Was there some change, no more free games?
Or free wins are only for Masters?

https://www.warzone.com/Clans/War?ID=6&Timeslot=1271

Edited 10/8/2021 08:14:41

Free wins are only for Masters.

Inca.Empire is from the clan Cats and amatar is from the clan Kittens. You only get a free win in 2v2 if you have two players from the same clan. In this case, only MASTER had two players, so they got a free win since they didn't get a game.

And if someone else in your clan gets a game on the same template as you, you will not get a free win if you don't get a game. You only get a free win if you are the only one on a template from your clan and you don't get a game.

@Nemo

Inca.Empire and amatar are not in the same clan, so Masters got free points for there not being a second 'valid' pair. You didn't get a free win cause Tjoex, who is in your clan, got a game for the same template you didn't get a game.

@Skek
>You only get a free win if you are the only one on a template from your clan and you don't get a game.

Partially true, but you can have more than one player from a clan go for the same template and still get free points. The actual rule is that you only get free points if no one from your clan gets a game for the template you went for, and the point only goes to one of you. With the 2v2, same rule is applied, only there also has to at least be two members from the same clan that didn't get a game, and the points go to two of you.

Not entirely sure what dictates who gets the point, but likely it's either the first person, or first two people in the 2v2 template, in your clan who chose that template, or it's random who gets it.

Edited 10/8/2021 08:45:43

life pro tip: plant giant hogweed in your garden

TL;DR: Free wins, in-clan team-matching, and matchmaking order appear to be deterministic and consistent across time slots, and I think it's somehow based on a relatively stable and persistent property of user accounts. 1000 coins to whoever figures out exactly how all this works!

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Not entirely sure what dictates who gets the point, but likely it's either the first person, or first two people in the 2v2 template

I don't think it's this. Afaict, the free win goes to the first team in the clan for which matchmaking is attempted [or maybe the last], so it depends on the way players are sorted internally within a clan during matchmaking time. (The Clan War time slots list players within clans alphabetically, but that's not the same ordering that Clan Wars uses when ordering players within clans for matchmaking.)

We can figure out this sorting logic (within a clan) by looking at the outcomes of time slots where one clan (usually M'Hunters, MASTERs, or yolo) has a bunch of sign-ups on one template. E.g., if M'Hunters has 3 people sign up, one of them gets matched up with MASTER clan, one gets matched up with CORP, and another gets matched up with Cats, then we can infer the matchmaking-time sorting between the 3 M'Hunters sign-ups (i.e., that the one who got paired with a MASTER got sorted before the other two). If this sorting is consistent across time slots, we can further infer that sorting within clans is deterministic and likely not a property of sign-up times (since that would behave more randomly).

Here's the rough implied sorting for M'Hunters in a few recent time slots, based on the current CW ratings of the clans they got paired with (which likely aren't the same as when matchmaking occurred, but the rough ordering is likely preserved):

1270: Gudberg > Son of Gib, Juan, TFK > Smahik > Sanguinius
1269: Hazlenut > AJ Chiller > Magician Reversed > Grandpa Richard, Stonewall > Jacob the Restless
1263: Gudberg > TFK > Gincompetent > Hector > forksandwich > Wonkier
1251: Gudberg > Emeffer > Gincompetent > forksandwich > Grandpa Richard > Jacob the Restless > Stonewall

Notice the patterns? Gudberg consistently gets paired eariler (with higher-rated opponent clans). Same players show up in roughly similar places (Jacob/Richard/Stonewall near the bottom, TFK near the top).

Here's more patterns:

slot 1270's game ordering, in terms of M'H players: Gudberg, Son of Gib, TFK, Juan, Smahik, Sanguinius


slot 1269's game ordering: Hazlenut, Magician Reversed, AJ Chiller, Stonewall, Grandpa Richard, Jacob the Restless


slot 1263's game ordering: TFK, Gincompetent, Hector, forksandwich, Wonkier, Gudberg(???)


slot 1251's game ordering: Gudberg, Ugly Emeffer, Gincompetent, forksandwich, Stonewall, Grandpa Richard, Jacob the Restless


There's some rough correspondence between the ordering of these games and my inferred internal sorting at matchmaking time of M'Hunters players. In fact, these games might be roughly displayed in the order they were paired at matchmaking time. For Slot 1263, here's the various orders of the M'Hunters games (in terms of players):

in display order: TFK, Gincompetent, Hector, forksandwich, Wonkier, Gudberg
in game ID order: Gudberg (28469941), TFK (28469942), Gincompetent (28469943), Hector (28469944), forksandwich (28469945), Wonkier (28469946)

I don't know why display order puts Gudberg's game last when it was the first created. It may be due to some quirk of something (hashing?).

But anyhow, the ordering of players within clans during Clan Wars matchmaking (and consequently allocation of stuff like free games) appears to be deterministic. I can't tell what drives it, though- doesn't seem to be player level, QM rating, win count, game count, or win rate. It may be based on username or player ID hashing or just some quirk of whatever sorting algorithm the system uses to sort by clan war rating.

If anyone wants to figure out exactly how Clan Wars sorts players within clans at matchmaking times:
1) I'm offering a 1000 coin reward to anyone if you can work out (in pseudocode) how Clan Wars matchmaking works (including how it allocates free wins and sorts players within clans)
2) Here's the rough ordering hints of players within M'Hunters for the time slots I looked at, based on the order in which their games showed up (probably more accurate than going by current ratings of their opponent clans):

Gudberg > Son of Gib > The Forbidden Koala > Juan > Smahik > Sanguinius
Hazlenut > Magician Reversed > AJ Chiller > Stonewall > Grandpa Richard > Jacob the Restless
Gudberg > The Forbidden Koala > Gincompetent > Hector_of_Troy > forksandwich > Wonkier
Gudberg > Ugly Emeffer > Gincompetent > forksandwich > Stonewall > Grandpa Richard > Jacob the Restless

So whatever deterministic sorting there exists, has to be roughly consistent with the above ordering at the times those time slots were created. What would cause Gudberg to be consistently sorted before all those other players, and Jacob to be consistently sorted near the end? My working hypothesis, given the lack of any contradiction in the above 4 orders, is that it's based on some property of a CW player that stays relatively consistent during a single season (prior season performance?).

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ETA: More evidence that:
1) In-clan team-matching is based on the same player ordering logic that is used for general CW matchmaking
2) In-clan team-matching is based on some relatively stable property of accounts

In time slot 1267 (https://www.warzone.com/Clans/War?ID=6&Timeslot=1267), the following MASTERs players signed up for 2v2:
Grizzlis, Timinator, Master USA, Black Dragon

Grizzlis and Timinator got paired and got a game, while Master USA and Black Dragon did not.

In time slot 1171 (https://www.warzone.com/Clans/War?ID=6&Timeslot=1171), the sign ups from MASTERs were:
Black Dragon, Grizzlis, Master Ryiro, Timinator

Grizzlis and Timinator again got paired and got a game, which was created earlier (and is displayed before) the game for the Black Dragon/Master Ryiro pairing.

In time slot 1135 (https://www.warzone.com/Clans/War?ID=6&Timeslot=1135), Timinator ranks highly in the implied sorting of MASTERs based on game ID (2nd after Widz):
display order: Widzisz > Timinator > Sephiroth > MWL > Dirkules > Crazy > adrenaline
game ID: Widzisz (28251024) > Timinator (28251025) > Sephiroth (28251026) > MWL (28251027) > Crazy (28251028) > adrenaline (28251029) > Dirkules (28251030)

Here's the implied ranking one season earlier (https://www.warzone.com/Clans/War?ID=5&Timeslot=1009):
display order: Motoki > Forsaken > Rufus > Dirkules > sloppyfatginger > Timinator > adrenaline
game ID: Motoki (28033444) > Forsaken (28033445) > Rufus (28033446) > Dirkules (28033447) > sloppyfatginger (28033448) > Timinator (28033449) > adrenaline (28033450)

Something interesting happened between slots 1009 in season 5 and 1135 in season 6- Timinator and adrenaline overtook Dirkules in the internal ranking. I wonder what happened.

Edited 10/8/2021 22:47:35

So whatever deterministic sorting there exists, has to be roughly consistent with the above ordering at the times those time slots were created. What would cause Gudberg to be consistently sorted before all those other players, and Jacob to be consistently sorted near the end? My working hypothesis, given the lack of any contradiction in the above 4 orders, is that it's based on username but in some non-alphabetical order.

Isn't it simply account creation date? (it seems IDs look differently then I remembered)

slot 1251's game ordering
Gudberg 10/22/2011 > Emeffer 5/19/2014 > Gincompetent 12/4/2015> forksandwich 12/22/2016 > Stonewall 2/15/2017 > Grandpa Richard 3/16/2019> Jacob the Restless 2/24/2020

Edited 10/8/2021 22:56:46

Not having a game once in a while is a low price to pay for balanced matchmaking.

@Widz: That seems to fit for the Season 6 slots I looked at but not for Season 5 (which seems to be a lot less stable, comparing slots 997 and 1003). Here's the data points, with players sorted by corresponding game ID (and presumably, matchmaking order):

Season 6, Slot 1267 (https://www.warzone.com/Clans/War?ID=6&Timeslot=1267)

Strat 1v1
Player             | Game ID          | Profile ID       | Player ID
-------------------|------------------|------------------|----------
sloppyfatginger      28475351            6235110640         351106
Rufus                28475352            2979814301         798143
Blindigo             28475353           80110346167        1103461
Forsaken             28475354           92120047365        1200473
adrenaline           28475355           49124483750        1244837

Strat 2v2
Player             | Game ID          | Profile ID       | Player ID
-------------------|------------------|------------------|----------
Grizzlis             28475337             26607390           6073
Timinator            28475337            816809922          68099
Master USA                               167696903          76969
Black Dragon                            6419993005         199930

Season 6, Slot 1171 (https://www.warzone.com/Clans/War?ID=6&Timeslot=1171)

Strat 2v2
Player             | Game ID          | Profile ID       | Player ID
-------------------|------------------|------------------|----------
Grizzlis             28313620              26607390           6073
Timinator            28313620             816809922          68099
Master Ryiro         28313621            5015900432         159004
Black Dragon         28313621            6419993005         199930
Blindigo                                80110346167        1103461
Dirkules                                15131149380        1311493

Season 6, Slot 1135 (https://www.warzone.com/Clans/War?ID=6&Timeslot=1135)

SE1W
Player             | Game ID          | Profile ID       | Player ID
-------------------|------------------|------------------|----------
Widzisz              28251024             202386428          23864
Timinator            28251025             816809922          68099
Sephiroth            28251026            9911415828         114158
MWL                  28251027            2339633179         396331
Crazy                28251028            3474057656         740576
adrenaline           28251029           49124483750        1244837
Dirkules             28251030           15131149380        1311493

Season 5, Slot 1009 (https://www.warzone.com/Clans/War?ID=5&Timeslot=1009)

Strat 1v1
Player             | Game ID          | Profile ID       | Player ID
-------------------|------------------|------------------|----------
Motoki               28033444            6862295334         622953
Forsaken             28033445           92120047365        1200473
Rufus                28033446            2979814301         798143
Dirkules             28033447           15131149380        1311493
sloppyfatginger      28033448            6235110640         351106
Timinator            28033449             816809922          68099
adrenaline           28033450           49124483750        1244837
Widzisz                                   202386428          23864

Season 5, Slot 997 (https://www.warzone.com/Clans/War?ID=5&Timeslot=997)

Strat 1v1
Player             | Game ID          | Profile ID       | Player ID
-------------------|------------------|------------------|----------
Santa Claus          28012481            5116890910         168909
Widzisz              28012482             202386428          23864
Crazy                28012483            3474057656         740576
adrenaline           28012484           49124483750        1244837
Master USA           28012485             167696903          76969
Master Ryiro         28012486            5015900432         159004

Edited 10/8/2021 23:16:17

I think it sorts them by date-time finished.

Today I signed up for https://www.warzone.com/Clans/War?ID=6&Timeslot=1285 on my phone, and my game was halfway down the list. Halfway during my game, i checked the list again to see how my clan members were doing, and I noticed that TheThedde was at the bottom of the list and lost (didnt link that to ordering of games yet, just figured it was some weird sorting). But when I looked back at the list after my game finished (on my laptop this time), I noticed my game was also at the bottom of the list, and Lefty's game (last going game) was on top of the list.

fizzer used algorithms so ahead of our time that we can't see his greatness right now, this will automatically get sorted when we evolve in about a million years

Not having a game once in a while is a low price to pay for balanced matchmaking.

I'll fix that sentence for you:

Not having a balanced game once in a while is a low price to pay for always having a match.