Fun Poll: Why grinding in TIER IX is so wearing?

[Scavengerxx70]

Guys, what are your thoughts on this?

After grinding almost all trees to Tier X, Tier IX feels like the worst Tier and a downgrade to Tier VIII?

 

There are obliviously technical reasons based on the ship and playstyle. However, the soft factors are:

 

1. Your opponents are mostly TIER IX or X Ships

2. You are more focused on "Farming" Points rather play the game as it needs to be. 

 

Every time I am on TIER IX:

 

- Grinding feels like grinding

- Loosing one battle after another

- making stupid moves in the game

- feels like all the lost games are not your fault

- all others are noobs 

- It's WG Fault and probably they change game mechanics exactly on the day where I got my TIER IX ship?

Consider all my teammates as noobs.

 

I have ground all my TIER X ships and still for the remaining I will freak out at TIER IX. :-D

[Panocek]

-to make option of skipping arduous ships with Free Exp more enticing.

[MentalHealthGoesYeet]

Why can I only pick one?

Cuz it is never my fault and all my teammates are noobs. Obv the enemy team always gets super unicums while I simply suck. Ah I mean my team sucks ofc, it is never my fault!!! 

[ColonelPete]

Because a grind is boring. Play for fun.

[FooFaFie]

Or it's  "grinding is to long'.

Or it is "I already have all the content. I want something new'.

 

Personally I stay as much as possible out of games with tier 9/10 ships and above. Playing with Tier 9/10 BB captains always makes my blood boil. And I play this game only for fun. So that boiling part is no good.

[Asatori]

Tech Tree Tier 9's are often weak or the stinker in the line.

I think this is on purpose for monetisation reasons:

- At tier 9 you can smell that T10 you are after, a shitty T9 experience will increase the likelyhood of people spending money on converting FreeXP to get that T10

-Tech tree T9's are weak because this tier has been flooded with shiny premiums that WG wants you to buy instead, so makeing the tech tree version weaker is a sales strategy.

 

There are offcourse exceptions with a handfull of tech tree T9's that are actually good (for instance: Kitakaze, Johan De Wit, and a lot of Russians ofc)

[SolanumTuberosumRex]

Some ships were a real grind but many I found quite good, like Donskoi, Roon, Riga. Drake was so-so, Ibuki was difficult but I was still quite the potato back then. Neptune was okay, Seattle was the worst for me but again, that was when I just started, my first T9 I think. Buffalo I still quite like. Those are the cruiser lines I took to T10 so far. So overall, more good than bad.

[doerhoff_damian]

well it is alot of xp to grind from t 9 to t 10. Compare that with the laughable amount of xp that you need at low tier.

Getting the next (stronger) Ship takes alot of time. High Tier Gaming can also be very stale.

If you don´t like a Tier 10 Ship you don´t play it

But if you don´t like the Tier 9 you may still try to get to the tier 10 and maybe you don´t want to waste your free xp or you don´t have enough free xp.

But there are not many things in this game that could be worse than doing a long grind with a ship you don´t like

[MoveZig]

It's the longest grind of all the tiers.

There are a few t9 stinkers.

By t9, you've probably already gone through 2-3 ships with the same characteristics, so the novelty is long gone.

High-tier just isn't as fun as mid-tier imo.

[tsounts]

I'd add to the aforementioned that now tier IX has to face tier XI as well making our lives more miserable.

[COPlUM]

Getting the T10 is never my goal of starting a line (unless I need it for clan battles) I start a line to understand the line, understanding more lines makes makes me a better player. If I feel very comfy in a ship on the way to T10, I leave that captain in it and keep the ship. Doing it like this has 2 benefits :
- It never feels like a grind, you're exploring ships and keeping the ones you like most
- Your fleet will consist only of ships you enjoy at various tiers

To keep things fresh, I have a game where I start at T5, if I win I go up a tier, if I lose I go down a tier, I can never pick the same class twice in a row. I can't remember playing the same ship twice in a row even. This approach also works with friends, same rules, just take turns picking a ship.

[COPlUM]

13 hours ago, Asatori said:

Tech Tree Tier 9's are often weak or the stinker in the line.

It just feels that way because T7 => T8 is the biggest step in most lines. There are lines where the T9 feels like a T8,5 but there's also lines where the T7 feels like a T6,5

[That_Other_Nid]

Some T9s are dreadful, but it is mostly your imagination. 

[Leo_Apollo11]

Hi all,

 

15 hours ago, Scavengerxx70 said:

Guys, what are your thoughts on this?

After grinding almost all trees to Tier X, Tier IX feels like the worst Tier and a downgrade to Tier VIII?

 

There are obliviously technical reasons based on the ship and playstyle. However, the soft factors are:

 

1. Your opponents are mostly TIER IX or X Ships

2. You are more focused on "Farming" Points rather play the game as it needs to be. 

 

Every time I am on TIER IX:

 

- Grinding feels like grinding

- Loosing one battle after another

- making stupid moves in the game

- feels like all the lost games are not your fault

- all others are noobs 

- It's WG Fault and probably they change game mechanics exactly on the day where I got my TIER IX ship?

Consider all my teammates as noobs.

 

I have ground all my TIER X ships and still for the remaining I will freak out at TIER IX. :-D

 

In past almost 2-3 years I exclusively grind ALL my ships in "Ranked"... the new "Perpetual Ranked" is especially great for this and, IMHO, one of the best things WG ever did!

 

For example just in this current "Ranked" session I managed to grind (new and some forgotten / neglected lines) and re-grind (for "Research Bureau") 6 ship lines !!!

 

 

Leo "Apollo11"

[ghostbuster_]

Tier IX was ok before the introduction of subs and super duper arcadey XI ships. Sure, there were some awefull ships which I hated to play/grind and which I sold right after the grind. But in general, tier IX was fine.  Even some of my favourite ships were tier IX ones. 

After my break, I quickly finished the schliefen grind and I can say that I didnt have fun while grinding at tier IX. Super arcadey crap mechanics of tier XI ships and subs, which supposed to be squishy (but in reality they are tankier than DDs... go figure)... I dont think, im going to touch tier IX anytime soon. not in randoms at least. 

[Mad_Dog_Dante]

It's just way more points to grind.

[_Kokushibo_]

I think the T8s are usually the weakest in the line, a pattern very well expressed in the last 2 years. This has probably to do with the early access incentives from the Balans department: rush T9 for doubloons and later get T10, promote this by making T8s very weak. A few examples: Albemarle, Haarlem, Oland, Harbin, Maerker (although T31 is even worse),  Kansas, Veneto.

Nowadays I don't enjoy T9s because of the superships and subs. I find T10 subs and T11 CVs unbearable (especially when played by strong players). Why should I play Rupprecht against Satsuma, Yamagiri or Eagle? A Balao at 7-9 kms is a straight ticket to the bottom.

[NewHorizons_1]

45 minutes ago, _Kokushibo_ said:

I think the T8s are usually the weakest in the line, a pattern very well expressed in the last 2 years. This has probably to do with the early access incentives from the Balans department: rush T9 for doubloons and later get T10, promote this by making T8s very weak. A few examples: Albemarle, Haarlem, Oland, Harbin, Maerker (although T31 is even worse),  Kansas, Veneto.

Yup, hardly touched Kansas since early access despite having the garish perma camo on.

Oddly enough, this weekend might be one of the few times I play it :- 200% of not a lot will hopefully be something.

Unlocked Haarlem a month or two ago and that is underwhelming.

HE feels like your firing flour bombs, AP hits as hard as a shuttlecock. Reload is bad, accuracy isn't great either.

Airstrike can do something useful, occasionally, bit seems to be highly RNG dependant.

Albermarle seemed great in comparison.

Harbin seems OK, but I have a preference for CLs, so there could be a bit of personal bias there.

 

[Figment]

It's WG's and matchmakings fault your opponents are mostly TX, because the tiering power creep stimulates people to get ever heavier ships. This power creep can only be seen through matchmaking with less powerful ships.

 

Players don't want to be at a disadvantage (results in whining as fragile egoes are crushed), so over time players will concentrate in the highest echelons by default. Outnumbering those below you, while giving the higher tier ships just another bit of an edge over the ships below that becomes increasingly powerful as higher tier ships are balanced against the most powerful ships on that tier, not against those below them.

 

 

Note that this will also cause some players to think they're of higher skill than those in tiers below them, if their equipment let's them win at an edge over those in the tiers below them. But of course, entitlement and all.

[Figment]

1 hour ago, _Kokushibo_ said:

I think the T8s are usually the weakest in the line, a pattern very well expressed in the last 2 years. This has probably to do with the early access incentives from the Balans department: rush T9 for doubloons and later get T10, promote this by making T8s very weak. A few examples: Albemarle, Haarlem, Oland, Harbin, Maerker (although T31 is even worse),  Kansas, Veneto.

Nowadays I don't enjoy T9s because of the superships and subs. I find T10 subs and T11 CVs unbearable (especially when played by strong players). Why should I play Rupprecht against Satsuma, Yamagiri or Eagle? A Balao at 7-9 kms is a straight ticket to the bottom.

It is more to do with the gimmicks (radar, super heal) introduced en mass at T8 that become more excessive at T9 and T10, where some ships do not have gimmicks to compensate.

[arczer25]

well tier 9 is mostly tier 8.5, mostly you get some extra HP either in bigger health pool (BB's, DD's) or Heal (Cruisers) while rest stats might get slight increase or be side grade (more guns but longer reload) while ship being clumsier and larger, with most of the stat increases being thx to 6 module slot.

 

and then tier 10 being pretty severe jump in term of survivability and even upwards of 30% extra firepower.

[_Kokushibo_]

2 hours ago, Figment said:

It is more to do with the gimmicks (radar, super heal) introduced en mass at T8 that become more excessive at T9 and T10, where some ships do not have gimmicks to compensate.

No

[Figment]

1 minute ago, _Kokushibo_ said:

No

Yes. You go from a situation of relative safety where an individual ship is less likely to be pounced and you (at T8) are in the superior position, on to a situation where there's a lot more ways to find, dogpile and overpower you with superior T10 firepower, while you're not much better equiped than the T8s in comparison to the T10s, if you get any special gimmicks to work with at all.

 

Powercreep is excessive at these stages and it is down to a lot of gimmicks in survivability (endurance), tracking and engaging power which you didn't face in such quantities before.

[SodaBubbles]

T9 is great fun. The last good tier before the disaster that is T10. I have no idea why you're complaining about it. 

[Scavengerxx70]

10 minutes ago, SodaBubbles said:

T9 is great fun. The last good tier before the disaster that is T10. I have no idea why you're complaining about it. 

Or let's see it the other way, Tier IX can be fun?

Premature happiness before having the Tier X