Statistics galore - State of WoWS (episode #5 - 0.5.1 aftermath)

[Crysantos]

Hello gentlemen,

 

As promised I've taken a look at the recent pre/post 0.5.1 playerbase statistics and I think it's worth a look for you, too. We've seen quite massive complaints by BB captains about the AP performance, even high Tier CA captains complained about the strange AP behaviour. On the other hand small calibre guns are rumored to have lower impact and damage on BBs. Besides all this WG decided to rebalance the XP / credit reward system a bit, buffing strategic gameplay and nerfing damage-focused ships a bit - which is in my opinion a long needed change and should in theory help DDs and CAs that do most of the strategic work, the two classes that hurt anyway on the XP front. The patch also intended some balance efforts with CVs but with the current dogfighting skill bug I don't think it would show us useful CV stats, so I'll exclude CVs this time, I'll try to spend some time on analyzing this class in one of the future episodes.

 

major changes in 0.5.1 that are interesting for us:

- AP penetration / armor recalculations

- reward system rebalance

- USN mid-Tier buffs + Atago buff

So how do all of these things translate into numbers, are the things as harsh and bad as people make them out to be on the forums? We'll see The source of statistics is this http://maplesyrup.sweet.coocan.jp/wows/ranking/index.html - and today we're comparing the terms 24th - 31st October vs. 7th - 14th November. As usual keep in mind that these are raw numbers that need to be put into perspective. The more things change, the harder it gets to attribute certain changes in numbers to specific buffs / nerfs!

 

BB statistics for the average players:

 

BB statistics for the top 10% players:

 

Conclusion:

 

To be quite honest, I'm a pretty BB / CA focused player and I love my AP shells, I've witnessed the same issues like many others on the forums and to be frank, I thought we would see a major decrease in damage on mid to high Tier BBs. But it's not that bad - low Tier BBs don't suffer that much which isn't really surprising due to their inaccurate guns and new-ish playerbase. Tier V and beyond show us a pretty consistent picture of 5-10% less damage done by BBs and a quite substantial drop in XP performance, especially on higher Tiers - this is where we can see the lack of cap/decap abiltiy by higher Tier BBs where most engagements are fought out on mid-max range and capping is done by other classes.

 

Now I'm not too surprised that the average player isn't as affected by the lack of citadel hits, these are usually either lucky shot or well aimed attacks on broadsiding enemies with the blessing of RNGesus - so my personal expectation was a bigger difference for the top 10% players of the EU server. This is true, to a certain degree, but not as bad as many people made it out to be. The damage drop for Tier V+ BBs is now around 10-15% usually, spiking at 17% for the poor Izumo. Interesting aspect might be that certain ships seem to hurt more than others, e.g. the South Carolina, Myogi, New Mexico or the Izumo and Yamato. In general it's safe to say that the AP issue made many captains play less BBs, resulting in a drop in battles (battles don't correlate with playerbase changes) and especially a drop in average battles for higher Tier BBs.

 

The issue is fixed now though, so it'll be interesting to see where BB's damage is at in the next episode.

 

CA statistics for the average players:

 

CA statistics for the top 10% players:

 

Conclusion:

 

The 0.5.1 patch managed to break the BB dominance we've seen the past months in the high Tier environment. The buffed reward system in combination with a higher brawling surivability helped CAs a lot this term. We can see nice damage and immense XP gains across the board, with a few outstanding ships to be mentioned. First of all, the Atago - the HP repair ability certainly helps this ship to make up for its weak armor, we can see a massive >20% buff in damage and XP and the major surprise - the Des Moines - is gaining 20% aswell. The AP shell arc buff + slight armor buff helped the Baltimore and Des Moines quite a bit - but it's hard to say what is to blame most, the AP issue of the BBs or the slight buffs - I'll keep an eye on that. IJN and USN mid-Tier CAs enjoy a substantial XP buff - outstanding XP gain on the Furutaka! Ze germans are not really affected at all (except the Hindenburg) - but we're seeing a normalization of playerbase there anyway (remember the big influx of KM CAs in the last episode). Considering their focus on long-range sniping due to their accurate ranged guns and weak armor, no surprise - the Kolberg and Karlsruhe gain more XP but they're still doing poorly compared to their rivals.

 

What about the top 10% captains?

We see a pretty consistent picture to the average playerbase. The higher Tiers (except the Ibuki, poor little shippy) seem to benefit from the decrease in BBs and their AP damage, the mid Tiers seem to benefit from the fairer XP reward system and manage to do more damage. If we take a look at certain infamous small calibre HE spamming ships - the Mogami, Atlanta, Cleveland - then I fail to see a real HE shell issue there. All these ships are doing exceptionally well with the current changes, but maybe we can see this issue pop up on DDs.

 

 

DD statistics for the average players:

 

conclusion:

XP reward system rebalance - loved by DD captains. You can clearly see that fulfilling strategic objectives is rewarded now and that ships mostly used for long range torping - namely the Tier VIII+ IJN DDs - lack to gain as much XP as the other nations or predecessors. The recently buffed USN mid-Tier DDs are able to make use of their better torps and deal more damage than before - with massive XP boosts and higher player numbers. The SN vessels have the same issue the KM CAs have - a normalizing player base and the progression of a lot of people to higher Tiers. We can still see the effects of the reward buffs - even with the Udaloi - losing 15% damage but still gaining 15% XP. I can't see any evidence number-wise for a major glitch with HE shells, but I lack the personal experience with high-Tier DDs to make any personal statements about that. I'll keep an eye on it.

 

Summary:

- AP issue resulted in 5-15% reduced damage

- AP issue resulted in higher CA numbers and damage

- no HE shell issue visible in the stats, but with a lot of factors changed it might take time (I'll check the next post 0.5.1.1 term)

- reward system rebalance working as intended - massive XP boost for strategic goals, damage focused ships lose XP

- USN DD buff working

- Atago buff working!

- general drop in influx of new players!

[Tyrendian89]

thanks a lot for your work! Very interesting to see!

Strange how for me NewMex felt like the only BB that still worked in 0.5.1, totally contrary to the real numbers... my brain is weird apparently

[TheBigLanowski]

Nice work! Can't wait to see the numbers on the current patch.

[Vogel]

The larger question is how the overall balance is between the classes after the patch went live. But nicely done, we can clearly see that the patch was a step in the right direction.

-

[Crysantos]

The larger question is how the overall balance is between the classes after the patch went live. But nicely done, we can clearly see that the patch was a step in the right direction.

-

 

I might add that in - on the next episode with the fixed AP issue

[Vogel]

As a IJN DD skipper, I'm mostly interested if the US DD buffs got them in-line with the rest of the classes. Then perhaps we'll finally see some change on IJN high- to midtiers.

[Spithas]

- no HE shell issue visible in the stats,

 

Finally... enough with the placebo whining.

[Leo_Apollo11]

Hi all,

 

Summary:
- no HE shell issue visible in the stats, but with a lot of factors changed it might take time (I'll check the next post 0.5.1.1 term)

 

This might be because we all now use AP in our CLs...

 

Since v0.5.1 I am using HE only against DDs in my Omaha and Cleveland - against everything else I use AP... I strongly suspect everyone else is doing the same...

 

 

Leo "Apollo11"

 

 

 

 

[Tyrendian89]

Hi all,

 

 

This might be because we all now use AP in our CLs...

 

Since v0.5.1 I am using HE only against DDs in my Omaha and Cleveland - against everything else I use AP... I strongly suspect everyone else is doing the same...

 

 

Leo "Apollo11"

 

 

 

 

 

my experiences from the Cleve say very much no to that. HE is still as strong as ever for me, including against other Cleves that are smart enough to stay angled to me but not smart enough to use HE while I'm heavily angled to them (at anything longer than point blank, you will bounce almost every AP round from rival 6"ers, which led to me doing the other guy in while taking only a few thousand in return, not so much because he didnt hit but because he shot AP into me at 70° angle or something)

[WWladCZ]

Well the AP and HE need to be changed back to how they were. Statistics prove this unanounced AP and HE change caused massive changes in game that should have not happened.

[Admiral_noodle]

Well the AP and HE need to be changed back to how they were. Statistics prove this unanounced AP and HE change caused massive changes in game that should have not happened.

 

Stats prove nothing in addition they actually show little change in the game even when AP was borked. 

[Tyrendian89]

what noodle said, especially re:HE - and AP was fixed in 0.5.1.1 so no need to roll back now

[SomeoneYouKnow2]

I have never been able to citadel and even one-shot cruisers this easily as right now in 0.5.1.1 when playing battleship. I've also never seen the pendulum of balance swing this much between patches because in 0.5.1.0 it was almost impossible. This has made me stop playing cruiser all together.

[Crysantos]

 

Stats prove nothing in addition they actually show little change in the game even when AP was borked. 

 

No, they don't, at least not on their own and without context - but they help to put things into perspective and to get rid of forum rumours and myth.

[Leo_Apollo11]

Hi all,

 

 

my experiences from the Cleve say very much no to that. HE is still as strong as ever for me, including against other Cleves that are smart enough to stay angled to me but not smart enough to use HE while I'm heavily angled to them (at anything longer than point blank, you will bounce almost every AP round from rival 6"ers, which led to me doing the other guy in while taking only a few thousand in return, not so much because he didnt hit but because he shot AP into me at 70° angle or something)

 

Cleveland itself is a different animal (due to citadel position) but against other CLs (and CAs) I find that I have much more success firing AP with my Omaha and Cleveland (and I score lots of citadel hits - sometimes 3-4-5 per game)...

 

 

Leo "Apollo11"

 

[Querulous]

Nice to see real analysis.

 

Now we have ranked 2 coming up, I wonder which are the best ships to choose ? Especially if any premium ships are reasonable at ranked.

[Crysantos]

Nice to see real analysis.

 

Now we have ranked 2 coming up, I wonder which are the best ships to choose ? Especially if any premium ships are reasonable at ranked.

 

Depends on the Tiers, I think Tier V has a lot of options - Omaha / Murmansk / Gnevny / Gremya / Minekaze / Kongo / Königsberg are all decent enough ships for that Tier - Tier VI has the Aoba / Cleveland / NM / Fuso / Warspite / Ognevoi that I'd give the best chances to rule the seas. It's a better balanced Tier than Tier VII, where the actual Tier VII are very unbalanced and uncompetitive with their predecessors.

[Querulous]

Can the Warspite compete with  Fuso ? Fuso seems a much more capable damage dealer

[Vogel]

Warspite has better armour and better penetration (on theory at least), so if you can reliably hit your targets, then the better penetration might compensate for lower DPM.

[RichardNixon]

Warspite has better armour and better penetration (on theory at least), so if you can reliably hit your targets, then the better penetration might compensate for lower DPM.

 

The Warspite's an odd ship, statistically. Average players do really badly in it: Their hitrate and damage per hit are much better than in the Fuso, but their shot count per game is horrible. Good players do much better, although I'm not sure it ever catches up with the Fuso. It's probably down to the turret traverse speed.

 

[Crysantos]

I can't make a real statement about the Warspite because I don't own it - but on paper it should be comparable and as far as I can tell it's a superb brawler, which should come in handy in ranked battles with less players and more close range combats.

[Querulous]

Seems to do badly at the moment - lots of long range duelling between oft turning ships, not good for Warspite.

[Aerroon]

what noodle said, especially re:HE - and AP was fixed in 0.5.1.1 so no need to roll back now

 

HE was not fixed. HE is still borked. Go take your 155mm Mogami and go shoot at North Carolina or Iowa. Tell me how successful you are.

 

Of course you won't see something like this in the statistics if you double the amount of DDs that are going around. There's way more soft targets for the Mogami to shoot with HE so it isn't very noticeable. It does happen against BBs though for low caliber HE.

 

Funny thing is that even against a Zao and Des Moines HE on Mogami ends up dealing almost no damage. It's pretty hilarious.

[Admiral_H_Nelson]

 

HE was not fixed. HE is still borked. Go take your 155mm Mogami and go shoot at North Carolina or Iowa. Tell me how successful you are.

 

Of course you won't see something like this in the statistics if you double the amount of DDs that are going around. There's way more soft targets for the Mogami to shoot with HE so it isn't very noticeable. It does happen against BBs though for low caliber HE.

 

Funny thing is that even against a Zao and Des Moines HE on Mogami ends up dealing almost no damage. It's pretty hilarious.

 

You are (sadly) wasting your time.

 

Your comments have complete credibility as:

- A top player (so criticism cannot merely be brushed aside as "sour grapes")

- A community contributor

- A Youtuber who demonstrates and educated the playing audience 

For all three ....  

 

...... AND THEY ARE NOT LISTENING. 

 

If they won't listen to people such as yourself they won't listen to anyone.

 

The main object for WG is not to create a realistic and enjoyable simulation of warfare between ships - it is to make money from an arcade game. (As a bonus they can do a bit of willy waving by promoting unrealistically powerful Russian premium ships which give their domestic audience a feel-good factor)  

 

There is a lot of fun to be had in this game. There is a lot of good. You just have to look for it and take what you can from it and enjoy it for what it is. 

This is probably a lot easier for the average-at-best player such as me, rather than good players who want to make more of the game.

[Crysantos]

 

You are (sadly) wasting your time.

 

Your comments have complete credibility as:

- A top player (so criticism cannot merely be brushed aside as "sour grapes")

- A community contributor

- A Youtuber who demonstrates and educated the playing audience 

For all three ....  

 

...... AND THEY ARE NOT LISTENING. 

 

If they won't listen to people such as yourself they won't listen to anyone.

 

The main object for WG is not to create a realistic and enjoyable simulation of warfare between ships - it is to make money from an arcade game. (As a bonus they can do a bit of willy waving by promoting unrealistically powerful Russian premium ships which give their domestic audience a feel-good factor)  

 

There is a lot of fun to be had in this game. There is a lot of good. You just have to look for it and take what you can from it and enjoy it for what it is. 

This is probably a lot easier for the average-at-best player such as me, rather than good players who want to make more of the game.

 

What if I told you that I don't have any issue with the Mogami and its HE damage? I have no problem at all dealing quite nice HE damage on BBs plus the fires.