The point behind such a "grinding" grind?

[Ty Tanium]

Afternoon,
After an online session with my brother yesterday afternoon we started pondering the actual point behind such a grind gap between T6 and T7/8 ships.

In a recent post the following observation was made by Ace42;

["For all the factually incorrect criticisms people have of +/-2mm, or P2Win, etc, etc - I'm amazed that people seem to miss the one example of a pretty deliberate attempt to institute exactly those things.

I mean, yeah the P2Win is disguised behind the "it's pay to progress" conventional credit grind; plus everyone who is in a position to be disgusted by the change also being in a position to just get the ships and play them (myself included in that demographic) thanks to benefitting from rampant inflation."]

Okay, we all know that this game, like hundreds of other MMORTS/RPG games, is designed to make money... they're designed to get you to a point where, in sheer frustration, you claw the credit card out. Problem is that I would suggest the majority of those playing don't have that luxury so why make the later tier vessels so difficult to get by playing?

Wouldn't that start to drive people away from the game in frustration rather than have them continue enjoying the game WITH the P2Play option always available if they're able?

I think that a review of the "Grind gaps" between higher tier ships needs to be done.
imho, as always.
Cheers,
T.

[christof]

Originally posted by ~T~D~:

Originally posted by Ace42:

There is no way to give new players an accurate picture of what the grind should be like without people like Drunem accurately pointing out that multiple T10 lines can be ground out in a couple of months; instead of the "years" you insisted.

Quit making up ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ just so you can get your rocks off lying about the game, and people won't have to provide the facts that contradict you.

If new players reply how it is for them it will be, - but you keep on writing Copy Pasted stuff, Write a book instead maybe someone will buy it.

So it's okay if new players worry that the grind looks long. But it's not okay for experienced players to encourage them "don't worry, it's nowhere near as bad as it looks". Yet it is okay for you to just lie about it and scare them off.

Good to know.

[arjensmit79]

There is of course 2 motivations to make the game grindy:

1: that makes people want to pay to make it go faster
2: In order to get money out of people, you first need to keep them playing. The grind is not allowed to ever end so players may never find themselves without a goal to play for.

I do personally belief that the period from T5 to T9 is a bit long. Of course, the regulars here keep reeiterating that you need that time to learn the basics of the game and they are totally right at that. But it is an aggravating period. Aggravating because:
a: You suck at the game
b: Your captain is low level
c: You get uptiered a lot
d: It is much slower than the early levels you are used to
e: you dont even have credits to pay for the ships you unlock, and you will be playing them half equiped because modules cost credits too.

It is in the beginning player's dreams that "once i reach T10 it will all be good". Again. the regulars keep reiterating that they are wrong. But i think they are not entirely wrong and there is multiple reasons for that:
a: During this time you also gathered coal and maybe done some event passes etc to gather your first premiums.
b: You may be getting your first 21pt captain which you can put on that premium as well as your first unlocked T10. And now you can effectively level your other captains while playing your 21pt captain all the time.
c: There is much less pressure to get more lines to T10 as you can enjoy the ones you have with your 21pt captain.
d: This means you no longer need to worry so much about the credits anymore. You make credits with these ships (premiums) without unlocking more ships that need buying and equiping.
e: You learned the basics by now
f: And yes, you dont get uptiered so badly anymore. (For some reason i find it much less of an issue to ba playing my T9 black and kitakaze against T11s than to play any T7 against T9s. But that is about to change with the introduction of the z57 i guess)

So for short, in my experience, life in Wows got a whole lot better after 1000-2000 games or whoever many it was to reach this point where i had my first T10 and T9 premium with 21pt captain.

[Banzai]

The grind honestly isnt that bad. Obviously there has to be some sort of incentive for speeding it up with premium time but even as completely f2p its possible to get multiple T10s after a few thousand battles.

Also, please be nice guys. Its possible to disagree without being unpleasant. Thanks.

[carelessjet2]

this is hurting my head............. you both are right!!
there is a snowball effect, longer you player the easier the grind gets.

yes one of you was able to grind a line in 3 days from free xmas box's, if you did not have a fleet you would have had less drops and less boosters too boost.

on the other hand, this is an odd time to be upset about grind times given how much free stuff is being tossed at us.

what i don't understand is why rush tiers it only leads to tears, organic drop rate threw play should have you what you need when you should have it.

[Banzai]

"Rushing the tiers leads to tears". Very good :)

Also with regard to the grind thing, the way that new lines are released allows people to easily get some high tier ships just from playing since typically the event pass will drop a T8 completely for free.

I agree that for a new player its probably daunting looking at the 100s of ships and dozens of techtrees and actually getting everything is probably unrealistic for someone starting now. Its stlll not that hard to get to T10 so its really a case of planning ahead for which lines to work through.

[Ace42]

Originally posted by carelessjet2:

yes one of you was able to grind a line in 3 days from free xmas box's, if you did not have a fleet you would have had less drops and less boosters too boost.

I was talking just about the free ones the events and other free gifts (daily login, daily free random bundles, etc, etc) gives you, the free line in the battlepass gives you, and Dockyard grind gives you.

I was not talking about the crates (or coal) you'd get from certs - otherwise I'd've been banging people around the head that you get a ton of free premiums too - potentially TXs and ultra-rares if you're very lucky.

A variety of ships in your port can make elements of acquiring these easier (fire starting cruiser for fire missions; decent AP cruiser for cit missions, etc, etc), and there's minimum requirements (T5+ in at least two different classes for dockyard missions to be convenient, for example) - but you don't require an extensive collection to meet those requirements. The game will give you more than enough for free even if you're not actually playing any matches, although that does involve waiting rather than proactively engaging with the reward systems.

Nailing the grind in 3 days is from the combination of favourable circumstances I spelled out (and that do apply to nearly everyone at present) - but it was also very lazy play in PvE gamemodes on my part too.

It does not take "years" to acquire a few stack of blue boosters; 3-9 days cumulative premium time; let alone a couple of tier 5s to grind a line out from whilst also earning additional benefits.
Doesn't even require Asym to be active once you get to T6 and can just crack on with Ops if you're struggling with PvP (and if you're not struggling with PvP that's typically even quicker to grind through).
And all the while you're still earning free stuff whilst doing that 3-day grind. You can do the maths for yourself to see how swapping out premium time for regular, or swapping green boosters instead of blue, changes the time taken to do that grind - gonna tell you now it doesn't change "3 days" into "over a year".

We didn't even mention that the game was throwing *your choice between some tech-tree tier 10s for free* this time around! Or that there were 200% shipXP FWOTD bonuses active *after* I had finished doing the grind. Could probably have trimmed that 3 days down further if I'd been getting an extra couple of wins worth of shipXP from a single battle in each of the ships in the line.

No matter how you slice it - ~T~D~ was just wrong. Days, weeks, a couple of months is not "years".

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

Originally posted by ~T~D~:

Originally posted by Ace42:

And in all that time you've managed to achieve less than Drunem manages while he's waiting for the weather to pick up a bit?

Yeah, you're right, clearly the problem is the game and not you.

Can you stay on topic,

WE ARE DISCUSSING NEW PLAYERS AND NOT ME HERE

Quit posting blatant misinformation then copping out with "STAY ON TOPIC REEEEE" whenever you get called out for it.

[carelessjet2]

Originally posted by Ace42:

Originally posted by carelessjet2:

yes one of you was able to grind a line in 3 days from free xmas box's, if you did not have a fleet you would have had less drops and less boosters too boost.

I was talking just about the free ones the events and other free gifts (daily login, daily free random bundles, etc, etc) gives you, the free line in the battlepass gives you, and Dockyard grind gives you.

I was not talking about the crates (or coal) you'd get from certs - otherwise I'd've been banging people around the head that you get a ton of free premiums too - potentially TXs and ultra-rares if you're very lucky.

A variety of ships in your port can make elements of acquiring these easier (fire starting cruiser for fire missions; decent AP cruiser for cit missions, etc, etc), and there's minimum requirements (T5+ in at least two different classes for dockyard missions to be convenient, for example) - but you don't require an extensive collection to meet those requirements. The game will give you more than enough for free even if you're not actually playing any matches, although that does involve waiting rather than proactively engaging with the reward systems.

Nailing the grind in 3 days is from the combination of favourable circumstances I spelled out (and that do apply to nearly everyone at present) - but it was also very lazy play in PvE gamemodes on my part too.

It does not take "years" to acquire a few stack of blue boosters; 3-9 days cumulative premium time; let alone a couple of tier 5s to grind a line out from whilst also earning additional benefits.
Doesn't even require Asym to be active once you get to T6 and can just crack on with Ops if you're struggling with PvP (and if you're not struggling with PvP that's typically even quicker to grind through).
And all the while you're still earning free stuff whilst doing that 3-day grind. You can do the maths for yourself to see how swapping out premium time for regular, or swapping green boosters instead of blue, changes the time taken to do that grind - gonna tell you now it doesn't change "3 days" into "over a year".

We didn't even mention that the game was throwing *your choice between some tech-tree tier 10s for free* this time around! Or that there were 200% shipXP FWOTD bonuses active *after* I had finished doing the grind. Could probably have trimmed that 3 days down further if I'd been getting an extra couple of wins worth of shipXP from a single battle in each of the ships in the line.

No matter how you slice it - ~T~D~ was just wrong. Days, weeks, a couple of months is not "years".

"years" is a big reach.
the idea of regrinding lines bothers me so i save free exp for research ships. I am not wale or high skilled player, but it dose not even take a single year for 1-10 with straight free exp.


as far as the other.
when i first started i gave up on t7 Japanese BB.
ran out of port slots, flags, camouflages "boosters at the time" credits.............just everything. last years promo code of free Yamato brought me back and insane luck on xmas box's gave me everything i was lacking in order to progress.
so i can understand the "this is going to take forever" feeling.

it's just a road bump, once you get a handful of ships for missions and the realisation that skipping grinds is skipping the game combined with T10 is not fun to play.
you will see it's not so bad.

[Ace42]

Originally posted by carelessjet2:

"years" is a big reach.

Yep, and yet he kept doubling down on it.

the idea of regrinding lines bothers me so i save free exp for research ships. I am not wale or high skilled player, but it dose not even take a single year for 1-10 with straight free exp.

Exactly. We've all agreed that the holiday event periods are especially generous - but even so I've managed to grind out way more than 2x resets in FXP just in this period, and that's just doing the bare minimum needed for the Dockyard, plus one or two quick PvE matches to do each day's battlepass missions.

It's certainly true that progress snowballs, but even for people who aren't being super-aggressive with optimising their grind, it still clips along tolerably.
F2Ps who choose to put some thought into optimising the grind should find that they have a very similar experience to players who've already built up a big stockpile of resources.

so i can understand the "this is going to take forever" feeling.

it's just a road bump, once you get a handful of ships for missions and the realisation that skipping grinds is skipping the game combined with T10 is not fun to play.
you will see it's not so bad.

Spot on.

[christof]

There's two more factors we haven't mentioned yet, I think? But they make a new player feel that the grind is worse than it is.

One is that a new player just hasn't learned the game as well as an experienced one yet (usually at least, there are people who are absolutely horrible at the game and unwilling to learn even after tens of thousands of battles). So they won't play as well, not earn as much credits and xp on average from the same kind of battle. Which slows them down in comparison.
But that is something you usually start overcoming in the first few months. As long as you're willing to learn and accept that you have a long way to go yet.

The other is that being new to the game, these players simply aren't used to the tier system in the game yet and how long it takes to get through a tech tree. Which means they miscalculate how long it will take them. And they may come with preconceptions based on other games that do things differently. They also may have one higher tier ship in mind from the get-go and are impatient to get to it. All of that leads to the general feel of how hard the grind is simply being off until they've had enough time in the game to learn and understand the progress system.

[Dee-Jay]

The thing is - you should play the game for the enjoyment rather than focusing on the grind. Then the tiers etc will just come.
Also as others have said. It’s beneficial for players to spend a long time below the top tiers. The game has a pronounced learning curve and it’s good to cut your teeth at low or mid tiers. Not being able to rush to T10 can be a blessing,

[lockwoodx]

Originally posted by Banzai:

after a few thousand battles.

Lets say 20 minutes per match times 2000 battles... that comes out to 666.6667 hours.
I always knew Warships was the Devil!

[Ace42]

Originally posted by Ace42:

It does not take "years" to acquire a few stack of blue boosters; 3-9 days cumulative premium time; let alone a couple of tier 5s to grind a line out from whilst also earning additional benefits.

Case in point: Today's news article has 24 hours premium time as a free gift.
No requirements whatsoever - no need for any ships of any type or tier in your port; no need for any previously acquired resources, nothing.

Coincidentally, the cert I got from the free track of the battlepass was enough for me to get an xmas crate with 20x blue boosters too - but not really fair to count that, as that was contingent on already acquiring certs from other sources unlike a lot of the other freebies I've had over this period to date.

[Ty Tanium]

Good morning folks,
Hey, I didn't mean to start a flame war or nothing here... the opening I put up was for ideas to be shared, primarily for the newer players among us (I'm at less than 600 hours) and I wasn't moaning, just asking why it seemed that I tiered 5 navies from go to 5/6 in a heartbeat, relatively speaking, and now it seems highly improbable that I'm going to see a tier 7 boat in the near future.

Hey, no harm no foul guys... just asking.
Peace out Captains...!
T.

[Ace42]

Originally posted by Ty Tanium:

, just asking why it seemed that I tiered 5 navies from go to 5/6 in a heartbeat, relatively speaking, and now it seems highly improbable that I'm going to see a tier 7 boat in the near future.

It can be deceptive in its appearance - XP & credit rewards in real terms go up as you go up the tiers, just as the costs go up. So they kinda keep pace.

Drop down to a Tier 1, have a barn-storming round, and compare the total XP / credits you earn in that to how many you're earning otherwise identically in a T5. You should see the T5 generates much better raw earnings in real terms.

This is why T9 premiums are vaunted as the credit-earners of the game: They're the highest tier "true" premiums in the game, they get bonus rewards for damaging higher tier ships, and their service costs are far lower than T10 and *especially* T11s.

As Christoff also pointed out - optimising play also leads to better baseXP (position on scoreboard), and thus better rewards. Winning matches gives a multiplier to net XP rewards too.

A large part of baseXP comes from *percentage of a target's max health dealt in damage* - so 100% of a DD's health is worth more than 50% of a BB's health, even though the total number of hitpoints you dealt to the DD might be far lower.

Damaging planes, as well as achieving objectives (AFAIK) also grants some baseXP too, among other things (kill-shots give a *small* bonus) - but far-and-away percentage damage is the highest.

Service costs are mostly a fixed amount - they're the price you pay just for taking a ship out. Some ships (Premiums, notably) have reduced service costs.
Firing off artillery, torps, etc increases your service cost - but that's not worth thinking about because the amount is negligible, and the damage they can potentially deal is worth way way way more than you lose by holding fire.

But you shouldn't be worrying too much about service costs until you're at T9. Even at T8 F2P if you're playing half-decently you should be getting tidy profits.