Ranked "save a star": problems/solutions

[Gebe_]

Hi, I hope I'm not beating a dead horse here but I'd like to see some serious discussion on this topic (some WG attention/comments would also be welcome).

 

I really dislike the motivation that "save a star" brings to ranked but I think most people that hate it are missing the big picture. "Save a star" was introduced for a reason - to save ranked from dying.

 

"Save a star" introduces a new star to this closed system every game, which is necessary or otherwise too few people would rank out. Without saving a star (off the top of my head, someone can do the precise calculation), you'd need 200 battles to rank out with a 60% winrate and 400 battles with a 55% winrate. I would definitely stop playing ranked with my 56% WR simply because 400 battles seems just crazy. And I am a fairly new player (i.e., not yet bored with the game) and also a very active one (playing every day), so it is safe to assume that most players with worse stats (and/or having less time for WoWs) would just quit ranked. This means ranked would just implode as the small amount of top players still attempting to rank out wouldn't have anyone else to fight but themselves, i.e., their WR would likely drop to 50% and most of them would never rank out. I hope you can see how this makes "save a star" mandatory, and why WG will never remove it.

 

However, there is an alternative. I suggest re-tuning the XP awards (not a new suggestion, I'm sure): make XP from damage have diminishing returns (just like XP for capping already has), make XP from kills have diminishing returns (or just give smaller XP rewards for kills), increase the capping XP gains (or remove diminishing returns on capping), perhaps increase spotting XP (but at the same time I'd like to see CVs lose the team spotting capability on all planes except attack planes, as CV spotting is currently OP). Because the problem now is not "saving the star" per se - the problem is that it incentivizes damage farming, which in turn means that stars are always saved by CVs, Henris, Conquerors and sometimes an occasional random BB. Most DDs and cruisers are screwed, hence they are a rare sight this season (CV spotting is another thing that compounds the current meta problems for DDs and cruisers, and it is also related to this topic).

 

TLDR: "Save a star" is necessary to increase ranked participation, but the excessive XP rewards for damage farming create an unhealthy meta. I suggest re-tuning XP rewards to give (roughly) equal chances for each class to be the top XP earner on the team (at the same time disincentivizing pure damage farming in favor of teamplay and objectives).

[Lootboxer]

I would scrap star saving altogether. Win or nothing. Reduce the amount of stars needed to advance to one, max two at higher ranks per rank and we can rank in no time if we can win the games. If we can't we don't deserve top rank. Then playing objectives and for the team not for xp will be only viable option. All classes would be equally important and viable again and DDs or radar ships wouldn't be on lost position because can't save the star too. 

[thiextar]

9 minutes ago, DariusJacek said:

I would scrap star saving altogether. Win or nothing. Reduce the amount of stars needed to advance to one, max two at higher ranks per rank and we can rank in no time if we can win the games. If we can't we don't deserve top rank. Then playing objectives and for the team not for xp will be only viable option. 

Doesnt work like that, without a mechanic like save a star to influx new stars into the closed system, there will be an absolute hard limit on how many people can rank out.

 

The total amount of stars in the system will be exactly equal to the amunt of stars that everyone starts the season on, these stars would then get distributed between the best players who lock them up in rank 1. As an estimate, there would be no stars left in the system when about 5-10% of the playerbase has reached rank 1, and no way for new stars to enter the system.

[Gebe_]

12 minutes ago, DariusJacek said:

Reduce the amount of stars needed to advance to one, max two at higher ranks per rank and we can rank in no time if we can win the games.

This solution might work as well, I wouldn't mind it. But the disproportional rewards for damage as opposed to teamplay in ranked would remain unsolved, so I'm hoping to "get two rabbits with one shot", solving both  unfair XP rewards and unfair ranked incentives.

[Lootboxer]

4 minutes ago, thiextar said:

Doesnt work like that, without a mechanic like save a star to influx new stars into the closed system, there will be an absolute hard limit on how many people can rank out.

 

The total amount of stars in the system will be exactly equal to the amunt of stars that everyone starts the season on, these stars would then get distributed between the best players who lock them up in rank 1. As an estimate, there would be no stars left in the system when about 5-10% of the playerbase has reached rank 1, and no way for new stars to enter the system.

Then give 2 stars for best player in winning team. There will be more stars, then now, but still winning will be a must to advance, so play for xp will not be the thing as it is now.  Someone suggested also free from the jail card in a form of saved star to be used later for top players in winning team. It would keep the total number of stars as it is now. 

[thiextar]

2 minutes ago, DariusJacek said:

Then give 2 stars for best player in winning team. There will be more stars, but still winning will be a must to advance, so play for xp will not be the thing as it is now. 

Same problem, i wonder how many matches would get thrown because everyone in the winning team rushes in to get that top spot.

 

My solution that ive posted a couple of times now is to keep the save a star system, but base it on votes instead of xp. After the battle, you get a mandatory pop-up where you have to vote for 1 person on your team to save a star(not yourself)

[Gebe_]

4 minutes ago, DariusJacek said:

Then give 2 stars for best player in winning team. There will be more stars, but still winning will be a must to advance, so play for xp will not be the thing as it is now. 

This actually sounds like a good proposal.

[veslingr]

7 minutes ago, thiextar said:

Doesnt work like that, without a mechanic like save a star to influx new stars into the closed system, there will be an absolute hard limit on how many people can rank out.

 

The total amount of stars in the system will be exactly equal to the amunt of stars that everyone starts the season on, these stars would then get distributed between the best players who lock them up in rank 1. As an estimate, there would be no stars left in the system when about 5-10% of the playerbase has reached rank 1, and no way for new stars to enter the system.

You forgot that some players exit this equation as they reach R1. From 12 seasons we had save star last 6 or so and before same peoples ranker r1 as now. 

[Lootboxer]

This could be good also(voting) . Anything else then cancerous current system with current XP calculator relying mostly on farmed damage. 

[Gebe_]

8 minutes ago, thiextar said:

My solution that ive posted a couple of times now is to keep the save a star system, but base it on votes instead of xp. After the battle, you get a mandatory pop-up where you have to vote for 1 person on your team to save a star(not yourself)

Could be a working solution, yes. But I am surprised that none of the replies so far are interested in re-tuning the XP rewards. I really feel like DDs and most cruisers are getting the short end of the stick here, and simply changing the distribution of stars is not addressing this particular problem. CVs, Henris and Conqueror's would still be topping the charts all the time just by playing bad, while DDs and radar cruisers (the ones risking the most) would be still getting the smallest rewards...

[LemonadeWarriorITA]

Or give the top 8 players a star.

[veslingr]

49 minutes ago, DariusJacek said:

This could be good also(voting) . Anything else then cancerous current system with current XP calculator relying mostly on farmed damage. 

Voting? Top player world get only reports as usual ")

[Gebe_]

1 hour ago, thiextar said:

Doesnt work like that, without a mechanic like save a star to influx new stars into the closed system, there will be an absolute hard limit on how many people can rank out.

 

The total amount of stars in the system will be exactly equal to the amunt of stars that everyone starts the season on, these stars would then get distributed between the best players who lock them up in rank 1. As an estimate, there would be no stars left in the system when about 5-10% of the playerbase has reached rank 1, and no way for new stars to enter the system.

I think the only hard cap on the amount of people ranking out is the team size, no? As long as there are enough players in the pool to form 2 teams, someone can still rank out. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

However, removing the influx of stars surely creates a problem of slow climb, requiring hundreds of games to rank out (even with good WR) with the current amount of stars per rank. Reducing the amount of stars needed to rank out would reduce the number of games required, so it could be part of the solution.

[thiextar]

24 minutes ago, Gebe_ said:

I think the only hard cap on the amount of people ranking out is the team size, no? As long as there are enough players in the pool to form 2 teams, someone can still rank out. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Doesnt work like that. there is a limited amount of stars in the system, there will never be anymore stars in the system than this(without save-a-star).

 

Every player needs x amount of stars to rank out, these stars are taken from the limited pool of stars. When a player ranks out, he binds these stars to him, no one can take them from him.

 

Divide the total amount of stars in the system with however many is needed to reach rank 1, and there you have the absolute limit of how many players can reach rank 1.

 

Usually you can start off with i believe about 1/4 of the total stars needed to reach rank 1, but only very few players will start with this, so lets say the average amount of stars a person starts with is about 1/8 of rank 1, that would mean that exactly 12,5% of the ranked playerbase can theoretically reach rank 1.

 

 

[Lootboxer]

That's why I propose 2 stars or save a star token for the best one in winning team. By xp, voting, or whatever means. 

[Yamato942]

Its all fine they just need to reward less xp for dmg but not for all ships, dmg farmers like cv,Conq, Henry should be balanced as they need to got less xp for them since they farm dmg easy mode and ofc buff dd and cruiser spotting xp gain and capping for everybody xp gain.

[Yamato942]

The problem is not best xp in lost keep a star, problem is xp distribbution as they are not balanced and something easy is reward better then something hard to do, dmg and kills should be rewarded less while spoting, tanking, and caping more.

[OM40]

the problem with ranked is how people are playing it these days, people rather farm dmg than securing priority targets and contesting objectives, so that's why you see 1k games conq players and that is really frustrating for the players that wanna win but they have zero support from their DMG farming teammates, I don(t get it, this is a team mode, there is a winning team and a losing team, it's only fair that everyone loses a star in case of a loss.

 

ps: rental ships are bad for the gameplay quality so they better stop at R10

[humpty_1]

28 minutes ago, OM40 said:

the problem with ranked is how people are playing it these days, people rather farm dmg than securing priority targets and contesting objectives, so that's why you see 1k games conq players and that is really frustrating for the players that wanna win but they have zero support from their DMG farming teammates, I don(t get it, this is a team mode, there is a winning team and a losing team, it's only fair that everyone loses a star in case of a loss.

 

ps: rental ships are bad for the gameplay quality so they better stop at R10

i needed 2 more stars this morning for lvl1 i'm now needing 13 with a wr of 23%  i have no idea what ppl are thinking but the game play is really bad today

[Lootboxer]

2 hours ago, humpty_1 said:

i needed 2 more stars this morning for lvl1 i'm now needing 13 with a wr of 23%  i have no idea what ppl are thinking but the game play is really bad today

 It is weekend and lots of 1000 games grinders are high now I believe.

[gslick]

2 hours ago, thiextar said:

My solution that ive posted a couple of times now is to keep the save a star system, but base it on votes instead of xp. After the battle, you get a mandatory pop-up where you have to vote for 1 person on your team to save a star(not yourself)

I do not see that as viable.  If someone dies early he cannot be compelled to wait around to vote.  Also, I might think that I should vote for the weakest player, thus attempting to weaken the base in the higher leagues to ease my way.   (PS.  In what order do you list the choices?  The first choice listed would very likely have a much better chance than others.)

2 hours ago, LemonadeWarrior said:

Or give the top 8 players a star.

In the present stars per rank, that would inject 2 stars per battle instead of the present 1 star.  Also, I could see that DDs might become completely unviable.  With the present XP economy a DD on the winning team could very easily come in behind the reds CV and damage farming BB and lose a star anyway.  Also,  decent CV players would have an even easier time ranking out as they more often than others would gain a star on a loss as opposed to the present where they generally break even.

[Gebe_]

2 hours ago, thiextar said:

Doesnt work like that. there is a limited amount of stars in the system, there will never be anymore stars in the system than this(without save-a-star).

 

Every player needs x amount of stars to rank out, these stars are taken from the limited pool of stars. When a player ranks out, he binds these stars to him, no one can take them from him.

The thing is, the system is not really closed. The irrevocable ranks essentially act like save a star. One can sit on the last irrevocable rank, keep losing and keep feeding stars into the system.

 

Irrevocable ranks are actually worse than save a star, because you can simply get carried to such a rank and just keep "saving a star" on every loss.

[thiextar]

16 minutes ago, Gebe_ said:

The thing is, the system is not really closed. The irrevocable ranks essentially act like save a star. One can sit on the last irrevocable rank, keep losing and keep feeding stars into the system.

 

Irrevocable ranks are actually worse than save a star, because you can simply get carried to such a rank and just keep "saving a star" on every loss.

Well its not particularly closed the other way around either. If a player plays a few matches, and gets say 20 stars, then stops playing ranked, those 20 stars are out of the system.

 

I think maybe the irrevocable ranks could just about counteract this loss of stars, but they arent a consistent income of stars like the save-a-star system is.

[TobiAssho]

Drop the "save a star" mechanic. There will never be fair way to evaluate XP by a AI to determine who was the MVP. Voting sounds fun in theory, but not all stay to the end. Also if you vote and also have a chance to get selected, you can vote tactically. Vote for a player who, for sure, will not be voted for by othes to increase your chances of getting selected. Which could result in some serious [edited].

 

What makes ranked frustrating is the fact that you lose stars and drop. Instead of losing stars make it more stars to get rank 1. Lets say 100-200. Win, gain a star. Lose, gain nothing. Yes, ranking out would become easier and less challenging, but good players rank out quickly anyway. With 100 stars you would need 167 games with a 60% winrate, 182 with 55. and 200 games with 50%.

[Yedwy]

2 hours ago, DariusJacek said:

 It is weekend and lots of 1000 k games grinders are high now I believe.

Oh yes