equally and we're back to a game that's so balanced that everyone comes close to winning but can't.

It's a massive amount of luck, and you're guaranteed to have more frustrations and losses than wins, for which you get nothing at all.
This is actually a lapse in basic numeration as well as competition psychology.

First of all, everyone has "randomness", including your opponent. The micro is things like where nodes spawn, the teammates you get, etc. To some extent this is true in any form of competition where you are matched with people. You get people whose total sum of ability or output is worse than your opponent. Of course, it leaves out the basic fact that your opponents often have a deficit to make up for. FL, RW, CC, PvP in any game, any sport, you have lost to opponents who have had worst circumstances to overcome, because they were better than you.

The macro is your ability to mitigate randomness. This is why people in very random games like poker or TCGs can have positive winrates. Of course in the micro you can have bad luck, unwinnable situations. However, your strategy or ability is to win more often than other people against degrees of "luck", and this degree of influence is your statistical individual influence. Furthermore, a matchmaking system always has a degree of retention, VS players exiting the system, as well as degree of investment. You should be winning more the more you play, and if you are not, it is a lack of ability. Because micro circumstances affect a game, but your macro individual performance, over so many games, will increase the likelihood of performing well, shotcalling well (mitigated against randomness of how much players assigned to you respond).

And I can prove this. I myself, who I would consider above average, have a about a 39% first place rate, 28% third place rate. This means that, weighed against 71 people, over so many games (about 2k FL matches), I have increased my chances of a first place win by about 18%, which isn't bad. This is mostly solo queue. Goes up when I queue with good players, goes down when I queue with people who are new, which has been a lot lately since I have been getting a lot of people into PvP their first time. People who are way better than me can get over 40% first place winrates, and of course even just one friend you play with can increase that drastically, especially if you are on comms, but I don't want to bring that into the picture since not everyone can have that. And, of course, it is worth mentioning for all the times you can get a stack on the enemy team, you can get a stack on your team, which again, is equally random for everyone unless you yourself form the stack.

All statistical evidence suggests that, the more you play, if you are at all improve, you will win more often. This has been checked against thousands of permutations, you should have about 33.33% average first place winrate. Less when you are new (basically fodder for the better players to build BH and get more wins), and more with your experience. A mere cursory glance at achievements shows a majority of people have generally a low number of total games, but a lot of people are entering the system, that means anyone who wants the coat, and they don't suck at the game, will get it marginally faster than 300 matches. Even if it's just 280 matches or something that's not too bad.

And honestly, if you can't win 100 matches of Seal Rock, you are not a Field Commander. You are a Cadet, and that coat isn't for you. It is a glamour that has prestige. It is also the one PvP 100 win achievement with reward intervals, too, so you are getting stuff before you even reach 100.