Bubba-S review of ranked testseason and the future

[Bubba_S]

This is a followup to the tread: New ranked is breaking the game - General Discussion - World of Warships official forum

 

I had my concerns about the new ranked system and I still do. Even it was a tedious grind I said to myself, I'm gonna "test" this test-season...

 

After getting rank 1 in bronze, silver and 4 times in gold I ended with 236 games WR 67%. A hell of a stress in 6 weeks....

 

My fellow Clanmates went the same way and the result is that the most active players in our CLAN burned out. Still after a week I see them rarely. 

During the ranked season I had to turn down my mates inquires of divisioning and having fun over Discord to play ranked. As such I lost alot and my mates are gone...

Ranked as such is toxic for the future of this game. 

 

Lets break this up with numbers:

 

236 games in a week means 39,3 games a week. 5,6 games a day

 

The last rank season before this I ranked out in 106 games WR 66% and prior to this it was 96 games and 64% WR.

The last rank was over 4 weeks and that means 26,5 games a week 3,8 games a day

 

Overall I had to play 48% more to rank out as previous. 

 

The steel I got was 3300 compared to previous 5500 steel. Which means:

 

Test season  14.0 steel pr game

old ranked season 51.8 steel pr game

 

To sum up. Comparable I had to play 48% more during whole 6 weeks for 73% less steel... 

 

Even I do play ranked for FUN!.... The feeling of beeing duped and cheated upon is strong!!! 

 

 

 

Second: 

 

New season means 12 weeks with 75% of the games compared to "test-season" over 12 weeks.

That means for me  354 ranked games over 12 weeks to rank out with WR of 67%... meaning 29,5 games a week. 4,21 games a day.

I still have to play 11% more games than I did with the old ranked system (it's better, but still 11% more games....)

 

And for rewards.... 18.6 steel pr game which still is 64% less steel than with the old ranked system!!!! 

(if the rewards where the same it would mean that the new ranked system should give 18337 steel and not 6600 steel....)

 

 

VERDICT OF NEW RANKED SYSTEM:  2/10 ( I do not give 0/10 because ranked is fun, the fun is still there... untill u burn out.... )  

 

 

  

[albin322]

and here i cant wait until it start again so i can get away from random ! 

[Miscommunication_dept]

I must admit, I just played ranked instead of randoms.

Rewards are terrible, as you say.

[Bindolaf_Werebane]

Here the opinion of a potato.

 

I played all rounds. First round I ranked to silver pretty quickly, had fun. Second round I ranked to gold pretty quickly and had a blast. Good teams, fun, close games. Third round I got to rank 3 in gold. Also, fun games mostly. Other 3 rounds, I just played ranked instead of randoms.

 

The quality of players went down in the last 3 rounds - dramatically. I am sure I got carried a bit in the first rounds, but I kid you not: Had maybe 2-3 brain dead games. After that? Zombie city.

 

So, I just played ranked instead of randoms. 7v7 is easier to manage, the games don't last as long and I like tier X. My stats will reflect that I played some new ships (Shimakaze) and lots of carriers, to train in them.

 

As for rewards? Before, I'd get to rank 10 and quit. This means that I got way more steel and doubloons with this format than before.

 

So, to me, a potato, new ranked is 8/10 and I can't wait for a new season.

[159Hunter]

Sorry, but you brought the stress/burnout on yourself. Nobody forces you to rank 1 every week. That's your own doing. If you don't like the concept,  don't play.

 

That being said, WG announced a few changes after this test season. Maybe these will be to your liking.

[ForlornSailor]

Forumites already did the math before the test ranked season started and came to the conclusion, that you will need to play more and at the same time, the rewards are worse.

 

And then again, it was the first ranked season in many years, which I actually enjoyed and played every week. Weird huh.

[Jethro_Grey]

Never gave a damn about ranked apart from getting the commemorative flag, 3ven less so now.

 

On the plus side, it'll allow me to grind lines that are terrible in the current meta, save tons of credits because i don't have to buy upgrades and modules and i have a lot of 3 point captains that need training.

 

Ranked is perfect that.

 

Ranked always was a crap show, were one dude was taking a dump on the buffet, but at least it ended at some point and the rewards were decent. 

 

Now, it's a NESS (never ending sh*t show) with worse rewards.

[GulvkluderGuld]

Also played for R1 all sprints. Total 238 games 65% WR. 

New announcement already gets my heart pounding from stress and time-pressure. Nope. WAY too much grind.

New season still looks way too grindy. Keep the same stars and rewards and double or triple the duration of sprints I say.

And add a "sea wolves" league where you can keep playing ranked after ranking out, to escape Zombieland that is Random games.

 

Now we only need options to tone down the grind without toning down the skill level - eg: by allowing demotions or even better - after qualifying for the respective leagues: free choice each sprint to pick whether to play the bronze/silver or gold grind + reward.

[Lootboxer]

3 hours ago, Bubba_S said:

During the ranked season I had to turn down my mates inquires of divisioning and having fun over Discord to play ranked. As such I lost alot and my mates are gone...

This is worst with rankeds, no fun with mates.

[albin322]

8 hours ago, DariusJacek said:

This is worst with rankeds, no fun with mates.

indeed but it needs to be that way in ranked. imagine fighting unicum divisions :S

[OldPappy]

I stayed at silver. Not having the time or always the patience to play ranked I often just play randoms instead. I enjoyed ranked though. It felt like I could choose the level of comittment and play a few games every now and then. 
But as previous answers state: your level is your choice. No one forces you to rank out gold four times. WG provides an opportunity to play in what I think is an improved system. They do not force anyone to play. 
It’s like blaming the store for selling candy if you think you must eat it all every time...😊

[YabbaCoe]

Před 14 hodinami Bubba_S řekl/a:

This is a followup to the tread: New ranked is breaking the game - General Discussion - World of Warships official forum

 

I had my concerns about the new ranked system and I still do. Even it was a tedious grind I said to myself, I'm gonna "test" this test-season...

 

After getting rank 1 in bronze, silver and 4 times in gold I ended with 236 games WR 67%. A hell of a stress in 6 weeks....

 

My fellow Clanmates went the same way and the result is that the most active players in our CLAN burned out. Still after a week I see them rarely. 

During the ranked season I had to turn down my mates inquires of divisioning and having fun over Discord to play ranked. As such I lost alot and my mates are gone...

Ranked as such is toxic for the future of this game. 

 

Lets break this up with numbers:

 

236 games in a week means 39,3 games a week. 5,6 games a day

 

The last rank season before this I ranked out in 106 games WR 66% and prior to this it was 96 games and 64% WR.

The last rank was over 4 weeks and that means 26,5 games a week 3,8 games a day

 

Overall I had to play 48% more to rank out as previous. 

 

The steel I got was 3300 compared to previous 5500 steel. Which means:

 

Test season  14.0 steel pr game

old ranked season 51.8 steel pr game

 

To sum up. Comparable I had to play 48% more during whole 6 weeks for 73% less steel... 

 

Even I do play ranked for FUN!.... The feeling of beeing duped and cheated upon is strong!!! 

 

 

 

Second: 

 

New season means 12 weeks with 75% of the games compared to "test-season" over 12 weeks.

That means for me  354 ranked games over 12 weeks to rank out with WR of 67%... meaning 29,5 games a week. 4,21 games a day.

I still have to play 11% more games than I did with the old ranked system (it's better, but still 11% more games....)

 

And for rewards.... 18.6 steel pr game which still is 64% less steel than with the old ranked system!!!! 

(if the rewards where the same it would mean that the new ranked system should give 18337 steel and not 6600 steel....)

 

 

VERDICT OF NEW RANKED SYSTEM:  2/10 ( I do not give 0/10 because ranked is fun, the fun is still there... untill u burn out.... )  

 

 

  

Thank you for this very long review.

Probably I have a good news for you regarding rewards. In our DevBlog we recently announced this: https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/118

[Deckeru_Maiku]

The best things about ranked are

• I have utterly no need to play it
• it takes a bunch of potatoes out of the random battle queue
• ...

well, that's about it from my pov

^v^

 

 

[surfer_gr]

i play ranked cause is more fun than randoms dont care about the rewards :P  677 battles in the test season LOL ofc to rank out in all leagues

[ThePurpleSmurf]

I'm 1300 steel away from Somers, which i want to have. My most played vessel is Gearing with nearly 1400 games, so Somers is a natural upgrade. Other than that i don't care about ranked. My only motivation in the past was the Jolly Roger flag but they removed it completely. I always wanted the JR III (the one with the red bandana) but just when i was about to get it they removed it and introduced this ugly [edited]abomination JR. I ranked out 5 times in classic/old Ranked and still no JR III. I even offered the support to remove all my JR flags (JR, JR II, new JR) plus Flint plus Black and give me the JR III instead, but they refused. Yep, can't have nice things in WoWs. 

[Alteisen]

2 hours ago, YabbaCoe said:

Thank you for this very long review.

Probably I have a good news for you regarding rewards. In our DevBlog we recently announced this: https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/118

Play 1.5 times the amount of games for twice the reward. Such a huge improvement. You'll burn people out even quicker this way.

 

In what way is this format superior to the old system? In the past, players that can't play well enough get relegated to the 12-6 brackets. Now once they grind their way up, everyone is stuck with them permanently.

 

Worse rewards, more time spent and worse MM. A regression in almost every way.

[Shaka_D]

1 hour ago, YabbaCoe said:

Thank you for this very long review.

Probably I have a good news for you regarding rewards. In our DevBlog we recently announced this: https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/118

I'm not sure this is good news, since you may have 'doubled' rewards but you've almost effectively just short of doubled the time / stars taken to rank out. People are already saying they had to play more to earn less rewards in the new ranked format, does extending the reward and also the time / stars not imply the same thing again?

 

Are we really seen as this stupid to you? We don't need to be given anything for free, quite happy to earn rewards, but shifting the goal posts and trying to put a new spin on what is in essence the same thing is silly.

[tsounts]

1 hour ago, ThePurpleSmurf said:

I'm 1300 steel away from Somers, which i want to have. My most played vessel is Gearing with nearly 1400 games, so Somers is a natural upgrade. Other than that i don't care about ranked. My only motivation in the past was the Jolly Roger flag but they removed it completely. I always wanted the JR III (the one with the red bandana) but just when i was about to get it they removed it and introduced this ugly [edited]abomination JR. I ranked out 5 times in classic/old Ranked and still no JR III. I even offered the support to remove all my JR flags (JR, JR II, new JR) plus Flint plus Black and give me the JR III instead, but they refused. Yep, can't have nice things in WoWs. 

Sorry but Somers is not an upgrade to Gearing.  They are different.  Somers has very minimal aa, her torpedoes also deal less damage than Gearing's (if I remember correctly).  She is not a bad ship, not a game breaking one either.

[Fatal_Ramses]

78 battles with 75,64% winrate, rank 1 Bronze every week.

I was thinking about ranking to silver but the effort vs poor reward was too much.

 

I happy for the next season, because randoms are total mess atm.

[DinkyDi]

5,6 games a day is stressful ? I mean, there were weeks, when I had time to play - so I played it.

There were weeks, when I worked until 20:00 or 21:00 and I didnt bother to play the game. I was not like, crap, its already 20:00 I need to play WoWs. There was no penalty for not playing it even for whole week.

 

And to me, rankeds were more fun then randoms. And I had 52% WR (which is low)

[Bubba_S]

19 hours ago, Bindolaf_Werebane said:

Here the opinion of a potato.

 

I played all rounds. First round I ranked to silver pretty quickly, had fun. Second round I ranked to gold pretty quickly and had a blast. Good teams, fun, close games. Third round I got to rank 3 in gold. Also, fun games mostly. Other 3 rounds, I just played ranked instead of randoms.

 

The quality of players went down in the last 3 rounds - dramatically. I am sure I got carried a bit in the first rounds, but I kid you not: Had maybe 2-3 brain dead games. After that? Zombie city.

 

So, I just played ranked instead of randoms. 7v7 is easier to manage, the games don't last as long and I like tier X. My stats will reflect that I played some new ships (Shimakaze) and lots of carriers, to train in them.

 

As for rewards? Before, I'd get to rank 10 and quit. This means that I got way more steel and doubloons with this format than before.

 

So, to me, a potato, new ranked is 8/10 and I can't wait for a new season.

I am happy for you.  But don't take this personally: The thing is that you are not alone. A lot are playing ranked as it was "Randoms" ... It means you don't contribute to what ranked is supposed to be. What I experienced was that Randoms was depleted of anyone with a hint or clue of what this game is about. Actually I felt Random became more "dumber" and resembled COOP-play... If the new ranked system is to stay,  randoms will be ghastly... 

 

 

 

16 hours ago, GulvkluderGuld said:

Also played for R1 all sprints. Total 238 games 65% WR. 

New announcement already gets my heart pounding from stress and time-pressure. Nope. WAY too much grind.

New season still looks way too grindy. Keep the same stars and rewards and double or triple the duration of sprints I say.

And add a "sea wolves" league where you can keep playing ranked after ranking out, to escape Zombieland that is Random games.

 

Now we only need options to tone down the grind without toning down the skill level - eg: by allowing demotions or even better - after qualifying for the respective leagues: free choice each sprint to pick whether to play the bronze/silver or gold grind + reward.

Excactly!

 

 

 

5 hours ago, YabbaCoe said:

Thank you for this very long review.

Probably I have a good news for you regarding rewards. In our DevBlog we recently announced this: https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/118

Thanks for reading my review.

 

But I am sorry, but if u had read it thouroughly you would have noticed I have taken into account the "new rewards" in my review... It is still 64% less steel than the old rank system! An improvment from 73% less steel which is a mediocre improvment at best...

 

 

 

4 hours ago, Alteisen said:

Play 1.5 times the amount of games for twice the reward. Such a huge improvement. You'll burn people out even quicker this way.

 

In what way is this format superior to the old system? In the past, players that can't play well enough get relegated to the 12-6 brackets. Now once they grind their way up, everyone is stuck with them permanently.

 

Worse rewards, more time spent and worse MM. A regression in almost every way.

Indeed! 

 

 

The one thing I didn't mention in the review was that now the ranked is over 12 weeks instead of 4 weeks... I can allready feel the helplessness of observering a damn fine game going down the burn-out drain... 

[Bubba_S]

5 hours ago, Deckeru_Maiku said:

The best things about ranked are

• I have utterly no need to play it
• it takes a bunch of potatoes out of the random battle queue
• ...

well, that's about it from my pov

^v^

 

 

Well.. I am afraid it's more the opposite, as I see it.  The new ranked will leave the potatoes in the random battle queue and the people with atleast some clue about the game will go over to the "new Random" - that the new ranked is. 

[Hugh_Ruka]

Well ... If you feel the need to rank out each sprint then the problem is on your side. Nobody is forcing you to.

 

I ranked out in Bronze on 2nd try as I started the first one late (Tuesday evening). Qualified for Silver but then only had time to play in the last sprint where I got to rank 5. I basically used Silver to XP my T9 ships. The games in first 3 sprints were nice, the last one was terrible.

 

The devblog indicates a change for the worse. More grind in the limited time (1 week sprint) but still not enough rewards .. Again I'll do the same, play T9 however this time I don't need to leave Bronze.

[Verblonde]

For me (sub-average player), Ranked has one very significant advantage: it isn't Randoms. Since Deadeye made it 'okay' to camp in pretty much any BB, I've been finding Randoms very painful; Ranked, with its small maps, makes it a bit harder for BBs to do this, and also makes you a more significant proportion of your team - at my standard, I'm simply not good enough to carry a full Random team's worth of 'Deadeyes', but I can usually put on a good enough show in Bronze Ranked to push my WR into less embarrassing territory.

 

Problem with that, of course, is that it makes Ranked a time-limited variation on Randoms which is more fun, which somewhat defeats the object...

[ForlornSailor]

5 hours ago, ThePurpleSmurf said:

I'm 1300 steel away from Somers, which i want to have. My most played vessel is Gearing with nearly 1400 games, so Somers is a natural upgrade.

 

4 hours ago, tsounts said:

Sorry but Somers is not an upgrade to Gearing.  They are different.  Somers has very minimal aa, her torpedoes also deal less damage than Gearing's (if I remember correctly).  She is not a bad ship, not a game breaking one either.

 

I second that 100%. I got Somers and I think, it was a mistake. I prefer Gearing - or some other T10 DD. Take your time with that decision, else you might be dissapointed aswell.