Whither now, Oh Captains My Captains? Alternate Title: Ops maybe?

[SunkCostFallacy]

I try not to make snap judgments when they aren't necessary ... so I've played about 40 games of COOP since the departure of Asymmetric Battles, and I'm afraid that with the all too rare exception of those matches where there are only a couple of players in the game, things are just not much fun in COOP currently.

PVP is not, nor will it ever be, an option. Let us spare ourselves the tedium of repeating that discussion ad nauseam 🙂

That leaves me contemplating playing OPs. But the thing is that I don't KNOW most of the Operations. I don't much fancy the idea of dropping into whatever scenario I get dropped into and having NO idea what I'm supposed to do ... That would hardly be fair on the other players in the team.

But I also don't much fancy the idea of watching hours of youtube just to get up to speed on the scenarios.

Is there something in between entering clueless, or dedicating hours to getting up to speed?

 

 

[Wolfswetpaws]

28 minutes ago, SunkCostFallacy said:

I try not to make snap judgments when they aren't necessary ... so I've played about 40 games of COOP since the departure of Asymmetric Battles, and I'm afraid that with the all too rare exception of those matches where there are only a couple of players in the game, things are just not much fun in COOP currently.

PVP is not, nor will it ever be, an option. Let us spare ourselves the tedium of repeating that discussion ad nauseam 🙂

That leaves me contemplating playing OPs. But the thing is that I don't KNOW most of the Operations. I don't much fancy the idea of dropping into whatever scenario I get dropped into and having NO idea what I'm supposed to do ... That would hardly be fair on the other players in the team.

But I also don't much fancy the idea of watching hours of youtube just to get up to speed on the scenarios.

Is there something in between entering clueless, or dedicating hours to getting up to speed?

There is a detailed section of the WOWs wiki pages devoted to Scenario Operations.  🙂 
https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Scenarios

If you browse and click on the sub-sections for each Operation, you'll find maps and detailed playing suggestions intended to bring about success.  🙂 

[SunkCostFallacy]

2 hours ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

There is a detailed section of the WOWs wiki pages devoted to Scenario Operations.  🙂 
https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Scenarios

If you browse and click on the sub-sections for each Operation, you'll find maps and detailed playing suggestions intended to bring about success.  🙂 

Thanks for the suggestion @Wolfswetpaws

I've been reading the various ops and I suspect that the best route to assimilate that info is via video. With them doing a random group I guess I have to get my head around a bunch of them ... which is doable.

I'm still wondering what the appeal of OPs is though.

 

 

[Kruzenstern]

3 hours ago, SunkCostFallacy said:

I'm still wondering what the appeal of OPs is though.

While not as good as asymmetrics, they still provide a bit of a challenge. You win most, but not all (like in Coop) and it is not a 'hope the DDs leave something for you' thing, but everyone has an equal chance to get their share of damage in. And while there is some variance, the skill level of your opponents is always the same, so there are fewer 'blowouts' as there will never be a bunch of unicums on one team and a bunch of tomatos on the other. The usual is a bunch of tomatos and you/your div against the bots.

For me, operations offer reasonably fun and engaging gameplay, without the frustrations of PvP but also far more interesting than Coop. And the rewards, despite having been nerfed in the past, are still quite okay and it is well worth using blue or even red boosters if you are a good perfomer and have a division. I would say with a two man div, we have a win rate of 90% in ops. With 3 competent people, it should get close to 100%, with larger groups you should never lose unless the players really suck. Which would end up being boring again I guess.

So playing Ops with 1 or 2 friends is what appeals to me. And that would also be a good way to learn them, find some other competent ops player and div up with them. Should be no problem on this forum. I would offer myself, but I am on EU.

Edited January 13 by Kruzenstern

[Wolfswetpaws]

25 minutes ago, Kruzenstern said:

While not as good as asymmetrics, they still provide a bit of a challenge. You win most, but not all (like in Coop) and it is not a 'hope the DDs leave something for you' thing, but everyone has an equal chance to get their share of damage in. And while there is some variance, the skill level of your opponents is always the same, so there are fewer 'blowouts' as there will never be a bunch of unicums on one team and a bunch of tomatos on the other. The usual is a bunch of tomatos and you/your div against the bots.

For me, operations offer reasonably fun and engaging gameplay, without the frustrations of PvP but also far more interesting than Coop. And the rewards, despite having been nerfed in the past, are still quite okay and it is well worth using blue or even red boosters if you are a good perfomer and have a division. I would say with a two man div, we have a win rate of 90% in ops. With 3 competent people, it should get close to 100%, with larger groups you should never lose unless the players really suck. Which would end up being boring again I guess.

So playing Ops with 1 or 2 friends is what appeals to me. And that would also be a good way to learn them, find some other competent ops player and div up with them. Should be no problem on this forum. I would offer myself, but I am on EU.

Well said @Kruzenstern.  🙂 

[SunkCostFallacy]

14 minutes ago, Kruzenstern said:

While not as good as asymmetrics, they still provide a bit of a challenge.

Now this is where I get a bit lost.

I've been hesitant to approach this topic as it may come across that I'm being anti-OPs, but I figure it's time to wade in and try to avoid ticking people off.

My single experience in OPs was years ago ... so long that I can't even remember what Operation I played. This was before WG decided to make entering an Operation random ... so I watched a bunch of videos, learned the basics of that operation and queued for it, knowing what I was going into.

I told my team that this was my first Op as soon as we spawned, and asked them to tell me if I was doing the wrong thing and they were all very supportive and we got our 5 stars.

The whole thing reminded me of a boss fight when raiding in an MMORPG in that as long as everyone learned the mechanics of the fight, and reacted correctly ... you'd win. Certainly there is a challenge there, but it's not a combat challenge so much as a gaming challenge, if that makes any sense?

I have to stress ... I am NOT knocking operations as a game mode. I'm just relating my impression and it's quite possible I'm mistaken.

 

14 minutes ago, Kruzenstern said:

For me, operations offer reasonably fun and engaging gameplay, without the frustrations of PvP but also far more interesting than Coop. And the rewards, despite having been nerfed in the past, are still quite okay and it is well worth using blue or even red boosters if you are a good perfomer and have a division. I would say with a two man div, we have a win rate of 90% in ops. With 3 competent people, it should get close to 100%, with larger groups you should never lose unless the players really suck. Which would end up being boring again I guess.

So playing Ops with 1 or 2 friends is what appeals to me. And that would also be a good way to learn them, find some other competent ops player and div up with them. Should be no problem on this forum. I would offer myself, but I am on EU.

 

I'm pretty indifferent to rewards. I've got so much silver that I'll never run short, because there just aren't that many ships I want to grind. Same with coal.

Unfortunately my circumstances don't really lend themselves to joining divisions ... I rarely get to play more than 2 games back to back before my RL intrudes one way or another and I'm forced to afk for a while.  That's one reason I want to get my act together before I start queuing for OPs ... so that I don't mess up my team mates.

Still - soldier on and all that jazz

Thanks for your input mate ... I appreciate it.

[Admiral_Karasu]

Sometimes, your greatest challenge is your own team, and often it is a challenge you cannot beat. For this reason, I advice caution when picking signal flags and bonuses if that's your thing.

Most of the operations, IMO, are pretty much the same as they were before the 'random' operations were introduced. Newport sometimes feels a lot easier, but that's situational really (meaning if your team knows it well and has the right ships for it). If you want to make them easier, pick a good solid tier 8 ship. If you want more of a challenge, pick a tier 6, or 7. You can always div up for the operations as well if you prefer playing in divisions.

[xamdam]

@SunkCostFallacy, you going to Operations and me going back to Random Battles. WTH is going on with this game? 

Joking aside, I've been an Op main since the CV rework. I'm willing to help out if you want but as Wolfsoggypaws said, the wiki section gives you a lot of info. I'm not sure if it's all up to date or not. At first, I recommend sticking to the main objective (for a win). You'll figure out the secondary objectives watching other players fight over them (often costing the win...). Secondary BBs are a good place to start if you like them.

Also, as far as I'm concerned, @YouSatInGum is god tier in Operations knowledge. There are others as well but Gummy, I've played with many time and learned a lot.

[Wolfswetpaws]

21 minutes ago, xamdam said:

@SunkCostFallacy, you going to Operations and me going back to Random Battles. WTH is going on with this game? 

Joking aside, I've been an Op main since the CV rework. I'm willing to help out if you want but as Wolfsoggypaws said, the wiki section gives you a lot of info. I'm not sure if it's all up to date or not. At first, I recommend sticking to the main objective (for a win). You'll figure out the secondary objectives watching other players fight over them (often costing the win...). Secondary BBs are a good place to start if you like them.

Also, as far as I'm concerned, @YouSatInGum is god tier in Operations knowledge. There are others as well but Gummy, I've played with many time and learned a lot.

I saw what you did there.

Anyway, some of the material in the WOWs wiki is a bit stale, because the material was written and then the game went through various changes over the years.
But, the figurative "movie script" of the Operations has remained pretty-much the same, so the principles still apply, even if the details have changed slightly.

[Kruzenstern]

4 hours ago, SunkCostFallacy said:

My single experience in OPs was years ago ... so long that I can't even remember what Operation I played. This was before WG decided to make entering an Operation random ... so I watched a bunch of videos, learned the basics of that operation and queued for it, knowing what I was going into.

I told my team that this was my first Op as soon as we spawned, and asked them to tell me if I was doing the wrong thing and they were all very supportive and we got our 5 stars.

Well, things have departed quite a bit from back then. While you can take higher tier ships now, the bots are also higher, and they got some new moves on as well. The difficulty is only slightly different if you are a decent player, especially Newport is a lot easier, while it has become a LOT harder to get 5 Stars in Aegis. But mistakes are punished much more severely than they were back when. I have seen many an unsuspecting BB wither and die in short order in the HE storm that a group of Mogamis and Myokos can unleash for example.

Like @Admiral_Karasu said, the challenge comes from your team. Sometimes we actually get good players on our team, and then it becomes almost boring, the win and maybe even 5 stars almost guaranteed. But that is not the norm. The best battles are when your team is just strong enough to not lose, but far from strong enough to breeze through the op. Yesterday I had a 400K damage Narai in the Champagne of all ships. That was a reasonably hard carry and a lot of fun.

Also, not sure how it is on the NA server, but on EU there are a lot more n00bs and ignorants in Ops than there used to be, so telling the team something and expecting a return is a very unrealistic approach. There is very little teamplay outside divisions, and that sometimes results in a loss too, like another Narai I had recently where I went for the CV, and three other ships followed me and thus were out of position when they were needed in the harbor. If something needs to be done, do it yourself, don't expect your team to do the sensible thing.

 

Edited January 13 by Kruzenstern

[meatgrindr]

     I say jump in and give it a shot.  You'll catch on to the scripting in short order.  When you load in, just ask for some pointers- I find most chat in ops to be on the friendlier side.  I would recommend being careful with boosters, as it is not an automatic win, my ops play earlier today was 50-50, worse than normal, but losses do occur.  The thing that sucks about a loss is you might play up to 20 minutes and get co op-like rewards.  Wins can give decent rewards.

     I know you touched on some of these points already, just putting info out there.

     Not as much fun as asym battles, but still a nice change from co op over and over.

 

[invicta2012]

Take a CV out,  first up. You won't be the focus of attention and you can be reactive - your team mates will normally start to ping you with places they want you to recce for them, and then you can learn the ropes of each Op. You may then discover some uses for previously abandoned premiums (a secondary spec Graf Zep is comedy gold in Operations....)

[Asym]

On 1/13/2024 at 6:15 AM, Kruzenstern said:

So playing Ops with 1 or 2 friends is what appeals to me. And that would also be a good way to learn them, find some other competent ops player and div up with them. Should be no problem on this forum. I would offer myself, but I am on EU.

I agree with this ^^^^.  Most evenings our clan and another clan division up to 7 players.  Feel free to drop in and ask for suggestions on Discord.  We are very willing to talk a new player through what is "expected" of the ship you bring and where to be ! 

[SunkCostFallacy]

Firstly I want to thank everyone for their input on this ... it is very much appreciated.

I've been watching videos on Ops during the week, when RL permitted, and I can see the appeal of Ops if you're in a division.

As I mentioned, however, div-ing up really isn't viable due to constant interruptions so I think I'll put Ops on the backburner for now.

Interestingly I've been having fun in COOP playing at the lower levels, especially in my Agincourt