Ahmeni

Can you recommend any gameplay videos showing how to deal well with certain common situations? Like avoiding pursuit in DD, surviving DD rush in BB or dealing with stacks?

So I think I fixed it. Turns out the game client is normally launched by one executable calling another that calls yet another. There are 3 execs for WoWS alone, and settings and client behaviour is different for each wrapped and unwrapped instance. I wonder why somebody designed it this way. Anyway, the following replay works for me. Well, sort of. It plays, but I have no control over playback whatsoever. If it works for you, it's one of those when it felt I was doing really good, but the final score is poor, so please criticize away. It was also the only game today with decent size teams. 20200520_112145_PJSD002-Umikaze-1925_10_NE_big_race.wowsreplay

Hi, Not exactly a noob here. I did play a bit in 2017 and 2018 and got up to tier V. I did pretty decent then. Now I got back and I suck. My fav back then was CV's, but I sold all I had just two days after coming back. But I tried CV's for 2 days and couldn't get more than couple thousand damage in whole match. So I went to CL's and BB's. I had today my Kongo sunk by single salvo from another Kongo doing 21k dmg. I can't get more than 6k single salvo. And few games forward, my cruiser got sunk by a bomb from an airplane doing 11k damage. My hits from high caliber guns range from 1k to 6k tops. I couldn't get more than 1k in single CV attack. So, what am I doing wrong (I play how we used to in early 2018)?

That's what I was afraid after I noticed game stutters because it writes dozens of MB/s during a match. Pretty sure it shouldn't do that. I'll look into 32-bit client and wrapper exe tomorrow. I noticed the game launches with different settings directly from exe than it does from WGC, so the problem may lay there somewhere.

Well, first let's see if my replays are playable (i.e. if I can't play them because my client opens them badly, or no one can play, because it writes them badly). Here's a replay where I very badly aimed at running Hermelin and I'm wondering how I should have aimed. Also, by some inaccurate napkin math my PR score for that match would be shy of 600, so I'm wondering what other opportunities I missed (even getting those hits on Hermelin would just barely move the score to below average). 20200518_185931_PISC101-Eritrea_34_OC_islands.wowsreplay

Okay, I got it. No more stalking the forums. And I appreciate the offer, if you really mean it. No expectations though. Any particular ship you'd like a replay with?

Well, in general I always try to learn by practice. Problem is, in WoWS I often think I did everything right yet it doesn't work, so I'd like to observe a bit. Besides, there are times when I can't play, but I can watch a vid.

It doesn't work on my computer. I get a crash with python parser error. I tried reinstalling the app, libraries it uses, no avail. I can try reinstalling whole Game Center, but didn't yet made up my mind to it.

Thanks, I looked those up and will go trough them. Yeah, I've come to the same conclusion, that's why I'd like to see some examples. Replays are tricky for me. I can post them, but I can't watch them. So I won't know exactly what I'm positing and won't be able to she the situation you're commenting on :(

Yeah, I didn't mean sth like universal guide. Just some examples to look at. Good movement habits, how to position a ship (unlike other games not only position but also direction you're facing and moving to matters here). How to evade fire effectively, when to use consumables like smoke or repair party, etc. I agree situation vary a lot, I'm not looking for solutions, more like which things tend to work and which do not, so I can make solutions on my own. And by stack I mean a bunch ships keeping together and using their firepower like one huge unit. I've seen many of those done with BBs in T7 games. Today I've seen one in T4/T5 where 4 DDs went together and spammed unavoidable waves of torpedoes (I went along with them and we just steamrolled around the map, pushing enemy BBs and cruisers back all the time until they lost). I would just call that a division play, but not all divisions behave like that. And the one I got into, we didn't even communicate much, just timed our launches to go at the same time. Funny thing is, it's something almost like "strat of a day". One day almost everyone seems to be doing something, another day it's gone, they're doing sth else. One day BB clumps, other day it's BBs pairing with DDs and rushing mid, another everybody camps.

Yes, I know that. I tried with most recent replays (literally just finished game and wanted to look closer at one moment). I reinstalled the game and all libraries it uses, but it still refuses to work.

I can't even launch replays on standalone version. Crashes with python parser error :(

I literally had four last games in Nagato against 4 BBs stack. In one of those we actually managed to make a coordinated flank of 3 players against them. Two BBs, one CA. We got detected while moving between two covers. They must have had guns trained in our direction because they fired very fast. I was not detected before, but maybe sb else was and they knew we're flanking. CA was killed in the first salvo. Our team responded, but theirs popped smoke immediately. The other BB continued going to cover showing his side somewhat and got blown. I turned bow to them and was backing off and shooting back until non-stop barrage killed me, before their smoke went out. When is was out, they must have had already turrets rotated around 90 deg to third BB who tried to shoot them from another position. Our fourth BB was hugging the wall far away. It was no-CV match, but obviously such stack would be tough to crack for CV too. Any pointers what I should have done differently? I'm not only interested in countering stacks, but also how to avoid being detected when moving BB from one cover to another. I didn't really see anyone managing it very well. Most of BB-BB kills I do when they try their transition. Yeah, I know, many ppl already told me that. But no one yet told me how to survive 4 capitals firing on me at once, with both AP and HE long enough to get to nearest cover. I got told "don't get in that situation". Ok, but how I don't? Even when I saw the stack already, know it's there, what do I do? Keeping out of it's range doesn't exactly solve anything, right? When they are consistently spotted I can use my plane and try to see in which direction they are pointing their guns and find a safe moment to move to next cover or move out to take a shot, and that's the only thing I can really think of right now. You sort of contradict yourself there. Unless there's a way to influence Random Battle MM to get less sloppy players on your team. And not to get a few 10k+ games vets on the other side. Yeah, my stats are bad, that's not the point I'm making here. Let's forget for a while I used to play this game long time ago. Let's say I just got into it 3 weeks ago. 2 weeks of tryharding - and yes, I see I'm playing better now, making less mistakes. It's a big difference actually. I am saying it isn't reflected in any way in either game economy and reward system, nor in player ranking. So judging from game and wows numbers I didn't make any progress whatsoever. Then I stop treating the game seriously. I'm slumping. The game and rank tells me that nothing happened. Well, I expected to get thrown into some noobs league or at least game economy to force me to get back playing lower tiers until I learn to play better. But no, I'm good. And if as the only DD in team I do kamikaze torpedo run, killing one CA or BB, I'll get better score than if I kept hiding and spotting for the rest of the team the whole game. Plus, I get into another game in 5 minutes instead of 20-25. This is not good. This is poison for good playerbase. Yes, this is a rant. It's that because every step I make in this game is another frustration. Mostly, to be honest, because game is complex and deep, therefore it's hard to even identify your mistakes, let alone correcting them (that's an easy part). I've watched all those videos about mechanics, read wiki, I know what my ship is good at and what not, but that's just a dry knowledge without context putting it in action. And, from the newcomers perspective, I have to learn to play solo, because I can't count on the team in randoms and maybe later when I'm really good some decent clan will accept me and learn to play in team. But I don't stand much chance in randoms because I'm frequently set up against pros, who seem to do near magic tricks - it's like trying to learn driving by racing with F1 driver on a track. I tried coops, but they're even worse. Lots of ppl just going straight in, bots don't play anything like real players and they seem to have stock ships with no commander abilities. So the question is, where and how does a noob learn to properly play this game? I'm not a noob in competitive gaming. I play CSGO regularly since 2014. I did play Battlefields, CoDs, first and second Starcraft, Team Fortress 2 and Dota2, just to name the ones I went serious with. And let me tell you, not even in Starcraft I felt I'm hitting the wall so badly. Unrelated question that somewhat bothers me currently: Any tips how to survive in IJN DD when you come around an island right into enemy DD (or when DD comes around the corner of island you hug)? Gunfights with other DDs doesn't seem to end well for the Japanese party. I quickly learned that smoke doesn't help much in those situations. Tried to run away with evasive manouvers, but then enemy DD keeps up with me and spots me for rest of his team. If I run straight I often manage to break away, but with little hp left. Yeah, sometimes my team disposes of opponent DD before I die, but never before I get massively damaged. TLDR: I really wish the game cared if I played good or not.

Yeah, the mechanics seem solid and well thought of. Apart from that "pay or grind" tint all games with this business model have, it should be very, very good. But the players. I complained about lack of teamplay before, so I'm not going to repeat that. But I noticed some sad things about random battles. First, I tried to play tactically, like advised here and elsewhere, and how logic and rudimentary knowledge dictates. But analyzing how I got killed and spectating I notice that in higher tiers BBs tend to clump together, wait for some spot and open fire all together. That creates a barrage no ship can survive. No flanking kaka felota. And the only working counter to that seems to have a BB clump on your own and have your spots survive longer. If subs are made well, they should be a counter to that, but for now it seems to dominate BB play. Second thing can't be fixed so easily. There's a lot of randomness about how the game plays out in the beginning. Out of frustration I began to throw games that didn't start good for me. Got detected and shelled to low HP early? I set autopilot to some remote place and go make myself a tea. No spots for my BB and I'm being spotted? Park behind an island and go exercise for a 2 or 3 minutes. Or just go suicide when pinned down. The thing is, it didn't affect my xp, earnings at all. It barely registers on my stats. Go check my stats from this week and a previous one if you don't believe. So, where is the incentive to put in some effort? It's easier and more time-economical to just focus on games where you got lucky and throw the rest.

Any future occurrence I'll upload. Can't exactly tell which one of the old ones is the one without watching them. But I already see I won't any useful knowledge out of this, so I'm not replicating occurence conditions on purpose anymore. Thing is, I would like to see some of my reps for other reasons. So I did lil' research and found out that I tried it right. Since no one reports having problem with replays after new update I guess sth is wrong with my client. ad. 1 I have to admit, I completely ignored that mode on the assumption (true for most MP games) that playing against bots gives bad habits. I didn't even think about it, so one could say I got a bad habit of ignoring bots mode in MP games :P as. 2 Always an option. But I don't see why I couldn't just keep playing tiers and ships I feel comfortable with ;) I don't see getting to tier X being obligatory ;) The game is kind of campy. I'm not sure I can hold that against it. It's not quake ffs. And it's less campy than WoT (at least how WoT was when I played it) , that's one of the reasons I transitioned to WoWS. I don't hate waiting for opportunity, I hate games when I can't see the opportunity. Initially I wrote "games with no opportunities" but then realized faulty thinking there. I don't see opportunities in those matches -> they're different than lower tier -> have to analyze them and learn to play those. So yeah, you're right at that. But difficulty jump is still a bit off-putting. Campy and stupid players are another thing. Today I stayed alone on spot on 2-spot map, while my ENTIRE team went to A10 to camp. BBs, CAs, DDs, all of them. I fought 3-ship push and kept calling for help. Two of them finally started going back, but only after my Kongo went to the bottom. Imagine the rest of team still stayed in the corner even when enemy began capping. It was worse than worst T1 games I played. Funny thing, those two who went back were somehow the only who survived. They managed to stop the cap, while entire red team sans 3 ships that killed me went for our campers. Fast forward, my team won by points (and just a few of them). And to be fair, there are many good and fun games to balance (sort of) those I complain about. Also to be fair, I don't plan to stay with WoWS for life. When covid-induced slowdown ends, I'll probably have to abandon it, together with other entertainment, to chew all work backlog up. May very well be another two years before I get the time to play sth so time consuming again.

Yes, it looks promising, but I'm not keeping my hopes up. I've lost count on disappointments. Everything I tried after Fighting Steel was a disappointment one way or another. I didn't try Cold Waters (another game from Killerfish). I was going to but a friend took it first and quickly reported it suffers from the same bugs and problems that NWAC did, so I moved it to "buy on huge discount" list.

Thanks for the link. Missions, campaigns, daily drops and crates, all of that I of course do. Oh, there you got me. What other multiplayer tactical/simulation naval multiplayer game would you recommend? I'd be interested in single player tactical naval games located between ironclad and missile eras too. Actually I could give an age of sail a try too, just not ironclad and missile eras, I hate the former and played too much of latter. Anything less outdated than Fighting Steel, apart from Silent Hunter (I've played at least 4 World Wars in SH3 and SH4). I'll be interested in giving them a try, as long as they do not cost 50 EUR or more. But I do care about this game. If I didn't, I wouldn't ask questions, try to learn do play it, even complain about what I don't like. I'd just leave it and went to play sth else. And no matter what I am still disappointed that WG matchmaking uses one-dimensional evaluation. I mean, it's not hard, even I could build decent 2d or 3d evaluation matrix

My installation path is different, but I've found it. Question is, what to do with it now? Trying to open it with WoWS client crashes it with some python parsing errors. Trying to open with WG API hangs it up. I've tried todays replays, so it's not an update issue. That's why I said it's boring. Last game in Nagato I could go for a coffee break, because I couldn't find any opportunity for first five minutes. People tend to shoot me over higher tier BBs, because I'm easier to kill, can't really blame them for that ;) So when I stick my head out and anyone has guns pointed it that direction... ouch. And can't play it like a cruiser since it's as maneuverable as a barn. Some people warned me not to go 7+ and I think I get now why. Since MM doesn't care for the player, only tier, the higher you go, the more veteran players you meet. I still want to grind up to IX or X out of curiosity, but I'm afraid it will be exercise in frustration (especially without spending money on it) and most of my fun seems to lie around tier V :P And ofc t1 battles are a thing on their own :)

I thought of getting a replay, but I don't see any replay settings in UI, and someone in the game told me they're removed from SD client and you need to mod to get them back? If I can figure that out I'll try to get one of those. As for fighting against tier IX, that is what I'm trying to do, but it's damn boring game. And as I said, angle doesn't help, I'm getting sorely penned bow-in by Iowas. No one-taps this way, but when two Iowas decided to go on me, it took them between 6 and 8 salvos to finish me. I guess I'll just have to live through it. It's just strange and annoying that going with new ship I'm put against the strongest guys possible, while when I roll out in my elite Fuso I still frequently meet hull 1 Kongos that must be equally frustrated by me. I would really expect most matches with elite tier VI to be against tier VII and VIII, while noob in tier VII playing against lower tiers. My guess is MM doesn't care about anything else than tier (upgrades, ship status, player success rate in this ship etc.).

I've had a few more situations like this. I noticed detection light up 1-2 seconds before shells impact when I was fired upon from 20km. So it looks like 10s delay in detection notification? Or are those really cheats? It gets really annoying. And it only happens when I hug the island and I'm stationary. I have to say also I'm not happy with matchmaking in higher tiers. I bought Nagato. In all 10 matches in unupgraded tier VII ship, majority of players were tier IX. I'm getting torn to shreds by Iowas and Izumos and angling doesn't help at all. Staying behind one cover all match is no fun at all, either.

Yes, that happens sometimes. But when you play screens, you can at least do sth on your own. When you play capitals, not so much.

Well, I'd argue that in CV, DD and in some of the stealthier CLs you can go spotting, try to provoke some enemy movement with torps and if you manage to stay alive and provide intel for long, you may even tip the scales. I did convince my team to get back into a fight once or twice. I call that "playing a fuse". But I can't see a way to do that in BB, they're so dependent on team spotting. I love the challenge BB presents, right until some Furutaka runs away and demands from 3 BBs that supported her to do a blind push against DD and two cruisers (that really happened today).

Yeah, that I am aware of, because I utilize those. But I was intentionally going in concealment (Japan DDs and cruisers are great in this), so I paid close attention to being detected. At first I thought wtf and discarded it as bad luck against random scan shots. But then was the second time, and after I posted, third. Since concealment is very important in this game and I was pretty sure that game always let's you know you're spotted, I had to ask. If that's just just some cheats, then well, it's very sad, carry on. But if there's a "silent detection" it's damn important to know that. I had hoped BB game is somehow salvageable if the team gives up. Too many times I've seen 4 or 5 ppl remaining just running to the corners. And I can't even score some hits if opponent chooses to camp, because the see me miles before I see them. Not only losing by not trying is dumb, but it's also boring as hell to wait 8 or 9 minutes for the game to end.

Two more questions if you're not fed up with me yet 1. How do you play BB in a match with no CV where all your DDs go suicidal and few remaining cruisers decide to hug the walls? I tried advancing directly, island hugging or moving on open flank, and no matter which tactic I choose I'm quickly introduced to tight spread of torpedoes. 2. Is there some mechanic that allow to be spotted without notification (icon)? Two games in a row I hugged the island without being (visibly) spotted since start and suddenly two or three ships opened on my position simultaneously.

That explains 3 new slots (2 came with new lines and 1 from removed tier V CV). I must had got rid of Erie and Chengan and just forgot I did that.