From April "LittleWhiteMouse" @LittleWhiteMouse - "Spotting, Scouting and Experience Gains"

[Leo_Apollo11]

Hi all,

 

I don't recall seeing this on forum (and it is very interesting to know and great read)!

 

 

From April "LittleWhiteMouse" @LittleWhiteMouse - "Spotting, Scouting and Experience Gains"

 

http://shipcomrade.com/news/365/spotting-scouting-and-experience-gains.html

 

 

Quote

11/28/2017

 

Spotting, Scouting and Experience Gains

 

Wouldn't it be nice if people were encouraged to dig invisible ships out of smoke?   Well good news:  They are.  And now we know roughly by how much.

 

 Scouting and controlling vision in World of Warships wins games.  This is, in part, what makes destroyers and aircraft carriers so influential within a match.  When there is a pronounced skill disparity between ships of these types between the two teams, the results of the battle can feel so terribly one sided.  However, as important as providing vision for your team and blinding the enemy was, for a long time there was no credit or experience reward for this winning behaviour.  It wasn't until patch 0.5.12 in September of 2016 that scouting was properly rewarded.

 

But this raised the question -- how rewarding was it?  Could a player earn enough through scouting to supplement the lower damage that would often result from playing a more passive role?  I had the opportunity to sit down with Boyarsky, the Publishing Director of World of Warships North America, while I was in the process of writing my review for USS Kidd.  He was kind enough  to talk a little about the rewards a player receives for scouting in World of Warships.  But first, let's get into some definitions.

• SCOUTING: The act of trying to detect and spot the enemy team.
• DETECTING:  This is the act of initially discovering an enemy vessel and lighting them up on the minimap.  
• SPOTTING:  This is the act of providing vision onto a detected enemy vessel and through the vision you provide, enabling your team to target them and do damage.

 

Boyarsky described all these rewards in terms of equivalencies of damaging a same-tier enemy ship.  In this manner, it's easy to compare how rewarding scouting can be versus doing the damage to the enemies yourself. This will be described as an X% of XP/Credits for full HP damage to a ship.  Thus, if someone would earn 10,000 credits for removing all of the hit points of an enemy ship and detecting provided 1% of this, the reward for detecting an enemy ship would be 100 credits.

 

Note that these rewards vary per ship-type being played.  This comes from a combination of risk-reward factors and economy reasons to encourage player behaviour.

 

The Root of all EvilHere's a rough guide on how experience and credits are earned in World of Warships.  This was taken from "The Root of All Evil", a document Wargaming circulated early on in the game's release.  The values here may not be exact as things were modified with the economy change in 0.5.12.

• For Damage, you're awarded by the percentage of a ship's hit points you remove, not the amount of raw damage done.  Thus, 10,000 damage done to a destroyer is worth more than 10,000 damage done to a battleship.  This scales depending on the tier disparity between ships.  You earn more for damaging a higher tiered ship than you would a lower tiered ship.
• Frags award the equivalent of doing 15% of the ship's hit points in damage.  Sinking enemy ships is important and awarded accordingly.
• Shooting down Aircraft also provides rewards.  Shooting down 40 aircraft rewards roughly the same amount as removing 100% of the hit points of a similar tiered ship.
• The more Base Capture and Base Defense points you earn, the better.
• Rewards do not scale linearly.  As an example, if you destroy one cruiser you get one whole pie. Two destroyed cruisers bring about one whole pie and one more with a bite taken out of it. Should you destroy three cruisers, two whole pies will be the reward.
• Rewards scale with tiers. For XP, a two-fold difference is possible between Tiers I and X. For credits, the difference may be even bigger.
• We do not yet know how damage tanking affects experience and credit earnings.

 

Detecting

There's a reward provided for being up on the front lines and discovering the location of hidden enemy ships.  When an enemy vessel that isn't visible is lit up, the ship responsible receives a small reward for this action.  The reward breakdown is as follows:

• CV receive 0.75% of XP/Credits for full HP damage to a ship.
• BB receive 1.50% of XP/Credits for full HP damage to a ship.
• DD receive 2.00% of XP/Credits for full HP damage to a ship.
• CA receive 3.25% of XP/Credits for full HP damage to a ship.

 

This reward is received every time you light up an enemy vessel that has been invisible for at least 30 seconds.   

 Immediately it should become apparent that cruisers benefit most from detecting enemy ships and with good reason. Cruisers risk the most providing direct sight upon enemies.  They're also the most likely to be equipped with special consumables to allow them to do so, with Hydroacoustic Search and Surveillance Radar.   Aircraft carriers benefit the least from this mechanic as they risk much less when detecting enemy ships.

 

In order for this to pay off, a cruiser would need to detect ships 30 times within a match to earn the equivalent of doing damage enough to sink one enemy ship, while a destroyer would have to do this 50 times within a match.  Just looking back over one of my own replays, even with taking a forward, aggressive stance in a destroyer, the solo-detection opportunities numbered no more than a dozen occurrences.  This would yield the equivalent of doing approximately 25% of the experience and credits earned for doing direct damage instead.

 

Spotting

 While a game spent detecting enemy ships will not yield very much in the way of rewards, spotting can be much more engaging.  Spotting is the act of providing constant vision upon enemy ships for allies that would not be able to see the ships themselves.  Every time an ally does damage against a ship they could not detect without help, the ship providing the vision receives a spotting reward.  Unlike in Wargaming's other IP, World of Tanks, the reward is not split between the two ships, but instead the spotting vessel receives a bonus.  This bonus scales directly to the percentage of health done to a ship -- not the total damage dealt.  Thus, a spotting ship earns more rewards for 1,000 damage done to a destroyer than it would for 1,000 damage done to a battleship.

• BB receives approximately 10% of the reward for full HP damage to a spotted ship.
• CV receives approximately 20% of the reward for full HP damage to a spotted ship.
• CA receives approximately 30% of the reward for full HP damage to a spotted ship.
• DD receives approximately 40% of the reward for full HP damage to a spotted ship.

 

There are, of course, some immediate complications.

• The attacking ship must not be able to detect the enemy target at all.
• In order to collect the reward, the spotting ship must have vision upon the target at the moment the attacker's shells or torpedoes land.
• If multiple ships are spotting, the reward is calculated individually and then divided by the number of ships providing vision.  So a destroyer that was spotting with the assistance of 4 other ships would receive 40% of the damage done as a reward divided by 5.
• You do not get any spotting rewards for Damage over Time effects, such as Fires or Floods.

 

It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see how a destroyer in particular could earn a tremendous amount of experience and credits without ever firing a shot.  If a destroyer could sneak over to the far side of the map and continually spot the enemy team, the rewards should be really high, right?  Well, kinda...

 

Aircraft carriers are particularly adept at scouting, but it's not an easy job by any means.  They have to be aware of the range of enemy anti-aircraft batteries and the intercept speeds of enemy aircraft.  An allied CV providing vision can help their team utterly dominate their opponents.

 

Challenges with Scouting

The problems with dedicating yourself to maximizing the rewards with scouting are threefold.

1. Team composition.
2. Limited opportunity to do direct damage
3. Visibility when a ship fires both within and outside of smoke.

 

Team composition can largely dictate how much experience will be earned in a given match from scouting. Aircraft carriers can dominate the spotting and detection gains, diluting the amount of rewards earned by surface vessels.  Radar equipped ships can keep destroyers at arm's length and limit the amount of movement around the map.  A battleship-heavy game will have less spotting opportunities as their gun bloom will make them visible to almost everyone on the map, barring island cover. 

 

For surface ships, actively scouting can often preclude you from doing damage yourself.  Launching attacks gives away your position and for ships like destroyers and some cruisers, this can be a death sentence if you've moved to extend your vision as far out as possible.  

 

But the real kicker is the way visibility changes when firing guns.  How can you spot ships for your allies when the enemy keep giving their position away to the whole map when they fire their main battery?  This greatly dilutes the amount of rewards available for ships within the battle line.   The changes in smoke have also mitigated this, with ships sitting in smoke capable of detecting enemies firing their guns from beyond -- allies are no longer reliant upon having a friend scout for them while they're hiding. 

 

Consumables have become the answer in some regards.  Clever use of a Smoke Generator can provide cover and concealment for your allies while simultaneously limiting their line of sight.  You can then scout beyond your own smoke screen and relay all of the targeting information for your allies.

 

Hydroacoustic Search and Surveillance Radar have become all the more important in the scouting game, especially for cruisers.  Proper coordination with allies can allow such ships to reap large rewards as the well timed use of these spotting abilities unmasks and sees the destruction of previously-concealed targets.  Even without doing the direct damage themselves, being able to hoover up the equivalent of 1/3rd to nearly 1/2 of damage done to a ship is no small prize.

 

Summary

Scouting can provide a handsome supplement to the rewards already earned within a match from doing direct damage, however, it takes a concerted effort to maximize the amount a player can gain in this way -- often at the expense of doing  damage themselves.

 

 Detection Rewards:

• CV receive 0.75% of XP/Credits for full HP damage to a ship.
• BB receive 1.50% of XP/Credits for full HP damage to a ship.
• DD receive 2.00% of XP/Credits for full HP damage to a ship.
• CA receive 3.25% of XP/Credits for full HP damage to a ship.

Spotting Rewards:

• BB receives approximately 10% of the reward for full HP damage to a spotted ship.
• CV receives approximately 20% of the reward for full HP damage to a spotted ship.
• CA receives approximately 30% of the reward for full HP damage to a spotted ship.
• DD receives approximately 40% of the reward for full HP damage to a spotted ship.

 

Scouting rewards are divided among all of the ships providing vision. 

 

 

 

 

 

Leo "Apollo11"

[Skyllon]

Bottom line is never spot in a cruiser if someone can outspot you. Risk / Reward factor is laughable...

[cro_pwr]

10 minutes ago, Skyllon said:

Bottom line is never spot in a cruiser if someone can outspot you. Risk / Reward factor is laughable...

And bottom line: Doing damage still gives you 500% more xp then spotting / tanking / whatever...

[Aotearas]

So it basically confirms what I have been suspecting the whole time, the rewards for actively spotting are miniscule (especially since DoT damage doesn't count) at the best of times and the risk/reward ratio for cruisers and BBs laughably horrendous.

 

Definately confirms the impressions you get from games with spotting damage well in excess of 100.000 spotting damage but next to no XP or credit games unless you also did plenty damage by yourself.

 

I can only assume that the rewards for tanking are equally underwhelming.

 

 

Bottom line: selfish play earns more XP and credits (as long as you don't lose every game).

[Excavatus]

another thing.. you only get the XP of the first shot(s) fired upon to the enemy vessel, because the removal of stealth fire, max firing distance and max detectability range after firing is the same. So you detect a ship, your teammates fires.. enemy returns fire.. voila! enemy detected by your teammates too.. (in most cases)

[RUSSIANBlAS]

TL:DR is you earn naff all for spotting other than maybe winning.

 

The amount of times I've come bottom of Ranked games yet got compliments and spotted the team to victory...

 

 

[El2aZeR]

So, basically to reap the maximum amount of income for myself I should never spot in a CV and focus on damage dealing instead.

Nothing we didn't know already, tbh, but it's depressing to see the actual numbers.

[iJoby]

2 hours ago, Negativvv said:

TL:DR is you earn naff all for spotting other than maybe winning.

The game is becoming a bit of a joke, surely the best rewarded players should be the ones that take the biggest risks, capping, spotting.

 

[RUSSIANBlAS]

8 minutes ago, iJoby said:

The game is becoming a bit of a joke, surely the best rewarded players should be the ones that take the biggest risks, capping, spotting.

 

Spotting damage always sucked but WG nerfing capping XP was pro.

 

Maybe just abolish caps and just have Team Death Match? 

 

 

[RamirezKurita]

No surprises here, I've had games with 150k+ spotting damage that didn't seem to yield any more XP and credits than similar games without the spotting.

 

I also feel that it is quite bad that some classes get shafted even more when it comes to spotting bonuses. While I am loathe to suggest buffing of BBs, I feel that if they had reasonable spotting bonuses they might be encouraged to move in closer and not simply camp while relying on allies to spot for them.

 

Likewise, I agree that the detection bloom while firing is an issue as ships tend to be extremely visible in combat, which means the original spotter that forces them into the engagement gets pretty much nothing. It would make more sense for spotting rewards to be awarded as if gun bloom wasn't a thing (for example, a ship with 12km base detection and 20km bloom detection would still reward spotters within 12km for damage beyond 12km even while shooting).

[Mr_Tayto]

Yeah, not surprising. The rewards for spotting and keeping targets lit for enemies should be much higher. I include Hydro/RADAR in that.

 

But bearing in mind the objective is to win - and that base XP gain will always be higher for a win - I wouldn't actively discourage anyone from trying to spot because it's uneconomic. At the end of the day we're all trying to kill enemies for the team, not for ourselves (or should be). [/naive]

[AnotherDuck]

So the best way to get spotting experience is to use smoke to actively limit your allies' vision.

 

It might be hard to code, but spotting damage really should depend on the moment of the ally firing the guns, not connecting. Spotting the actual hit does absolutely nothing. Spotting for aiming is the entire idea.

[RUSSIANBlAS]

1 hour ago, RamirezKurita said:

No surprises here, I've had games with 150k+ spotting damage that didn't seem to yield any more XP and credits than similar games without the spotting.

 

I also feel that it is quite bad that some classes get shafted even more when it comes to spotting bonuses. While I am loathe to suggest buffing of BBs, I feel that if they had reasonable spotting bonuses they might be encouraged to move in closer and not simply camp while relying on allies to spot for them.

 

Likewise, I agree that the detection bloom while firing is an issue as ships tend to be extremely visible in combat, which means the original spotter that forces them into the engagement gets pretty much nothing. It would make more sense for spotting rewards to be awarded as if gun bloom wasn't a thing (for example, a ship with 12km base detection and 20km bloom detection would still reward spotters within 12km for damage beyond 12km even while shooting).

The spotting issue made me give up playing CV in Ranked last season. Was using the Ryujo and I was finishing bottom even with huge spotting damage.

 

My APM was Korean level but I didn't get a thing and other players assumed I was a bottom feeder...

[Skyllon]

8 hours ago, Negativvv said:

The amount of times I've come bottom of Ranked games yet got compliments and spotted the team to victory...

I envy you teams... Maybe above R10 things get better, but at lower ranks only thing that assured me victory was to carry the entire team...

[cro_pwr]

10 hours ago, Aotearas said:

 

I can only assume that the rewards for tanking are equally underwhelming.

 

 

Few days ago, in ranked game some guy in my team in NC had Dreadnaught, and I had 0 (ZERO) potential damage in my Amagi (there was no need to push since we had 2 caps and more ships but he decided its a wise thing to do).
I scored High Caliber.
The result? I had double his base XP. Literary double the amount. That shows you how much tanking brings you compared to dmg.

[Leo_Apollo11]

Hi all,

 

I think that the actual XP gain is in range of 1-2-3% and equals the bonus you get from Clan (and that is 3% if I am not mistaken) which is actually almost nothing... 

 

 

Leo "Apollo11"

 

[ShinGetsu]

Quote

Unlike in Wargaming's other IP, World of Tanks, the reward is not split between the two ships, but instead the spotting vessel receives a bonus. 

It may have changed since then, but that isn't how that works in WoT.

In WoT, assuming a hit at 300 damage net 100 XP.

If you're spotting the target and your friendly do 300 damage, the spotter get 50 XP, while the one firing the gun get 100 XP.

If you're spotting your own target, you get 100 XP. Unless you're at long range because there's a bonus, or at very close range : there's also a bonus.

 

 I would like having the same in WoWS. Especially for CV. If the rewards of the CV increased to omuch because of this, we could just lower the amount of rewards given for shooting down planes which is ridiculous anyway.

[KarmaQU_EU]

In my ideal game the HP bars would be hidden by default and spotting would have multiple layers, with the preliminary layers just a stock grey silhouette of the ship class updating its position once every 5 seconds only, while more detailed tiers give info on their remaining HP, status ailments, etc.

 

Spotting also passively gathers "intel" which function similarly to "resources" in other RTS games, such as Starcraft 2. This "intel" can be used to barter for objectives, request repair and resupply, or call in more and better real-player  or A.I. reinforcements for the next phase of the game (called "escalation"). If games had multiple phases each functioning as a separate match in itself but is workable from both playing continuously or joining per new-phase only.

 

In short, spotting would actually have a purpose, such that maybe even spotting-only scientific-equipment ships and planes can be justified. Naturally this hints at a more complex, highly sophisticated, larger scale, yet more depth and strategic game design. Though ideally it would be even more straightforward and intuitive than the current game design, but here I am rambling off again.

[Adm_Hoshiko]

50 minutes ago, KarmaQU_EU said:

In my ideal game the HP bars would be hidden by default and spotting would have multiple layers, with the preliminary layers just a stock grey silhouette of the ship class updating its position once every 5 seconds only, while more detailed tiers give info on their remaining HP, status ailments, etc.

 

Spotting also passively gathers "intel" which function similarly to "resources" in other RTS games, such as Starcraft 2. This "intel" can be used to barter for objectives, request repair and resupply, or call in more and better real-player  or A.I. reinforcements for the next phase of the game (called "escalation"). If games had multiple phases each functioning as a separate match in itself but is workable from both playing continuously or joining per new-phase only.

 

In short, spotting would actually have a purpose, such that maybe even spotting-only scientific-equipment ships and planes can be justified. Naturally this hints at a more complex, highly sophisticated, larger scale, yet more depth and strategic game design. Though ideally it would be even more straightforward and intuitive than the current game design, but here I am rambling off again.

 

at first spot should be individual per ship or near group of ships like in cyclone but let's say 10-12km range, Hydro and Radar should be only for the ship that use hydro/radar at that moment ( not like RU cruiser who are 12km behind group od island between and than he Radar you and all of the enemy ship see you, torps, everything  in same second that radar is up - and than you get gangbang, and we are talking about 10-12km 30-60 sec 4 times per ship ( so if you have 3-4 ships in one team you will be always under radar as soon as ship get detected ) --- that is super stupid IMHO,, it is ok for the ship that have radar or hydro and it should be only for him other should have "stock grey silhouette of the ship " or show tham self but only for a sec. like ping and then after 3 sec again and so on like radar in real life..

[KarmaQU_EU]

3 minutes ago, Cime said:

at first spot should be individual per ship or near group of ships like in cyclone but let's say 10-12km range, Hydro and Radar should be only for the ship that use hydro/radar at that moment ( not like RU cruiser who are 12km behind group od island between and than he Radar you and all of the enemy ship see you, torps, everything  in same second that radar is up - and than you get gangbang, and we are talking about 10-12km 30-60 sec 4 times per ship ( so if you have 3-4 ships in one team you will be always under radar as soon as ship get detected ) --- that is super stupid IMHO,, it is ok for the ship that have radar or hydro and it should be only for him other should have "stock grey silhouette of the ship " or show tham self but only for a sec. like ping and then after 3 sec again and so on like radar in real life..

Well, the mimicking of realistic data communication between ships and their respective CICs from their own and others' spotting, confirming and cross-checking that data, command relay lines, etc. had been considered when I was originally envisioning the mechanics but they are by far not the most priority to be explained of the systems especially in just a short post. How the actual vision works, concealment, hampering etc. would be more important to understand first.

 

Another factor to consider is the anti-cheat robustness of a mechanic, and if using grey-line mods can provide an advantage and if it will be enticing to do so, and if it may cause unnecessary inconvenience to the experience of players. This will be something WG will be more interested in, and rightly so, if making a multiplayer game.  

 

Also the primary concern is still if it is overly and unnecessarily complex. Varying score-distribution equations are. Remember the game should be even more intuitive than is now, and mechanics should be designed to encourage more straightforward comprehension. This may mean some directions in designing such as congregating some of the tallying functions into a centralized mechanic instead of individual ships, while retaining reward distribution fairly. 

 

So in your case, while a delay, or even outright difference in spotting-data distribution between ships is justifiable, especially if moderated by their own respective ability to follow-up on that intel and "see for themselves", and said ability clearly affected  by a major weather event, it may still not be the most desirable form. At extremity of that concept, hydro and radar would return different types of data, with different handling characteristics and feedback fidelity. I've even seen a suggestion that fighter planes should have different spotting ability and characteristics than scout and strike planes, as fighters were meant to spot aerial targets not surface ones.

 

There is truth in that too, but executing that level of detail across whole game systems with so many different units is just ... daunting. You'd even have to design in cloud cover, glare, weather conditions and pilot skill etc. as supporting mechanics, and necessitating supporting mechanics for the supporting mechanics. All without making it more complex for the player to handle, and some other overarching requirements. (Here's a particularly demanding one: without increasing software complexity. Good luck designing around that one.) (So now you understand, why we can't have good things.)

 

Though if someday WG does make a game of this level of detail it will be more magnificent than anything available today.

[RUSSIANBlAS]

16 hours ago, cro_pwr said:

 

Few days ago, in ranked game some guy in my team in NC had Dreadnaught, and I had 0 (ZERO) potential damage in my Amagi (there was no need to push since we had 2 caps and more ships but he decided its a wise thing to do).
I scored High Caliber.
The result? I had double his base XP. Literary double the amount. That shows you how much tanking brings you compared to dmg.

WoT has no bounce bonus but both games should reward you for survival.

 

WG argue that living to fight on is reward enough so meh

[AnotherDuck]

3 hours ago, Negativvv said:

WG argue that living to fight on is reward enough so meh

Which doesn't work if you want to reward teamplay. Tanking damage means someone else will take less damage, so most of the "living to fight on" reward is given to the players you're tanking for, while you get nothing.

[RUSSIANBlAS]

9 minutes ago, AnotherDuck said:

Which doesn't work if you want to reward teamplay. Tanking damage means someone else will take less damage, so most of the "living to fight on" reward is given to the players you're tanking for, while you get nothing.

Oh yes, it's utter WG fail logic as are a lot of decisions they make.

 

Tanking damage usually benefits that idiot top BB who sits at the back sniping until right at the end.

 

I probably shouldn't but I tend to call out BB campers these days, sometimes to my own team sometimes to everybody. Not locations or anything, just pointing out their pro play or how there's 70k of HP sat there doing nothing etc 

[ForlornSailor]

On 10.1.2018 at 5:58 PM, El2aZeR said:

So, basically to reap the maximum amount of income for myself I should never spot in a CV and focus on damage dealing instead.

 

Same goes for DDs... A few torpedo hits net you more then making sure, your team can fire away all the time and do way more dmg.

[Deckeru_Maiku]

Bottom line: Everything except damage done is neglectable. Shoot DDs first for most XP. Even more so when they are higher tier.

 

As someone who loves to play DDs this has been obvious for an eternity. Spotting isn't rewarded properly. Capping - unless you manage a full cap - isn't rewarded properly. Keeping the enemy from capping isn't rewarded properly.

 

And people really wonder why DDs often rather go for the kill than for "playing for the team"???