So I was staring at this massive pile of game reports the other day, right? Boss man slides over and says, “Hey, need you to figure out if GED players or ALP players actually bring in more wins for us. Deadline’s Friday.” Perfect timing, since I was planning vacation stuff. Classic.
First Steps: Feeling Totally Lost
Opened up the main stats sheet we use. Hundreds of names, numbers everywhere. Kills, deaths, match times… whole screen looked like alphabet soup. First problem: I had zero clue which players were GED certified and which were ALP trained. None of the columns said that! Had to dig through old training logs like it was some ancient treasure map. Took me three coffees just to match half the names.
The Merging Mess
Finally got two ugly lists together: GED players in one sheet, ALP players in another. Now the fun part – smashing them with our main performance stats. Thought I was clever using that JOIN thing in the database. Spoiler: wasn’t clever. Started matching player names, but oh wow, half these usernames are garbage like “xXDarkSlayerXx” or “PotatoLord.”
Absolute chaos. My computer fan sounded like a jet engine trying to sort this nonsense. Wrote a bunch of messy code to clean up the names:
- Cut out all the stupid special characters (!xX whatever)
- Made every name ALL CAPS (yelled usernames look the same!)
- Totally removed spaces because why not
Still felt like trying to fit puzzle pieces from different boxes.
The Actual Analysis Part (Finally!)
Okay, so after fighting the data into submission, I just did the dumbest, easiest comparisons possible:
- Average kills per match: GED vs ALP
- Win percentage when player X is in the game
- How much they died per hour
Dumped it all into basic bar charts. Wasn’t pretty, but hey, colors are nice.
Why Bothering Actually Made Sense
Once the numbers settled, boom! Saw the big picture everyone kept arguing about:
- ALP players? Consistent damage dealers. Win rates much higher when they stuck together like glue.
- GED players? Absolute solo monsters. Smashed objectives alone, but vanished if the team wasn’t holding the line.
This isn’t just nerdy number stuff! Knowing who does what well lets us:
- Build smarter teams – mix GED wrecking balls with ALP anchors
- Train newbies better – stop teaching GED guys to “play nice”!
- Spend cash better – no point buying ALP gear for lone wolves
Thoughts After the Storm
Honestly? Matching names sucked harder than understanding the stats. But seeing clear patterns emerge? That felt solid. Saved my team hundreds of hours guessing who fits where. And my vacation? Yeah, that happened too.
