Long Time Player, Very Frustrated

[torino2dc]

3 hours ago, megjur said:

Same sh*t different day

Game 1 High Caliber, Double Strike, 4 kills, loss

Game 2 Kraken, 5 kills, High Caliber, loss

So...the very concept of having any agency or influence on the outcomes of games is a myth. 

There is an assumption baked in here that we need to unpack before we can make any progress. 

The assumption is "I played well therefore I should have won."

I'm sorry but that's not how it works. In team games like WoWS, individual performance and match outcome are not in a linear relation to each other. The bigger the team, the more your contribution is diluted by your teammates. 

In 12v12 randoms there are generally ~35% of games that are unwinnable solo; there are also ~35% that are unloseable solo. In those ~70% of games, you're basically there to do as well as you can in whatever metric you care about [PR/fun/achievements], but the winning and losing was determined by others. 

The remaining ~30% are the matches that can go either way. That's where you -- your skill -- can make the difference between winning and losing. 

The fun part is that you very rarely know what type of game it will be ahead of time. All you can do is try your best every single match.

----

If the prospect of so many wins/losses being out of your control makes you unhappy, then I would suggest going for formats with smaller teams. 

Ranked 7v7 only has about ~15% unwinnable/unloseable rate; i.e. ~70% of outcomes are directly determined by your performance. For 6v6 ranked that number is closer to 80%. 

 

[Guest]

27 minutes ago, megjur said:

Many of you are confusing win rate with the desire to feel like you have agency in a game, that your contributions lead to a victory. Instead with WOWS you play your best and the ultimate result is no different than if you had been AFK all game. The flawed MM essentially removes the players agency for the most part. I don't think I've seen a game where the individual players has so little actual agency in the outcome. I'd go back to Tarkov but the hackers have ruined it. 

We'd actually need more info/data to really come to any conclusion about what you're saying. 

For all we know, you are mostly a dmg farmer.

Anecdotally, Ive never had a sub 50% WR the entire 7 years playing this game. Never went on any crazy losing streaks. Making impact plays (killing DDs early, killing radar cruisers, capping and controlling zones) all affect the outcome. Not every game, but if you do it enough and effectively you should see positive outcomes. 

Other shooting games often have much lower TTK and are more twitch based. So if you have the hand/eye coordination & muscle memory you can mow down entire teams in their spawns. I was very effective at it in the COD series, BF series, and every iteration of teamfortress. This game simply isnt like that.

[Guest]

The assumption is "I played well therefore I should have won."

 

Wrong...but the assumption in ANY game is that good play over time should result in winning or what is the point of the game? In WOWs for the most part your play is relatively irrelevant and made even more so by being teamed with ineffective team mates. Combine that with there being zero acknowledgement of your good games when you are on the "wrong" team and it becomes an exercise in futility many times. 

Last 16 games

31.25 win rate

3482 Personal rating

the 8 of those games in cruisers had a 5099 personal rating at 37.5 % win rate. 

So for all that play my winning percentage goes down. I doubt I'd have done much worse than 31% if I had gone AFK for those 16 games.  It's very disincentivizing 

Edited February 3 by megjur

[SeaQuest]

2 hours ago, megjur said:

The assumption is "I played well therefore I should have won."

 

Wrong...but the assumption in ANY game is that good play over time should result in winning or what is the point of the game? In WOWs for the most part your play is relatively irrelevant and made even more so by being teamed with ineffective team mates. Combine that with there being zero acknowledgement of your good games when you are on the "wrong" team and it becomes an exercise in futility many times. 

Last 16 games

31.25 win rate

3482 Personal rating

the 8 of those games in cruisers had a 5099 personal rating at 37.5 % win rate. 

So for all that play my winning percentage goes down. I doubt I'd have done much worse than 31% if I had gone AFK for those 16 games.  It's very disincentivizing 

Those 16 games you may have had high PR but that does not mean you played in a way that helped your team.  We would have to see a replay. 

Edited February 3 by SeaQuest

[thornzero]

High PR is enough for me. He is doing consistent damage in cruisers and getting kills early and often.

The advice to take a break after 2 or 3 losses is sound but also changing ships is a good policy. 

Get Aslains mods and check the potato alert team averages. They will give you more insight to your team and the enemy team.

[torino2dc]

7 hours ago, megjur said:

Last 16 games

31.25 win rate

3482 Personal rating

the 8 of those games in cruisers had a 5099 personal rating at 37.5 % win rate.

Post the replays and we can break them down. 

[Snargfargle]

5 hours ago, SeaQuest said:

 high PR but that does not mean you played in a way that helped your team. 

I have a 57% win rate in my Massachusetts. Why? It's not because I'm spectacularly good but usually because, when my team is pussy footing it and hiding behind rocks. I barrel in to an enemy-occupied cap, generally sink a couple of ships, get sunk myself, and then, I suppose, shame my team into getting it in gear and coming out to play a proper game.

[Gillhunter]

11 hours ago, torino2dc said:

There is an assumption baked in here that we need to unpack before we can make any progress. 

The assumption is "I played well therefore I should have won."

I'm sorry but that's not how it works. In team games like WoWS, individual performance and match outcome are not in a linear relation to each other. The bigger the team, the more your contribution is diluted by your teammates. 

In 12v12 randoms there are generally ~35% of games that are unwinnable solo; there are also ~35% that are unloseable solo. In those ~70% of games, you're basically there to do as well as you can in whatever metric you care about [PR/fun/achievements], but the winning and losing was determined by others. 

The remaining ~30% are the matches that can go either way. That's where you -- your skill -- can make the difference between winning and losing. 

The fun part is that you very rarely know what type of game it will be ahead of time. All you can do is try your best every single match.

----

If the prospect of so many wins/losses being out of your control makes you unhappy, then I would suggest going for formats with smaller teams. 

Ranked 7v7 only has about ~15% unwinnable/unloseable rate; i.e. ~70% of outcomes are directly determined by your performance. For 6v6 ranked that number is closer to 80%. 

 

Okay I'll throw my hat in the ring. The first thing IMO is that WoWs is not a team game. Your "team" is comprised of 12 players with different skills, experience and motivation levels that have never played together before. That doesn't match any definition of "team" that I'm aware of. That's neither good or bad, but it is what it is. Of course an experienced 3 man division within that "team" can most likely have an impact on the result. The fewer players in the battle the more impact your performance makes. The more players there are the less impact you make in the battle. 

In other words in a one on one battle its all on you. In a 24 on 24 battle you hardly count. If you are a solo player even with good skill levels you will experience losing streaks the way the game is currently.

 

[desmo_2]

On 2/1/2024 at 8:06 PM, megjur said:

No matter how well you play, you end up losing more often than winning. It seems like the matchmaker has far more say in the outcome of the game than you do as a player. Finishing #1 on your team, getting Krakens, Confederates, High Calibers...none of it matters in the end, it's still a loss. I'm having a hard time not uninstalling a game that I generally like, but that's become far to frustrating to continue. It seems like each night after I play I'm in a worse mood than when I started, I keep thinking "tonight will be different" and it's always the same. All your efforts amount to nothing.

I went through this mindset several years ago.  It felt like I was always losing and I was always bottom tier.  I thought WG had programmed an anti-desmo algorithm.

So, I decided to keep track of my MM at tiers 5-8 (because at the time T9 couldn't face -2 tiers).  After thousands of games, here is what I found:

• Tier 5 - 565 games played in Tier 5 ships, I was bottom tier in 348, or 62%.  (However, 144 of those bottom tier games had Tier 6 as the high tier.  Tier 5 is unique in this high frequency of -1 tier).
• Tier 6 - 1,138 games played in Tier 6 ships, I was bottom tier in 406, or 36%.
• Tier 7 - 1,383 games played in Tier 7 ships, I was bottom tier in 365, or 26%.
• Tier 8 - 1,787 games played in Tier 8 ships, I was bottom tier in 698, or 39%.

So, I debunked my feeling that I was bottom tier all the time.  As I got better at each ship type, I no longer cared if I was bottom tier, anyway.  If I am bottom tier I may adjust my aggressiveness accordingly.  But, I get A LOT of satisfaction when I finish #1 or #2 on my team with a bottom tier ship (regardless if we win or lose).

Now, I know you didn't ask about being bottom tier.  Your feeling is that you are losing all the time.  What is your current win rate, out of curiosity?  Got it?  Now forget it!

If you chase a win rate this game can drive you nuts.  I quit fretting over it.

Sure, I still want to win for the better XP, and to more quickly advance daily XP tasks and other missions.  But, I enjoy the game much more now that I focus on how I benefited the team, regardless of whether the rest of the team even showed up.  I can't control those other players, so I rarely let them piss me off (the occasional exceptional moron can still elicit a reaction from me, however).

I get that some players just can't do that.  Try it and see if you can make that mental switch.  If you can, I am sure you will find A LOT less frustration with the game.

Edited February 3 by desmo_2

[torino2dc]

27 minutes ago, Gillhunter said:

That doesn't match any definition of "team" that I'm aware of

I would say your definition of "team" is quite restrictive. You can absolutely be a team of absolute strangers that have to learn to work together on the fly. The enemy team will generally be in the same situation, so it is fair.

37 minutes ago, Gillhunter said:

IMO is that WoWs is not a team game.

There is teamwork to be had, but folks need to work around the fact that communication is difficult. There is no voice communication with the whole team and whether the right person will read the chat is also hit-and-miss.

That said, one of the separators between good solo-queue players and great ones is how much they type in chat / use F-commands. If you watch outstanding players like The Sailing Robin, they are constantly typing in chat, telling their team what could be done to help win the game. Maybe they are not always heard, but in aggregate, consistently rich text communication will help turn one or two games out of a hundred into a win. 

[torino2dc]

10 hours ago, megjur said:

Wrong...but the assumption in ANY game is that good play over time should result in winning or what is the point of the game?

You are conflating two definitions of "good play". 

1. Good play = actions that give my team the highest chance to win.

2. Good play = actions that are rewarded with XP or high PR. 

They are two different things. You can be great at one and not at the other. 

[Gillhunter]

4 minutes ago, torino2dc said:

I would say your definition of "team" is quite restrictive. You can absolutely be a team of absolute strangers that have to learn to work together on the fly. The enemy team will generally be in the same situation, so it is fair.

There is teamwork to be had, but folks need to work around the fact that communication is difficult. There is no voice communication with the whole team and whether the right person will read the chat is also hit-and-miss.

That said, one of the separators between good solo-queue players and great ones is how much they type in chat / use F-commands. If you watch outstanding players like The Sailing Robin, they are constantly typing in chat, telling their team what could be done to help win the game. Maybe they are not always heard, but in aggregate, consistently rich text communication will help turn one or two games out of a hundred into a win. 

I would say that your definition of a team is quite loose. My understanding of what teams are is based on my experience as a younger man being on several sports teams and later on work teams. Your definition sounds more like committees I have been involved with.  

[Itwastuesday]

If you play relatively well and don't play garbage ships like 99% of cruisers, you'll get ever increasing winrate. The nature of these team games is that you get losing and winning streaks both. Even long streaks happen. 

[YouSatInGum]

On 2/2/2024 at 1:32 AM, Snargfargle said:

Firstly, the overall average winrate for players on the NA server isn't 50%, it's 48%. The data are still available on Maple Syrup for 2022, when he stopped collecting data, if you want to download them.

Only 8% of players have winrates of 55% or higher. If you have a winrate of 52% this places you in the top 20% of players. Even a winrate of 50% places you in the top third of players.

The reason that the overall winrate average isn't 50% is that lots of new and casual players have lower winrates. Also, after a few hundred matches played, even if you now have gotten a lot better at the game, it's going to take a long time for you to claw your overall average up even a fraction of a percent. I've been trying to get my overall average up to 50% but even playing my Massachusetts, in which I have a 57% average over 1696 battles played, it's going to take me 250 more matches to get from 49.5% overall to 50% overall. This is because my stats barely change, win or lose, with 14,000 random battles played.

In order to have a winrate above average you have to carry teams, plain and simple. I'm almost always at the top or in the top three players with my Massachusetts and have a 57% winrate in it after 1,696 random battles. Conversely, though I like playing my Gearing, I'm only average with it, usually falling somewhere around the middle of the team. With 1,393 random battles played, I have a winrate of 48% in my Gearing, which is the same as the average overall winrate for the NA server.

To get better with a specific ship, watch videos of good players playing it and do what they do. I increased my winrate in the Des Moines by 5% after watching Flambass play his Des Moines and mimicking what he did in it. To get even better, you have to know the inner workings of the game. Here, it helps to have two monitors, one to play the game on and another to call up the stats and armor layouts of the ships you are battling against. Nobody can remember all of this. I don't do this personally because I'm too lazy to get really good at this game. However, I've seen this done by better game commentators and streamers.

 

Actually a lot of people do.  I know the intimate details of 95% of the mid/high tier ships and all of the important ones like Petro/Moskva/ Napoli....and while I think I above average in that knowledge in my clan, I'm far from the only one like this as most who play CB can spout off the important stuff like where to shoot a nose locked Petro or what matchups to push or decline.

That said, one of the important differences between me and a true unicum is their mechanics are flawless and their decision making is usually better.

I will say this... I think my WR ability has mostly plateau'd but I still make incremental improvements mostly from better decision making and being able to read the mini to identify the flow of the game early on.  I think much of that improvement stems from me attempting to call games more often.  It forces you to step up your situational awareness.

[Frostbow]

4 hours ago, Gillhunter said:

The first thing IMO is that WoWs is not a team game. Your "team" is comprised of 12 players with different skills, experience and motivation levels that have never played together before.

I think with the exception of Clan Battles and a full house Operations run, there really is no 'team' in World of Warships. 

[tocqueville8]

On 2/2/2024 at 3:36 AM, megjur said:

Is there some special formula to get teamed with competent players? It's all so tiresome. 

The formula is to division with them.

Not exactly in the spirit of "Random matches", but that's it. If you don't, you accept that someone else will be doing it and tilt the playing field one way or the other, given that divisions tend to be made of players of similar level.

[Asym]

On 2/2/2024 at 12:33 PM, megjur said:

How Does It Work?

As you know from past experience, getting defeated not only makes your statistics worse, the losing team also gets less experience and fewer credits for fighting. Now this is changing, with the most effective tankers from the losing team set to receive experience and credits under the same rules as the winning team. But for this to happen, you must earn one of the following awards in battle:

• Any Epic Medal
• Brothers in Arms and Crucial Contribution platoon medals
• Battle Hero medal

The reward for valiant effort may be granted to several players, and bonus experience received will be considered when awarding Mastery badges.

 

Yes...this

H

It's called homogenization of effort/reward.   Remember, we are all equal (wink,wink) and everyone is a winner !!!

And, games die because there is no reason to play them anymore.  Smart games are meritocracies....  That's not us....

Let's nope that never happens.  It's bad enough that many of us will not play anything PVP....

[OT2_2]

This game will disappear, come to an end for all the inconvenience players are having in the P v P modes and particually in those so called "Randoms". It's more than frustrating to get punished for good performance and commitment. One loses not only a game or multiple in a row due to bad MM, low quality "team mates", RNG and whatsoever. No, one loses massively on credits, XP etc. too, and the ominous WR is going down like plunging shells.

Sometimes it feels like if there are several sadists on WG's side, who think up such rubbish. And, I'm not satisfied with constant and lying repetitions from certain persons that "ALL together" would be suffering from this. Personally, I'm very keen on competition, but when a company is destroying or hampering my chances on working me up the hill in a reasonable perspective (time frame) I get massively p#ssed. And all those lies here on the forum about WR ... WR matters a lot! Without a good WR one can't choose the clan one wishes to be member of. Not enough with that, sometimes one get's flamed and blamed in a ridiculous way for not having a superb WR. If I would have known about the things I know today I would have never started with WoW. Unfortunately, too much time and money have been invested ...  

P.S. I hardly enjoy the game anymore, and I'm not alone with this. 

Edited February 4 by OT2_2

[Kratbowl]

On most points I agree with the topicstarter. For the absolute majority... At the same time, I’m not inclined to uninstall it yet, but it’s hard to argue with the fact that the game is not getting better in a global sense. NEW CVs, superships, now submarines... I thought at one point that I would leave after the introduction of subs, but so far, at the very least, it’s still tolerable.
At the same time, Kislyi's patent was never a joke. Matchmaker analyzes each sneeze and matches you accordingly. It really is very exhausting - when you clearly feel that you are deliberately placed on a team of at best beginners who are constantly losing. If you don’t invest money, for the most part such a contingent is selected for you. And no matter what you do, the team will flood you.

Edited February 4 by Kratbowl

[Jakob Knight]

I've also realized another factor.

 

Veteran players are hit harder by the changes in average player teamplay aptitude more than newer players because we learned the game when players at least tried to act like a team, or were on competitive teams and guilds.  We developed our ways of playing the game in an environment where we could count on our team doing certain things, and our gameplay reflexes are trained to that.  With the downturn in players actually knowing how to work as a team and the general skill level in the game, the veteran players have to not only adapt to the situation, but actively fight against their learnt habits from years in a different environment.  

 

I believe this, more than Subs or CVs or any other change (which veterans actually probably deal with better than most) is why so many veteran players are not finding the game as enjoyable as it used to be. I can't think of much more frustrating than seeing your team leave you out to dry or act in ways your instincts yell at you is wrong.

 

 

[ArIskandir]

5 hours ago, OT2_2 said:

And all those lies here on the forum about WR ... WR matters a lot! Without a good WR one can't choose the clan one wishes to be member of. Not enough with that, sometimes one get's flamed and blamed in a ridiculous way for not having a superb WR.

What lies about WR?... What matters is your play, your WR will reflect your play. You can "doctor" your WR by focusing your play on your "strong" ships, etc... But if your WR is not organic to your play, it will fool no one and won't hold any peer review. Having a good WR won't cover for having bad criteria and poor knowledge of the game. 

I repeat, focus on improving your play and your WR will organically improve, you don't need to push it, just play better.

Or better, forget about WR and focus on having fun and achieving whatever objective that is within your grasp. The sad reality (as with capitalism) is not everyone will be "succesful", not everyone will achieve a high WR. Chasing a high WR will work if you have the ability and dedication to achieve it, but most players never reach that level. 

[ArIskandir]

4 hours ago, Kratbowl said:

If you don’t invest money, for the most part such a contingent is selected for you. And no matter what you do, the team will flood you.

This is BS. The system is designed to normalize results just by the mathematics of its design, it doesn't need to discriminate on "spending" to achieve the result. Moreover, as any other system it follows certain rules... Rules you can exploit to your benefit. 

I am full F2P, if things were as you say, I could had never achieved my stats. 

[Wolfswetpaws]

On 2/3/2024 at 7:49 AM, Gillhunter said:

I would say that your definition of a team is quite loose. My understanding of what teams are is based on my experience as a younger man being on several sports teams and later on work teams. Your definition sounds more like committees I have been involved with.  

Well, WG/WOWs uses the word "team" in their description of the random battle mode.
 

Quote

Random Battle

Unlocked at: Access Level 3
Maximum Number of Players: 24 (12 per team)

Random Battles are the most popular battle type in World of Warships. Captains are dropped into a game full of other players, according to the matchmaking system. The majority of Random Battles are 12v12 battles; however, occasionally the matchmaking software will create smaller games (such as 7v7 or 9v9). Players queue for Random Battles individually and are placed on teams randomly by the matchmaking system solely based on the tier and type of ship selected; player skill is not taken into account. Credit and experience rewards are greatly enhanced from Co-operative Battles.

https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Game_Modes
 

[Justin_Simpleton]

49 minutes ago, Jakob Knight said:

Veteran players are hit harder by the changes in average player teamplay aptitude more than newer players because we learned the game when players at least tried to act like a team, or were on competitive teams and guilds.  We developed our ways of playing the game in an environment where we could count on our team doing certain things, and our gameplay reflexes are trained to that.  With the downturn in players actually knowing how to work as a team and the general skill level in the game, the veteran players have to not only adapt to the situation, but actively fight against their learnt habits from years in a different environment.  

The veteran players came from a background of playing video games and having established contacts with likeminded people.  Naturally, they formed clans and developed their communications and strategies.  It was fun at the time.  A newer player, including those who's gaming background is zilch, has a hard time finding a way to break into the 'clique" to learn the established ways of doing things so, resorts to finding what works on their own and along the way develops unique playstyles that counter the norm.

[Snargfargle]

A team doesn't have to be comprised of people you have known since kindergarten or have trained with for a long time. While the ancestral word did denote a familial or tribal relationship, since the early 1500s "team" has been taken to mean a group that has simply been organized for some purpose. You can be on a well-coached and highly-disciplined professional basketball team where you and your teammates have played together for years. Or, you can be on a basketball team organized ad-hoc by a grade school PE teacher of kids who would rather be out just farting around in the playground and who couldn't care less about playing stupid basketball.