Reducing randomness to make the game more enjoyable and meaningful

[Fifield]

Notice how nobody says "Let's play toss-a-coin"?  

The tedium and irritation caused by randomness in this game detract from enjoyment.  Randomness makes air superiority Brogues dull to play and battleship vs cruiser engagements irritating.

Fighter RNG
The fighter engagement mechanism removes skill and thus deprives the carrier player of meaningful engagement.  Fighter engagement whereby fighters literally cannot move the battle in any direction is unrealistic and often ends up eg 5-1 in planes shot down.  This unbalances the whole battle on a coin toss.

Faster fighters in particular should be able to disengage at a penalty to their attack strength but slower fighters too should be able to move the battle towards an allied ship with AA.
Whilst strafing is the more skillful approach, it is very risky and still forces your planes to engage.

Solution: remove the fighter engaging mechanism.  Players will still be able to focus enemy squadrons but it will be more like fighter vs bomber engagements.

Fire RNG
Cruiser/gunboat success vs battleships is almost entirely dependent on luck with starting fires.  Even angling doesn't make much of a difference any more due to reducing overpenetration.

Solution: make fire chance cumulative.  Start at 0% chance per shell (for US).  Each shell that hits increases the chance by 0.5%.  By the time you've landed 8 HE shells, you're up to 20% chance of fire per shell.  Cap it at 30% (10 shells) and have it halve every 20s. Fire extinguish could half the chance too but you'd still likely be prone to another fire if you're getting hit a lot.

This makes dying to a couple of cruisers who can't shoot but are lucky with fires incredibly unlikely.  If they can shoot then chances are you'll be set on fire three times at least.

Fire duration could also be part of this equation.

Accuracy RNG
Accuracy/dispersion has been discussed a lot I'm sure.  The Myogi drives me nuts but I think it's a ship-specific problem at short range.  Feel free to discuss.

 

Teammate skill RNG
Lastly, players are over-rewarded for being lucky with good teammates.  Winning should be reward enough without getting double the XP of the losing team.  If there's any XP bonus for winning, it should be 20% at most.  Boost XP overall to compensate.

[WWladCZ]

Good ideas! It would be great to make this game more about skill and less about luck. Hmm sounds like Company of Heroes 2 to me lel.

On the Accuracy RNG I would go for system that would be scaling with distance at 1km-5km perfect accuracy at 5km-15km noticable dispersion but still you would be able to hit enemy ships if you aim well and at 15km-18km have good amout of dispersion where shots become more random and at 18km-W/E just random as it is now.

Right now it is ridicilous to see two shells flying perfectly close at 5km and one off to the left or right like you have warped gun barrler or something. If armor was fixed the WG should definetly reduce the random dispersion at closer and medium ranges. CAs can angle and if they don't they deserve to be punished by well aimed BB salvo and right you either miss completely or score few overpens or totaly nuke him down. Basicaly you are left at mercy of RNG which is not really that great.

[EsaTuunanen]

Teammate skill RNG

Lastly, players are over-rewarded for being lucky with good teammates.  Winning should be reward enough without getting double the XP of the losing team.  If there's any XP bonus for winning, it should be 20% at most.

It's fully possible to be highest scoring player to the match despite of defeat.

Also reducing victory bonus would just make people go even more wild goose chasing after last enemies instead of capping.

[viceadmiral123]

Let's rename "Random Battle" to "Skill Battle" !

[Kenjiro_]

Randomness is intentional. Less skilled players need to win too every now and then. There won't be anything to change that.

[Fifield]

It's fully possible to be highest scoring player to the match despite of defeat.

 

It may be but I've never seen it.  I think one of the recent patches buffed XP for winning?

 

Also reducing victory bonus would just make people go even more wild goose chasing after last enemies instead of capping.

 

A good point but not the end of the world.  Firstly, you don't have to wait and secondly, the game becomes less about winning and more about pure entertainment.

 

Nevertheless, another way to do it is to put all players in the same table, ordered by pre-win points -- whilst highlighting the winning team players in a different colour.  You'll still be able to find players easily and incorporate damage totals, time of death & maybe other stats with the wider table.

[Fifield]

Randomness is intentional. Less skilled players need to win too every now and then. There won't be anything to change that.

 

They do anyway, due to the game being 10 v 10 and their lack of contribution being seriously diluted.  Also, something like a third of players contribute nothing anyway, at least at tier V.

 

Another way around this is to have hidden ELO balancing, so that weak players are up against weak players.

[GeneralHorstPital]

Notice how nobody says "Let's play toss-a-coin"?  

 

The tedium and irritation caused by randomness in this game detract from enjoyment.  Randomness makes air superiority Brogues dull to play and battleship vs cruiser engagements irritating.

 

Fire RNG

Cruiser/gunboat success vs battleships is almost entirely dependent on luck with starting fires.  Even angling doesn't make much of a difference any more due to reducing overpenetration.

 

Solution: make fire chance cumulative.  Start at 0% chance per shell (for US).  Each shell that hits increases the chance by 0.5%.  By the time you've landed 8 HE shells, you're up to 20% chance of fire per shell.  Cap it at 30% (10 shells) and have it halve every 20s. Fire extinguish could half the chance too but you'd still likely be prone to another fire if you're getting hit a lot.

 

This makes dying to a couple of cruisers who can't shoot but are lucky with fires incredibly unlikely.  If they can shoot then chances are you'll be set on fire three times at least.

 

Fire duration could also be part of this equation.

 

Accuracy RNG

Accuracy/dispersion has been discussed a lot I'm sure.  The Myogi drives me nuts but I think it's a ship-specific problem at short range.  Feel free to discuss.

 

Teammate skill RNG

Lastly, players are over-rewarded for being lucky with good teammates.  Winning should be reward enough without getting double the XP of the losing team.  If there's any XP bonus for winning, it should be 20% at most.  Boost XP overall to compensate.

 

Notice how nobody ever says "let´s play a round of poker" ? Oh, wait.

Or a lot of people like to play boardgames that include dice rolls or cards drawn at random...

 

I don´t play carriers, so I can´t say anything about the fighters.

Fire RNG already works in the way you describe. The more shells you hit, the higher is your chance to cause a fire. Also, your solution still speaks about a "20% chance" so it would still be dependent on luck.

 

The accuracy RNG can certainly drive people nuts, but still there are players with higher hit rates than others, so there is some amount of skill hidden in there and I´m fine with that.

 

Teammate RNG... well this is something that I think can´t be changed. You will never know if a "good" teammate has a bad day or not. Also, I click "Random Battle" for a reason. I want to get a battle with random teammates.

But I hope that they will include clan battles soon. I won´t play them but I hope that there will be less threads complaining about bad teammates.

 

Overall I simply don´t get why people always complain about RNG. It is well known that these games work like that.

This is like me buying a game of Yahtzee, and then ask the developers of the game to change it so that it works without dice rolls, because I don´t like dice games...

 

[praetor_jax]

 the game becomes less about winning and more about pure entertainment.

 

 

I consider this not a goal a competitive multiplayer game should move towards.

[Fifield]

 

Notice how nobody ever says "let´s play a round of poker" ? Oh, wait.

 

Very few people do, considering its endless Hollywood promotion and big money TV coverage.  This just proves my point.

 

Or a lot of people like to play boardgames that include dice rolls or cards drawn at random...

 

Notice they don't play that game 5x a day or more.  If WG want WoWS to be a once-every-3-months game then that's up to them.

 

Fire RNG already works in the way you describe. The more shells you hit, the higher is your chance to cause a fire. Also, your solution still speaks about a "20% chance" so it would still be dependent on luck.

 

My suggestion is very different else I wouldn't have bothered making it...

There's a world of difference between a battle being being mostly down to luck vs being mostly down to skill.

[Mayv]

If BBs where made even more accurate what would be the point of playing anything else? They are already a strong class, only outperformed by CVs.

[Shad0w127]

 

I consider this not a goal a competitive multiplayer game should move towards.

 

I consider this a goal a competitive multiplayer gamer should move towards. 

 

It would encourage playing better, your score depends less on your team and more on your personal performance. Even when you see your team loosing you have a reason too keep playing as good as possible.

[Sindrift]

Good ideas! It would be great to make this game more about skill and less about luck. Hmm sounds like Company of Heroes 2 to me lel.

On the Accuracy RNG I would go for system that would be scaling with distance at 1km-5km perfect accuracy at 5km-15km noticable dispersion but still you would be able to hit enemy ships if you aim well and at 15km-18km have good amout of dispersion where shots become more random and at 18km-W/E just random as it is now.

Right now it is ridicilous to see two shells flying perfectly close at 5km and one off to the left or right like you have warped gun barrler or something. If armor was fixed the WG should definetly reduce the random dispersion at closer and medium ranges. CAs can angle and if they don't they deserve to be punished by well aimed BB salvo and right you either miss completely or score few overpens or totaly nuke him down. Basicaly you are left at mercy of RNG which is not really that great.

 

This is a good idea. I've been a couple of K or so out and missed with almost every shell!

What will kill it though are cheats freely available to anyone with pocket money on a well known site.

 

 

[praetor_jax]

 

I consider this a goal a competitive multiplayer gamer should move towards. 

 

It would encourage playing better, your score depends less on your team and more on your personal performance. Even when you see your team loosing you have a reason too keep playing as good as possible.

 

Winning is the common goal of all team members(edit: or it should be - since it is a teamgame). Diconnecting your teams victory from your reward encourages selfish playstyles and discourages teamplay.

Although i agree - doing well should be rewarded extensivly more than just "participating" both on the winning and the losing team. Still a win should be worth a lot more than a loss.

[Brett50]

One thing I think would improve the randomness would be to stop relying on the RNG of Citadel hits, as we all know, you can fire an accurate salvo from one BB to another (or one CA to another) and have 6 hits that seemingly do nothing and do about 2k damage or you could have those same 6 hits do 4 citadels and completely wreck your opponent. To those who say it's down to skill to be able to aim for the enemy citadel, that may apply when you're at <5k range but anything beyond that and shell dispersion means you can't. I'd prefer to have a more WoT like system of your AP shells doing a steady amount of damage per AP pen that rewards accurate shooting and not who sacrificed enough goats to RNGesus that day.

[Orzch]

Accuracy/dispersion has been discussed a lot I'm sure.  The Myogi drives me nuts but I think it's a ship-specific problem at short range.  Feel free to discuss.

 

Great idea! Let just make my NC hit those poor Atagos and Mogamies with EVERY salvo. That would greatly inprove overall gameplay! You sir are a genius. 

[Picard12]

One thing I think would improve the randomness would be to stop relying on the RNG of Citadel hits, as we all know, you can fire an accurate salvo from one BB to another (or one CA to another) and have 6 hits that seemingly do nothing and do about 2k damage or you could have those same 6 hits do 4 citadels and completely wreck your opponent. To those who say it's down to skill to be able to aim for the enemy citadel, that may apply when you're at <5k range but anything beyond that and shell dispersion means you can't. I'd prefer to have a more WoT like system of your AP shells doing a steady amount of damage per AP pen that rewards accurate shooting and not who sacrificed enough goats to RNGesus that day.

 

Well, your profile says you do not have enough experience with Battleships to judge that. I can hit citadels, I can predict them. Only the ones over ~15kms are random. Sure there will be the occasional salvo at low range that magically misses, but that happens very rarely. The only ships with which that is probably more random are Battleships Tier 4 and lower. I never tried the American battleships yet so I cannot talk about them, but I played all the Japanese ones and getting citadels for me is nearly just a matter of correct aiming and timing.

[t0ffik1]

Also fix the 30deg non logical and in the same time non realistic primery rule of the system that makes battleships shells bounce of from a 10mm armor.

Fix battleships AP shells to stop behaving like cannon balls after patch 0.5.1.0-1-2 and give them their exploasive charges after hitting armored parts of ships so that you dont overpen 200-300mm total armored parts of ships with shell not exploading dealing only overpen dmg. This would also fix the battleships AP shells overpenning over sea lvl citadels of cruisers and return them in most cases to 0.5.0.1-2-3 patches but WITHOUT THE BUG.

[Syrchalis]

WG is a big fan of randomness.

 

They said that games are not matched by skill. So you can have a team full of casuals against a team full of pros due to bad luck. However, with this tiny playerbase, if they implemented skill-based matchmaking you would need to wait very long for matches. Also that's what they did ranked for.

 

As for the other aspects, I can't tell you why they believe incredibly high randomess does the game any good, but they definitely think so.

[mtm78]

Notice how nobody says "Let's play toss-a-coin"?  

 

The tedium and irritation caused by randomness in this game detract from enjoyment.  Randomness makes air superiority Brogues dull to play and battleship vs cruiser engagements irritating.

 

Fighter RNG

The fighter engagement mechanism removes skill and thus deprives the carrier player of meaningful engagement.  Fighter engagement whereby fighters literally cannot move the battle in any direction is unrealistic and often ends up eg 5-1 in planes shot down.  This unbalances the whole battle on a coin toss.

 

Faster fighters in particular should be able to disengage at a penalty to their attack strength but slower fighters too should be able to move the battle towards an allied ship with AA.

Whilst strafing is the more skillful approach, it is very risky and still forces your planes to engage.

 

Solution: remove the fighter engaging mechanism.  Players will still be able to focus enemy squadrons but it will be more like fighter vs bomber engagements.

 

Don't play clickers, but I'm fairly certain there is a reason the fighters can 'lock down' other fighter

 

Fire RNG

Cruiser/gunboat success vs battleships is almost entirely dependent on luck with starting fires.  Even angling doesn't make much of a difference any more due to reducing overpenetration.

 

Solution: make fire chance cumulative.  Start at 0% chance per shell (for US).  Each shell that hits increases the chance by 0.5%.  By the time you've landed 8 HE shells, you're up to 20% chance of fire per shell.  Cap it at 30% (10 shells) and have it halve every 20s. Fire extinguish could half the chance too but you'd still likely be prone to another fire if you're getting hit a lot.

 

This makes dying to a couple of cruisers who can't shoot but are lucky with fires incredibly unlikely.  If they can shoot then chances are you'll be set on fire three times at least.

 

Fire duration could also be part of this equation.

 

You're ready, you better be, BB Mafia is looking for you, they don't like fires. Also, I have no issues with current mechanism for fire, other then that I would like low calibre IJN shells to get back old fire chance numbers ( looking at you Mogami 155's ). 

 

Accuracy RNG

Accuracy/dispersion has been discussed a lot I'm sure.  The Myogi drives me nuts but I think it's a ship-specific problem at short range.  Feel free to discuss.

 

What is there to discuss, we need dispersion period. Irl bb engagements were lucky to result in a single digit hit ratio, not having dispersion in this game would make it a sniper game where everyone is head hunting.

 

Teammate skill RNG

Lastly, players are over-rewarded for being lucky with good teammates.  Winning should be reward enough without getting double the XP of the losing team.  If there's any XP bonus for winning, it should be 20% at most.  Boost XP overall to compensate.

 

XP system could do some tweaking, but imo victories should be rewarded even more if it would mean we get less idiots ignoring game objectives and playing for own gain. Which you would promote with giving overall XP boost and lower victory bonus. In short: HELL NO.

 

Answers in blue <3

[mtm78]

WG is a big fan of randomness.

 

They said that games are not matched by skill. So you can have a team full of casuals against a team full of pros due to bad luck. However, with this tiny playerbase, if they implemented skill-based matchmaking you would need to wait very long for matches. Also that's what they did ranked for.

 

As for the other aspects, I can't tell you why they believe incredibly high randomess does the game any good, but they definitely think so.

 

No.

 

Ranked has NOTHING to do with skill based MM. How can you even put those in the same sentence?

 

Ranked is random with smaller teams, nothing more nothing less.

[basharran]

WG is a big fan of randomness.

 

They said that games are not matched by skill. So you can have a team full of casuals against a team full of pros due to bad luck. However, with this tiny playerbase, if they implemented skill-based matchmaking you would need to wait very long for matches. Also that's what they did ranked for.

 

As for the other aspects, I can't tell you why they believe incredibly high randomess does the game any good, but they definitely think so.

 

I guess they will be implementing premium gun barrels soon...

[Fifield]

Don't play clickers, but I'm fairly certain there is a reason the fighters can 'lock down' other fighter

 

I suspect it's there to stop faster fighters strafing slower ones... but with the penalty on accuracy whilst retreating, I think it's unnecessary and quite damaging to carrier play.

 

It seems my suggestion to change the presentation after-battles, rather than the XP, is less controversial.  Accuracy remains as controversial as ever.  The other suggestions seem appreciated.

 

Is there a way to get good suggestions to the developers?  My experience of non-English developers is that suggestions in English never get noticed.

[mtm78]

There are WG representatives on this forum, they will pick out useful feedback and correlate it for the developers. Sometimes a suggestion is picked up by ST and discussed internally ( which means that WG is able to follow that internal discussion, often leading to more immediate feedback ).

 

Other than that, you could perhaps make suggestion/feedback thread in the development section instead of General Discussion -> http://forum.worldofwarships.eu/index.php?/forum/451-current-update/

 

We will get a forum structure change shortly though -> http://forum.worldofwarships.eu/index.php?/topic/37752-forum-structure-changes-november-29/page__pid__702639#entry702639

 

HtH, 

 

Marvin

[OVanBruce]

Fighters: there are few RNG factors on fighter engagement and you can completely bypass then by outmanouvering your opponent.

 

Fire RNG: Oh boy, do you want my Zao to have 30% fire chance on each 9 shells hit of a salvo from 16 km while I'm invisifiring? The tears of the baBBies would fill an ocean.

 

Accuracy is good at it is, really. Can't see how BBs needto have even MORE chances of citadeling cruisers at close and medium distances.

 

Player skill reward: Now that's just sad to see, someone denying other's xp because "muh standards"