My Credit Grinding Experiment

[Taylor3006]

I broke down and finally bought a bunch of super ships and tier 10s for the snowflake rewards which has left me with a credit balance that I haven't had since the first year playing the game. I actually got as low as 112 million (normally I keep it above 500 million) so been grinding credits. Normally I only play tiers 5, 6, and 7 (premium ships, no boosters) in co-op and play Tirpitz( have the +150% FXP camo booster), OG Missouri (for credits), and anything else I am grinding in Operations. I use blue boosters and green boosters there. Since I feel broke, have gone to putting the grey/tan boosters on my ships in co-op and bring in 100k+ credits easily per match. Sometimes significantly more depending on how good a game I have had, generally averaging 150k.  In Operations I bring in around 300k - 400k credits (cept for Missouri of course). Then I realized that it takes me four times as long to bring in that than it does to earn 100k+ in co-op and I can use the plentiful tan/grey boosters. Big MO brings in about a million a throw and is obviously the outlier. 

So I started using tier 9 premiums in co-op with the small boosters thinking the baked in credit bonus would be significant. It isn't and I earn just a bit more than I do with my mid tiers. I then played my Albany with the veterans camo (+25% credit bonus) in tier 2 and managed 56k credits in co-op (no boosters). Then played it in PvP and earned a bit more but not enough to make it worthwhile because got curb stomped by a human division who was farming achievements from the looks of it. I then outfitted my tier 9 cruisers with green boosters and tried operations. My earnings were 300-400k but again, taking 20 minutes to complete. When I play ops, I also outfit the ships with signals. 

What I learned is that operations are not as good as co-op for grinding credits unless I am using Missouri. It costs too much in boosters, signals, and time to make it worthwhile. My new plan is to grind credits in the manner that I have always played, in mid tier co-op but using the cheap boosters. I am also going to play my Albany in co-op because it is likely I will be on teams of mostly bots so will be able to rack up a good score. I am also going to use a credit booster for her. Will continue to run Big MO & Tirpitz in operations normally. The ships I am grinding are going to get played for a first win only in co-op and using only the cheap credit boosters but green XP boosters. The big advantage is that I will use far less signals and can save those for my high performing ships for ops. 

Edited December 21, 2024 by Taylor3006

[Wolfswetpaws]

You feel "broke" when you have a little over 100 million credits.
Last night, after purchasing the Lightning and the Monarch, my credits balance was slightly more than 200,000 credits.
I have rarely had balances above 100,000,000 credits.

So, I suppose it is all just a matter of perspective?  🙂 

Thanks for sharing your insights, regarding game-modes, ship choices, and economic-boosters.  🙂 

Out of curiosity, which Superships did you get?  🙂 

[Taylor3006]

36 minutes ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

Out of curiosity, which Superships did you get?  🙂 

Oh man, DDs mostly and cruisers since they are the cheapest. I bought 9 total and if I had the credits, could buy 6 more. I have the IJN DD, the US DD and cruisers, the Russian DD, the German, UK, and French cruisers, and the Pan Asian DD. 

The five I have unlocked are the US BB, the IJN BB, Russian cruiser, German BB, Italian cruiser, and the UK CV. I expect to grind out two more supers next year and have all the ones I have unlocked, purchased in time for the anniversary event. 

Understand I have no plans to ever use any tech tree ships once I have unlocked the next ship. I don't revisit them unless a new line is introduced that branches off. Most of my tier 10 tech tree ships have zero XP on them, the rest have a couple of thousand XP from when you had to play a ship to get the flake. I have a large fleet of premium/freemium/special ships and am happy just using those. 

[Admiral_Karasu]

I only got one super ship. I don't really feel I need more, maybe, if they had the snowflakes, but as it is one is enough.

[Wolfswetpaws]

52 minutes ago, Taylor3006 said:

Oh man, DDs mostly and cruisers since they are the cheapest. I bought 9 total and if I had the credits, could buy 6 more. I have the IJN DD, the US DD and cruisers, the Russian DD, the German, UK, and French cruisers, and the Pan Asian DD. 

The five I have unlocked are the US BB, the IJN BB, Russian cruiser, German BB, Italian cruiser, and the UK CV. I expect to grind out two more supers next year and have all the ones I have unlocked, purchased in time for the anniversary event. 

Understand I have no plans to ever use any tech tree ships once I have unlocked the next ship. I don't revisit them unless a new line is introduced that branches off. Most of my tier 10 tech tree ships have zero XP on them, the rest have a couple of thousand XP from when you had to play a ship to get the flake. I have a large fleet of premium/freemium/special ships and am happy just using those. 

Thanks for answering my question.  🙂 

[Wolfswetpaws]

1 hour ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

I only got one super ship. I don't really feel I need more, maybe, if they had the snowflakes, but as it is one is enough.

I've welcomed the Conde', the Piemonte, the Clausewitz and the J. Humphreys to my Port.

[AdmiralThunder]

7 hours ago, Taylor3006 said:

I broke down and finally bought a bunch of super ships and tier 10s for the snowflake rewards which has left me with a credit balance that I haven't had since the first year playing the game. I actually got as low as 112 million (normally I keep it above 500 million) so been grinding credits. Normally I only play tiers 5, 6, and 7 (premium ships, no boosters) in co-op and play Tirpitz( have the +150% FXP camo booster), OG Missouri (for credits), and anything else I am grinding in Operations. I use blue boosters and green boosters there. Since I feel broke, have gone to putting the grey/tan boosters on my ships in co-op and bring in 100k+ credits easily per match. Sometimes significantly more depending on how good a game I have had, generally averaging 150k.  In Operations I bring in around 300k - 400k credits (cept for Missouri of course). Then I realized that it takes me four times as long to bring in that than it does to earn 100k+ in co-op and I can use the plentiful tan/grey boosters. Big MO brings in about a million a throw and is obviously the outlier. 

So I started using tier 9 premiums in co-op with the small boosters thinking the baked in credit bonus would be significant. It isn't and I earn just a bit more than I do with my mid tiers. I then played my Albany with the veterans camo (+25% credit bonus) in tier 2 and managed 56k credits in co-op (no boosters). Then played it in PvP and earned a bit more but not enough to make it worthwhile because got curb stomped by a human division who was farming achievements from the looks of it. I then outfitted my tier 9 cruisers with green boosters and tried operations. My earnings were 300-400k but again, taking 20 minutes to complete. When I play ops, I also outfit the ships with signals. 

What I learned is that operations are not as good as co-op for grinding credits unless I am using Missouri. It costs too much in boosters, signals, and time to make it worthwhile. My new plan is to grind credits in the manner that I have always played, in mid tier co-op but using the cheap boosters. I am also going to play my Albany in co-op because it is likely I will be on teams of mostly bots so will be able to rack up a good score. I am also going to use a credit booster for her. Will continue to run Big MO & Tirpitz in operations normally. The ships I am grinding are going to get played for a first win only in co-op and using only the cheap credit boosters but green XP boosters. The big advantage is that I will use far less signals and can save those for my high performing ships for ops. 

Yeah, buying SuperShips really takes a chunk out of the credit reserves. I have every current tech line in game done to T10 and as a result I have all the SuperShips too (needed something to buy LOL). That is why my credit reserves stay around 250M - 300M. I used to run 450M - 500M but once I started buying the SuperShips it constantly knocked me back (many times well under 200M). I have them all now however (until they release more of course) so I am slowly building back up (around 280M right now I believe).

Playing SuperShips in Co-op hurts the credit reserves too unless you use boosts (usually green = break even +/- and blue = +). I was surprised when I just looked to see and I have 1500 Co-op games in SuperShips (Maine is the most @ 350). No wonder my reserves can't seem to get back to that 400M+ range LOL. I like playing them though as you have a good chance at those coveted mostly or all bot teams. Those are the ones where you can really do some damage and wrack up rewards. You can easily make 300K-400K+ credit profit (with a blue boost) in a really good SuperShip game vs all SuperShips. It is harder when put with T10's. You struggle to break even when placed with T9's though. I really wish WG would not put SuperShips with T9 in Co-op. I have broken 1M credits in Co-op in a Super Ship but that was an insane 536K 1711 BXP game (blue boost). My average really good hauls are more 600K-700K. 

I don't play Operations so no clue on their earnings. I mainly play T9 Premiums and T10 ships in Co-op. They both earn very well as long as you do ok and for T10 TT ships have the perma economic boost pack. OG Missouri in Co-op with a really good game + blue boost can hit 1M credits pretty easy.

EDIT - Just played a Maine game w/ blue boost. All bots other than me (YES!). Pretty average game as far as all bot games goes. 284K damage (120K to another BB so that reduces rewards), 4 kills, 987 BXP. Only 1 solo cap and just 10 plane kills which hurt the rewards. But still ended up with 280K net credits

Edited December 21, 2024 by AdmiralThunder

[Admiral_Karasu]

8 minutes ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

I've welcomed the Conde', the Piemonte, the Clausewitz and the J. Humphreys to my Port.

Yamagiri. Just the Yamagiri. If it isn't Japanese it isn't suupaa enough for me.

[Wolfswetpaws]

2 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

Yamagiri. Just the Yamagiri. If it isn't Japanese it isn't suupaa enough for me.

 😄 

[100 Krakens]

7 hours ago, Taylor3006 said:

What I learned is that operations are not as good as co-op for grinding credits unless I am using Missouri. It costs too much in boosters, signals, and time to make it worthwhile. My new plan is to grind credits in the manner that I have always played, in mid tier co-op but using the cheap boosters.

You might want to try Asymmetric while it is still live. With premium T9 BBs, I am able to rake in 450-500K credits in about 10 minutes with a green credit booster and only a couple of essential signals. Moreover, it is more fun than coop for me. 

Edited December 21, 2024 by 100 Krakens

[Admiral_Karasu]

Hmm... maybe I missed my calling as a manga artist. Still, there's a lot of technical drawing skills I would have had to learn, and how to draw fast. Of course, You still needed talent, too, except maybe if you were just specialising in the backgrounds or something.

 

[Wolfswetpaws]

36 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

Hmm... maybe I missed my calling as a manga artist. Still, there's a lot of technical drawing skills I would have had to learn, and how to draw fast. Of course, You still needed talent, too, except maybe if you were just specialising in the backgrounds or something.

 

Everyone needs a hobby.  🙂 

[Taylor3006]

5 hours ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

I only got one super ship. I don't really feel I need more, maybe, if they had the snowflakes, but as it is one is enough.

The supers do have flakes, you get 200 steel (plus clan bonus). The people here in this forum pushed me over the edge to buy the high tier stuff. Granted I went over like a cat getting shoved into a tub of water, but when I finally got wet, went all in. Currently I have close to 40k of steel which for me, is a record. 

[Admiral_Karasu]

27 minutes ago, Taylor3006 said:

The supers do have flakes, you get 200 steel (plus clan bonus). The people here in this forum pushed me over the edge to buy the high tier stuff. Granted I went over like a cat getting shoved into a tub of water, but when I finally got wet, went all in. Currently I have close to 40k of steel which for me, is a record. 

Yes, but the down payment in credits to get 200 steel is too rich for my blood.

[UnrepentantSinner]

4 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

Yes, but the down payment in credits to get 200 steel is too rich for my blood.

That's the way i see it too.

[Wolfswetpaws]

8 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

Yes, but the down payment in credits to get 200 steel is too rich for my blood.

 

3 minutes ago, UnrepentantSinner said:

That's the way i see it too.

Both of you have understandable sentiments.
Personally, I find some of the Superships fun to play.
Also, there are certain missions that they're good for.  Such as earning XP or potential damage or scoring a lot of damage.

[Taylor3006]

1 hour ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

Yes, but the down payment in credits to get 200 steel is too rich for my blood.

 

1 hour ago, UnrepentantSinner said:

That's the way i see it too.

I understand because that is exactly how I felt. Had this discussion months ago, probably around the time of the anniversary event with the people in this forum. Understand I wouldn't even buy the tier 10 tech tree ships after I unlocked them. Did not see the point because I had zero interest in playing them. Then I realized that at the rate I was collecting steel, it would be years before I could afford any steel ship. I had a lot of credits and farming those seemed easy enough so threw caution to the wind and traded my credits for steel. From my calculations, I will now make nearly 15k steel a year just by farming snowflakes on the ships currently in my port. Throw in all the steel you get in drips and drabs and that is a significant amount. By unlocking & purchasing more tier 9s and superships, I will bring even more. Heck I even bought Azuma even though I didn't really want her but because I have far more coal than there are ships I want. Honestly it is just a lazy man's way of min/maxing the game.  The best thing is there isn't any current steel ships I want so am just banking the resource for later use. Hopefully I will be able to do with steel what I do with coal. I keep enough on hand to buy any two new coal ships plus any new captain that may come available but mostly try to keep my coal reserves above 1 million. 

For me, it is all about planning for the future but I am weird that way. 

Edited December 21, 2024 by Taylor3006

[AdmiralThunder]

3 hours ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

Yes, but the down payment in credits to get 200 steel is too rich for my blood.

3 hours ago, UnrepentantSinner said:

That's the way i see it too.

Just some food for thought...

• I have all of the current 21 SuperShips
• NO QUESTION that is an insane amount of credits needed to buy them (it is over 1 billion credits for all of them even with the -15% clan discount on the purchase cost)
• The rewards can add up however such as in flake events. Look at what they got me this year for snowflakes...
  • Each SuperShip gives 200 Steel for knocking the flake off
  • 21X 200 = 4200 Steel
  • +10% for all Steel earned (clan bonus) = +420 Steel
  • I got 4620 Steel JUST from SuperShip snowflakes this year

So, if you pretty much are at the end game as I am, with not much else to use credits on, it is kind of a no brainer. Not only that, it was 200 Steel per SuperShip during the Anniversary flake event this year too so that was another 4620 Steel. So just in the 2 flake events this year I have gathered 9240 Steel just for SuperShip flake rewards. Obviously if you are a newer player, a more causal player, etc... than I am you probably have more uses for credits than I do.  Use them there by all means.

However, if you CAN afford them IMO it is worth it for the flake rewards if nothing else. And for me I actually play them a lot too. I can't play them non stop in Co-op as I would blow through every boost I have and eventually my credit reserves but I can and do play them a lot (1500 combined games so far). Many of them are fun and really good. Others are meh. Again, if you can afford it, they are worth the investment just for flake rewards IMHO. I mean it's just credits to get them.

YMMV.

[Taylor3006]

This is the person responsible for me spending all my credits...... 

 

 

🤪

Edited December 22, 2024 by Taylor3006

[Ensign Cthulhu]

I just can't do it. I can't grind to a T10 ship just to have it rust in port and be a flake for farming. I have to want to play it or there's no worthwhile carrot to keep me grinding through. 

What I won't deny is that trying some T9 and T10 ships that I'd previously dismissed has opened up new lines of research for me. I originally hadn't planned on grinding any further up the RU BB line than Vladivostok, for example, but there I was on stream this afternoon playing Sovetsky Soyuz in Randoms...

[AdmiralThunder]

2 hours ago, Taylor3006 said:

This is the person responsible for me spending all my credits...... 

 

 

🤪

[Taylor3006]

6 minutes ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

I just can't do it. I can't grind to a T10 ship just to have it rust in port and be a flake for farming. I have to want to play it or there's no worthwhile carrot to keep me grinding through. 

What I won't deny is that trying some T9 and T10 ships that I'd previously dismissed has opened up new lines of research for me. I originally hadn't planned on grinding any further up the RU BB line than Vladivostok, for example, but there I was on stream this afternoon playing Sovetsky Soyuz in Randoms...

For me, it is just not worth the cost of equipping them and then trying to make a profit using them in co-op. The economic bonuses are just too expensive in real money to make any of it worthwhile, especially with the existence of tier 10 premium/freemium/special ships. Wargaming intentionally made it punishing to play (credit wise) without putting out actual cash for premium time or the bonuses. I understand their reasoning behind it but in my mind, I just don't see the high tiers as any more fun than the mids. 

The carrot for me is to get the premium/freemium/special ships. The tech tree ships are nothing more than the path to getting those carrots. 

[Admiral_Karasu]

8 hours ago, Taylor3006 said:

For me, it is just not worth the cost of equipping them and then trying to make a profit using them in co-op. The economic bonuses are just too expensive in real money to make any of it worthwhile, especially with the existence of tier 10 premium/freemium/special ships. Wargaming intentionally made it punishing to play (credit wise) without putting out actual cash for premium time or the bonuses. I understand their reasoning behind it but in my mind, I just don't see the high tiers as any more fun than the mids. 

The carrot for me is to get the premium/freemium/special ships. The tech tree ships are nothing more than the path to getting those carrots. 

Let's call it the Bunny Doctrine, carrots over money then.

[Wowzery]

Been doing some tech tree grinding and trying to stay above 200 million credits.  I do find just playing my T9 premiums gets me the best return in a game of coop with either 20 or 40% booster.

Doing the dockyard missions its been easy lately to grind credits.