STEEL MONSTERS CAMPAIGN - Worth it?

[Strefs]

Below I've written up all tasks and rewards for the Steel Monsters Campaign. I've also done some calculations/estimations, looking at whether the campaign is worth the price tag. Now obviously 50 euros is quite an amount to "fork over" for a set of missions, so what do you get, and is it worth it?

 

Set 1

Tasks	1	2	3	4	5	Final
Mission	Earn 3000 free XP	Earn 15000 XP (modifiers)	Destroy 3 enemy battleships	Cause 40000 damage to destroyers	Cause 200000 damage to ships	Earn 1 million credits
Reward	5x New Year 2017	5x Type 3 New Year	5x Frosty Fir Tree	10x Sierra Mike	3x Mosaic	500 Steel, Big Santa Box

 

Highest items worth:

600d for Mosaic

2,70€ for Big Santa Box

 

Set 2

Tasks	1	2	3	4	5	Final
Mission	receive 1 million of potential damage	Incapacitate or destroy 50 modules	Destroy 4 cruisers	Cause 250000 damage	Hit citadels 10 times	Earn 20000 XP (plus modifiers)
Reward	5x New Year 2017	5x New Year Streamer	3x Asian Lantern	10x India Delta	7 Days of premium	500 Steel, Big Santa Box

 

Highest items worth:

300-600d for 3x Asian Lantern (do not own any at the time of writing)

1250d for 7 Days of Premium

2,70€ for Big Santa Box

 

Set 3

Tasks	1	2	3	4	5	Final
Mission	Earn 250 ribbons	Earn 30k commander XP	Earn 20 flooding or fire ribbons	Hit citadels 15 times	Cause 100000 damage to BBs	Earn 1,5 million credits
Reward	5x Type 3 New Year	10x November Foxtrot	5x New Year Streamer	7 Days of Premium	10x Victor Lima	750 Steel, Big Santa Box

 

Highest items worth:

1250d for 7 Days of Premium

2,70€ for Big Santa Box

 

Set 4

Tasks	1	2	3	4	5	Final
Mission	Earn 300 ribbons	Earn 10 Capture or Defense ribbons	Earn 50k Commander XP	Cause 80000 damage to cruisers	Cause 300000 damage	Earn 30000 XP (plus modifiers)
Reward	5x Frosty Fir tree	5x New Year Streamer	10x India Yankee	10x Mike Yankee Soxisix	7 Days of Premium	1000 Steel, Big Santa Box

 

Highest items worth:

1250d for 7 Days of Premium

2,70€ for Big Santa Box

 

Set 5

Tasks	1	2	3	4	5	Final
Mission	Earn 10 spotted ribbons	Destroy or incapacitate 70 modules	Earn 30 torpedo, flood and fire ribbons	Destroy 4 destroyers	Earn 15000 free XP	Play 1 battle
Reward	5x New Year Streamer	10x Juliet Charlie	7 Days of Premium	10x November Echo Setteseven	3 Spring Sky	1250 Steel, Big Santa Box

 

Highest items worth:

325d for Spring Sky

1250d for 7 Days of Premium

4,50€ for Big Santa Box

 

---

 

Summary:

4000 steel

28 days of premium in sets of 7, equating to 5000 dubloons here. In the premium shop, you can however buy 30 days for 2500, so we'll use that instead: 9,95€

4x Big Santa boxes, 2,70€ each: 10,80€

1x Big santa box: 4,50€

2019d, closest is 2500 for another 9,95€

80x Flags of different types, 50x medium tier grind camouflage roughly 16~€ at store prices.

Lunar New Year camouflages, again, roughly: 1250-1500d~: 7,25€

Total: 58,45€ if we're generous. Several items cannot be purchased in the store however, so for these there can only be rough estimation. In addition, buying some of these items give you extra doubloons (481d), and premium time (2 days). So all in all, you are getting at least 49,99 out of this mission set.

 

HOWEVER, as a long time player, our main interest will not be in these smaller items, like the medium stage grind camouflage, or the non-economy flags. Indeed the interesting items are the 3x3 Lunar Camouflages, which - come on WG, 3? - and the steel. 4000 of it. Now don't get me wrong, you are getting your money's worth out of it, but worth doesn't necessarily mean it is worth it for you. Again, this would be more of a complaint if you wouldn't get all of the above PLUS the steel. I'm sure the steel alone is worth quite a bit, but that still doesn't make it feel less like a lot of the mission items are filler material.

 

As for the missions and task themselves, they seem pretty easy, and not too... frustrating. So is it worth it? Probably, but that depends on how you value the items above.

 

[Negativvv]

Yes, three camos is pathetically tight and even the best of us could find that low a number being completely wasted by bad MM/teams.

 

This is probably the worst Xmas in the 3 or so I've seen in WoWS, whilst the Xmas Convoy one was salty I found the rewards for that one not too bad and there wasn't stupid £100 pay walls for Steel and weak German BBs 

[Strefs]

1 minute ago, Negativvv said:

Yes, three camos is pathetically tight and even the best of us could find that low a number being completely wasted by bad MM/teams.

  

This is probably the worst Xmas in the 3 or so I've seen in WoWS, whilst the Xmas Convoy one was salty I found the rewards for that one not too bad and there wasn't stupid £100 pay walls for Steel and weak German BBs 

 

It has to be said though that for free players, it would also be quite a kick in the... well you know, if they were excluded from acquiring these sought after camouflages in greater quantities. 

[Verblonde]

@Strefs - many thanks for a clear and fair summary. Much appreciated.

[thoso1973]

WOWS is in the process of crossing the line from a growing player base game, offering good value campaigns to attract new players, into P2W territory monetizing the existing player base.

 

Expect more high tier P2W ships being offered behind a steel or doubloon paywall in 2019 and onwards.

[Strefs]

2 minutes ago, thoso1973 said:

Expect more high tier P2W ships being offered behind a steel or doubloon paywall in 2019 and onwards.

Considering this (and the PEF, which will be available to players soon, so not really) is this the only example of steel being behind a "pay wall", I wouldn't jump the gun too soon. At the end of the day, this is less than a Ranked Season's worth of steel, and can only be considered a steel "injection". As such, WG has always offered "shortcuts". Examples are convertible free XP or premium ships for money grinding. 

 

[Ocsimano18]

Steal Monsters = Pay to grind?

[Strefs]

40 minutes ago, Ocsimano18 said:

Steal Monsters = Pay to grind?

Definitely not a grind, plus you have a lot time to do it. These are the kind of missions that you can do passively while playing the game, there's a tier requirement, that's about it.

[Leo_Apollo11]

Hi all,

 

19 hours ago, Strefs said:

Below I've written up all tasks and rewards for the Steel Monsters Campaign. I've also done some calculations/estimations, looking at whether the campaign is worth the price tag. Now obviously 50 euros is quite an amount to "fork over" for a set of missions, so what do you get, and is it worth it?

 

<SNIP>

 

Summary:

4000 steel

28 days of premium in sets of 7, equating to 5000 dubloons here. In the premium shop, you can however buy 30 days for 2500, so we'll use that instead: 9,95€

4x Big Santa boxes, 2,70€ each: 10,80€

1x Big santa box: 4,50€

2019d, closest is 2500 for another 9,95€

80x Flags of different types, 50x medium tier grind camouflage roughly 16~€ at store prices.

Lunar New Year camouflages, again, roughly: 1250-1500d~: 7,25€

Total: 58,45€ if we're generous. Several items cannot be purchased in the store however, so for these there can only be rough estimation. In addition, buying some of these items give you extra doubloons (481d), and premium time (2 days). So all in all, you are getting at least 49,99 out of this mission set.

 

HOWEVER, as a long time player, our main interest will not be in these smaller items, like the medium stage grind camouflage, or the non-economy flags. Indeed the interesting items are the 3x3 Lunar Camouflages, which - come on WG, 3? - and the steel. 4000 of it. Now don't get me wrong, you are getting your money's worth out of it, but worth doesn't necessarily mean it is worth it for you. Again, this would be more of a complaint if you wouldn't get all of the above PLUS the steel. I'm sure the steel alone is worth quite a bit, but that still doesn't make it feel less like a lot of the mission items are filler material.

 

As for the missions and task themselves, they seem pretty easy, and not too... frustrating. So is it worth it? Probably, but that depends on how you value the items above.

 

 

Many thanks for this - much appreciated!

 

BTW, IMHO, it is not worth it and I will skip it...

 

 

Leo "Apollo11"

[CptMinia]

22 hours ago, Negativvv said:

Yes, three camos is pathetically tight and even the best of us could find that low a number being completely wasted by bad MM/teams.

 

This is probably the worst Xmas in the 3 or so I've seen in WoWS, whilst the Xmas Convoy one was salty I found the rewards for that one not too bad and there wasn't stupid £100 pay walls for Steel and weak German BBs 

Completely agree, this is the worst christmas by far. The gameplay right now is absolutely horrible as well, doesn't matter how much I do in a game I am unable to carry the 9 randoms on my team who have the combined capacity of a small goldfish and as a result I am unable to take advantage of the 100% XP bonus to its full extent and struggle to receive my steel or coal from the event. As usual, WG chooses not to use the tools they have to make a good game and instead remove all skill and learning curves of the game by adding stupid ships into the game and sticking a price on them for any tart who wishes to waste their money and ruin other people's experience. I predicted this months ago when steel was first announced, I said it to my clanmates that whatever happens WG will find a way for you to get steel without earning it... and here we are... its bloody pathetic.

 

Had a game earlier in my Kidd, despite getting 3 caps and spotting and doing about 110k damage and my division mates finding similar success, we are unable to win because of a suicidal Essex on our team who FreeXPed from the Bogue to the Essex and has given the enemy carrier air supremacy. But what the hell, I can't be arsed complaining anymore and I think I'm done spending any sort of money on this game. You can really see where the game is going on weekends or holidays and it is only getting worse, but this christmas has reached an all-new low.

[Shaka_D]

I don't assign much value to any of the signal or camouflages - I assign value to permanent things in the game. Signal and camo's are useful of course, but they are quite easily (and often are) wasted when you are assigned to a rubbish team and you cannot maximise the benefits from using them, and also when you're punished with pathetic rewards for being on the losing team, despite the fact you've played well and carried as hard as you could. So no, camo's and signals are of extremely low value to me. I'm also a premium player so premium time is a waste of time for me because I just renew it every month or whenever it runs out -  so premium time doesn;t feel as valuable to me.

 

The campaign feels massively over-valued because of all this.

[Gojuadorai]

i think WG would have gotten more than twice the sales valuating it at 25-30€

a lot of people i know wated to buy it but after the price was announced only a few did

 

[Negativvv]

6 hours ago, Gojuadorai said:

i think WG would have gotten more than twice the sales valuating it at 25-30€

a lot of people i know wated to buy it but after the price was announced only a few did

 

I only bought it because a certain person suggested to me I won't regret Stalingrad 

[HotshotJimmy]

You know its a bad time out on the waves when the "Good luck and good hunting gentlemen" man has been banned from chat till Christmas Day  calling too many people moon faced assassins of joy cleary (among other colourful things)... So far i'm finding the campaign ok but ye the player level is atrocious and I should know better than playing late at night. Lack luster Christmas in my humble opinion.

[Linkaex]

16 hours ago, CptMinia said:

 The gameplay right now is absolutely horrible as well, doesn't matter how much I do in a game I am unable to carry the 9 randoms on my team who have the combined capacity of a small goldfish and as a result I am unable to take advantage of the 100% XP bonus to its full extent and struggle to receive my steel or coal from the event.

In what world are you living? With the exception of one day you have played unicum and super unicum constantly.

Are we plebs holding you off from a 100% w/r is that it?!? 

[Seiranko]

16 hours ago, Shaka_D said:

I'm also a premium player so premium time is a waste of time for me because I just renew it every month or whenever it runs out -  so premium time doesn;t feel as valuable to me.

I'd argue that this makes it actually more valuable, because a person that gets it while being F2P basically gets it during holidays when they might not want it. Or they do get it when they want it, in which case they are lucky. Either way, there's a chance they get it for a time when otherwise they wouldn't have paid for it, thus it's wasted. Someone who runs premium 365 days a year basically gets to renew it 7 days later. For them, they would have the cost anyway. But they save some cash actually by getting part of it for free. I'd argue in that sense, while you may not feel the value, it actually is there.

 

with this overview, I'm actually wondering though, with the Steel Monster's campaign basically giving you your money's worth, what is the return on the Steel Prinz bundle? Because while it costs like double as much, it does include a ship, doubloons, a ton of signals and a bunch of extra steel.

[CptMinia]

23 minutes ago, Linkaex said:

In what world are you living? With the exception of one day you have played unicum and super unicum constantly.

Are we plebs holding you off from a 100% w/r is that it?!? 

 

I don't care about stats. I really enjoy a close game that requires skill and talent to bring into your favour, but seriously now, are you going to try and argue with me that a 230 PR Essex or 3 tier 10 BBs with a combined average damage of 60k are not going to weigh more heavily on your own team and yourself than the enemy team? I've given players the benefit of the doubt before only for it to bite me in the backside.

[Linkaex]

20 minutes ago, CptMinia said:

 

 

I don't care about stats. I really enjoy a close game that requires skill and talent to bring into your favour, but seriously now, are you going to try and argue with me that a 230 PR Essex or 3 tier 10 BBs with a combined average damage of 60k are not going to weigh more heavily on your own team and yourself than the enemy team? I've given players the benefit of the doubt before only for it to bite me in the backside.

I'm insinuating that you are probably more negative than you should be. 

You said: "I'm unable to cary" while you're winning the vast majority of your games. And yes that says nothing about the quality of those games. But stating they are unable to cary is exaggerating.

But hey I'm just a tad jealous cause I struggle to keep above 50% altho I had a really good week of playing. 

 

Just don't let that negativity get to your head man and try to look at it objectively. We all get " bad"  teammates but it doesn't look like it is affecting your performance. 

[CptMinia]

1 hour ago, Linkaex said:

I'm insinuating that you are probably more negative than you should be. 

You said: "I'm unable to cary" while you're winning the vast majority of your games. And yes that says nothing about the quality of those games. But stating they are unable to cary is exaggerating.

But hey I'm just a tad jealous cause I struggle to keep above 50% altho I had a really good week of playing. 

 

Just don't let that negativity get to your head man and try to look at it objectively. We all get " bad"  teammates but it doesn't look like it is affecting your performance. 

I normally play on week days, I avoid weekends because the quality of play is worse and yes although I win most my games look at yesterday. My avg damage and PR was higher than overall but my winrate was only 52%, I started playing yesterday at around 2pm and lost 9 out of 11 games then I took a break and later some of my friends came on and we started playing around 7pm and I was able to recover a bit. I think I am a good player, but some simple changes in how you play and when you play can make a big difference.

 

This is what I think is a problem, there is a huge gap between play styles and game experience of when your average 600PR players are able to be on and when they aren't and it is clearly seen during holidays. And I put the blame on WarGaming. Yes they have to make money to develop the game and run the servers, service, website, pay the staff, run the business etc. But at no point did they have to drop the skill level of the game by lowering the citadels of battleships, making T9 and T10 ships available to new and unexperienced players, arming british battleships with strong HE, giving most cruisers and some battleships and even destroyers radar and making steel available to players who, frankly, should not be able to buy it.

 

There are no more rewards for good and experienced players and as a result the level of play is atrocious because there is very little to work towards without spending money. Something as simple as being able to be punished for showing broadside is now almost gone, far too frequently do I see broadside battleships or cruisers that I try to exploit but RNG rolls the dice and I only get maybe 4k damage. So yes, in a sense it does affect my performance. And I am not enjoying this game as much as when I first started playing.

 

You debate that it doesn't matter too much because I have decent statistics that show I win most of my games. But that isn't what matters, I'd be more than happy with a 50% WR if a good proportion of games were closely matched. But how often do we see games were one team just obliterates the enemy team? Too often.

[pzkpfwv1d]

At the current price I will be giving this a miss as I do not think that the campaign is worth it, bearing in mind that all you are paying for is a chance to partake in the campaign and if you have a series of bad days, there is no guarantee that you will be able to complete the campaign whatsoever 

[HMS_Kilinowski]

On 12/21/2018 at 4:53 PM, Strefs said:

Total: 58,45€ if we're generous. Several items cannot be purchased in the store however, so for these there can only be rough estimation. In addition, buying some of these items give you extra doubloons (481d), and premium time (2 days). So all in all, you are getting at least 49,99 out of this mission set.

I am not convinced. I know a rough estimation is the best one could do. But the value of the whole campaign is conditional on you accepting the value of each reward. E.g. are 7 days of Premium Time worth 1250 doubloons? It says so in the shop. Still, few people would buy such small amounts of premium time. Most people will buy at least monthly packages. For them the value of one week is only 625 doubloons, for holders of a 1 year subscription the value of a week will be 25000 doubloons / 51 = 470 doubloons, if they consider the current discount (12k doubloons for a year), it's even half of that, so 235 doubloons. So that value of one week of premium time can vary between 90 Cents and 5€.

Can people choose, when this week begins? No, it starts as soon as the reward is unlocked. Maybe they don't have time then, whereas in the shop I can buy on demand.

 

All in all, you will only arrive at a value close to the price of the campaign or higher, if you accept very arbitrary "retail" prices. And a campaign, where certain rewards must be grinded and cannot be unlocked at will, has a significantly lower value than the sum of imaginery prices of it's individual rewards. The value of a sandwich is not generally 10€, just because that is the price at the airport.

[Khorne]

At first a big thanks to Strefs, much appreciated!

I would add some thoughts. In general some players can get value out of it, i would agree. BUT, i think most of us, who are interested in steel(that's, why we reading this thread^^), are not really interested in the additionals like signals, camos, premium time and so on, we have plenty of this. Furtherwise a good dealer would sell a bundle of more than one article with a discount like 'oh, you buy this stuff and this stuff and this stuff from my store, i give you a discount of, we can say 20%. Oh, it is christmas, so i give you an additional discount off 10%. Could be nice deal for you.' Wargaming does nothing here.

At least we players should have the possibility to decide, which special stuff we want to buy, e.g. the steel plus the prem time for a lower price, also no option from Wargaming. Not very gentle...

And for the very best of the already mentioned fact, that we have to do some additional 'work' to get the value. Not interesting for the daily gamers and power gamers, but for all the others.

[Nechrom]

I've spent a lot of time thinking this over because I would actually like to be able to buy a steel ship or two either now or in the future if it becomes available in some future event as well.

But despite how frivolous I tend to be about my spending on premium ships, I can't quite bring myself to see this campaign and the other steel rewarding missions the same way as I do just buying a ship.

First of all even if I buy the most expensive bundle to get all the available steel, it still won't add up to a ship. Together with the snowflakes steel and a coupon perhaps.

Moreover there is so much to do in WoWs nowadays that paying for even more "work" is a hard sell to me. I'm more of a "pay to not have to stress" guy.

 

At the end of the day a steel ship is just a premium ship with more artificial rarity. Let me buy a Stalingrad for 100€ and I might be interested, but I'm not going to pay 100€ for 1/4 of a Stalingrad and more work.

Even a whale like me has a limit.

[Ysterpyp]

On 12/23/2018 at 9:31 AM, CptMinia said:

230 PR Essex

Spoiler

 

[Gnirf]

On 12/23/2018 at 2:57 PM, HMS_Kilinowski said:

I am not convinced. I know a rough estimation is the best one could do. But the value of the whole campaign is conditional on you accepting the value of each reward. E.g. are 7 days of Premium Time worth 1250 doubloons? It says so in the shop. Still, few people would buy such small amounts of premium time. Most people will buy at least monthly packages. For them the value of one week is only 625 doubloons, for holders of a 1 year subscription the value of a week will be 25000 doubloons / 51 = 470 doubloons, if they consider the current discount (12k doubloons for a year), it's even half of that, so 235 doubloons. So that value of one week of premium time can vary between 90 Cents and 5€.

Can people choose, when this week begins? No, it starts as soon as the reward is unlocked. Maybe they don't have time then, whereas in the shop I can buy on demand.

 

All in all, you will only arrive at a value close to the price of the campaign or higher, if you accept very arbitrary "retail" prices. And a campaign, where certain rewards must be grinded and cannot be unlocked at will, has a significantly lower value than the sum of imaginery prices of it's individual rewards. The value of a sandwich is not generally 10€, just because that is the price at the airport.

For me it is the steel that you somehow value and the time that you "spare", like it is worth X amount of ranked grind. I have 1700-1800 premium camos already and 2 years of premium so it is hardly that value for me as the new player.

Therefor I had to give in and buy the inflated max package to get a reasonable prize - mostly for me it is that all or nothing deals that I choose when there is new ships. 

 

Let us say that the packages could be stacked upon each other how many do you buy? I somewhat like the campaigns, I pay for the game in premium ships but I think it is definately too expensive but nevertheless bought it as I do have the money (difference 10-15 EUR is not important) it fits in the beer, whisky, movie account and other expendable entertainment. I have some steel earlier and with the ships that will trickle in I decided to bought this to myself for christmas. I bought 0 (zero) crates this year so this would be my outlay.

 

It is rather horrifying to think that we count saved time in a F2P play game to work as value when I count if I would buy a package or not but as long as there are thing that you want whether it is captain grind or steel (ranked grind), and there are players with more time and money and vice versa, there will always be amarket for these packages that are targeted to one part of the player base.