Ranked Comparison: New and Old, Review, Comments

[Verytis]

Rewards Overview:

18th Season:

New ranked System (19th Season):

 

Leagues and MM

The league separation is not new. The old system has always separated players into 3 MM groups. The new system just explicitly states it, with a few things added, which we'll get to.

Old	New
Rank 11 to 17	Bronze
Rank 10 to 6	Silver
Rank 5 to 1	Gold

 

 

Rewards

Max rewards comparison:

	18th	19th	% difference (19th divide 18th)
Doubloons	2750	2100	76%
Steel	5500	3300	60%
Coal	0	24000	103% (See *note)

*Note: Assuming you're someone who converts their steel to Coal (1 steel = 10 coal)

Under the old system, a huge chunk of the reward was placed on rank 1. This obviously placed an emphasis on "All or nothing", so only a minor elite had access to this valuable reward. The new system places distributes it much more evenly, allowing access to much wider audience, besides super potatoes. So seeing a reduction in rewards seems somewhat justified, due to increased accessibility... or is it?

 

Effort

	Old stars	New stars (max)
R11-17/Bronze	15	9 (54)
R6-10/Silver	20	12 (60)
R1-5/Gold	20	19 (76)

The old system had just 1 "sprint".

The new System has 6 sprints with everyone initially starting in bronze, but can start at a higher league in the next next sprint if they qualify, although they can't drop back down until the season is over. So it takes 2 sprints to climb up to gold, making 4 gold sprints the max possible. 5 for silver, 6 for bronze.

Additionally, moving up to a higher league requires 9 stars in a "qualification" test. Qualification just uses the next league's rules and MM. This adds 18 stars to get to gold.

 

In terms of effort however, it varies from very easy to "hardcore,".

Under the old system there was 55 stars.

Now lets look at the new system, assuming you get to your preferred league asap, and then stay there.

Highest League	Stars
Bronze	54
Silver	78
Gold	115

Note that lower leagues are easier, so the stars are easier to obtain too. So the difficulty is much steeper than it looks.

 

• Bronze should be cakewalk, unless you're potato. Few stars, and where the potatoes will stay. That said, it also makes teammates very unreliable. Prepare to carry yourself.
• Silver will likely require a modest effort, stars will be harder to get, but the reward is +50% doubloons and +25% steel compared to bronze. If you're fairly active and competitive, this could interest you. You can also expect a little something from teammates too.
• Gold is...umm, f***ing huge. 115 stars total,  76 from gold league itself. The reward is +33% doubloons, +20% steel compared to silver. Look, unless you're really good, or have lots of time, beware. You can't drop back to silver afterwards.

 

Other Comments

• Because you can't drop back down to a lower league, I suggest you not to force yourself through the qualification in the early sprints. You'll be stuck having a rough time trying to grind the higher league for the rewards. This is 1 of the new system's flaws. WG, do something.
• Now that rewards are far more accessible however, I think its also a good time for the more casual playerbase to try out ranked.
• WG intends to make ranked more of a mainstream mode, available more often with less downtime. Players frustrated by random teammates will likely enjoy having a little more consistency by playing this mode. Its not a pure skill-based MM but the separation should achieve some the desired effect. So yes, do try out ranked and be my fodder.
• Remember, random mode doesn't even give any rewards, so don't frustrate yourself thinking "how you MUST grind to X rank" for some reason, especially since the bulk is no longer at rank 1. WG please make campaigns apply to ranked too.
• The hardcore minority will probably be a bit disappointed with the reduced rewards and gold league but I'm not good enough to be one of them so I'm happy.

EDIT:

Beware when thinking about climbing up to the next league, think whether you can maintain your level of dedication for the rest of the season. Assume the next league will at least take 2 to 3 times as long to complete. You're also doing it on a weekly basis.

[S4pp3R]

I would be advising folks to just farm bronze...

I could probably do gold but why put that much time into it?

I might bother with silver if I feel like grinding credits in a T9 premium but even then I expect MM to struggle.

Outside peak times I'd expect queue numbers to be crud.

I don't know about other folks here but I don't think this is going to be good for randoms MM...

[Paladinum]

I'm just here thinking "Why not a numerical ranking algorithm?". Chess has ELO, SC2 has MMR, why can't this game? Even warshipnumbers has PR. Are there so many difficulties of implementing such a system into this game? Is this incompetence? Ignorance/Apathy? Laziness?

[Verytis]

2 hours ago, S4pp3R said:

I would be advising folks to just farm bronze...

I could probably do gold but why put that much time into it?

I might bother with silver if I feel like grinding credits in a T9 premium but even then I expect MM to struggle.

Outside peak times I'd expect queue numbers to be crud.

I don't know about other folks here but I don't think this is going to be good for randoms MM...

Bronze will probs be equal to R11 to R17. People have always complained about their teammates being unreliable. I believe most people based it on these ranks, since many say they just stop at R10. The teammates can be even worse than randoms, due to the distillation of player skill. While it should be easy if you focus on carrying yourself, I think the experience might not be very enjoyable. That is why I recommend trying silver, for the active veterans. Bronze also might be too easy and fast. The reward bonus for going silver is decent and effort is within reason.

As for gold rank...I believe it is a steep increase intended for only 60%WR+ to be able to grind out efficiently. Referencing my personal experience, I could reach R10 in under 15 matches, R5 in another 60-70 matches, but then spend 120+ matches hanging around the limbo that is R4. I just don't have enough skill, or the right ships yet. I actually feel discouraged from trying gold, the effort is another large leap but the return bonus isn't good enough. Theres also risk I lose out if I fail to reach R2 gold, as I give up on silver league's rewards.

From a queue numbers perspective, the issue should be mostly isolated to gold league. I could still get matches most of the time at night in lower ranks, although you might encounter a few people multiple times.

Regarding randoms, the player quality will probably worsen since there is a semi-skill based mode for people to play. But hey, since ranked is generally focused on high tiers, you might end up dealing with less TX vs T8.

 

46 minutes ago, Paladinum said:

I'm just here thinking "Why not a numerical ranking algorithm?". Chess has ELO, SC2 has MMR, why can't this game? Even warshipnumbers has PR. Are there so many difficulties of implementing such a system into this game? Is this incompetence? Ignorance/Laziness/Apathy? 

WOWS has always had a "grind" element to it, I believe the star system is meant to give some leeway here. You either play good or spend more time.

That and people are already familiar with the star system. I do think the "save a star" should had been changed tho.

As for wows-numbers PR, it is probably doing more harm than good, since its so dmg biased.

[Paladinum]

19 minutes ago, Verytis said:

As for wows-numbers PR, it is probably doing more harm than good, since its so dmg biased.

While it can *sometimes* be an indicator for a player's skill, I do feel the same, it's far too focused on damage. I look at all the stats for PR calculation... Where are the teamplay indicators like "Captured", "Defended", etc. Even in-game summary page includes "Contribution to capture" and "Contribution to defense".

I still think it is easy for WG to implement a system like ELO for competitive modes like Ranked.

[Moggytwo]

3 hours ago, S4pp3R said:

I would be advising folks to just farm bronze...

I couldn't agree more.  Where is the incentive to move above bronze?  A little bit more steel and doubloons, in exchange for 20 times the effort?  Absolute insanity imo.

I've ranked out in the old system a few times, but most seasons I just went to rank 10 or 11 to get the steel and a heap of flags for minimal effort.  I don't like the star system at all (particularly the save a star aspect) because I think it leads to poor game play, so I don't really enjoy ranked much.  This rework is the opportunity to change that system, and they're missing it, which means I will continue to no effort my way to minimal rewards.  Unfortunately the minimal effort is now actually way more effort in the new system, where getting to rank 10 or 11 took 10-15 battles previously, now to get bronze 6 times will take far more battles.

Overall, I'm distinctly unimpressed with every aspect of this system.  If I was super motivated to get gold every week, I'd be even more upset, because I'd be expected to play 100 battles or more a week just to get a tiny bit of steel, and overall extremely mediocre rewards for the effort put in.  I'll tell you where WG can put that idea...

Ranked should be about winning, and winning only.  No farming, XP should be irrelevant, everything should be focused on the win.  If you win, you move up, if you lose, you move down, with the amount determined by the respective MMR rating of each team, and with a slight positive points bias to ensure continual play will move you up slightly.

[S4pp3R]

1 hour ago, Verytis said:

Bronze will probs be equal to R11 to R17. People have always complained about their teammates being unreliable. I believe most people based it on these ranks, since many say they just stop at R10. The teammates can be even worse than randoms, due to the distillation of player skill. While it should be easy if you focus on carrying yourself, I think the experience might not be very enjoyable. That is why I recommend trying silver, for the active veterans. Bronze also might be too easy and fast. The reward bonus for going silver is decent and effort is within reason.

You misunderstand...

I don't want to play Ranked all the time, I get sick to death of it.

Given that you can regrind each league each week, Bronze is by far the best place to be smashing this out just because of the number of stars and irrevocable ranks involved. Silver is 'maybe' at best, if I want rewards, I'll probs do Bronze, easy and quick.

1 hour ago, Verytis said:

As for gold rank...I believe it is a steep increase intended for only 60%WR+ to be able to grind out efficiently. Referencing my personal experience, I could reach R10 in under 15 matches, R5 in another 60-70 matches, but then spend 120+ matches hanging around the limbo that is R4. I just don't have enough skill, or the right ships yet. I actually feel discouraged from trying gold, the effort is another large leap but the return bonus isn't good enough. Theres also risk I lose out if I fail to reach R2 gold, as I give up on silver league's rewards.

If I want to go as far as I can, I'll go for gold, for the 'prestige' and the better gameplay. If you are simply grinding it out for maximum potential rewards in a time period, sure for the 60% players gold is viable but that isn't the only reason to play gold. Even then if you are after the most amount of rewards for your actual game time spent, go bronze over and over and just be patient.

1 hour ago, Verytis said:

From a queue numbers perspective, the issue should be mostly isolated to gold league. I could still get matches most of the time at night in lower ranks, although you might encounter a few people multiple times.

No it'll be crud.

1. Ranked queue times outside of peak times are average at best currently, the new system will make this even worse.

2. Ranked will now be a permanent game mode so the average number of people in queue at any given time will drop as people get sick of it.

1 hour ago, Verytis said:

Regarding randoms, the player quality will probably worsen since there is a semi-skill based mode for people to play. But hey, since ranked is generally focused on high tiers, you might end up dealing with less TX vs T8.

Yes, Randoms will, I don't know if this is good for the game, time will tell.

But no, less people in queue leads to MORE T10 games for T8s, as the MM can't find a full batch of T10s to vs off themselves.

 

2 minutes ago, Moggytwo said:

I couldn't agree more.  Where is the incentive to move above bronze?  A little bit more steel and doubloons, in exchange for 20 times the effort?  Absolute insanity imo.

I've ranked out in the old system a few times, but most seasons I just went to rank 10 or 11 to get the steel and a heap of flags for minimal effort.  I don't like the star system at all (particularly the save a star aspect) because I think it leads to poor game play, so I don't really enjoy ranked much.  This rework is the opportunity to change that system, and they're missing it, which means I will continue to no effort my way to minimal rewards.  Unfortunately the minimal effort is now actually way more effort in the new system, where getting to rank 10 or 11 took 10-15 battles previously, now to get bronze 6 times will take far more battles.

100%

I rank out during sprints, I can't be bothered during normal seasons. This new ranked system will end up being monotonous like a long season.

Also I think what's wrong with the save-a-star system isn't that mechanic itself but the XP system as a whole being very damage biased but we've been through that discussion many times.

 

I still don't know why they would want to dilute the MM pool with a permanent ranked mode? It's worse for both...

The only thing I think may be happening is to give veterans who have completed everything more of an end-game. This has happened because they've completely stuffed Research Bureau as an engaging system and they haven't been adding enough actual content (diverse maps, map modes, scenarios, etc) as opposed to 'bottlenecked' content - ships.

I get they're working on Subs/etc but we're talking about replayability. Replayability at the end game has been bottlenecked by power-creep and meta shifts, the pool of ships vets play isn't really growing but shifting.

*Shrugs*

[Verytis]

56 minutes ago, Moggytwo said:

I couldn't agree more.  Where is the incentive to move above bronze?  A little bit more steel and doubloons, in exchange for 20 times the effort?  Absolute insanity imo.

46 minutes ago, S4pp3R said:

Given that you can regrind each league each week, Bronze is by far the best place to be smashing this out just because of the number of stars and irrevocable ranks involved. Silver is 'maybe' at best, if I want rewards, I'll probs do Bronze, easy and quick. 

I think you're over exaggerating.  Bronze requires 9 stars, Silver requires 12 stars. Minus the 9 stars required for qualification once per season.

Also, the more skilled you are as a player, the less chance you'll end up using the irrevocable ranks to catch your fall. I expect silver to require between 2 to 4 times the input, with skill playing a large influence. Also diminishing returns makes sense, to help reduce the gap between people with different activity levels. Its just a matter of how much reduction until its no longer worth.

However, I do see the issue of, you decide to play silver 1 week, but want to play bronze the next, but find yourself stuck for the rest of the season. Committing to being silver for up to 5 weeks will be problematic for some, including me. Hopefully WG gives the option to go back down.

 

1 hour ago, Moggytwo said:

Ranked should be about winning, and winning only.  No farming, XP should be irrelevant, everything should be focused on the win.  If you win, you move up, if you lose, you move down, with the amount determined by the respective MMR rating of each team, and with a slight positive points bias to ensure continual play will move you up slightly. 

Besides the "save a star" part and lack of a rating number, the star system does deliver what you desire, so I'm not too bothered by it. I wouldn't argue against that it could be better tho.

 

1 hour ago, S4pp3R said:

But no, less people in queue leads to MORE T10 games for T8s, as the MM can't find a full batch of T10s to vs off themselves.

Point taken. But the total pool of TX would still be reduced, so perhaps they'll be more diluted, even if mixed in with the T8? I haven't done any math, just a theory.

[Paladinum]

I would probably go to Silver in certain leagues/seasons if I'm in need of Doubloon or Steel (not that much anyway, I don't see any Steel ship that I like). I just don't see why I should go all the way to Gold.

T9 hitting T10 brings more economic profit, right? 

[S0und_Theif]

Bronze League definitely is more of an introduction to new players who want to try Ranked and for casual players.

Gold League is definitely targeted for those who are competitive.

Silver League is half - half.

 

Though I wish Silver could use one more irrevocable.

Though most may not like or agree to this idea though.

I would like to give Silver a try though.

[Reinhard_of_Avercland]

For a F2P leech that secretly hopes to get Eugen for free although only for the sake of prestige, I would be more motivated to push through the ranks solely for the free doubloons.

With the old system, I give up at rank 10 because the salt I have to endure beyond that rank doesn't justify the 2,5k doubloons at the top of the rank.

[Moggytwo]

On 12/19/2020 at 12:42 PM, Verytis said:

Besides the "save a star" part and lack of a rating number, the star system does deliver what you desire, so I'm not too bothered by it. I wouldn't argue against that it could be better tho.

Well not really, because the star system takes no account of any difference in skill between the teams. 

This is what the "save a star" system was brought in to mitigate - being a good player but getting a terrible team.  Unfortunately by attempting to fix this annoyance, they fundamentally broke the mode, because now it's far more effective in terms of moving up ranks to focus on saving stars rather than winning, which completely changes the way people play the mode.  As long as this system is in place ranked will be broken - this is absolutely the most important thing they need to focus on with any ranked rework, but unfortunately all they are doing are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. 

Star saving also works off the XP system, which is another reason why it is fundamentally flawed, because quite often the player that has done the most to contribute to the team's chance of winning is not the one that has received the most XP, because XP is damage focused and is unable to take into account all those little things that contribute to victory but can't be measured.

Related to this, the issue with the star system outside the star saving mechanic is that it is a binary "win move up/lose move down" system.  This means it does not take into account any difference in skill between the teams.  Changing to an MMR system would solve this, while meaning they could remove star saving, and have winning being the only way of moving up.  If you lose on a team that has a much lower MMR (so a lesser skilled team) would not result in losing many points, and thus the system accounts for skill differences.

 

On 12/19/2020 at 12:42 PM, Verytis said:

I think you're over exaggerating.  Bronze requires 9 stars, Silver requires 12 stars. Minus the 9 stars required for qualification once per season.

Also, the more skilled you are as a player, the less chance you'll end up using the irrevocable ranks to catch your fall. I expect silver to require between 2 to 4 times the input, with skill playing a large influence. Also diminishing returns makes sense, to help reduce the gap between people with different activity levels. Its just a matter of how much reduction until its no longer worth.

I don't think he is exaggerating.  Let's look at a unicum player with a 60% win rate.  This player is in the top 5% of the game, and clearly has the skill to rank out gold with application.  However, the different leagues function to a degree as a skill based match maker, much like the different leagues in the previous system did.  So when playing gold league, that unicum is playing against a much higher than the game's average skill level, meaning their win rate will move towards the mean, so now they might be getting a 55% win rate.  Meanwhile, if this player plays in the bronze league only, they are actively filtering out the higher skilled player base who will be moving up to silver or gold, so now they are facing a group of people who are below the average skill level, thus their 60% win rate now is worth more, meaning they might be winning 70% or more of their battles.

If you then combine that lower win rate in gold with the much higher number of stars required to rank out in gold, plus the lower number of irrevocable ranks in gold, plus the much lower chance of saving stars against better players, what you have is an effective quadruple dipping in difficulty for ranking out in gold vs bronze.  So that unicum will be able to rank out bronze in maybe 10-15 battles, but ranking out gold with all these factors upping the difficulty exponentially, means that same player may take 100-200 battles to rank out gold, for what is a negligible increase in rewards.

And you have to do this every week!

Note this is for an exceptional player.  Anyone lesser skilled than this will have their exponential curve moved higher based on how much lesser skilled a player they are.  Imagine a 48% player getting through to silver, then not having the skill level to rank out silver at all (or in a reasonable amount of play time, which is effectively the same thing), and then being completely shut out of any reward for what could be a quite considerable amount of time spent.

I think if they are going to continue with this system they need to change the stars per rank so the same number is required in all the leagues to advance.  That leaves us with "only" a triple dipping increase in difficulty.  Even then it's pretty hardcore, which means the rewards for those who succeed at this level need to be significantly increased.  I would suggest the people who rank out gold every week get 2-3 times the rewards of those who rank out bronze.

Combine that with removing the star system and introducing an MMR system, and you would actually have a mode that gives good game play, and rewards effort appropriately without requiring an absurd level of grind.

[S4pp3R]

5 hours ago, Moggytwo said:

blurb...

^^^ What he said

[Verytis]

On 12/20/2020 at 2:18 PM, Moggytwo said:

Related to this, the issue with the star system outside the star saving mechanic is that it is a binary "win move up/lose move down" system.  This means it does not take into account any difference in skill between the teams.  Changing to an MMR system would solve this, while meaning they could remove star saving, and have winning being the only way of moving up.  If you lose on a team that has a much lower MMR (so a lesser skilled team) would not result in losing many points, and thus the system accounts for skill differences.

I said what I said because you said "No farming, XP should be irrelevant, everything should be focused on the win." Right now, the stars mechanic just relies on you winning more than losing, with everyone's team quality averaging out over many games. So in the end it kinda achieves what is needed.

The exception ofc, is the "save a star" as it currently stands. Which I completely agree is a bad thing. Although I do recall someone else making an excellent suggestion to change it. That is to give the top XP winner 2 stars instead. It won't solve the XP system itself being flawed, but it will at least stop people from bailing out of a losing match hoping to save themselves. A rating purely based on winning/losing is still the best route ofc.

 

On 12/20/2020 at 2:18 PM, Moggytwo said:

I don't think he is exaggerating.  Let's look at a unicum player with a 60% win rate.  This player is in the top 5% of the game, and clearly has the skill to rank out gold with application.  However, the different leagues function to a degree as a skill based match maker, much like the different leagues in the previous system did.  So when playing gold league, that unicum is playing against a much higher than the game's average skill level, meaning their win rate will move towards the mean, so now they might be getting a 55% win rate.  Meanwhile, if this player plays in the bronze league only, they are actively filtering out the higher skilled player base who will be moving up to silver or gold, so now they are facing a group of people who are below the average skill level, thus their 60% win rate now is worth more, meaning they might be winning 70% or more of their battles. 

If you then combine that lower win rate in gold with the much higher number of stars required to rank out in gold, plus the lower number of irrevocable ranks in gold, plus the much lower chance of saving stars against better players, what you have is an effective quadruple dipping in difficulty for ranking out in gold vs bronze.  So that unicum will be able to rank out bronze in maybe 10-15 battles, but ranking out gold with all these factors upping the difficulty exponentially, means that same player may take 100-200 battles to rank out gold, for what is a negligible increase in rewards.

Sorry for any confusion. I was mainly arguing for the silver league being a viable option, since you said there was no reason to do anything but bronze. I agree gold requires way too much effort as a weekly and the rewards aren't good enough.

I have taken those factors into account when making my estimate.

[dejiko_nyo]

9 hours ago, Verytis said:

The exception ofc, is the "save a star" as it currently stands. Which I completely agree is a bad thing. Although I do recall someone else making an excellent suggestion to change it. That is to give the top XP winner 2 stars instead.

That was probably me. >_>

To me the excuse of "carrying the losing team" ought to have a start is just preposterous. While it may see like a good idea, in practice it has been shown to be blatantly detrimental to teamplay as people go into the 'everyone for themselves' mentality. Right now people think "oh, it's okay even if I lose so long as I top the leaderboard". It's not playing 7v7; you're fighting against your own team as well. 

If people are insistent on the "star saving" mechanic, then the XP system AND/OR MM must be improved. Right now, farming damage is weighed too heavily in the rewards system. To me, being the decoy pincushion is equally deserving of the rewards as you potentially soak up damage so that your team have the freedom to play out their role. At least with the league system, some skill stratification will happen and it will somehow allow improved MM. I hope. 

I really enjoyed key battles and it should be made a permanent feature for the regular ships. It embodies what the current state of randoms is: 1 v everyone else. 

[Reset_kala]

common sense , its just a inflation.

[Metal_illness]

Disgusting.

Every game so far enemy team gets an enterprise our team gets an AFK.

Lost every single game.

Never made steel from a ranked game EVER.

Is BS until they balans teams, this is not random when its 100% weighted one side.

[Metal_illness]

6 games not a SINGLE GOOD CARRY TEAM.

[Mechfori]

MM all screwed sky high .. had game where one side got all the CA and one side got all the CL, had game where Radar on one team and no Radar the other. 3 DD per team game , no DD game , no cruiser ( and no CV ) game ... and while at it, do not blame WG for all, the players are equally bad, BB who all game sit back lane, Cruiser who will not forward , and generally never defend area in a Domination mode game ... am getting tire to keep capping and yet had to double back and ca again and yet all guns ever do is sit all out or wide outside , it seems too may are too corky in their ability to kill all enemy ( which usually end up not the case ) ; any time situation turn sour, see people start turning tail and saving the time for farming ... this do not change with this new one and still hurt the overall quality major.

 

[S0und_Theif]

Remember WG posted this before they introduce the updated Ranked Battle.

https://worldofwarships.asia/en/news/game-guides/how-it-works-matchmaker/

 

What WG is trying to say or prove = ????

[Saturnslayer]

I mean... I have no idea but sure, i will agree with you to be part of the crowd.

Am i popular now?

[dejiko_nyo]

12 hours ago, S0und_Theif said:

What WG is trying to say or prove = ????

From my initial experience, all of wg's "advertisement" on how xyz works is essentially useless. It just glosses over the issues and attempts to put a positive spin on things. I stopped watching them after the 2nd or 3rd one. 

[IJN_Akashi]

On 12/23/2020 at 8:09 PM, S0und_Theif said:

Remember WG posted this before they introduce the updated Ranked Battle.

https://worldofwarships.asia/en/news/game-guides/how-it-works-matchmaker/

 

What WG is trying to say or prove = ????

it only proves how incompetent they are, considering Ranked and Randoms are JUST THE SAME.

only in Ranked you get more idiotic plebs on your team.

[dejiko_nyo]

ELO.

[Earl_of_Arland]

2 hours ago, IJN_Akashi said:

only in Ranked you get more idiotic plebs on your team.

Well maybe that's only you

 

 

 

 

My ranked team is either full autistic or plain good