Ranked Battles Season 9 - Discussion Thread

[Ysterpyp]

On 5/13/2018 at 12:33 AM, R8dr said:

And that's exactly why they made it from 10 to 1 like this. It's all about the ******* money.

I have done it without premium time , and standard camo. 

If i run low on credits n just play the missouri one or 2 battles lel

 

WG, and no i'm not giving you money for that moment

Id rather buy a chair for $399 lel top kek

[th3freakie]

I've only played 8 battles so far, still on r12, enjoying the tier 8 meta. Maps are sorta OK, although radar combined with really small caps is kinda deadly for DDs.

 

Unfortunately, the core issue remains, and that is that this game mode remains entirely focused on the race to "rank 1", after which players quit. It's still all about going up in ranks (that's where the rewards are) and gaining/keeping stars, which in turn means there is very little point playing this mode if you cannot put in the hundreds of games needed for "ranking out". This means every game you lose costs you 2 more games you need for the objective, and makes everyone so incredibly salty. It also means even bad players / literal bots can "rank out" if they just play enough games.

 

So we have a system that only rewards skill if it is accompanied with the time to burn in 180/300 matches, but can reward people with 45% WR if they just put in 2300 games (like, say, you would with a bot).

 

It's nonsense. It's stressful. It's not worth it for the meager rewards bellow r1.

 

Would much rather prefer if the you revamped the whole rotten system and made changing rank not give you anything (or not much) by itself, but winning games while in better ranks give better rewards. You could use the repeating missions/challenges to give out the rewards. Say, if you were between rank 22 and 20, you would get a container every 10 wins. But if you were between rank 20 and 15 you'd get one every 5 wins. Between rank 15 and 10 you'd get a container every 3 wins and a supercontainer every 10 wins, and so forth until rank 1 gave you, say, a supercontainer every win. You could still, at the end of the season, give a jolly roger or whatever cumulative reward you want, to everyone who played more than X battles and has a 60% or 75% or 80% win rate, or whatever value you want.

 

This way you could do away with the "keep a star in defeat" that annoys people so very much, and you'd keep the best players in the system. This means only the super unicums would probably be able to reach and remain in r1, but everyone else would still feel rewarded for reaching as high a rank as their skill allowed. People who could play 2000 games with get more rewards than those who could only play 50, but even those who could only play 50 would have rewards proportional to their skill.

[malaquey]

Not sure if I'll get an answer from WG but one can hope!

 

What's WGs opinion of the prevalence of "playing for the star" in ranked? Beyond playing loads of games getting that top xp is key to ranking out. Even the best playes are not going to be able to hard carry due to most of the players being pretty good but they can at least make sure they get top xp. This doesn't seem to be conducive to good teamwork, particularly when a team is losing heavily there is almost no incentive to keep trying for the win and most players go into damage control mode to try and farm xp.

 

I understand that keeping a star means that on average everyone slowly progresses so the pool of players get's worse over time so people can still progress if they wait a couple of weeks. Would a better system perhaps be to remove keeping the star and instead give the top player on the winning team TWO stars? If people farm xp and lose the game it would actually backfire so it would at least be a lot harder to manipulate. Maybe players above a certain xp threshold would keep a star/get two stars, I'm sure WG has the data to set the threshold appropiately to still give the same amount of extra stars, and it would allow finer tuning that the current system.

[loppantorkel]

Issue isn't the retain star system, but how XP is gained. It's too damage focused and too easy exploit.

[Kashuken]

So far this is my 6th season.

 

My 1st season was when i really just joined the game but the tier was low enough for me to join and get an idea, the next 2 seasons i think i got a really good grasp of the game and managed to reach rank 1 without really top ships to hand apart from the HMS Belfast.

 

Currently im using the GK or Minotaur, im barely doing well in either and dropping between 9/8 on a regular basis, DD is out of the question due to RDF.

 

I can try and play BB and try and support the team but i may get nothing, i can go radar cruiser and my team can fail to kill the DD and alot of the times the team fails to play together, once the match is doomed it is all about keeping that star and that is why the mode fails at the very core.

 

This mode was never about teamwork, the xp system is broken, the star system is broken, just everyone for themselves in the end and it is becoming less and less fun in every season for me.

 

My problem was that i really played DD in ranked and the upcoming RDF skill would ruin the entire playstyle and frankly i was right and ranked suffers because of it.

 

RDF has broken ranked for me, it has become an essential skill for any DD, if you do not have it you gimp yourself because you do not know where the enemy are or if they will try to suprise you, having low concealment is nice but what good is it if you are basically always spotted anyways? No such thing as stealth anymore and flanking has long ago been buried when the enemy already know what you are doing.

 

Radar i can deal with, same with hydro but a shitty always on radar is just is too far you might aswell highlight me up properly so i can get shot at.

 

Just feels like the mode has no purpose really in the game, certain playstyles for me are removed due to a shitty skill and it also translates into tactics in the game which are limited.

 

It was more fun several seasons ago.

[malaquey]

Quote

Currently im using the GK or Minotaur, im barely doing well in either and dropping between 9/8 on a regular basis, DD is out of the question due to RDF.

In my experience with ranked (I've ranked out after 131 games) was that minotaurs and kurfursts did not do well. Minotaurs are simply too squishy and while a well played minotaur could get some unexpected kills on DDs with radar and the insane DPM they invariably died to battleships lol penning them. I got several dev strikes on minotaurs from 100% in my Yamato. The kurfurst simply doesn't have the firepower that ranked requires. The best kurfursts I saw went to the off cap and delayed the enemy with it's insane tankiness but that is not a particular rewarding role and frankly you won't rank up quickly unless you are VERY good.

 

As far as DDs with RPF are concerned it was honestly rare to see players calling out positions. Sure the enemy DD might know where you are but the enemy team doesn't. Plus you can easily take the skill yourself and feed info to your team which could be a big advantage. I understand it's different to playing before RPF but I wouldn't say it makes DDs unplayable, it just changes how you have to use them.

 

From what I saw the best ships for ranked are Yamatos, Z52s, des moines and hindenburgs. I would recommend using one of those if possible and focus on playing the map correctly for your ship.

[Kashuken]

6 minutes ago, malaquey said:

In my experience with ranked (I've ranked out after 131 games) was that minotaurs and kurfursts did not do well. Minotaurs are simply too squishy and while a well played minotaur could get some unexpected kills on DDs with radar and the insane DPM they invariably died to battleships lol penning them. I got several dev strikes on minotaurs from 100% in my Yamato. The kurfurst simply doesn't have the firepower that ranked requires. The best kurfursts I saw went to the off cap and delayed the enemy with it's insane tankiness but that is not a particular rewarding role and frankly you won't rank up quickly unless you are VERY good.

 

As far as DDs with RPF are concerned it was honestly rare to see players calling out positions. Sure the enemy DD might know where you are but the enemy team doesn't. Plus you can easily take the skill yourself and feed info to your team which could be a big advantage. I understand it's different to playing before RPF but I wouldn't say it makes DDs unplayable, it just changes how you have to use them.

 

From what I saw the best ships for ranked are Yamatos, Z52s, des moines and hindenburgs. I would recommend using one of those if possible and focus on playing the map correctly for your ship.

No can do, do not own any of them ships, its either GK/Minotaur/Conq or Shima.

 

Maybe i give the enemy too much credit but if i had a gunboat DD i would be hammering them all tbh with RPF its just too easy to chase em down and corner them.

 

 

[malaquey]

3 minutes ago, Kashuken said:

No can do, do not own any of them ships, its either GK/Minotaur/Conq or Shima.

 

Maybe i give the enemy too much credit but if i had a gunboat DD i would be hammering them all tbh with RPF its just too easy to chase em down and corner them.

 

 

I wouldn't be so sure, generally the DDs spot each other and then rely on support to kill the target. Apart from anything else if you fire to kill a DD that's 20 seconds you can't stealth for and with the firepower tier 10s have that's a big risk. Given how important DDs are for capping having your teams DD go for a duel with the enemy DD is a huge risk with questionable reward, often both DDs end up dead.

 

Given your ships you are honestly going to struggle as none of them are ideal for ranked. Your best bet would be to take the GK and play defensively at the off cap, is it realistic to get any more tier 10s before the season is over?

[Kashuken]

1 minute ago, malaquey said:

I wouldn't be so sure, generally the DDs spot each other and then rely on support to kill the target. Apart from anything else if you fire to kill a DD that's 20 seconds you can't stealth for and with the firepower tier 10s have that's a big risk. Given how important DDs are for capping having your teams DD go for a duel with the enemy DD is a huge risk with questionable reward, often both DDs end up dead.

 

Given your ships you are honestly going to struggle as none of them are ideal for ranked. Your best bet would be to take the GK and play defensively at the off cap, is it realistic to get any more tier 10s before the season is over?

No chance, the math doesnt lie.

[malaquey]

6 minutes ago, Kashuken said:

No chance, the math doesnt lie.

What maths are you referring to?

Do you mean gunning down every DD if you had RPF? That really has not been my experience, certainly in the 5-2 bracket at least

[Kashuken]

1 minute ago, malaquey said:

What maths are you referring to?

Do you mean gunning down every DD if you had RPF? That really has not been my experience, certainly in the 5-2 bracket at least

XP Required to reach T10 for decent boats.

[malaquey]

Just now, Kashuken said:

XP Required to reach T10 for decent boats.

Your best bet is the kurfurst then, I wouldn't hold out hope though since it's not an ideal ship and the 5-2 bracket is significantly harder. For future use you need to get a space battleship Yamato!

[Kashuken]

Just now, malaquey said:

Your best bet is the kurfurst then, I wouldn't hold out hope though since it's not an ideal ship and the 5-2 bracket is significantly harder. For future use you need to get a space battleship Yamato!

By then i may already left the game tbh.

[zengaze]

On 5/18/2018 at 11:25 PM, malaquey said:

Your best bet is the kurfurst then, I wouldn't hold out hope though since it's not an ideal ship and the 5-2 bracket is significantly harder. For future use you need to get a space battleship Yamato!

 

You should be chat banned from the game for encouraging more German BBs in ranked. I swear there's a fever overcomes captains when they take control of those boats, forcing them to suicide themselves for no good reason. I've lost count of the number of times i've seen it happen in ranked. One recollection of one brave idiot, was him yelling at the DDs in chat for not entering a cap, and pushing himself into it, he just so happened to be pushing directly into a crossfire. He then proceeded to spam for support.

 

I could have explained to him the reason why I as one of the DDs had not capped, but it may have melted his brain.

[Culiacan_Mexico]

I am finished with season 9; and as I expected, I didn't find it very enjoyable.

 

I started at Rank 20 and worked up to Rank 11 playing the Loyang.

 

26 Battles
16 Victories
10 Defeats
4 Stars Lost
6 Stars Retained

 

For me the biggest issues were...

1.  Team mates who seemed unsure what the goals were.  
2.  While some battleship and cruiser players were very good, others seemed to want to hide and not contest caps.
3.  I think tiers 8/10 are poorly chosen; as too many players lack the skill and experiance to play well at those levels.
4.  The whole process seems to be nothing more than a grind.

Just my opinion.

[mrk421]

On 14/05/2018 at 10:43 PM, Seepheerd said:

Got exactly the same top points and the game says the first two don't loose star. I did. Why?

 

On 14/05/2018 at 11:41 PM, wilkatis_LV said:

I'd say it's rounding. Something along the lines of "you got 858.2 and he got 858.4"

Actually, I seem to remember reading from somewhere, that if two players score exactly the same amount of base XP, the one who has more XP from direct damage to enemy ships, places higher on the scoreboard. 

Why the game displayed that you didn't lose a star @Seepheerd I have no idea...

[Ew0kman]

maybe it is me but i believe that many players take this way too serious,  i just played a game and had a awsome battle with a japanese KII but even thoug we were 3 BBs pounding him and i even rammed him, he didnt take any damage at all, and  he didnt kill me but  i lost almost all my hp. i got him 84 times with my secondary guns  with no damage?  how is that even possible? 

 

and why is it that dd and crusiers every time they hit my bismarck get 12000  even when they onlý hit water? i do not get that.

 

well i havent won at all this season, but that makes sence when nomatter where i hit i only get 1100.  And DD can sink me with their mainguns in one shots.

and how do i get bismarck a 26km range,  this guy was hammering from this distance we could do nothing, i would like that skill too

i know that japanese DD have long range torpedoes and they go 30km easy with no reload  time, but i didnt know that they have seeking torpedoes that is a new one for me, how do you escape those?

i have noticed that some cruisers appears to have seeking sheels aswell since they appear to turn in mid air to follow your course, now i would like to have this skill too.

 

maybe it is just me, but it is very hard to win this season if you havent any mods installed, or have played 20000 battles.

 

[mrk421]

On a slightly different note: @MrConway so apparently 4 BBs or perhaps even more (I personally haven't seen 5 but it probably happens) per team is just fine?!?! I think it's been brought up before, during previous seasons, but WG are ignoring the issue. What's worse, you do admit that too many BBs in competitive* mode is counter-productive, as evidenced by the 1 BB per team rule in clan battles. Care to comment?

 

* To my understanding, WG calls 'ranked' a competitive mode - I'm  not sure I would agree...

[malaquey]

8 hours ago, Culiacan_Mexico said:

I am finished with season 9; and as I expected, I didn't find it very enjoyable.

 

I started at Rank 20 and worked up to Rank 11 playing the Loyang.

 

26 Battles
16 Victories
10 Defeats
4 Stars Lost
6 Stars Retained

 

For me the biggest issues were...

1.  Team mates who seemed unsure what the goals were.  
2.  While some battleship and cruiser players were very good, others seemed to want to hide and not contest caps.
3.  I think tiers 8/10 are poorly chosen; as too many players lack the skill and experiance to play well at those levels.
4.  The whole process seems to be nothing more than a grind.

Just my opinion.

Ranked isn't for everyone. Everyone season is an exercise in patience, at the end of the day you are striving to the top while everyone else tries to drag you down :P

 

Don't forget that if the average player was really good you would not progress, you can only rank up if you are better than everyone else, including your team mates.

 

As far as the tier goes rank 8 has been the most popular so I'm not really sure what you mean, bad players will not play any better at lower tiers.

 

The process certainly is a bit of a grind, but it's a filter. Not every can actually get through at all, and the best players really don't take that long at all.

[Culiacan_Mexico]

13 minutes ago, malaquey said:

Ranked isn't for everyone. Everyone season is an exercise in patience, at the end of the day you are striving to the top while everyone else tries to drag you down :P

 

Don't forget that if the average player was really good you would not progress, you can only rank up if you are better than everyone else, including your team mates.

 

As far as the tier goes rank 8 has been the most popular so I'm not really sure what you mean, bad players will not play any better at lower tiers.

 

The process certainly is a bit of a grind, but it's a filter. Not every can actually get through at all, and the best players really don't take that long at all.

It is just my opinion about my experience; and I have no doubt other do like it.  People are different... that is good.

 

With regards to Tier 8/10, I feel that the game meta is significantly different to mid tier or low tier; and without experience... it can be difficult. 

[malaquey]

4 minutes ago, Culiacan_Mexico said:

It is just my opinion about my experience; and I have no doubt other do like it.  People are different... that is good.

 

With regards to Tier 8/10, I feel that the game meta is significantly different to mid tier or low tier; and without experience... it can be difficult. 

In my opinion the issue of experience isn't really relevant for ranked because it isn't supposed to be a noob friendly enviroment. Yeah higher ships do play differently but if you really want to beat the unicums to rank 1 you will need to know how to play anyway.

[Culiacan_Mexico]

13 minutes ago, malaquey said:

In my opinion the issue of experience isn't really relevant for ranked because it isn't supposed to be a noob friendly enviroment. Yeah higher ships do play differently but if you really want to beat the unicums to rank 1 you will need to know how to play anyway.

Ok. Noted.

[resabed]

I think the XP system is a bit broken especially for tier 10 ranked.

Its mostly about damage done and as a DD player u dont get rewarded enough

for blocking caps, spotting torps.

If you make a mistake u are easily killed,

BB and cruiser are far more back most of the time and get their damage from a save distance.

 

 

 

[loppantorkel]

WG must have data on what progression looks like for the different classes. Maybe they can fill us in after the season on a Q&A or so.

[Ew0kman]

why have you changed the ships setup?   like the north carolina  i trained hard to hit her so she blow by one shot, and last season i owned her, now i cant even put a dent in her, that is so frustrating,  and the french BB is indestructible 4 bb hammering from 4 sides with no damage to her at all.   

 

i was told that broadside is no go, so i ajusted so i was face front, caouse you told us that no real damage could hit you there, WRONG  32000 xp i a DD shot right in my nose, dosent make sence,  if you change the ships setup atleast tell us about it. and why is it possible to hit the water  and still deal 12000 damage i dont get that.  nor dio i get that torpedoes can detonate like 40m from the ship and still sink me, it like playing blitz.