Long Time Player, Very Frustrated

[Guest]

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.

[Frostbow]

It is mainly because there are far more below average players than there are good. 

It could also be attributed to a flawed game design, and or mechanics.

[YouSatInGum]

24 minutes ago, 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 understand.

What's worked for me is playing much less random and more ranked.  It's much easier to carry to a ranked game when divisions and large teams are not involved.  The MM will still crap on you but the percentage of games that you can win through your own play is much higher in ranked compared to random.

 

[Guest]

I'm fine with losing if I play poorly, that's expected. What is frustrating is playing well consistently and not having it translate into winning. Often being at the top of my team hundreds of XP higher than the next player. Even the wins have to be gutted out by carrying hard. Then you look at your opposition and you see numerous good players while your team is almost entirely sub 50%. Why? Why is this pattern repeated day after day. Is there some special formula to get teamed with competent players? It's all so tiresome. 

[kriegerfaust]

There is no or very little good and bad player, hear me out it is not about good or bad but are you better or worse than the players on the other team.  If it was against ai then yes you can say good or bad or the enemy is a known predictable element.  Am i bad if i loose to a better player no.  Am i bad if i do something stupid like charge up the middle, yes.  Now if i fight someone doing something stupid like charging into smoke and get torpedoed.  So loosing can mean a lot of things, one the enemy team is made of better players, b the enemy played better as a team.  c your team played poorly as far as teamwork, and so on and so on.    

[Wolfswetpaws]

People who care about their win-rate.


People who don't give a <bleep> about their win-rate.


 

Edited February 2 by Wolfswetpaws

[Rollingonit]

8 minutes ago, megjur said:

I'm fine with losing if I play poorly, that's expected. What is frustrating is playing well consistently and not having it translate into winning. Often being at the top of my team hundreds of XP higher than the next player. Even the wins have to be gutted out by carrying hard. Then you look at your opposition and you see numerous good players while your team is almost entirely sub 50%. Why? Why is this pattern repeated day after day. Is there some special formula to get teamed with competent players? It's all so tiresome. 

Div with 2 other good/competent players. Only way to control 1/4 of the team. Doesnt gaurantee a win, but if you guys actually are competent and trying you should win more than you lose. 

 

[DoW_]

Those memes are way over simplified….

Besides some enjoyment, having a sense of accomplishment at the end of a session is important to a large percentage of players. Running into the types of situations the OP is referring to, remove that sense of satisfaction from interacting with this game. 

Edited February 2 by DoW_
Clarification

[Frostbow]

28 minutes ago, DoW_ said:

Besides some enjoyment, having a sense of accomplishment at the end of a session is important to a large percentage of players. 

My enjoyment has largely transitioned from winning to being able to land at the top 3 of our team's Base XP scoreboard.

It gives me a sense of accomplishment that eliminates the sense of loss each and every time I see Defeat.

I play solo in Random Battles and I can only control my own battle performance. Full health battleships hiding at the back? I can't do anything about that. Same with destroyers yoloing, or players that stay AFK for the first half of the battle. And how about submarines who do nothing but go CV hunting? There's nothing I can do about it. 

[Type_93]

1 hour ago, megjur said:

No matter how well you play, you end up losing more often than winning

No, that’s not the case at all. We all get the same teams. Everyone gets losing streaks, but the better you play at an individual level, the more you will win over a larger sample size of games. Doing well in one game is nice, but if you aren’t keeping that level of play, you will loose more than you win. 

[Asym]

1 minute ago, Type_93 said:

No, that’s not the case at all. We all get the same teams. Everyone gets losing streaks, but the better you play at an individual level, the more you will win over a larger sample size of games. Doing well in one game is nice, but if you aren’t keeping that level of play, you will loose more than you win. 

Ha !  Your opinion and it applies to you and you alone....  Personally, I was losing 90% of the time in 100% stomps....  And no, it wasn't that I wasn't skilled.

We are a "mature game" and are left skewed in population because the new player learning curve is so severe, 90% quit.

1 hour ago, Frostbow said:

It is mainly because there are far more below average players than there are good. 

It could also be attributed to a flawed game design, and or mechanics.

TARGET, Cease Fire !

We are at the exodus period in mature game.  We're on the down slope till the game population stall at about 5,000 in NA.  And, it is inevitable.  Our host has given up.

[3LUE]

It has become way to easy for players to get to high tier gameplay. Play a few games as a new player and you can buy a high tier premium ship. High tier is full of players who really should be playing tier 4-6 and not tier 8+. They have no clue what they are doing. I see players with less than 200 games played in high tier and most of the time they are dead or wondering around the map being lost as to what they are suppose to do. I know people are going to say I have only 3k games played, but this is my NA account. I was stationed in Germany and played on that EU account for a long time. Now I am not saying all new players are bad. There are some very good new players and they are the ones who have taken the time to watch videos, read forums, and learn about what what makes you a better player. 

Can this ever be fixed? I doubt it. That cat was let out of the bag a long time ago. 

Edit.. One tip is don't keep playing if you tilt or are on a losing streak for 3-4 matches. Playing mad makes you play bad and become your own worst enemy.

Edited February 2 by 3LUE

[clammboy]

2 hours ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

People who care about their win-rate.


People who don't give a <bleep> about their win-reate.


 

I think you miss the point a little Wolf it's not so much the win rate it's the losing. Nobody is jumping up and down on the beach after getting steam rolled 6 games in a row for 3 nights straight. We can can act like it doesn't bother us but the losing sucks. 

Anybody who is at all competitive is going to be bothered by some of the things going on right now the way you are losing and even the way you are wining. It all seems so non random now almost fixed before you start or the odds stacked in ones side favor for a week and then the next week it switches.

Look great players can win regardless but that's about 5% of the players a lot of us need some teammates. They just have to know the basics otherwise a lot of us like me are not good enough to carry them or the games except once and awhile.

  

 

Edited February 2 by clammboy

[MnemonScarlet]

5 minutes ago, clammboy said:

Look great players can win regardless but that's about 5% of the players a lot of us need some teammates. They just have to know the basics otherwise a lot of us like me are not good enough to carry them or the games except once and awhile.

Great players also need teammates sometimes. Sometimes you don't wanna sweat hard, or your current ship isn't really suited to carrying, or whatever. So you do need your team to at least shoot shots that do some damage and not die so you don't 1v10 or whatever. Everyone feels the pain of a team that just feeds and decides the game before you can get anything done, at some point.

[derf]

3 hours ago, megjur said:

Then you look at your opposition and you see numerous good players while your team is almost entirely sub 50%. Why? Why is this pattern repeated day after day. Is there some special formula to get teamed with competent players? It's all so tiresome. 

 

this statement made me think of a nice thread from just a little while ago...

https://www.devstrike.net/topic/2453-unicums-how-do-you-arrest-falling-win-rateovercome-win-rate-stagnation/

 

[Snargfargle]

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.

 

Edited February 2 by Snargfargle

[SeaQuest]

3 hours ago, 3LUE said:

It has become way to easy for players to get to high tier gameplay. Play a few games as a new player and you can buy a high tier premium ship. High tier is full of players who really should be playing tier 4-6 and not tier 8+. They have no clue what they are doing. I see players with less than 200 games played in high tier and most of the time they are dead or wondering around the map being lost as to what they are suppose to do. I know people are going to say I have only 3k games played, but this is my NA account. I was stationed in Germany and played on that EU account for a long time. Now I am not saying all new players are bad. There are some very good new players and they are the ones who have taken the time to watch videos, read forums, and learn about what what makes you a better player. 

Can this ever be fixed? I doubt it. That cat was let out of the bag a long time ago. 

Edit.. One tip is don't keep playing if you tilt or are on a losing streak for 3-4 matches. Playing mad makes you play bad and become your own worst enemy.

 

7 minutes ago, 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.

 

Both of you have hit the nail on the head!!!

[Verytis]

So I've put some thought into reasons behind these posts, and I believe the cause is a selection bias from analysis focused on defeats.

 

You are more likely to be on top of your team if the rest of your team is bad.

Also, most "heroic achievements" are based on you doing more than your share. Which requires your teammates to be doing less, and in-turn means they're probably worse. Because when everyone is a hero, no one is.

 

So for a 50% player, you're likely to top the board on a loss, because everyone on your team is worse than you.

In contrast, you're likely to be in the middle or bottom half on a win, because there are better players carrying the team.

A rather interesting, and probably infuriating phenomenon.

[Type_93]

9 hours ago, Asym said:

Ha !  Your opinion and it applies to you and you alone....  Personally, I was losing 90% of the time in 100% stomps....  And no, it wasn't that I wasn't skilled.

We are a "mature game" and are left skewed in population because the new player learning curve is so severe, 90% quit.

10 hours ago, Frostbow said:

Ok I’ll bite. How do you explain players who are still getting positive win rates?  
let’s take my stats as an example. 

last night I had a hard time getting wins. I admitted that in my first post in this thread that losing streaks happen. I played well but couldn’t carry the win. But over many more games I’ve been at 53% plus. We all get the same teams, good or bad. It’s up to the individual play to bring their own play up to above par to win.  The better you play, the more you have positive battle impact. The more positive impact you have, the easier the rest of your team has it to win.  

Edited February 2 by Type_93

[Snargfargle]

9 hours ago, Asym said:

We are a "mature game" and are left skewed in population because the new player learning curve is so severe, 90% quit.

Dead on. Here is a graph of players ranked by number of battles played. The data are from a 05/21/2022 report for the NA server presented on the now inactive Maple Syrup website. Battles played is presented on the x-axis and number of players on the y-axis.

[Wolfswetpaws]

10 hours ago, DoW_ said:

Those memes are way over simplified….

Besides some enjoyment, having a sense of accomplishment at the end of a session is important to a large percentage of players. Running into the types of situations the OP is referring to, remove that sense of satisfaction from interacting with this game. 

Out of curiosity I ask:   "Does anyone here think their win-rate will get them laid?"

And, "Does anyone here think that whining about one's win-rate will somehow improve their chances?"

[Verytis]

9 hours ago, Asym said:

We are a "mature game" and are left skewed in population because the new player learning curve is so severe, 90% quit.

Didn't you previously state that the game is played by children or something? How are we simultaneously too complex and too dumbed down at the same time?

[Wolfswetpaws]

8 hours ago, clammboy said:

I think you miss the point a little Wolf it's not so much the win rate it's the losing. Nobody is jumping up and down on the beach after getting steam rolled 6 games in a row for 3 nights straight. We can can act like it doesn't bother us but the losing sucks. 

Anybody who is at all competitive is going to be bothered by some of the things going on right now the way you are losing and even the way you are wining. It all seems so non random now almost fixed before you start or the odds stacked in ones side favor for a week and then the next week it switches.

Look great players can win regardless but that's about 5% of the players a lot of us need some teammates. They just have to know the basics otherwise a lot of us like me are not good enough to carry them or the games except once and awhile.

 

While I can understand that winning often feels better than a loss, I learned a long time ago that my self-esteem is not linked to whether or not I won or lost a match.
My self esteem does not depend upon the outcome of a result in a computer game.

Also, I can usually say "I made some progress" in whatever other missions & tasks or ship research I'm grinding at the time.

I can find enjoyment in a well-fought game, especially with situations see-sawing back & forth and the flow of battle becoming a nail-biter down-to-the-wire photo-finish ending.
I can appreciate good play and good sportsmanship, and say "Good game", sincerely.

If I lost, then I have a replay that may be useful to learn from.  Heck, a dumb-luck win may be useful to learn from, to find my mistakes and do better next time.
A good warrior knows there's always "someone better" somewhere out there, and does their best to prepare for the future.  🙂 

But dwelling on losses too much can be unhealthy and detrimental to one's improvement of play and overall well-being.
So, I choose what I feel is a healthier path along the journey.  🙂 

[Verblonde]

20 minutes ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

Out of curiosity I ask:   "Does anyone here think their win-rate will get them laid?"

One rather images that a line to the effect of "Good day, madam! May I present my credentials, and an affidavit apropos my WR?" would reduce one's chances to such an enormous degree that the English language would require the development of some entirely new words to fully encompass the sheer magnitude of that reduction...

[Wolfswetpaws]

6 minutes ago, Verblonde said:

One rather images that a line to the effect of "Good day, madam! May I present my credentials, and an affidavit apropos my WR?" would reduce one's chances to such an enormous degree that the English language would require the development of some entirely new words to fully encompass the sheer magnitude of that reduction...

https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/origin-supercalifragilisticexpialidocious