eliastion

Then you weren't communicating well. The way you phrased your opinion, you referred to any and all systems that award stars and/or punish you by taking stars away. And, as you might've noticed, the idea to remove saving a star on defeat (to make defeat and victory the only thing deciding if you get a star or lose one) actually has quite a bit of traction on these Forums. The only real issue with that is "how do we generate stars" because the system basically punps stars out of the ladder (every player that reaches R1 takes away all the accumulated stars). Also... No. It might be more depressing but they are not actually covering their sterns in case of defeat - they are farming XP because they believe that the match is already won no matter what - so they might just as well get more XP rather than less. Of course, the problem is that once a blue moon they manage to prove the "no matter what" part wrong It's the behavior observed on regular basis in Randoms. Ranked COULD discourage it but it would require an extra step - making the rewarding system look like in CB where XP is determined purely by whether you won or lost (with perhaps the option of 0XP for AFK). As long as getting some more damage has any effect whatsoever, people will try to farm it. Or, in fact - even with no possible reward, you might actually see some of them shooting anyway because it's nicer to hear your guns roar than to keep them tactically silent

If defeat always means losing a star and a victory always gains you a star - how exactly would one play "for the star, not the team"? What more would i want from my teammate than struggling to win no matter what? If he's succesful, I win too. If he's unsuccessful, he loses and so do I. I can lament his skill and disagree with his tactical choices but his goals are exactly aligned with mine. There's literally no way for him to "play for the star" without playing for me - by trying to get a star, he's trying to ensure one for me as well.

Ok, guys, seriously. We're talking 10 premium ships raffled away. Not a super-discount on something, not a promotion, not a mission where you can get a ship, not a premium british container for everyone - ten ships. How is it worth even wiping dust off a pitchfork, never mind waving one around?...

No, not anyone. An average player can get to Rank 1 after spending many times as much time as a good player. Shipcomrade.com shows us currently a global grand total of 776 players that reached R1 in the current season. Of these 776, 740 have the Ranked winrate above 50% (so they won more than they lost) with further 5 at exactly 50%. This leaves us with 31 players that got R1 while losing more Ranked matches than they won - that's a bit less than 4%. But let's look at these 4%. What are the Random stats of these 31 people? 18 of them have solo Random winrate above 55%. 11 of them have between 50% and 55% solo winrate. 2 of them have below 50% solo winrate. More specifically, their solo winrate in Randoms is 48,39% and 48,37%. That's still below average rather than 45% trash. So, to sum it up. While it'll probably get a bit worse until the season ends, right now we see exactly 2 below average Random players that also reached R1 while losing more than they won. That's about one fourth of a percent of all people with R1. Tell me more how everyone can reach R1. Perhaps there are some more sub-50% solo Random players - but these would have to be in the group that actually won more than they lost in Ranked itself. So no. Not everyone can reach Rank 1. If you're average or - in rare cases (1/4 of a percent this season so far) - a bit below average, it's still possible with a lot of work and a hint of good luck. If you're just outright bad though? Forget it. Maybe we can get a lucky exception or two each season. Well, you seem like a decent player - not at a level where you can expect fast progression (that's mostly for people around 60%+ Random winrate) but good enough to have pretty much a guarantee that persistence would give you good results. Which gets me to think that rather than looking to f*ck the system because you can't progress without it, you just can't wrap your head around the consequences of your ideas. Well, If I were to be designing things... Well, if I really had some super-solutions, I'd be much more forthcoming with them. When I don't have great ideas, I settle for shooting down the really bad ones. Still, if I really had to propose something... 1. No saving a star on defeat. You lose - you lose, no matter how high you are in the team. The idea seemed nice when I first heard of it (who didn't have these matches where he performed great but the team f*cked up) but the results proved harmful to gameplay and atmosphere alike - since now the teammates are only really your allies in victory, in defeat they are your competition at best. 2. To make up for lack of star generation, there should be a new addition. Let's call it "honor pins" or whatever. When you win a match and you're among the first 5 (guarantees that you were actually active but is still inclusive enough that you almost certainly get there if you did your job), you get an honor pin. When you gather 4 or more honor pins, your next defeat doesn't cost you a star. There's a limit of, say, 10 saved stars a week (to not reward a super-grind too much and to offset the fact that by rewarding 5 first places and saving a star for only 4 pins it would generate more than the one-per-match star that is the case right now). Something like this, more-or-less. This isn't a complete project and more like a loose idea but, since you insisted - here you are.

Oh, yes, because we all want 15 minutes of waiting time at peak hours. And sure, we wouldn't have 11-15 bracket full of bad players - EVERY bracket would be full of them because you've created an environment where a relatively short winning streak propels you upwards and there's no way to fall back to where your place is. ...oh, sure. All these baddies reaching Rank 1 within 100 battles. All these unicums that struggle for 500 battles and can't reach R1... Oh, wait, it just doesn't happen. Maybe skill does play a role, after all Nobody gains stars from losing even now. All in all - you claim that Ranked is not about skill - which is an idiotic thing to say. There are other consideration and unless you're too terrible (which is again about skill, mind you) you can make up for lacking skill with persistence. Still, skill is the first and most important consideration dictating if you can reach R1 and how much time you might need. Skill would truly become mostly irrelevant if we actually employed your "solutions", though. I can't check your stats so I don't know if you're too oblivious to see what you're proposing or just so bad that you don't see how you could reach a good Rank without f*cking up the whole system so that your lack of skill doesn't matter - anyway, that's irrelevant. Your propositions are disastrous and go in the exact opposite direction to what Ranked needs.

Which doesn't contradict itself when you play a hundred - or a couple hundred - battles rather than just one.

Well, that's really what happens, basically. It's different for Grozovoi at t10 and maybe some others at lower tiers, but the thing with most soviet DDs is that they don't really do the DD job. You can support your friendly DDs from closer up than if you were a cruiser but spotting? Capping on your own? These ships are just not made for that. If there are many DDs in a match, you're an asset - you can stay close to the real DDs, you have some firepower to cruiser-style hurt things bigger than DDs, you have speed and arcs to stay at range and annoy people while being hard to hit (speed/evasion tanking is a thing). You are more useful than a fifth DD would be. Unfortunately, whenever you enter a match with few DDs, your team is effectively lacking a precious DD - and this can hurt. Although, it should be noted, when there are pretty much no DDs at all (say, 1v1 DD with the enemy DD located not long ago on the opposite flank) it's possible to suddenly feel like a destroyer again - as awful as soviet DDs' concealment is, it's usually better than what cruisers have, especially if you still spec into stealth build (not always a good idea - especially Khabarovsk pretty much needs stearing gears mod, making her abysmal stealth even worse than the raw stats indicate). Anyway, in most soviet DDs you can do some DD-ing as long as there are no "real" DDs in the vicinity. If, however, your ideal is to actually focus on things like spotting, being a torp threat and contesting caps... then, I'm afraid, the recommended approach would be to switch line. Russian DDs (with rare but notable exceptions like Grozovoi) simply aren't really cut out to perform the tasks we tend to think of in WoWs when we hear the word "destroyer".

Fun stuff for me - every time I start the game and join the first battle, everything freezes (generally it does so with 1 second on counter or with 0 - halfway through "the battle begins"). I need to kill the process from task manager, re-launch. This time I re-join the battle and everything works. Then I can play with no problems any number of battles - until I close the client, that is. At the start of the next session - same thing. I'm now starting each session with Dynamo (this scenario has a slow start so worst case I don't get to load initial soldiers before the circle disappears), when it goes away I might need to switch to co-op first match...

Maybe your hat got abducted by aliens.

1. PR is of dubious validity in Randoms - in Ranked it's completely useless. I played my Zao using her stealth to provide close DD support in the opening stage of the battle - very important contribution if it goes well but it gives little damage and forces you into cautious play for the rest of the match (since you WILL eat quite a bit damage at the beginning). I could also stay in the back from the start and HE spam BBs. I assure you that I'd have more damage and better PR. My WR would, however, be much lower. 2. Comparing stats below 20 battles is pretty ridiculous. My red WR in Shima (or purple in Harugumo) aren't very representative of anything. Just like your stats in any of your ships, really - since you played just so little of any of them. 3. And if you really want to compare ships with low number of games AND stats like PR - oh, look, in Shima I have a bit better PR than you in Repubique and also slightly better winrate So let's leave these two ships aside. We're left with my Zao and your Hindenburg. I have 57,32% winrate you - 50%. Huge difference, right? Only problem is - you played 14 battles. Won 7. Do you know what winrate you'd have if just one of these defeats were a victory instead? 57,14%. And if you won two of them? Oh, boy, that's over 64% winrate! That's the difference of "far worse WR". Two unlucky matches. Or maybe two matches where you just uncharacteristically screwed up. Turning these two around would be enough to turn "far worse WR" on this ship into "far better WR" - probably much closer to what you'd expect having apparently farmed so much damage. Which is precisely why stats on a ship with 14 battles aren't worth much. One defeat changing into a victory (or the other way 'round) changes the WR drastically. You just hardly even played this season at all. In fact, while we're at it, you arguably never played the "real" Ranked at all - all your Ranked matches so far had been in the leagues infested with irrevocable Ranks where you can just go with half your brain switched off and farm away while progressing in the meantime (I should know, that's how I got to R10 before the environment forced me to take things slightly more seriously if I wanted to continue moving forwards). And yet - here you are, suggesting the ways to improve the mode you don't play... by throwing out one of the base assumptions - the individual, not divisioned character where you go by yourself to struggle with and against randomly assigned players. There's nothing wrong in preferring to play divisions, mind you. But Ranked just isn't the place for it. If it's too much for you then just keep to Randoms and Clan Battles. It's like someone going "I have no clan/my clan is too small, CBs should allow solo players!" It just doesn't make sense. It's contrary to the basic idea of the game mode in question. But there's nothing saying that you absolutely have to play every mode out there.

Lolnope. This is a complete BS. What's more - the lower the overall skill level, the less of a negative impact a really bad player has (AFK is MUCH worse than a decent player but only slightly worse than a 40% winrate tomato) and the more impact a really good player has (a unicorn in the field of tomatoes is a king; a unicorn among the blue skies is just a bit of an asset to the team). There is some variation based on the ship and role (a DD that mostly spots might fare better with somewhat competent enemies and somewhat competent allies than in a situation where everyone else is really bad) but these are exceptions and often debatable ones (our spotter DD is probably also a torpboat and we all know what torpboats do to complete potatoes).

It sets the even playing field. You can get your pre-set team-mates into literally any other game-mode. In Ranked - and only there - people can only rely on themselves. And why should it be my problem? If you're not good enough to get to R1 fast and not patient enough to get there at a slower rate then there's no reason for you to get to R1 at all. Simple as that. And if WG made it so that Ranked looks like on Test Server then at least half of the entire playerbase would get to R1! But I don't really see this to be a compelling argument for such a change either.

And cause it to be 100% redundant in the process. For divisioned play we have... literally all the other modes. Ranked is, explicitly, the single one where you can't increase your odds by bringing a buddy - you need to fight on your own, on the same terms as everyone else, with no fast lane for couples. And if someone wants to play solo, they have their own skills to thank if they do well or to curse if they don't - they don't get f*cked over by just not having a good division mate(s). Let's keep it this way.

Your results don't seem to support your belief, however. You could probably reach R1 if you had more time in the sense of the Ranked season lasting (much) longer - because as time goes by, the level gradually decreases since, while it's not perfect, it's generally the better players that Rank-out, leaving the remaining Ranked players with lower average skill level. With the top vanishing into thin air, everyone else's position within the pecking order gradually increases, letting them win more games and making saving a star easier - until they can reach R1 too. With your performance, however, and with current length of Ranked seasons? At the very best you could maybe reach R5 - and then get your stern promptly kicked back to R6. The difference between the R2-5 and R6-10 brackets is pretty big. If you struggle with R6-10 and keep yoyoing around the bottom of that, then R5 - even at the very end of the season - isn't really the environment where you would thrive.

You didn't explain, actually. But, ok, let me elaborate. There are two main things that currently make Ranked worse than it could/should be: 1. The competition within the team. You save a star if you lose but are on top - this causes people to have other concerns than winning, promotes selfishness and discourages teamplay. Of course it's still better to win but the "I need to farm XP" stays in the back of your head. This is, actually, the worst aspect of Ranked as it is now and makes the whole mode much less enjoyable than before this mechanic was introduced (despite frustratingly random way the extra stars were generated previously - solely by advancing a Rank). 2. It's possible to climb the Ranks though persistence rather than skill. This is greatly helped by the existence of irrevocable ranks that mean that if a lucky streak propels a potato over an irrevocable rank, the potato can't be put back in their place even if they then keep losing. This makes any Rank worse than 10 completely irrelevant because pretty much everyone, no matter how bad, can easily reach R15 and then has a good chance of luckily reaching that magical R12 - and at these Ranks they just can't ever get any lower, so they stay there and ensure that the 11-15 bracket is full of bad players that have a hard time ascending but can't be demoted. This, of course, makes it a bit easier to ascend (even for them) and spews some of the bad people into R6-10 bracket too (temporarily at least). It only starts clearing up a bit once you break through to R5 because it's much harder to get there by mistake. Now. Look at your propositions. You basically take the two things most toxic for the quality of Ranked - and you make them more pronounced. You want every Rank an irrevocable Rank (or, hell, every STAR individually irrevocable) - making progress about winning streaks rather than ability to consistently deliver good results. And you want position withing the team to be even more important than it already is.

Precisely. And that's still better than the ideas you offered because a "no" brings no change while your ideas actively make the game worse.

Oh, so what are these ideas I offered that would make the game worse?

Bad idea. Worse idea.

Because the requirements you mention are the equivalent of you needing a ship of appropriate tier to play Ranked - and that's already in the game. You can't enter t10 Ranked without a t10 ship. These are grind-based entry requirements, not skill-based ones. The "Random WR" requirements are, of course, technically possible - they could be implemented. Only they wouldn't be good for the game, they would actually make it harder for you (and everyone else) to progress AND they would alienate some of the playerbase and hurt WG's business. So while not impossible, there are no reasons to implement these requirements and plenty reasons not to.

And yet you reached R5 and that's where you got stuck. Almost as if the problem wasn't that players around you are bad but rather that you've actually gotten past the bad enough to easily climb on their backs and got yourself into a more demanding environment where your skill doesn't stand out enough to guarantee further smooth sailing Seriously. If - as you claim - being surrounded by bad players was actually detrimental to progress, you'd be stuck at whatever Rank you started on, because as flawed as Ranked progression is, it ultimately depends on actually winning games. As you climb the Ranks, the average level of other players increases. Most people breeze through some Ranks as they start off (especially if they come a bit late for the party so that the really great players are already off in higher leagues) and then hit a bit of a wall at Rank 10 or Rank 5 (these are the entry Ranks for the 6-10 and 2-5 Rank brackets respectively) when they find themselves surrounded by players closer to their own skill level. You might feel like you're doing great every match and your teammates are only letting you down, but if you don't progress at all after heavy play for a couple days, I can pretty much guarantee - it's just your perception. You're just failing to consistently carry your weight in first league (Rank 2-5) so you drop to Rank 6. You are, however, quite strong for the standards of the second league (Rank 6-10) so you climb back to R5 with relative ease. This is going to continue (or it would if you continued to play) until a) the best players form R2-5 get to R1 and the overall level falls down enough for you to be above the average to carry the (even more potato than now) teammates b) you get used to the R2-5 meta and start playing better in the new environment, consistently giving your random teams enough of an edge to secure a decent winrate even this far up Isn't that what Premium is for? You spend some money (not that much for an adult with a day job, really) and you find yourself making money even on t10. And if you go as far as to fork out some money on doublons to buy a permanent camo? You might end up actually amassing credits consistently, even on defeats... The stars you need to progress are stars you "steal" from the players on the other, losing, team (although there are mechanics that make it so that more stars is gained than lost). Do you seriously believe that with average level of players being higher it would be EASIER for you to take their stars away from them? If you actually banned bad players from Ranked, you'd never see R1. In fact, you'd probably never even get as high as R5 - because with the average level of Ranked players being much higher, you'd likely find yourself turning from recipient to supplier of stars (or someone stuck in a more-or-less equilibrium, at least) earlier - most likely at t10. Instead of yoyoing at R 5-6 you'd be yoyoing at R 10-11.

They do but they play it differently than Rankeds.

Whoa. How the hell did your whole team manage to die? I've played the operation a few times, including potatoing once where I died stupidly before the convoy even entered the channel - and every single match ended with 4 or more stars - and I think the lowest number of surviving DDs was just 3 once. Usually it's 6, sometimes 5 (for some reason 7 is also pretty rare though - someone dies almost every time). Anyway, even in matches without a single Sims OR Mahan the losses don't seem to ever be anywhere close to this severe, despite enemy aviation being a huge pain in the stern.

No. You're making a big mistake here. When a team is pre-determined then yes, the winrate is the winrate of the team. But when teammates and opponents are random, winrate is individual - and the random teammates and opponents are environmental factors. The team is the cards you are dealt - and sometimes you get a hand that even the greatest player can't do anything with. Still, what matters in the long run is the player's ability to capitalize on good hands and get the most he can out of weak ones. That's how you differentiate good players from bad ones - in cards and WoWs alike.

I'm currently at Rank 5 after 113 battles. Last season I played 119 battles and finished at Rank 5 The season before that I played 126 battles and finished Rank 5, but at one point was at Rank 4 Before that I had a good season I played less - only 85 battles - but also climbed to Rank 4 and in last-ranked-weekend effort tried to go past it... ended at R6 The season before THAT I actually had more time and a ship I liked playing - I played 253 battles and reached R1. That's the last 5 seasons including the current one. Do you now believe me that I am capable of grinding through the 6-10 league that you find so insurmountable? Or should I flaunt some more stats, maybe from Randoms? After all... ...it's possible to filter by SOLO matches and when we do this, I have 57,95% winrate. You 43,8%. Also, it's not true that you've never played divisions - problem is, your solo winrate is actually better than your general one so let's just say that playing with a division doesn't seem to be going all that well for you either

But hardly the highest winrate, right? Comparing damage across ships is an exercise at futility. Harugumo spams BBs with HE and lights fires - the only DD that fights in a similar manner and picks similar targets is Khaba - but Khaba also does some gunboat-style tanking while Harugumo can't tank (no heal, no armor, no Khaba speed) and focuses on dealing damage because that's all she can do. Frankly, it's pretty natural that Harugumo is going to have the highest average damage - even after she loses the "player skill edge" from being flooded by Akizuki enthusiasts and people with lots of freeXP that (unsurprisingly) tend to be more experienced than people without much free XP. Even with that advantage, however, Harugumo lags a bit behind Khabarovsk and a lot behind Yueyang in WR%. She's very strong, don't take me wrong, but not nearly the monster some people present her as. PS: In the context of legendary upgrades - relatively few of them are actual UPgrades over the "standard" contents of the upgrade slot... Harugumo's is also more likely than not to end up being crap when they finally add it