Dutchy_2019

The only thing I can think of right now is how all the other ships feel when they are uptiered and face a top tier CV. So sorry, but not sorry for not feeling sorry for you.

Today was so far North American server day. Goals were to get the Strasbourg Campaign finished (and with the doubloon compensation get myself Massachussetts), get stage 4 of the Dockyard finished, and - as when I looked at it, I was so close, get the Science of Victory Campaign finished, for which I needed a game earning 750 Free XP, and as final mission play a single game in Co-op or Randoms. For the 750 Free XP mission I went with Königsberg, fully decked out in flags and camo, in Randoms. The game was made eventful by our two DD's guarding the middle channel on Two Brothers, and then deciding to suicide in the middle of it - despite the team begging them not to, and to be of more use by spotting on either flank., We benefitted from at least part of the enemy team trying to win harder, while our right flank decided to come help the left when they had won theirs. Final results of the day:

NOTE: Once a task is completed you can complete the task again to collect a star! Campaign lasts 32 days Phase 1 Required: 8 stars Final task: Earn 2m credits Reward: Pan-Asian Santa captain Everything can be completed in Randoms, Ranked and Co-op. Task 2 can also be completed in Operations. Task 1 (1 star): Earn 5 destroyed ribbons, reward: 1 Winter Strands Camouflage Task 2 (3 stars): Earn 12.5k Base XP, reward: 200k credits Task 3 (2stars): CV, 55k HP damage, reward: 5 Juliet-Charlie Task 4 (2 stars): BB, Receive 11 million HP potential damage, reward: 5 November-Foxtrot Task 5 (2 stars): CA/CL, Cause 400k damage, reward: 5 India-Delta Task 6 (2stars): DD, Score 25 torp hits, reward: 5 Mike-Yankee-Soxisix Task 7 (2stars): Hizen, Earn 5 Destroyed ribbons, reward: 1 Winter Strands Camouflage Phase 2 Required: 10 stars Final task: Earn 12.5k Base XP Reward: Italian Santa captain Everything can be completed in Randoms, Ranked and Co-op. Task 2 can also be completed in Operations. Task 1 (1 star): Earn 250 ribbons, reward: 1 Winter Strands Camouflage Task 2 (3 stars): Earn 60k XP, reward: 200k credits Task 3 (2stars): CV, 50 shot down/shot down by fighter ribbons, reward: 5 November-Echo-Setteseven Task 4 (2 stars): BB, Receive Cause 600k HP damage, reward: 5 India-X-Ray Task 5 (2 stars): CA/CL, Earn 12 Hits to citadel ribbons, reward: 5 Juliet-Whiskey-Unaone Task 6 (2stars): DD, Cause 250k damage with ship torpedoes, reward: 5 Victor-Lima Task 7 (2stars): Hizen, Cause 300k HP damage, reward: 1 Winter Strands Camouflage Phase 3 Required: 12 stars Final task: Earn 4 million credits Reward: French Santa captain Everything can be completed in Randoms, Ranked and Co-op. Task 2 can also be completed in Operations. Task 1 (1 star): Win 5 battles, reward: 2 Winter Strands Camouflage Task 2 (3 stars): Earn 100k Free XP, reward: 200k credits Task 3 (2stars): CV, Cause 48k spotting damage, reward: 5 Sierra-Mike Task 4 (2 stars): BB, Earn 45 Set on fire/Hits to citadel ribbons, reward: 5 India-Delta Task 5 (2 stars): CA/CL, Earn 40 Spotting/Destroyed/Defended ribbons, reward: 5 Sierra-Bravo Task 6 (2stars): DD, Cause 480k HP damage, reward: 5 X-Ray-Papa-Unaone Task 7 (2stars): Hizen, Receive 10 million HP potential damage, reward: 2 Winter Strands Camouflage Phase 4 Required: 14 stars Final task: Earn 20k Base XP Reward: Strasbourg + Winter Holiday Camouflage Everything can be completed in Randoms, Ranked and Co-op. Task 2 can also be completed in Operations. Task 1 (1 star): Cause 380k HP damage, reward: 2 Winter Strands Camouflage Task 2 (3 stars): Rank 12 times among top 5 on your team, reward: 200k credits Task 3 (2stars): CV, Cause 850k HP damage, reward: 5 Juliet-Whiskey-Unaone Task 4 (2 stars): BB, Cause 750k HP damage, reward: 5 November-Foxtrot Task 5 (2 stars): CA/CL, Receive 12 million potential damage, reward: 5 India-Delta Task 6 (2stars): DD, Earn 250k HP spotting damage, reward: 5 Juliet-Charlie Task 7 (2stars): Hizen, Earn 1.8 million credits, reward: 2 Winter Strands Camouflage

Had a shitty week in private life, tried to play a little ranked earlier this week, did not work because my head was not in it. Played some ranked last night, and more tonight. Tonight I had a 6 wins vs 1 loss (star save) record in HSF Harekaze. I did play OK, I think (including two dev strikes). In two games I liked the result on the score sheet (at least for my team). One with 5 players within 52 Base XP, one - my ranking out button - with the whole team above 1000 Base XP. Guess in those games I must have done something right, as my damage numbers in them were rather low.

I bought Strasbourg both on EU and NA, as I figured I would be spending the money anyway. - On NA I will use the returned doubloons for getting myself the Massachussetts before it is taken out of the shop. - Not sure what I will do with the doubloons on EU.

And I think those are two of the more important conditions for having a fun game.

They already could be acquired for cash anyway (as could most of the current T9 Free XP and Coal ships ).

I see your points, and understand where you are coming from, though I can easily think of counter arguments: 1. Time slot: I can see where you are coming from, though I can see a number of factors coming into this: Player pool, match making and level of competition depending on the time you play. For many, ranking out was NOT an option any way, due to time constraints. I already see the issue when playing fairly early morning in the weekend (same players in consecutive games on a few occasions). 2. Continuous ranked sprint: This might be true for you, but I would guess there were quite a few people around for whom the old set-up did not work at all. Just talking from personal perspective, there would be NO WAY at all where I would be able to come close to ranking out, or being able to consistently put in the number of games required to come close to ranking out. Note that in the past, quite a few people would have to choose between ranked or playing for missions and directives (let alone clan battles). For me, traditional ranked would be unfeasible for me to play at all. 3. Bronze is no challenge etc.: Then move on to silver, and go from there. You have a week. 4. Alienating the player base that supports the game: I have no idea what the numbers were for WG, but my guess is that you as an individual might actually be in the minority. Just from what I have seen: Ranked turning (extremely) toxic very quickly due to all kinds of pressures to advance from what I have seen as an outsider. My first impression - at least for Bronze - is that toxicity is less. A lot of people seem to have considered ranked becoming extremely stale and boring. Many WoWs streamers getting turned off in ranked, and simply deciding that either ranked is a necessary drag (my viewers expect it from me), just not advance beyond something like T10, or setting themselves additional challenges to keep things interesting (play a different ship every game and such a thing). I think you could well be VERY wrong about what aspect of the player base is actually supporting the game. WG changing up ranked could well be the result of ranked itself being in trouble (dwindling numbers, the massive toxicity, and so on).

Now give it the steel camo!

Ships that will be taken out Thunderer and Georgia for coal Smaland and Alaska for Free XP Massachussets for doubloons / cash In the slightly more distant future: Somers (for steel).

So far I like it, relaxing playing DD in Bronze. Allows me to combine playing ranked with other stuff, in real life and in game. Also - so far - the salt seems limited, and in 3 rounds I have come across only one piece of excrement - who complained about CV's, spammed chat and shot and torped our CV, then shadowed him. Thankfully the rest of the team was good enough to win.

Well, so far today, finished week 3 of the Hizen campaign on NA, and worked on the 'In pursuit of Strasbourg' and 'Ships and fates' campaign. Along the way I had this game in the Königsberg. Then went back to EU, and got done with this week or Bronze Ranked Sprint, in slightly fewer games. In general I likes the attitude of my team mates and enemy teams (displayed in general chat). Ran into only a single ***hole, who was frustrated to be in a CV game and not have our CV be his personal servant. After spamming chat with 'Need AA support' messages, he subsequentlly started team damaging the CV, shadowing him (taking himself completely out of the game) and stood by while the CV got killed by an enemy BB (only to then torp the enemy BB). Unfortunately finished WAY too high on the ladder.

I think I might actually even have a hard time hitting a broadside Kremlin, GK or Yammy.

Although just in Co-op, clearly Thunderer is only good for backyard sniping and not up close fighting.

Based on what? Are you running MM monitor (and even that might be flawed if people are actually trying to improve an atrocious Winrate)? In my experience - yes, you can make mistakes. But these kind of results are often NOT the result of one team having inherently better players, but the result of one team coming up with a plan, and at least part of that team actually co-operating.

Yes, we more or less do. We know which update she will drop, and the end date of the Dockyard more or less would tell you when that is. IIRC people have calculated it to be February 18th, 2021.

My approach - because I went at it the same way; results so far: On NA (which I started the moment I decided to take a fresh approach), I am at a 52% WinRate, and on EU I have dragged my rate up from barely 45% to 47.7%. Do not sell or shelve your current ships if you like playing them: Personally, I like Atago and Prinz Eugen. Just play them in Co-op. They are good ships to grind missions and campaigns (hello cruiser torp hits!), and generally fun to play. Make use of all game modes: Co-op: Bots are stupid, but IMHO there are a few positives about Co-op (and why I play it so much): It is generally a relaxed, fairly salt-free mode, easy to play even when you are NOT able to fully concentrate like you need in randoms (if you want to do well and improve). Bots CAN aim! So you can actually learn quite a bit about angling your ship properly in Co-op at a fairly quick pace. You can familiarize yourself with the ballistics of all your various ships. You can just play, fool around and get familiar with the sailing characteristics of your ship. Operations: Bots are smarter than in Co-op. Some operations (Op Newport, to a lesser degree Raptor Rescue) can be fairly tricky to do well in. Ops are a great way to earn commander XP and grind credits. What I did (on EU) is get myself a 19 pt captain on Scharnhorst, and use Scharnhorst thereafter to earn Elite Commander XP that I can use to boost my other captains. Note that this can become quite grindy. You can use the T6 scenarios in the same way. Randoms: This is where you learn to play against other humans. It is the most challenging environment. Do NOT Free XP ANYTHING You need to get familiar with the ship. It forces you to pace yourself, and prevents yourself from rushing up the Tech Tree (what you have currently identified as a problem). Playing stock ships, though often at a massive disadvantage compared to fully upgraded ships FORCES you to learn how to play that ship at a disadvantage, and it will punish every mistake you make. Free XP can be used to get Premium ships for free (only 1 credit). Use it for that. Play across all lines Play across all lines for all nations until say T5 and or T6, and stay there for a while. It makes you learn each ship class and their characteristics, which can be of use both when playing them AND when facing them. .If you do not have the credits, you are not good enough I have taken this from Wookie_Legend (a Canadian streamer), and he has a point there. You should at least be good enough at a tier to consistently make money, and NOT be short of credits. Only advance if you fairly consistently rank in the top of your team This is a personal thing. For me, I will not consistently play a ship line a tier higher until I can fairly consistently rank in the top 5 of my team (and preferably top 3); i.e. I am playing a lot of T5 Kongo, am now playing a bit more T6 Fuso in Randoms, and even though I have T7 Nagato in port, I have yet to take out the latter in Randoms. Watch streamers Personally I have found a number of streamers that I like, and it has provided me with a pleasant community (something social in these times) while also being able to learn from them. Many are quite helpful (showing builds, explaining why), and even deliberately and accidentally in running in game conversation/chat provide quite a few tips and tricks. Many streamers have their own style of play, something that can be very helpful as well. I know there are streamers out there that do game-reviews (aka you send in replays of your game, they provide analysis). This seems to be more of a North-American thing. I know Lord_Zath does it, I have seen InGeneral do it as well. They generally make sure (and their communities as well) that those sending in replays are NOT flamed in chat, and if they catch someone out, they generally come down on them like a ton of bricks. The few occasions where someone was made fun of (in chat or in stream) in a form of positive banter it was a long term participant who usually also is a (very) good player (60+ % WinRate, KOTS participant and so on). Mind you that on occasion their assessment might be harsh, but normally they will also explain WHY they say what they do. It helps - when submitting a replay - if you give pointers with the submission or in chat if there is anything you want to have looked at in particular. Self-assess When a game goes particularly bad or particularly good, try to assess what you did right and or wrong (and what others did right and or wrong). Use online resources Use the forum There is also the Help-Me discord, run by very good players (most of them unicums and tournament participants). They can give tips, tricks and builds, and also do video-analysis for you. With your submission explain your situation. Note that their comments can be rather direct. Set yourself goals Try to work on certain things of your play in your game, like staying alive, reading the mini-map, capping / contesting caps, that kind of thing. LEARN TO READ THE MINI-MAP!!!

On NA I have decided to go for the DD 75 torp hits as one of the 6 missions required to complete the 3rd directive for the Dockyard campaign. Thus I took Kiev out in Co-op, and when a bit yolo.

When looking at your experience, compared to my experience: - Enterprise is THE big disparity in the line-ups. I had one or two bad experiences with them when the enemy Enterprise went after me in the DD. - DD's: From what I have seen, yeah, some ships might have an advantage over others on paper, but it is still dependent on what the captain of that ship makes of it. I do not think I have lost a single fight against a Lightning, and are roughly even with Cossack's in my experience in Bronze in my Harekaze (on one or two occasions me engaging the Cossack got him killed immediately after I died). - BB's: something similar s to DD's. The biggest problem I see in your game were the two Bismarcks. One leaving the game for some reason, the other doing the sailing around stuff. Unfortunately I have seen too much of that in my games as well; usually the side doing that just lost, or had a hard time winning the game. And yeah, I get your frustration. My approach: I do not care so much about 'which ship is better', I look for the enemy radars and hydros in the line-ups, and work from there. And try to learn from my experiences in every game.

Thanks for the info, and it roughly supports my point, I think. And back to OP: Statistically speaking, bad players will have a much harder time getting to Rank 1 (in gold) than in the past, based on statistical probability. That said, having such a player on your team sucks. And I wish that WG would do more (or could do more) to get rid of AFK or semi-AFK players.

Needed two more stars to rank out in Bronze again for this week. Got them in two games (16 games total). One game where I did not do much, but was carried by the team - YAY team play! - and the final one was a weaker team, but a Mogami played a hell of a solo kiting game on the left flank, and our Kaga B driver was good. All in the trusty Japanese kitty-painted Weeb bote.

I would say both, on this occasion?

Ahum, this is the win-rate in Ranked, NOT his win-rate in Randoms. My current win-rate in Ranked is 65% (24 wins in 37 games) all in Bronze League. I am NOT a 65% win-rate player, or even close to it. My current win-rate in Randoms is 47.7% on EU, and a little over 52% on NA, which is probably much closer to my level. O yeah, and for the record, I have not ground a single Tech Tree ship to T8 (Chapayev is an exception), closest I have come to is T7 (with only Nagato being the result of a 'serious' grind). ALL my viable candidates for Ranked are Premium ships. So is the player above a good player? Probably not. Is he as bad as these stats suggest? Probably not. I have been on one or two snow-ball teams where people just threw the game (and yes, I have been stupid in a few games myself).

This is pure luck on the part of the AFK player.

Playing Ranked today (14 games in total). I had one game where I said I would try and contest the cap, this ended up with a 2.3k base XP game. Highlight: the 28 caps defended ribbons.