An Outright One Sided 'Arrangement'

[Aethervox]

Here is a battle that illustrates exactly why WoWS is failing. I get spawned on weak side so I try to get to flank to hold & defend (sort of). They push hard on this flank - they certainly had more ships there. Meanwhile, where my team should have the advantage in numbers - they coward out & get stomped there, as well. Note who had more division players (as usual). Another complete farce CHEAT from the start.  These farce battles aren't even remotely close. These kinds of battles are becoming nothing but bull💩.

20241209_163328_PRSB518-Lenin_37_Ridge.wowsreplay

[Arcus_Aesopi]

Unfortunately, WG relies on their own RNG engine for customer satisfaction...  Un-fun games are the biggest problem for players as even in PvE one must wade through bad draws and poor starting positions in order to get to a "good" game or two.

It concerns me that we (and WG) don't seem to retain very many new players and constant player churn is "ok" to them... it makes our "investment" in time and money more dubious.

Oh well... I'll be around for the Asymmetric season... and probably back-burner the game until the next round.

I see on the dev blog that they're also planning to add a new type of "supership" to the bot team in Operations... oh, goodie...  I'm sure it's for the "balance".  My poor premium Tier IX's really love seeing superships appear in numbers (2 Annapolis and a Maine with a couple of dd's as the late-game base assault force in Ultimate Frontier: destroyed my Pommern in seconds)... but they'll never be considered tier 11s... remember that one?

[Justin_Simpleton]

That looks like a typical Lenin battle for me.  Your flank was pretty strong at first with the NC and Yugomo.  I think you put yourself in a bad spot where you couldn't turn and could only go backwards.  I find using AP against close BBs to be much more effective that HE. 

[Ensign Cthulhu]

40 minutes ago, Arcus_Aesopi said:

I see on the dev blog that they're also planning to add a new type of "supership" to the bot team in Operations.

Do you mean this?

https://worldofwarships.com/en/news/public-test/work-in-progress-140/

Read the last sentence carefully. You will still be able to play operations normally. 

[Itwastuesday]

Meh. I had two below 30% wr players in my team yesterday in T8 match. 

I'm starting to believe that there should be no way to access high tier PVP without slogging through low tier first. Like you can't PVP in your fancy TX whaleship without grinding a line of that class to TX the hard way. 

[Admiral_Karasu]

This isn't exactly a new development, though. I've seen this happening even years ago. Not much you can do, because the weaker flank alone can't win any battles.

[utgotye]

Random is dull as dirt.  The team with the most least patient players will win 95% of the time.  Spend the better part of 10 minutes waiting for something to happen because trying to force something usually guarantees a loss.  Meanwhile I could have play two or three co-op matches that are usually as exciting as I decide to make them and likely get the same or better rewards.

Trying to think if I have played operations since they made the change to random ops?  Not that I can recall anyway.  The whole point of me choosing the operation was to avoid the ones I have little to no interest in playing.

[Kynami]

6 hours ago, Itwastuesday said:

I'm starting to believe that there should be no way to access high tier PVP without slogging through low tier first. Like you can't PVP in your fancy TX whaleship without grinding a line of that class to TX the hard way.

And you would immediately be monkey pawed because of how WG have on multiple occasions handed returning accounts, or accounts with minimal progress immediate shortcuts to tech tree T10s. I distinctly remember one returning player bonus handed out Yamato to anyone who had at least one T6 in their port. And given that new player incentives via codes have some T6 and T7s available in there... To say nothing of how the current T10 gift handed out a smorgasbord high tier ships to the clueless that simply went for fun sounding shiny ships. Without the benefit of solid knowledge from actually playing the given class, let alone the specific national flavor of the line in question.

Part of them forcibly shoving players towards T10 is because that is where their most expensive wallet traps are focused. And where the game economy is structured to have minimal returns without "advantages" like boosters and premium time.

[desmo_2]

12 hours ago, Aethervox said:

Here is a battle that illustrates exactly why WoWS is failing. I get spawned on weak side so I try to get to flank to hold & defend (sort of). They push hard on this flank - they certainly had more ships there. Meanwhile, where my team should have the advantage in numbers - they coward out & get stomped there, as well. Note who had more division players (as usual). Another complete farce CHEAT from the start.  These farce battles aren't even remotely close. These kinds of battles are becoming nothing but bull💩.

It sounds like you are saying players joining a division together is a cheat.

[Justin_Simpleton]

28 minutes ago, Kynami said:

Part of them forcibly shoving players towards T10 is because that is where their most expensive wallet traps are focused. And where the game economy is structured to have minimal returns without "advantages" like boosters and premium time.

A T10 ship in the hands of an inexperienced player is going to lead to a credit problem since they will usually lose credits.  They will be forced to buy more credits to play the ship or play lower tiers to earn credits.  

[Ensign Cthulhu]

The elitism and hypocrisy here reek worse than a swimming pool full of chihuahua vomit in the high Nevada summer. Seems to me that you would all be glad to pulverize an enemy team full of newbs and red-stat players and walk away with 400K damage and a double Kraken, but you don't want to put in the hard yards of doing what you can when the tables are turned and the beautiful losers are on your team. 

When the chips are down and all is lost is the time to put up a fight so hard that everyone on both teams comps you at the end.

1 hour ago, Kynami said:

that is where their most expensive wallet traps are focused.

The number of coal ships available at this tier, which make even Co-op T10 play a viable proposition, would like a word with you. 

30 minutes ago, desmo_2 said:

It sounds like you are saying players joining a division together is a cheat.

That's exactly what he's saying, but I've seen divisions derp to their graves in nothing flat. I still remember one game I played in which the opposition had a three-Georgia division. It was a hard fight, but they lost.

[Jakob Knight]

Fighting spirit, bravery, and strategic sense are not things anyone can give another...either the person has it or they don't.  Also, as long as players see themselves as players alone in their gameplay, they have no incentive to consider anyone else in their gameplay (such as the team).

This is a player problem, not a game problem.  No one measures fighting spirit or strategic ability in the game, and no stat exist for them.  The only people who can change this are the players themselves.

 

[HogHammer]

7 minutes ago, Jakob Knight said:

Fighting spirit, bravery, and strategic sense are not things anyone can give another...either the person has it or they don't.  Also, as long as players see themselves as players alone in their gameplay, they have no incentive to consider anyone else in their gameplay (such as the team).

This is a player problem, not a game problem.  No one measures fighting spirit or strategic ability in the game, and no stat exist for them.  The only people who can change this are the players themselves.

^^^THIS^^^ sums it up perfectly.

I don't think anyone goes into a game and says, "I feel like losing."  I assume we all have the mindset to go into battle to win - at least, I hope.

A division of players is not cheating.  It's just a random roll of the dice that you have no control over.  You either adapt and make the most of it or give up early.  That's your choice.  Divisions of players in any game are not new and unique only to WoWs.  I actually wish there were more divisions so teams could effectively communicate during battles rather than a bunch of solo players doing their own thing with no team communication.

[Ensign Cthulhu]

This is the crux:

Some players just can't think that way; defeat inspires cowardice and an involuntary loosening of the sphincters. Others have going down swinging bred into their bones.

[Ensign Cthulhu]

13 minutes ago, HogHammer said:

I actually wish there were more divisions so teams could effectively communicate during battles rather than a bunch of solo players doing their own thing with no team communication.

Sadly, we all know what would happen if you put twelve random strangers in voice chat. This is even more of an issue in Europe and Asia than in NA, since the NA server is typically going to be overwhelmingly English with significant side orders of Spanish and Portuguese while both SEA and EU are more likely to have a bunch of players who literally can't understand each other (the number of Western Europeans who learn English at school and keep it into adulthood is significant but not universal, even if a game like WOWS would tend to select for it). The servers with the highest probability of being monolingual right now are China (which has always been its own weird thing) and RU (which now bears roughly the same relation to us as an Apple II does to a Commodore 64, having identical underpinnings with a very different design philosophy).

Edited December 10, 2024 by Ensign Cthulhu

[Wowzery]

Being on weak side, having your strong side not do anything.  Nothing new.  Been going on for years.  It was happening when I was playing random constantly and that was 4 years ago.

If its dooming WoWS then its a very, very slow process.

[clammboy]

3 hours ago, utgotye said:

Random is dull as dirt.  The team with the most least patient players will win 95% of the time.  Spend the better part of 10 minutes waiting for something to happen because trying to force something usually guarantees a loss.  Meanwhile I could have play two or three co-op matches that are usually as exciting as I decide to make them and likely get the same or better rewards.

Trying to think if I have played operations since they made the change to random ops?  Not that I can recall anyway.  The whole point of me choosing the operation was to avoid the ones I have little to no interest in playing.

High tier randoms sure can be dull as dirt but so is coop and pressing the W button heading to B and just killing everything in site without anyone even targetting you half the time. They need something in between the two.

[Arcus_Aesopi]

14 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

Do you mean this?

https://worldofwarships.com/en/news/public-test/work-in-progress-140/

Read the last sentence carefully. You will still be able to play operations normally. 

Yup, we'll see how it plays when live... it's just heading to test now... might be fun but the one with the firestarting boost to surrounding ships exasperates the bane of ops as is 🙂 

Thanks for the concern. I read quite well, but also have some experience with WG and how they "drift"!  I appreciate the effort you're making to cut down on the snark... which I do (guiltily) enjoy sometimes.   😄 

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

15 hours ago, Arcus_Aesopi said:

Unfortunately, WG relies on their own RNG engine for customer satisfaction...  Un-fun games are the biggest problem for players as even in PvE one must wade through bad draws and poor starting positions in order to get to a "good" game or two.

It concerns me that we (and WG) don't seem to retain very many new players and constant player churn is "ok" to them... it makes our "investment" in time and money more dubious.

Oh well... I'll be around for the Asymmetric season... and probably back-burner the game until the next round.

I see on the dev blog that they're also planning to add a new type of "supership" to the bot team in Operations... oh, goodie...  I'm sure it's for the "balance".  My poor premium Tier IX's really love seeing superships appear in numbers (2 Annapolis and a Maine with a couple of dd's as the late-game base assault force in Ultimate Frontier: destroyed my Pommern in seconds)... but they'll never be considered tier 11s... remember that one?

Sometimes I get annoyed by the super ships in OPS...and then I farm them in my tier 8s and I'm not so unhappy.

4 hours ago, utgotye said:

Random is dull as dirt.  The team with the most least patient players will win 95% of the time.  Spend the better part of 10 minutes waiting for something to happen because trying to force something usually guarantees a loss.  Meanwhile I could have play two or three co-op matches that are usually as exciting as I decide to make them and likely get the same or better rewards.

Trying to think if I have played operations since they made the change to random ops?  Not that I can recall anyway.  The whole point of me choosing the operation was to avoid the ones I have little to no interest in playing.

Try playing lower tier randoms (5-7). They don't suffer the problem of escalating damage output that makes high tier matches so boring.

[utgotye]

50 minutes ago, clammboy said:

High tier randoms sure can be dull as dirt but so is coop and pressing the W button heading to B and just killing everything in site without anyone even targetting you half the time. They need something in between the two.

It can be.  That's one reason why Asym is so popular.

[Admiral_Karasu]

14 minutes ago, utgotye said:

It can be.  That's one reason why Asym is so popular.

He'll be glad to know that. 🤪

[Aethervox]

2 hours ago, HogHammer said:

2 hours ago, HogHammer said:

A division of players is not cheating. 

I did not say that. I said a disparity in the number of divisions is the cheat. The team with more division players wins more (on average) than they lose.

 

1 hour ago, Wowzery said:

Being on weak side, having your strong side not do anything.

This is what happened to me.

2 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

going down swinging

This is how I always play

[clammboy]

41 minutes ago, utgotye said:

It can be.  That's one reason why Asym is so popular.

Still a bit to easy but yes a little better and it is very popular. 

[torino2dc]

Napkin Analysis

@Aethervox the last analysis I did for one of these supposedly rigged matches (link), I was relatively kind with my conclusions. Not anymore. To come here and suggest that the matchmaking is rigged when YOU were the critical factor in your team's collapse is frankly unconscionable. I expect better out of you.

To everyone: this is a prime example of why being intellectually humble and fact-oriented matters on a forum. It took the OP less than 5 minutes to cobble together this highly misleading post and it took me two hours to compile all the images to debunk it.

TLDR: OP threw this match for their team; primarily, because they steadfastly refused to fire AP in a Lenin against broadside targets. Positioning and target selection were also contributing factors. This will be demonstrated in images below.

-----

Lineups

Spoiler

The lineups are pretty even -- nothing dramatically unfair. The enemy team has a radar advantage (Alaska, Constellation), but since both ships have a 2km+ radar gap, your DDs are unlikely to be surprised. The enemy team has one div more, but none of the divs are optimized for farming wins. Enemy CV is uncomfortable, but since Implacable cannot penetrate the Lenin's armor with bombs or rockets, it is not a huge worry.  

Initial Deployment

Spoiler

Nothing dramatic with the deployment, teammates are going pretty much where they are supposed to go. 

First mistake of the match occurs here: Pommern and Constellation both have torpedoes. A Lenin can't stand its ground against them -- they will just torp you out. 

There is still plenty of time to turn out and kite, even if you eat a lucky citadel it is still better than losing the whole ship to a torp rush.

 

Miss Positioning

Spoiler

Even if you don't decide to turn out, you can still maximize your position by correctly hugging the island. The position in orange would have been a highly defensible spot, allowing the guns to cycle while minimizing the threat of incoming torps. It would also allow you to safely show your third turret, increasing damage output by 50%.

404 Armor Piercing not found

Spoiler

You are in a Lenin, which has one of the most devastating AP salvoes at close- and medium-range. You don't use the AP once throughout the battle. A broadside AP hit on this turning Constellation would have easily net 15-20k damage and cripple his ability to push.

Shot Selection

Spoiler

Upper belt shot with AP against the Pommern would probably net ~10k. The shot against the Constellation's soft nose is riskier but higher reward if the shells go where you tell them to go (if you had hit the Constellation earlier, then he would probably be the focus target). Either of these options is better than HE (way overled) that will donk against the Pomm's turrets.

Game timer 15:00

Spoiler

At the 5 minute mark your team is looking pretty good. You are up 2-1 in kills. Your North Carolina is about to fall over, but their Ipiranga is also very low. Your team has won the east and is in the process of pushing into the enemy spawn.

Game timer 14:15 

Spoiler

Your personal situation is bad but not unsalvageable. You have suffered a lot because you didn't position yourself next to the island (over 7k from the sniping Tennessee). Unfortunately you waste a salvo on the Fletcher (not relevant with two torp BBs in your face) instead of working down the broadside Constellation.

Game timer 13:45 

Spoiler

Your Yugumo heroically trades his low health destroyer for a half health Pommern to prevent the latter from torping. I honesty wish I had such selfless teammates. You are left in a 1v1 against the Constellation -- who would have been below half health if you had realized all the chunky AP salvoes that he offered us up to this point.

You get put on double fire and don't use your overpowered Russian DCP. 

Beginning of the brawl

Spoiler

Seen here is a Constellation turning broadside in front of you. Pictured also are the HE shells that you have chosen to send his way. Even if you had played poorly up until this point, the whole game would have been salvageable if you had hit this citadel shot that was practically delivered on a silver platter. 

Also you still haven't touched the DCP.

Game timer 13:30

Spoiler

The teams are even on kills and your team controls the center of the map, which is important for the late game of Arms race. From what you can tell, most of your allies are still at good to moderate health. At seven minutes into the match, both teams have a good chance to win, which is about as much as can be asked from a Random Battle. 

End of the brawl

Spoiler

The Constellation rounds the corner on you and you barely move your ship to respond. You just sit there and let him cheek you. In response you fire HE at his cheek, which likely would have been a citadel if you had fire AP. 

Game timer 12:15

Spoiler

The moment your ship goes down, your team starts unravelling. The carrier mispositions by rotating west and is about to get nuked by the Constellation. If you had traded yourself for the Constellation, the CV would have been pelted by a Fletcher alone -- definitely survivable given British CVs good armor. 

Game timer 11:30

Spoiler

You start losing teammates, including the carrier who gets two-shot by the Constellation. Crucially, however, the mid positions are still viable. If you had won your flank, your chances would have been good for a successful endgame. 

Game timer 10:30

Spoiler

Your team is slowly melting due the crossfires. If you had won your flank, it would probably be the enemy suffering this fate.  

Scoreboard

Spoiler

Given the amount of opportunities you had to punish careless positioning/angling by the enemy, this is a tragically low amount of damage. 

You gifted that Constellation a great game. It could have been a swift trip back to port for him. Your Implacable probably could have had a lot more battle impact if you hadn't let your flank collapse into his lap. 

Your refusal to shoot AP was tragic. Your mispositioning away from the island meant that you ate lots of unnecessary damage from the Fletcher and the Tennessee. Your inattention to the DCP meant that you ate 30k in fire damage that was completely avoidable. 

Conclusion

Spoiler

The match was close until well into the mid-game, positionally favoring your own team. Because you were not able to win your 1v1 with the enemy Constellation, your flank collapsed, snowballing into a decisive victory for the enemy. The opposite could have easily been the case had you taken advantage of the opportunities given to you.  The major mistakes were, in order of importance:

• Outright refusal to fire Armor Piercing ammunition at broadside targets.
• Positioning away from cover, allowing enemies to farm us from multiple angles and ranges.
• Not using the DCPs in a timely manner to suppress fire damage. 
• Inconsistent aim; poor target selection; not knowing weakspots (Constellation nose). 

This is the second time @Aethervox where you allege rigged matchmaking but it turns out that your lack of contribution was a decisive factor in the loss. This has nothing to do with "WoWS failing" and everything to do with your inability to perform on the battlefield. 

Most folks will just grab your headline in passing and assume there is something to it. Few will dig deep enough into the thread to see that everything you allege is nonsense. This does real damage to our community by undermining their faith in the overall fairness of the matchmaker. You are hurting all of us just because you cannot correctly process your own frustration. As I said at the start, I expect better.  

[Admiral_Karasu]

@torino2dc Is there any kind of 'rule of thumb' on fires and DCP use (with and without consideration for the fact how this is now complicated by sub pings)?