When random does not feel random

[kriegerfaust]

On legends i have been playing the latest campaign for the Hizen as so much normal i have gotten many chests and surprise two premium ships.  Now these were two different ships, but you will not believe the ships i got, the La Foudre and the Dunkerque B both French battleships which is strange enough.  That one is a Dunkerque class and the other a Richelieu class now that is strange, i mean it just makes you wonder if there are RNG gods and how in this rare event i have pleased them.

Edited November 27, 2023 by kriegerfaust

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

Nothing in this or that game is truly random, I suspect.

[torino2dc]

Tin foil hat time: always when I am short on sleep, all of my teams are suddenly garbage. Coincidence?

[Aethervox]

Considering WG controls all the variables & won't disclose their software (excuse: it's patented) nothing is random in the battle queue, NOTHING.

[Ensign Cthulhu]

13 minutes ago, Aethervox said:

Considering WG controls all the variables & won't disclose their software (excuse: it's patented) nothing is random in the battle queue, NOTHING.

So how do the solo unicums beat the odds, then? What puts them at the 60%-plus end of the bell curve while the rest of us are whining about our winrates?

[Aethervox]

3 minutes ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

So how do the solo unicums beat the odds, then?

By playing incredibly carefully & intelligently, I suppose, which the vast majority, including me, do not. 

[Asym]

58 minutes ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

So how do the solo unicums beat the odds, then? What puts them at the 60%-plus end of the bell curve while the rest of us are whining about our winrates?

I really have a theory I will keep to myself....  What I do know, is that I spawn at the worst, low value points on maps.  At the same points, no matter what ship I take.  It's so bad, it's like watching "Groundhog Day..."  and, I don't ever get more than what is left over.....most of the time, not always !  Tin Foil?  No, I was mapping where I spawn and the numbers were around 80% confidence...  I stopped because it was so depressing.

Now, here you are...!  A "hero" of the realm" and I wonder:  are your spawn points Random? 

1 hour ago, Aethervox said:

Considering WG controls all the variables & won't disclose their software (excuse: it's patented) nothing is random in the battle queue, NOTHING.

And, a long time ago, I got to review a core dump from a popular game in the 90's.....  Guess what I found in that code:  "confidence checks"......which, were keyed to game names from a sub-table......that was maintained by the game-play staff.....  Hmmmmm? 

Heck, in talking about LoL and what they do, they keep extensive player profiles of those players recognized for good or ill.......  What they use it for is "marketing" (wink-wink) and quality control....  I'd bet, most games keep lists of big buyers and cheaters....  So, who is to say that those same lists don't contain names that experience "unique game patterns".....  Seems really odd I spawn in the same places in a Random process???

What else isn't Random>>>???  We'll never know........and, I really don't care....it's just for fun now.

Edited November 27, 2023 by Asym

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

2 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

So how do the solo unicums beat the odds, then? What puts them at the 60%-plus end of the bell curve while the rest of us are whining about our winrates?

You are the only one talking about winrates here...

[Justin_Simpleton]

1 hour ago, Asym said:

2 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

So how do the solo unicums beat the odds, then? What puts them at the 60%-plus end of the bell curve while the rest of us are whining about our winrates?

I really have a theory I will keep to myself....  What I do know, is that I spawn at the worst, low value points on maps.  At the same points, no matter what ship I take.  It's so bad, it's like watching "Groundhog Day..."  and, I don't ever get more than what is left over.....most of the time, not always !  Tin Foil?  No, I was mapping where I spawn and the numbers were around 80% confidence...  I stopped because it was so depressing.

Now, here you are...!  A "hero" of the realm" and I wonder:  are your spawn points Random? 

2 hours ago, Aethervox said:

Considering WG controls all the variables & won't disclose their software (excuse: it's patented) nothing is random in the battle queue, NOTHING.

And, a long time ago, I got to review a core dump from a popular game in the 90's.....  Guess what I found in that code:  "confidence checks"......which, were keyed to game names from a sub-table......that was maintained by the game-play staff.....  Hmmmmm? 

Heck, in talking about LoL and what they do, they keep extensive player profiles of those players recognized for good or ill.......  What they use it for is "marketing" (wink-wink) and quality control....  I'd bet, most games keep lists of big buyers and cheaters....  So, who is to say that those same lists don't contain names that experience "unique game patterns".....  Seems really odd I spawn in the same places in a Random process???

What else isn't Random>>>???  We'll never know........and, I really don't care....it's just for fun now.

I tend to think the software is randomly biased towards gathering player skill sets and testing or simulating them via bots in the various game modes.  I am not convinced that all players in random are not bots.  I play accordingly.

[Asym]

35 minutes ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

You are the only one talking about winrates here...

It should make you chuckle.....  We always seem to have the need to "justify" stance or position or circumstance....  Win Rate, ye GoDs almighty, what a terrible metric to use.

 

[Pugilistic]

"WG has decided that I will have a low WR. They actively manipulate my MM, spawn points, and RNG.

NoThiNg i dO iN PLaY hAs aNYthiHg To dO wITh IT." 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

So how do the solo unicums beat the odds, then? What puts them at the 60%-plus end of the bell curve while the rest of us are whining about our winrates?

By living for this GAME and playing it far more than the average person with a real life and real responsibilities. A lot of the so called "unicums" play one OP ship far more than their others, so you'll see them with 1000s of games in a Kamikaze or Cesare with a 70% win rate while the rest of their fleet is about on par with the average player. I'm a 70% win rate player in Konig Albert...if that's all I played I'd be a "super unicum" too.

Edited November 27, 2023 by Kalishnikat

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

3 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

So how do the solo unicums beat the odds, then? What puts them at the 60%-plus end of the bell curve while the rest of us are whining about our winrates?

 

38 minutes ago, Pugilistic said:

"WG has decided that I will have a low WR. They actively manipulate my MM, spawn points, and RNG.

NoThiNg i dO iN PLaY hAs aNYthiHg To dO wITh IT." 

New drinking game...

...in a thread about RNG manipulation, take a shot of eggnog or your favorite spirits whenever someone mentions win-rate.

That should get us in the holiday mood pretty quickly.

🙂

[Pugilistic]

We need an additional response emoji for laughter, to differentiate between "funny" and "derision". The current one is having to soldier on for both. 

[Pugilistic]

5 hours ago, Kalishnikat said:

By living for this GAME and playing it far more than the average person with a real life and real responsibilities. A lot of the so called "unicums" play one OP ship far more than their others, so you'll see them with 1000s of games in a Kamikaze or Cesare with a 70% win rate while the rest of their fleet is about on par with the average player. I'm a 70% win rate player in Konig Albert...if that's all I played I'd be a "super unicum" too.

WR manipulation is not very difficult for someone who has slightly above average ability, but it is also very easy to detect. Probably the most opaque instances are of players who are good overall but division with good teammates very heavily. I recently saw a player who puzzled me from not being that hard to kill when WoWS Monitor called him very good. So I looked in WSN, and he looked like a very good player in multiple classes and all tiers, and no obvious OP ship concentration. Filtering for Solo showed that he played a large majority of his games in 3-div; he was around 53 Solo IIRC, and the magic 60 overall. So he's clearly divisioning very heavily, and with strong players. This isnt just getting carried, a strong 3-Div is a heavy thumb on the WR scale in its own right. 

The easiest to spot, as you noted, are the guys with half their account in a midtier OP ship. 

And there's no self-aggrandizement in this. Im a very slightly above average player who will never be a Unicum, but I did make 5% improvement in my WR by playing better once I woke up to the fact that I was bad at about 7K games. I did some study, watched some videos, and also got some effective and ongoing treatment for vertigo. So I know that the change in my WR is a result of playing better. Im on this horse all the time because Im just eternally cranked by the folks who claim some deus ex machina is holding them down. 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Pugilistic

[Ensign Cthulhu]

13 hours ago, Pugilistic said:

Im on this horse all the time because Im just eternally cranked by the folks who claim some deus ex machina is holding them down. 

Diabolus ex machina in this case, but yes, me too. 

I know who's keeping my winrate down to just above 50% because I see that @#$%^& bastard every time I shave. 😈

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

13 hours ago, Pugilistic said:

WR manipulation is not very difficult for someone who has slightly above average ability, but it is also very easy to detect. Probably the most opaque instances are of players who are good overall but division with good teammates very heavily. I recently saw a player who puzzled me from not being that hard to kill when WoWS Monitor called him very good. So I looked in WSN, and he looked like a very good player in multiple classes and all tiers, and no obvious OP ship concentration. Filtering for Solo showed that he played a large majority of his games in 3-div; he was around 53 Solo IIRC, and the magic 60 overall. So he's clearly divisioning very heavily, and with strong players. This isnt just getting carried, a strong 3-Div is a heavy thumb on the WR scale in its own right. 

The easiest to spot, as you noted, are the guys with half their account in a midtier OP ship. 

And there's no self-aggrandizement in this. Im a very slightly above average player who will never be a Unicum, but I did make 5% improvement in my WR by playing better once I woke up to the fact that I was bad at about 7K games. I did some study, watched some videos, and also got some effective and ongoing treatment for vertigo. So I know that the change in my WR is a result of playing better. Im on this horse all the time because Im just eternally cranked by the folks who claim some deus ex machina is holding them down. 

 

3 minutes ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

Diabolus ex machina in this case, but yes, me too. 

I know who's keeping my winrate down to just above 50% because I see that @#$%^& bastard every time I shave. 😈

Double shot!

Getting me started early this morning!

😄

[Nevermore135]

14 hours ago, Pugilistic said:

We need an additional response emoji for laughter, to differentiate between "funny" and "derision". The current one is having to soldier on for both. 

I would settle for an eye-roll response. That might get even more use (I certainly wished for one on the old forum!).

Edited November 28, 2023 by Nevermore135

[Pugilistic]

53 minutes ago, Nevermore135 said:

I would settle for an eye-roll response. That might get even more use (I certainly wished for one on the old forum!).

I yield to your better idea. 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

Diabolus ex machina in this case, but yes, me too. 

I know who's keeping my winrate down to just above 50% because I see that @#$%^& bastard every time I shave. 😈

Me too...yet I insist on playing DDs, which I suck at because it's FUN. If all I cared about was win rate I could easily play for win rate, but it's a game and games should be fun. Thats the entire reason I don't play above tier 4. Subs have made the game, for me anyways, an unfun exercise and I don't have the time to "play" something that isn't fun. "get gud, learn and adapt, study how to beat subs"...NO. That isn't fun and relaxing, thats work, and I work too much everyday to have my game time be work too.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Kalishnikat

[Ensign Cthulhu]

1 hour ago, Kalishnikat said:

Thats the entire reason I don't play above tier 4.

I have too many things I want to do that need Tier 5 or higher to be able to drop permanently to low tiers. Being a co-op main turns subs into food and carriers into a less bothersome problem, so I keep on as I have been doing and I deal with SS and CV as best I can on the occasions I go to PvP. 

One of these days, I'm sure I will have enough ships that I get bored with winning anything and so can abandon high tiers except occasionally for fun. When that happens, I'm sure I'll see you down there. 😎

[kriegerfaust]

if you catch one fire you will catch two then three next time, like there rabbits breeding in the hull of the ship or heads of a hydra for everyone you snuff out two more will grow in its place.

I am less sure about flood as i seem to be on fire when i get a flood or catch to many torpedoes to matter can someone tell me if the hydra rule applies to torpedoes.

[OT2_2]

On 11/28/2023 at 6:30 PM, Kalishnikat said:

Me too...yet I insist on playing DDs, which I suck at because it's FUN. If all I cared about was win rate I could easily play for win rate, but it's a game and games should be fun.

Yes fun, that's how it should be, but unfortunately reality is often totally different. Yesterday I had quite a horror day again regarding "randoms" and joy ... It didn't matter whether I played solo or in a 3 - Div (with good players >50% WR), almost every match was lost. Most of them blow - outs with good to very good players in the "red teams" and the left over on my / our side. As if that wasn't enough I / we got uptiered ALL the time, and being uptiered under the circumstances described above makes game experience even worse. When anything like game flow seemed to develop it was killed by shot - gunning subs (manned by good players). A real horror show, something which is extremely frustrating and irritating at the same time. Honestly spoken, sometimes I don't dare anymore to press the battle button for random battles. Should I have known about this before I started this game, I wouldn't have joined. Left disillusioned.

 

Edited December 2, 2023 by OT2_2

[Snargfargle]

I've spent years watching replays of the best players in the game and they are good simply because they invest more time and effort into it than casual players like myself. l tend to play reactively, whereas the better players play proactively. The good players memorize game data like armor layouts, radar ranges, and max ship speeds, etc. or at least have multiple monitors where they can easily pull the information up. That said, even casual players can get better over time, especially if they find a ship they can relate to and play it long enough to learn how to play it well. This is my current rate in my Massachusetts, which was gifted to me by a forumer that you all probably know a few years back. The reason I do so well in it probably stems from its quickly-recharging healing ability, halfway decent AA capability, and secondaries. Strangely, CV players seem to concentrate on me because I'm always getting AA achievements but this helps the team because they should be spotting and picking off low-health ships elsewhere. I also like the fact that it sort of plays itself with its secondaries. I currently have 532 secondary sinking awards. It sinks surfaced subs like nobody's business, usually ones I haven't even noticed. 

 

[Bumblegoose]

2 hours ago, OT2_2 said:

Yes fun, that's how it should be, but unfortunately reality is often totally different. Yesterday I had quite a horror day again regarding "randoms" and joy ... It didn't matter whether I played solo or in a 3 - Div (with good players >50% WR), almost every match was lost. Most of them blow - outs with good to very good players in the "red teams" and the left over on my / our side. As if that wasn't enough I / we got uptiered ALL the time, and being uptiered under the circumstances described above makes game experience even worse. When anything like game flow seemed to develop it was killed by shot - gunning subs (manned by good players). A real horror show, something which is extremely frustrating and irritating at the same time. Honestly spoken, sometimes I don't dare anymore to press the battle button for random battles. Should I have known about this before I started this game, I wouldn't have joined. Left disillusioned.

 

All WOWS game modes have their upsides and downsides. The downside of Co-op for me is that if I play it too much, I start to get bored. Randoms have more challenge, but even if you are a good player, you will get losing streaks as described above. This can be frusrating to the point of quitting. By getting the right ratio of Co-op to Randoms, I seek to limit both the boredom and the frustration. I enjoy the game a lot.

Part of the answer lies in varying the game mode you play - some Co-op, randoms, assymetric and ops perhaps, and in having one or two games other than WOWS that give you other satisfaction and thereby dilute your frustration. I also play chess and Age of Empires. Play whatever you like.