Verblonde

Oh well, I suppose it means I save the time I might have spent otherwise working on encouraging people to show up for clans...

Depends a bit on what your priorities are, and how much silver you have. If I have plenty of silver, I sometimes get signals (with coupon). What I would strongly suggest not doing is using coal to get signals via the same route (coal is too valuable for other things). BTW speaking of resources: join a clan; assuming they have a reasonably developed base, you'll get resource bonuses.

Dev Blog (11th Clans, with only one CV per side, so that's alright): https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/76 Edit: ninja-ed!

Additional: @undutchable80 - if you haven't noticed it yet, there are limited time daily freebies in the Armory [sic]. These can be accessed online as well as in game: https://armory.worldofwarships.eu/en/ For a while there have been similar freebies for the first couple of weeks or so of a new patch, and they popped up when you logged in. For some reason, WG changed things for this latest patch, such that you need to go looking for them, and it's quite easy to forget and miss stuff as a result.

First, welcome! I'm another WOT convert fwiw. Others have covered off most of your questions admirably, but I would add the following: with regard to learning tiers, I used to suggest T3-4 on the basis that they get +1 MM (although the tier differential in WOWS is much more satisfactory - no hapless T6 trying to pen Defenders here); however, about 1.5 years ago, WG reworked CVs and still haven't entirely got them right. The key problem - IMO - they present is via the large numbers of T4 CVs you often get in games. It's very hard to learn if you spend the bulk of your time spotted and being harassed by aircraft; for this reason, I tend to think that it might be an idea to do an initial basic apprenticeship at T2 (some of the T2 ships are hilarious) and then get to T5 as quickly as possible (perhaps via playing T3 at least in Coop) and pick T5s with at least tolerable AA to start with. Once you're at T5-6, spend more time there developing your skill-set before heading upwards. That's a very sensible position to take; quite apart from anything else, it may take a while to work out what your preferred class actually is, so by waiting you avoid spending on things you might turn out not to use much (I tend to like heavies and mediums in WOT, but in WOWS my main class is DDs - more akin to lights). It's worth picking up any freebie premiums that come along though (for coal and/or free xp, as well as occasional missions); on a related note, I'd suggest taking the 'more resources' crates as they have the best guaranteed reward (coal). If/when you do acquire premiums, it's worth trying to get ones that gel well with your silver ships; this is due to a key part of their value being as captain trainers (on the up-side, unlike WOT, you don't need to worry about different crew configurations in WOWS). I'd also suggest initially avoiding anything where there isn't a silver line to take captains from (e.g. Haida is excellent, but you generally have no source of an acceptable captain for her until you're generating meaningful amounts of elite captain xp)...

Well, I've just finished the missions, so I think that's me done with the mode; some impressions, fwiw: Found it deeply dull to start with, when much of the population was bots; things cheered up a lot when the bulk of ships on both sides were real people. As always, it comes down to player skill, but I found I won a lot more playing T8 than T5; a lot of that was due to bringing DDs with nasty tricks up their sleeve though i.e. smoke/hydro, and radar (although Harekaze worked very well too). The low tier side ought to win 95% of the time (IMO) if they coordinate and/or pick sensible targets to focus (I lost count of the number of games my side won because the opposition shot our BBs, rather than finishing the DDs off); predictably, they rarely do though. At the end, I was rather enjoying myself, but I don't think the mode has the legs to be permanent; I would like to see it make an occasional reappearance though.

My guess is that the campaign interface is a bit cluttered, and WG would have to spend money redesigning it to enable more than a few campaigns to be run at once. Personally, I would like to see it made permanent though; it's not like it would be the first 'campaign for a captain'. I finished the thing a while back (well, got the main reward; I'm not worried about being a completist), but I can't remember anything in it that would be likely to clash with other things WG have going on...

Read the link that @scr1337 provided; also, have a look at the general economy section of the wiki too: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Economy (The wiki is a good thing to bookmark, as you can answer an awful lot of questions about the game by reading it; it's quite a lot to take in all at once though, so just look at the relevant stuff initially.) The brutal answer is 'get better' and make sure you're doing as much damage as possible; as @ColonelPete points out, you're especially interested in doing proportional damage i.e. if you take 1K hp off something small (like a DD) you'll get better rewards than if you do identical damage to something fatter (like a BB). Damage done to higher tier opponents than you will also be rewarded more (and the reverse with lower tier ones). Also: win. Your rewards are - all things being equal - better in a win than a loss; do your utmost to do as well as you can, and remember to try to win (rather than, for example, sitting back and farming meaningless damage). Other than that, the usual advice for new players applies (in no particular order): Join a clan; it'll net you economic bonuses (if their base is developed), as well as being a source of people to division with. Ideally find one that includes people happy to teach. Don't rush up the tiers; take your time. You'll note from the wiki that ships maintenance fees get more expensive as you go up the tiers, so you need to be good enough to do enough damage to more than compensate for that. Play all the ship types (even CVs); at the very least, you'll have a better sense of their aims, strengths and weaknesses, which'll make you a better player overall (so boosting rewards). Focus on understanding the game mechanics (especially vision), and developing your situational awareness (make sure your mini-map is as large as your monitor can cope with, and enable - on an individual ship basis - the range circles). Make sure you have the alternative interface enabled (it provides more information, and doing well is all about information). Keep asking questions on here: there are usually plenty of helpful folk about who'll be happy to assist...

Presumably, this is a 'playing at weird hours' thing? The instant (from your perspective) queue will most likely be because someone else has been waiting ages. I play at - by EU standards - odd hours quite a bit, and this sort of thing isn't all that uncommon when the population is low. BTW you shouldn't be too surprised that people think you're talking about asymmetric mode if you title your thread 'asymmetrical' as that's the 'new shiny' in the game at the moment, and occupies quite a few people's thoughts...

Excellent form, sir!

Just had the pleasure of seeing @lup3s on the opposing side; he came top in his team - excellent work - and I exploded reassuringly early (although did manage to do a reasonable amount of damage first)... Edit: @Muppeteer was there too, for a constitutional in Smolensk; apologies for not realising right away!

Germans are the obvious one; the smoke/hydro trick (T5 and up) can be very effective. The RN are very worthwhile too, although I would suggest doing them after the Germans as the former generally require more gun use which can be tricky on ships that rely heavily on stealth.

It's probably just a losing streak; we all get them, and you'll have corresponding winning streaks periodically as well. If you look at your overall WR, the line of best fit is a steady upwards trajectory: https://wows-numbers.com/player/524114154,FieryArrows/

They did seem to be quite keen to throw themselves in front of shells/torps a lot of the time...?

Thanks to @Uglesett for being kind enough not to trigger The Curse in that last game. That's two forumite games in a row where nothing excessively embarrassing has happened; no doubt the Mockers Gods are lining up something truly horrendous for the next one...

I can dig that - this is (I suspect) a large part of why I'm dreadful with BBs...!

Firstly, as others have said, don't waste coal on signals; save it for premium ships - a signal can only be used once, whereas a coal ship can be used an infinite number of times (and will generate more silver than a standard tech tree ship, all things being equal). Secondly, it's worth reviewing how the game's economy works and what generates silver (https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Economy); short version is do damage and win. A bit of refinement: In the above link, you'll find a section on service costs (you pay these every game): as you go up the tiers, your service costs increase; this obviously means you need to be generating more and more silver in games played to make a profit, and this is why one of the standard answers to silver woes is to drop back a tier or several. The key driver of rewards (silver and xp) is damage; if you don't do good damage, your earnings will be poor. More specifically though, you want to be doing high % damage; 1K of damage to something with a small hp pool (a DD, say) will by rewarded more than doing exactly the same damage to something with a larger pool (BB, say). Ideally, do damage to things that are higher tier than you too - that'll boost your rewards further (and the reverse is true if you shoot lower tier things). Win. Your earnings are boosted when you win, compared to losing; if you're losing a lot, you need to get better at the game, and that often means dropping back a tier or several. Patience is a virtue with WOWS; the 'point' of the game is not to get to T10 as quickly as possible, and trying to do so can often result in serious issues (as you're discovering). Suggested action points: Play a much wider range of ships, and do it at lower tier. Play all of DDs, cruisers, and BBs, and do it from a wide range of nations. Be patient; wait until you're good enough to be generating consistent silver before moving up a tier. Leave the Pan EU DDs alone until you're a lot better: I love these ships, but they are very hard to do well with; you need to get the hang of the Tao of DDs with more conventional types before trying to play a smokeless DD line. Don't sell any ship (unless you hate it with the fire of a thousand suns, and possibly not even then) from maybe T6 upwards; every time you sell a ship you lose half of what you paid for it. It is far more sensible to wait until you can earn enough silver to buy the next ship in line without having to sell anything (do sell stock modules etc. once upgraded though - no point in keeping those). Bear in mind that - now and again - decent missions/rewards will come along that need the ships you previously sold, and you'll waste even more silver buying them back again. The really crucial thing is to get better at the game; at the moment, you are simply not winning enough - do the things that will improve your WR (usually, don't die, and do damage) and the silver rewards will almost certainly follow. Break wind in the general direction of nationalism; whilst there is nothing wrong with having the ships from whichever nation(s) you belong to, it's foolish to have this as your primary driver - play things that you can do well with now, and move to other things as your skill-set advances. Pay attention to captains, and make sure yours are good enough; if you have poor captains, you will lose more often and/or get poorer rewards. Sorry this is a bit blunt, but the game is built around the concept of 'encouraging' people to pay money if they suck at high tiers; every player needs to either get good enough to avoid the worst of this, stick to lower tiers, or throw money at the game.

Hello @Robber_Baron (in Iowa), who was kind enough not to trigger my Curse of the Forumites (I didn't get exploded until an almost respectable distance into the battle)...!

Just saw @El2aZeR working his customary magic in Enterprise; slightly surprisingly, the curse of the forumites mostly left me alone so I avoided exploding in the first couple of minutes. Bonus Curse points to the 'friendly' Italian cruiser who torped me near the end...

I'm dreadful in both, but GA may well be more fun; quite apart from anything else, out-running (some) DDs never gets old.

FWIW I take the larger guns on the German DDs (when available); although it's mainly a variety thing, it can be a giggle citadelling broadside cruisers. It's worth noting that I have specialist captains for the 'big gun' DDs as (as @Panocek notes) BFT is much less use on them, as the main guns are too large to benefit from the skill. Cossack doesn't gain much from IFHE (especially for four points!), so I never bothered with the skill; mind you, I don't take it on the T9&10 silver ships either (and just fire AP if HE won't penetrate something)...

Some things to think about, in no particular order: Firstly, 416 battles (at time of writing), of which 35 are in randoms (and none of those in DDs) is not enough to be doing well with Cossack, or any other T8 come to that; although she's an excellent DD, she isn't easy mode (mainly due to needing to use guns - which blows stealth - to do consistent damage). Until you get a bit more experience with DDs, you are almost certain to get tonked on a regular basis. I would make developing your skill-set with DDs a priority, and do it at lower tiers first (play with T2 initially, then try and get to T5 as quickly as possible to have the best chance of dealing with the T4 CV plague); I would also join a clan and/or find more experienced players to play with, who can teach/provide feedback on what you're doing right/wrong. Make sure you have good enough captains for your DDs; this means *at least* 3 points at T2, and 10 points plus when you get to the +2 MM bracket (so, T5+). Your first 10 points on most DD captains should usually look like this: This is the equipment fit I have on my Cossack, but this isn't universal across all DDs: While playing, your aims include making use of stealth (Cossack should have about 5.5 km surface detection if you're doing it right, which is very good), avoiding engagements that you can't win (your influence generally grows as the game progresses), spotting, capping (usually later, and beware radar/CVs), and choosing your moments to open fire carefully so that the return fire from breaking stealth doesn't annihilate you (Cossack is known to be dangerous, so is often a priority target if the opposition aren't idiots). Also, learn to use the RN single-fire torps; Cossack only gets one launcher, so this is essential. More importantly, learn the basics that apply to almost all DDs first and do it at lower tiers; I'm afraid to say you'll have very little chance in Cossack otherwise (unless you're some sort of unicum reroll, in which case ignore me).

Bear in mind that the last reset was a couple (?) of weeks ago...

I'm with the OP too, I'm afraid; I'd be very happy to be able to block the mode as things stand now. I believe I'm okay at playing it (in DDs anyway), but such a large chunk of the player base simply can't (or won't) change their approach - compared to a more conventional game type - that the whole thing is far too much of a lottery (even more so than a usual random game) to be reliably fun. That's not to say you never get fun epicentre battles, but rather that they're too rare for me to like the mode. All entirely IMO.

Likewise, only in the other direction. At the moment, I only play WOWS on the EU server, and the performance is absolutely fine almost all of the time; I have WOT accounts on both EU and NA, and the performance of the two feels essentially the same (although EU1 is usually marginally faster than EU2, according to the in-game indicators).