Cheating/Hacking?

[AWT]

To be clear: I don't care if I lose roughly half my battles (which was about my average until I got a Tier VI and then Tier VII Battleship), or even 2/3, so I'm not writing this out of childish inability to accept defeat. However, wins have become so super-rare recently (and I have noticed such suspicious advantages some players on either side seem to have) that it's starting to get suspicious (especially given that I had a better than 50:50 ratio prior to getting Tier VI battleship).
Not only can some players fire from distances way out of reach of my (randomly assembled) team's maximum range, but I've also seen big battleships rain down main gun fire on allied ships without reload time. I've also been destroyed by torpedo attacks where a dozen or more torpedos clearly coming from the same ship appear (without even having detected a single ship in that match), again clearly fired without reload time (no ship I know in WOW can fire 12 or more torpedos in one go by default).
I'v even once seen an allied Aircraft Carrier (ie my teammate) go fight the enemy team on their turf, without being blown up immediately (another suspicious act, so I'm not just suspecting enemies).
Battles up to Tier V seem fair, but once I pick a Tier VI or VII ship of any type, there is not even a remote chance of victory, regardless how badly or well I (and my teammates) play. I can sink an occasional ship or two if I play the sub, but even then the result is predictable.
It's very unfortunate, as I really enjoyed this game and did not expect the Tier VII torpedo-equipped Battleship I was really looking forward to (with a Level 12 captain at the helm) to feel like a huge step backwards & guarantee defeat in every single random match I played with it so far (same goes for Tier VI battleship which I used for dozens of battles to get Tier VII). Am I the only one who experiences this?

[Jackson]

Well, I'll address your main concern first. If you ever suspect someone is cheating, you should definitely send the replay into support.

That aside, cheating is quite rare in this game. All calculations are done on the server, so someone would have to hack into the server without being detected. This is nigh impossible, tho perhaps not completely so. I've been accused of cheating by angry people countless times myself and of course, I wasn't. I just got lucky or had more skill than them.

Low tier battles are generally easier. The players are newer and often experienced players don't come below tier 5 since you can't do most missions below 5.

Now to address a couple misunderstandings you may have. There are actually several ships that can fire 12 or more torpedoes. The most is 18 I believe. This is mostly at higher tier though. If you're at T6 or so, I'm not really sure.... Maybe 10? 9 for sure. But if two ships fire around the same time, just because you see one doesn't mean you can see the second. Most likely it was two ships firing at about the same time.

In theory, if two battleships where next to each other, it's totally possible for you to see one when it fired but not the other. That has to with spotting mechanics. Two instances that I can think of that would cause that is there was something blocking the 2nd battleship. Smoke or an island etc. If the 2nd one firing had no exact line of sight to one of your friendly ships you won't see it fire. Experienced players use this to avoid being seen when they fire. Most often it happens on accident though. The other thing is if you're outside his range, but he knows by the time his shells get to you, that you will be, he can fire and you won't see him when he does.

Lastly, if you want to drop a replay here: https://replayswows.com/ I'll be happy to look at it and let you know what's going on.

Edit: If you are a new player, you may have just got out of protected matchmaking, meaning you're no longer playing with brand new people and bots.

[Jackson]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgRUSmzcw2s&t=1s

This has helpful information on how to understand the spotting mechanics the game uses.

[AWT]

Thanks for the reply, I didn't record any of my battles, but I will start doing so and submit video if I spot anything suspicious again. I didn't accuse any specific players in case I'm wrong,. The strange thing about the torpedo attack was that all enemy ships were way out of reach at the time the attack happened (very shortly after battle started), I never detected any ship within reach in that match, otherwise I wouldn't have suspected cheating.
I've been playing for a couple of weeks, so relatively new but played every day, so I'm Access Level 15 and my highest tier ship is Level VII (German) Battleship P. Heinrich. I started with the British fleet, but then switched to Germany to get the Torpedo-equipped Battleships at higher levels, so I basically had to start over in new country tech tree.
Reason I went back to Level IV battles is that I unlocked the British level IV aircraft carrier before I switched, and now I need to unlock level VI aircraft carrier to do missions.

[Jackson]

The game records the replay files for you and stores them in the folder "Replays" under the main game directory. It keeps the last 20 I think. They're small files which makes it easy to upload to the website I linked.

If you are in a battleship, chances are great you will not be able to detect a reasonably skillful destroyer.

You seem to be on the right track with ships. I would advice strongly to try different classes and nations rather than racing up one tree to the top :)

[christof]

Originally posted by Jack:

There are actually several ships that can fire 12 or more torpedoes. The most is 18 I believe. This is mostly at higher tier though. If you're at T6 or so, I'm not really sure.... Maybe 10? 9 for sure.

Just as additional information: VII Shiratsuyu (which you can and regularily will meet when playing tier VI) with the reload booster equipped can fire 16 torpedoes in 8-10 seconds. And can do so from several kilometres outside its detection range. Several other Japanese DDs you can meet at tier VI can do the same.
Others can fire 9 or 10 torpedoes in one go. The V Ochotnik will fire 12, but they are very short ranged. The VII Mahan can fire 12 down the same road, if you turn around quickly enough.

That is all provided it was just one ship. It regularily happens that a torpedo cruiser and a DD or two DDs run close to each other. If both of those fire at the same time from next to each other or the second ship fires later but closer while sitting right next to the first salvo of torpedoes, it can look to the recipient as if they were all fired from the same ship. Even though they're actually coming from more than one.

And it is just checking ships you can meet at tier VI. If you go above that tier, 12 torpedoes or more from just one ship becomes absolutely possible. With Benham, Hayate and Yamagiri taking it to an extreme.

[christof]

Originally posted by Jack:

The game records the replay files for you and stores them in the folder "Replays" under the main game directory. It keeps the last 20 I think.

Last 30 even.

[AWT]

Thanks for all the kind responses.
Am I right in assuming in matches with aircraft carrier, the allied carrier needs to keep busy/take out it's counterpart? I usually tell the allied carrier to do so, they refuse, then I watch as all the BBs (and the allied carrier) are taken out one by one by the enemy AC as they have little to no chance of evading a well-placed attack.
Also, doesn't it make sense for battleships to stick together not closely, but somewhat to concentrate firepower when meeting the enemy team?
Thanks for your advice.

[christof]

It depends.

Usually the allied CV spotting the enemy DDs so they can be quickly eliminated is much more important than just going for the enemy CV. Though it certainly don't hurt if he drops some fighters in the way of enemy attack craft. And if he manages to not attack, but spot the enemy CV, so that the long range BBs on your side can take it out...

BBs sticking together does mean that they can usually all fire on the same target. But it also means that other parts of the map are without BB support. And were they wider apart, they might still be able to attack the same target and do so by taking it into a crossfire. Meaning that no matter how the target turns, it'll give broadside to at least one of them. There's also that several BBs clumping together is basically the mother of all targets for any DD in torpedo range.
That being said, BBs should definitely never be somewhere alone, at least at the beginning. Because a sole BB usually is just CV or DD fodder. Here's where support by a cruiser or two comes in very handy.