EdiJo

Sure. To skip first 7 tiers of German BB line, one would need a few hundred K free XP. I have some 6 million "elite XP" too, but I don't think that thousands of people suddenly throw hundreds EUR just to convert that and skip a line (which is anyway fun to play). Even with promotional price 35 instead of 25... Or maybe they do? I don't play WoT - but I understand that maybe there are some options to use WoT resources to speed up WoWS? Just 2 weeks after German BB were released of total 800k games played with German BB more than 10k were played in T9 and T10 ships. I with my 200+ games in German BB am close but don't have Friedrich to this day, and you have the T9 but you played more than 500 games in this line. So we both are "usual" grinders...

Here is, as an example, number of games played by particular tiers of German BB since the introduction of the line: It is easy to notice, that quite many players got even T9 ships almost immediately after release. At 2-3 weeks after release T7 population was already at 20% level which is more/less constant afterwards. So we have quite many "free XP" skippers, and then the crowd of slowly grinding Kevins (I'm one of them, I only got to T8 for now, although I play more often than average). I don't know where this free XP comes from. Is it bought with real cash, or transferred from WoT?

I also had such thoughts - but in the end I am rather inclining to the version that "WG cannot into simple counters" About a month ago I wrote about the problem, too. In my thread, I was redirected to MrConway's post - although evidently it was/is outdated, it explains things a bit.

On the graph I posted you can easily see that BB percentage is growing steadily for at least a year. From below 20% then to almost 50% now. Small variations don't change the trend.

For T8-T10 BB population reaches 50% now, and DD are getting extinct below 20%. If you take T8 alone it for sure looks even worse. T9 somewhat holds, WG needs to give away Friedrichs at the next event ;)

During last 4 months you played 40% of your games in cruisers, mostly T6-T9. In those 2/3 were in a division. Did you pair with smoking buddies (DD/CA) that you don't complain about too many BB targeting you? I find games with 5-6BB and 1-3CA at T8-T10 hard to play in a cruiser. You can't angle to everybody, you can't hide from everybody... Healthy proportions would be max 3BB per team.

Growing BB population is a fact, with specifically Tiers 7-8 and ze German kind. Below is a crude graph based on maplesyrup data - still has some bugs but the tendencies are quite clear:

Yup, but observing 1/20 "hidden" players vs 1/200 reported by maplesyrup would mean that ~90% of "open" accounts are ~idle

T8-T10 have too much grinding. T1-T5 way too little. I tend to fail to focus on a single line, I'm not paying much - and despite a few thousand games played still have only a few T9's and none of T10. Advancing should not be based on "XP" which is awarded even if you totally fail and/or your team loses. Or on money if one buys high tier premium. It should be based on skill mostly. We need test PvE missions which would give "a licence" to drive given tier of a given ship line in PvP games. MM? +/-1 everywhere of course. Nothing justifies putting a player vs +2 tiers stronger enemies.

So far I didn't notice any "a'priori" aggression towards low stats players. AFAIK there is no easy-to-install xvm-like mod in WoWS - there are only standalone apps like MM monitor which are not very suitable for real-time checks. Most of comm trashtalk starts when obviously weak player starts to be aggressive and/or "resistant to knowledge" himself. I am not saint in the chat myself, sorry ;) Anyway, there is an option to "ignore user" and also /quite lightly accepted by WG/ chat reports... BTW, according to maplesyrup in EU there are 2.8 million accounts and only 17k (0.6%) have hidden stats. This somewhat doesn't agree with my experience, because I see some "hidden" player in almost each of my games. Probably it's because quite a part of the server accounts doesn't play much.

Hm. I tend to agree. More important than actual numbers in stats is the attitude. Whether it is "yup, I'm learning, I tried to help but..., I'm too weak to carry you all ;)" - or "go away, I play for fun not for stupid win, I don't care, leave me alone this is my map border, I hide my stats because they are not your problem". Good attitude allows for a communication which can result in improving. Otherwise a "casual" can for example camp all the game and at the end be mislead by his relatively high score that he did quite well. But also good attitude means not hiding the results (yes: called 'stats')

I am not quite sure but I recall audible warning when closing to the border. And those "lots of replies" pointed you to the only certain solution: look at the minimap - there you have plenty of warning that you are near the edge

Independence (1/1/1) : 8-3=5 waste of time, especially when uptiered and/or vs Ryujo New Mexico : 12 Cleveland : 31 Farragut : 23 Arizona : 18 Shinonome : 20 Mutsu : 18 Ryūjō (1/2/2) : 14 Fusō : 13+1=14 Beasty BB, at T6 absolute killer Aoba: 21 Fubuki : 20 Graf Spee : 26 Ernst Gaede : 9 Warspite : 16 Leander : 24 Molotov : 13 Budyonny : 5 Dunkerque : 18 Duca d'Aosta : 24 Perth : 33

after hundreds or thousands of games it kinda starts to converge

You keep changing what I said. Stats are just a byproduct of your performance. You're basically saying that you don't care about your performance. This is not acceptable in multiplayer competitive team games. Of course stats are "team dependent" and you can't simply take some parameter and "judge". For example I don't feel my gameplay deteriorated recently, yet my last 30 days (160 games, so quite a sample) have pitiful 46% win rate. Some other parameters are visible (damage, xp, etc.), but some are not (T10 matchmaking, BB abundance, potato wave, my not-very-convenient late-night playing hours ). I am far from judging people just by some stat parameter in separation from the whole picture. I probably could easily pad my WR to 60+% by playing in more convenient hours with more convenient ships - but why should I. Using stats to estimate performance is something completely different from being obsessed by them. I don't like stat-judging while in game (xvm-like), but it is useful to see the profile of someone who is authoritatively speaking on the forum. And stats are good tool to distinguish between those who try and those who don't bother. Usually this division agrees with what we can see on the minimap in games, and I can see that when sometimes look at "MM monitor" after the battle.

And you say so because... ? You really think that random processes can't be described by statistical parameters? Randomness is exactly why we resort to statistic @hgbn_dk: I think I explained enough times how I use the "potato" term. Just casual player, nothing wrong. But if the casual keeps joining competitive games and "doesn't care" - it is potatoing.

What "challenge", kido? It seems my "best" was some stock Donskoi game when I was close to 200k because happened to be allowed to burn some fat T10 BB. What is it going to prove if you did better once or twice? You are arguing about "stats" without understanding the word

Chicken games are childish - and I really doubt you're old enough to father me ;) Your performance is eternally preserved in the net... Sure, you can keep your profile hidden, if you don't want any updates of your progress.

Sorry kid. I don't have Balti nor Gearing. Can we compare any ships I have? BTW as for "that who doesn't care about stats" you seem to record quite a lot

Omg. Why do you think that some selected title screens should tell me something? Anyway, you basically confirm what I wrote above. That when you WANT to win you can have good games. And your average stats tell that you usually DON'T want. I still don't get where you see the insult?

What challenge? I didn't play scenarios at all. Is it PvE? Was it solo or someone helped? What do you want to compare You hid your profile, so I can't check - and talk is surely not expensive. Regarding "insult": you yourself said that you "play just for fun" and not for win. That's why I see you as part of the problem - if you "don't care" you should play in PvE mode, which I believe can be (made) fun & rewarding too.

I don't know much about "scenarios", I don't play as much as you, and certainly didn't have time to try the test server ... My highest dmg in both those cruisers are for sure much lower. But your last recorded 90 days (March-June) Cleveland stats are: 45% WR and 29k dmg which is below avg and for 550 games played in this boat not impressive, sorry. Leander, same. I don't get why you take my arguments as a personal insult. You said yourself you don't care...

Sure you're right, but in practice: - Players who put some effort into winning usually after some number of games finally achieve reasonable understanding of the game. At least they know what they do wrong and try to improve. This game isn't that hard, at least to the level quite above "current average"... - Players who are skilled and "farm" without trying to win are tiny minority - usually some badly designed mission is at fault. So basically at tiers 5-6+ when most of players have at least few hundred games played we are again down to 1- people who try to win and learn(ed) something 2- people who don't care and just enjoy gun sounds, or their new shiny camo Of course it is not black & white, because there are stock/new ships/ship classes to learn/grind, matchmaking, disagreements regarding tactics etc, but generally above division is quite clearly seen on the minimap and in chat Unfortunately lots of (2) advanced to higher tiers in PvP, because advancing doesn't require anything but time spent, and actually some when paying can advance faster then those (1) who don't pay. Also, as I said - there is "fun"(1) and "fun"(2). Fun(1) is when you have good cooperating team and win the game Fun(2) is when you can swim around for a while listening how your powerful guns sound and enjoying the view Both funs are surely OK, but the problem is that people wanting only Fun(2) obviously shouldn't play with those who want also Fun(1)...

Geez I got through a few pages of your completely thoughtless rant against "showing the stats". And in fact things are very simple. You are very good example of the problem, so I will let myself to use a bit of 2nd person below. Either you decide to be "a casual", "playing for fun", "not interested in your results" - OR you try to achieve some goals, play better, be competitive. (Of course this is not set forever, and can be limited to one class, tier or even a particular ship.). Either you gather some experience or you don't care. Yet you potato "for fun" (as you said) in games, and then try to speak authoritatively on the forum. This is mutually exclusive, sorry. Nobody will not (and should not) take seriously opinions voiced by someone who "doesn't care", about things he has little clue about. This is nothing personal, and it is common sense - not limited to playing pixel games. You insist that "stats should be hidden" so nobody can point out you are pretending to be someone you are not. Hiding your stats now doesn't matter much - some websites preserve the archive: 13000 games, thousands of hours played, and still way below server average in almost all ships above Tier 4. Limiting stat-keeping to higher tiers had some (little) sense earlier - but now potatoes died their way up (or bought) even to Tier 10 already. And, on the other side, many good players prefer to play lower tiers not "for seal clubbing", but simply because higher tier games became less fun to play (balance problems, potato wave). There is not much less potatos at tier 8 now than at tier 4-5 on good weekend afternoon. Everyone is "entitled" to an opinion but there should be a way to check what the arguments are based on. Actual experience and good results in the game are a good measure of credibility, number of posts is not... And here is some example about how personal things become when there is nothing meaningful left to say...

Missions which need to be completed to be allowed to advance to the next tier in the given ship line. For example you need to complete "German T8 BB" mission to be able to use your newly acquired Bismarck or bought Tirpitz in PvP game modes. If you don't complete the mission - only co-op available, sorry. The problem is that missions have to be quite well designed and hard enough to filter-out potatoes... And that those missions should be in PvE mode and work similarly to scenarios, with the player being the only human in the game to exclude option of "being carried". As a "hidden bonus" - if you didn't play given ship line at the particular tier for a few months, your "certificate" would expire and you would be forced to pass the mission again... If something like this won't be introduced, the average player skill will be lowering constantly, with wave after wave of "casual" potatos "playing for fun" slowly but inevitably dieing their way up to the higher tiers.