Verblonde

Dev Blog (possibly promising new Axis v Allies mode): https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/122

As a matter of interest, are the notional differences between these things and the original Amagi noticeable? The more important matter though: how entertaining are the captains' voice-overs? I can't remember what the answer was from the first time around...

I voted 'bacon' for the overall thing - I'm still working out what I think (although the cost of the 'extra' two points is bloody obscene). Deadeye I'm certain about though - it should be removed, simply for the negative effect it appears to have had on the meta...

Some thoughts, based on that screen-grab (so, *very* incomplete information): Oster - IMO - isn't a bad pick for Ranked: healing potion, 'good' AA (make sure you make full use of sector reinforcement/DefAA, and switch it off when not in use), and a decent balance between dakka and torps. This assumes that you know how to play smokeless DDs. As an Oster, focus on your key jobs: staying alive (whilst still being useful), and hunting DDs; capping is good too, but not worth dying for. For Ranked, you need to make use of your guns - you'll need them to kill DDs (the team that loses their DDs first, will probably lose the battle); 17 gun hits and a lot of torp damage is suggestive that you're perhaps focusing on fatties too much? There is nothing wrong with tearing chunks off bigger ships, but your priority must be to kill DDs (preferably whilst not getting sunk yourself). Make sure you have a suitable overall build (FWIW for Oster, I focus my ship upgrades on torps, and the captain more towards dakka). Time is a factor in Ranked, but you must not die (sorry to labour that point, but it's *very* important), so you have to carefully balance a suitable level of aggression - so as to kill opposing DDs as soon as practical - with an eye for the entire game. You also need to be mindful of particular threats to you: other DDs (who, unless they're idiots, will be trying to hunt you - either through spotting or direct damage), radars, and CVs (you'll take a lot of planes with you, but their spotting will kill you, unless you're careful to put hard cover between you and the opposing surface ships). In general, most BBs are the least of your worries, so focus on your priorities. Edit: don't forget that spotting is key too, but a) it'll probably happen anyway, if you're doing everything else right, and b) if your side has radars/CV, your spotting importance can drop away slightly.

FWIW I usually monitor chat in Ranked, but don't usually get involved, unless there are people there who are uncharacteristically useful. I do use the F-keys to ping priority targets for the BBs to ignore entirely (I suppose it's kind of a Zen thing, really - the WOWS equivalent of one hand clapping?). Mostly, as a DD main, I try and just play as well (or at least not excessively badly) as I can in the environment in which I find myself; the chat is mainly optional, as most players do their own thing regardless. If I want coordinated chat (and play too), I'm resigned to waiting until the next season of Clans.

Thing 1: you don't have to join a serious competitive clan; you have hidden stats, so I have no idea how good/experienced you are, but there are clans suitable for just about every level of player (a competitive clan will probably want to see your stats before letting you in though) - pick one that's a good match with your capabilities and personal aims. Thing 2: not as such, but I can't imagine a competitive clan will want players without voice comms; Discord and TS are - I gather - the most commonly used. Voice comms do make life a *lot* easier though, so for clans (especially; it's great for regular divisions too) I would strongly recommend getting suitably equipped.

I'm afraid Ranked isn't really unfair; everyone gets the same experience. That said, it is certainly harder to get to R1 in Bronze this season than last, due to the removal of the irrevocable ranks that did make it laughably easy last time. As others have said (with varying degrees of tact), the only constant in all this is you; the potatoes on the teams even out with enough battles, so with enough persistence most people should be able to rank out - it's just a question of how long it will take an individual player and whether the effort is worth the reward. Personally, I'm aiming to get the maximum number of 'win' rewards, with hitting R1 merely a 'nice to get'; even if I do get to R1, I don't want to qualify for Silver, as - IMO - the increased rewards don't justify the increase in aggravation. So, a few tips from another sub-average player: Only play as long as it's fun; the rewards don't justify making the game into work. If you're getting frustrated, stop playing; when frustrated, you're more likely to 'force' it and make a mistake. Play only those ships that you're good in (or 'least bad' in my case), and have fully equipped and with a good captain - we need all the help we can get. Also, play the same ship as consistently as possible - you'll usually do better if you string a run of multiple battles together in the same ship (but don't forget the last point). Apply a bit of self-awareness and manage your expectations: how good are you really? In my case, I have only a 48% overall WR (in Randoms); this means that I have to understand that ranking out, while possible, is going to take quite a long time. Choose your ship carefully: not all ships are equally good in the small team/map environment of Ranked, and the optimal pick for you may well vary between seasons. Ultimately though, you may find that the balance between your current skill-set and the 'needs' of Ranked isn't particularly in your favour; if that's the case, there is nothing wrong with getting as far as you can with a reasonable amount of effort, whilst assessing which areas of the game you need to work on, so as to go away and concentrate on improving them at other tiers. Ranked isn't a 'one and done' thing; we have several Sprints coming over the next several weeks - if this one isn't doing it, practice a bit outside (maybe in a division, so people can provide you with real-time feedback on what you're doing right/wrong), so you can return and perhaps do better next time.

My usual advice is to start with the the US and IJN lines (all of them, possibly excepting the new BBs), as they're the 'original' nations in the game, and represent the most 'gimmick-free' lines to learn the basics with. That said, the lower tiers are pretty easy/cheap to unlock and purchase, so there is a lot to be said for playing as many different low tier things as possible; quite apart from anything else, it's often easier to play against something is you've played that ship (or something like it) yourself. Besides all classes of the US/IJN trees, the Germans are worth a look (again, all classes) as a 'third' nation, and probably the Russians too (I found their cruisers to be quite useful learning tools, as the short torp range forced me to focus on gunnery more and their guns have forgiving flat arcs)...

I suspect that the delay to the re-release of Black may be to do with this: regardless of Black's relative position in the game, *lots* of people would probably get her for use in Clans, which might encourage WG to try out the trailed capability to cap/ban specific ships from Clans - I imagine there might be some ill-will (to put it mildly) if people's new - and possibly rather expensive - acquisition couldn't be used in one of the modes it would probably be best at.

There's your problem right there; play a sensible ship instead - queue times shorten, *and* you don't get cooties into the bargain. Easy! Here to help...

<old guys' coronaries intensify>

Polite request: can someone change the greengrocer's apostrophe in the title, please? Every time I cast my gaze over the forum, it makes my eyelid twitch. (Also, change 'off' to 'of', and fix the uppercase 'c'.) Won't someone think of the poor grammar sticklers?! Oh, the humanity...etc.

It's pretty much 'follow your nose' type stuff: 1) Account Settings (top-right of screen from the drop-down from your handle): 2) Notification Settings (right-hand side of the screen): 3) Select things as you like (remember to save any changes):

FWIW (and it may be confirmation bias) I seem to see far better play at more antisocial hours: yesterday, I struggled horribly to get a win during prime-time (despite, I believe, not sucking in most games), but did a lot better after many people's bed-time. My hypothesis is that more motivated players tend to make up a higher proportion of people in game during the weirder hours, so increasing the likelihood of at least some of your team being semi-competent. I'm not good enough to hard carry, but I can get wins if some of my team aren't actively hopeless. TL;DR don't play Ranked during prime-time, unless you're spectacularly good (and immune to frustration)...

If we're thinking more generally, some of the characters from The Expanse might make fine captains (and WG already have a tie-up with Amazon Prime - there was that The Boys thing in tanks a while back; I think my EU account has Starlight as the commander of my Roomba for example)...

I think we should perhaps be slightly careful what we wish for though, given the apparent age profile of our players: having Seven of Nine as a captain in the game might not be terribly good for some of our, erm, more mature gentlemen's blood pressure...

Most likely, winners will probably get a direct message; if you do get such a thing, you'll get various notifications including orange icons on the top-right of the forum page (assuming you're logged in, and using a PC; I've never used the phone interface). I also get sent an email if anyone sends me a DM, but I assume that's a preference that not everyone will have set up necessarily.

Thank you for the reminder: I just ordered the DVDs, having been meaning to do so for over a year (or however long it's been since the first time I read about the series)...

Why? Because it makes some players very happy - the rewards you get from Ranked are astronomical if you can stick some reasonable damage on a T9 whilst driving a T8... On my NA account, I've only got Orkan at T8 (well, I've got that PA cruiser clone thing too, but I'm rubbish in cruisers), and she does fine against T9; as far as I can tell, the average T9 player is no more or less able to deal with DD radar than anyone else.

I'd probably pay money for a captain that includes "set phasers to 'slaughter'" in its voiceover...

Five stages, each worth 200 tokens (plus another 600 for completion - 1.6K total). 800K credits for the first three stages, and the last two need 1 and 2 million, respectively. Time to break out the premiums in Ranked, I guess...

Besides what the others said, did you use an invite code when you started your account? If not, suggest doing so (if it isn't too late) - it'll give you some useful freebies.

Given that Smaland has been chopped, I was wondering if Vampire II might replace it as the next 2 million free xp ship...?

That's not a sign of a 21 pointer; it's not even close. I assumed you were running a clever mod that tells you which captains people have. All that means is that someone was playing a sneakier ship than you, or - if it was an identical ship that out-spotted you - they had a 10 point captain with CE (assuming you were both running cammo), which anyone with 1,500 doubloons can pick up. BTW how many battles does your son have? If the count is still low, you may not be doing him any favours playing together in divisions - I believe that divisions don't get the newcomers' protected MM if anyone in the division has played enough battles to not get that MM. Of course, if he's played enough to get out of protected MM, this isn't a relevant factor. Either way, there's nothing 'shameful' about using high point captains at lower tiers, and this goes double triple at the moment: given the captain rework is still not finalised, every sensible player will be using as few captains in their premium ships as possible, regardless of tier; it's unreasonable to ask people to risk being charged for resets *if* subsequent changes call for them, just to avoid distressing newbies at low tiers (especially given how little difference it actually makes, as various folk have pointed out). I don't usually go below T5 myself, because you can't do the majority of missions at lower tiers than that, but if I did feel the urge to give Vampire (or similar) a lash, I'm going to use the same captain as I would run in Haida, for precisely this reason...