I had 41 games in the “afternoon” defined as noon-9PM. I had 22 defeats, 4 star save defeats and 15 victories. That’s mere 34% winrate, the performance of AFK-ers.
I had 43 games at the “night”, defined as after 9PM and early morning. I had 16 defeats, 2 star save defeats and 25 victories. That’s 58% winrate, very good.
There are no actual patterns inside, no full streaks. The reason seems obvious: in the peak hours the random players are unable and unwilling to play strategically. They curse at me for “not helping” and attack the enemy outnumbered. The more dedicated and experienced players at off hours realize that they cannot win head on and try to save their star, not losing ships before I complete my flanking and sink the enemy battleships. What I realized is that I usually get first blood, somewhere around 7 mins after start (13 mins left).
But I can be wrong, but it’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is that I should not play in the afternoons and should play in off hours.
.
PS: it seems I wasn’t wrong. On Thursday I started playing late and:
@Gevlon
Every single game in a Yugumo? Just exactly what kind of meta are you pursuing here? It’s just odd seeing you play that ship after some of your more recent posts on balancing. It makes one wonder just how much you contribute to the “teamwork” aspect of the game, and it seems apparent that you’re playing the game from a solo perspective instead of as a team game. I mean, you do mention “star saving” a couple of times in this post….which presents a very different picture to a reader when it comes time to summarize a post such as this.
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“in the peak hours the random players are unable and unwilling to play strategically”
No. You are just repeating the Reddit idiocy of “other players are so bad they make me lose”. If they were bad you’d have better results, otherwise, you’re making a claim that worse players win more.
You probably have a response ready “they are bad and as such can’t adapt to the presence of Yugumo and my unique strategy, good players can appreciate me and we win together”. Bull – shit. Good players hate having Yugumo on their side. Your “strategy” isn’t a strategy that your team can adapt to, because you are playing a solo game of “let’s roll some dice and see if I can hit a few lucky torps”. You are playing a bad ship with a 46% average win rate.
Ranked is not Random. The very good players who have a lot of time rank out very quickly. Half of my clan already has R1, I did mine before week one ended.
Peak hours are peak because even people who otherwise don’t have a lot of time can sneak in a game or two in the afternoon or early evening. Considering the age demographics of WoWs those are most likely people with jobs and children – they have some time in the evening after the kids are fed and daily routines finished, but not late in the night as they get up to work early next day. Plus, wifey won’t let them play after midnight. Poor sods.
Off-peak hours have fewer of those and as such the percentage of people in the category of “have a lot of time” is much higher. Now, we already established that people who “have a lot of time” AND “are very good” have already ranked out. Therefore, the remaining people who “have a lot of time” can not “be very good”.
Meaning, off-peak the average skill level drops significantly. Which lets you win. Peak time you aren’t good enough for the playing field (Yugumo sucks) so you lose. The difference doesn’t have to be huge. In 6 men teams, a single good player can change the outcome. It also makes it much, much harder to save your star, as the good ones on your side will be better farmers.
Don’t play late afternoons and evenings for “best” results. Unless you just like to play Ranked like myself – I ignored my own advice because I was confident I could rank out at any time and having a worse win rate doesn’t mean anything to me. In fact, it let me play more of the games I enjoy most, with and against the best players very early in the season.
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@Stawek: I have 53% winrate with the Yugumo, with purple damage numbers (top 5% of Yugumo players), the 46% you calculated came from fully the 2-5 bracket https://wows-numbers.com/player/554983041,GevIon1/?type=rank And this isn’t even recent as it lists me as rank 4.
To the body of the comment: in peak times someone (friend or enemy) dies in the first 3-4 minute. Why? Because they rush to the middle and duke it out. I don’t question that those who got to Rank 2-5 with limited time are “good”, but they are only good at hitting their target, their sense of strategy equals to a lemming. It is possible that they could do better but they don’t want to, they just want to “shoot shit XD”. In off hours the first blood is usually 7-10 minutes after start and it’s usually me sinking a battleship.
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46% win rate was about Yugumo. I know you have 53%. However, you scored a very good result in 10-6 bracket and now your stats are falling. Your current win rate in 5-2 bracket is at roughly 50%.
In off hours the bad players don’t know how to position themselves so any clown who yolos into the mid has a chance to live through it. The better players in peak times will be in the right spot to punish their stupidity and they will aim better. So no, it isn’t the clown in the middle that plays worse, it’s the people shooting him that are better.
Off-peak people in R5 aren’t very bad, not at all. But there is a difference and it’s enough to change the outcomes. Particularly for a ship like Yugumo, which relies not only on your skill to aim torpedoes but also on your opponents lack of skill to anticipate them.
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@Anon (assuming Stawek): can be true, but doesn’t really matter. What matters is that playing off-hours gives 20%!!! win rate difference, which shouldn’t be left on the table.
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I never understood that way of thinking. I am more interested in getting better myself, measured in having a deeper understanding of the game and how to win in it. The actual rating doesn’t matter and the loss ratio is only interesting insofar as it confirms or denies my ideas about the game. Manipulating the loss ratio through methods like playtime seems counterproductive to the goal of getting better, as it distorts the idea of what works and what doesn’t.
Furthermore, if i get a chance to play against stronger players, i’d take it, as long as i’m not utterly crushed to the point where i learn absolutely nothing from it. However, furthermore still, the most productive games for gaining rating are not grinding randoms in ranked fights, but rather having a series of unranked custom skirmishes with a specific training partner (or a group thereof), with whom you agree to practice a specific kind of play and counterplay. These training sessions are the most effective way of actually breaking through to higher ratings in ranked matches, as they allow you to focus on a specific play and learn better skills for that specific play, as opposed to being torn every which way on the ladder.
Rating is not the goal. You’ll get it automatically once you get the game down properly.
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@Maxim: result is the goal. By any legal means necessary.
That’s capitalism, that’s what I want to preach.
I can’t care less about getting better in a video game shooting pixel ships.
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You don’t get better rewards for playing fewer games in Ranked. Sure, it’s more “efficient”, so what? You’re going to be playing the game either way in Randoms, which you enjoy less than Ranked, so decreasing the number of games is a loss in fun for no benefit (unless you were going to farm xp in new ships). And if you don’t enjoy Ranked, why bother at all? for $3 worth of rewards?
It doesn’t mean playing worse, it only means playing against stronger opponents. That’s more fun for me. Or playing your favourite ship, which is completely acceptable (as long as you can still reach R1). Playing and enjoying the game is more important than playing the meta game.
Now, for a person with limited time or near the threshold of being successful (like yourself – you lose in peak times) it is a choice between getting or not getting the R1. They should maximize their win rate by any means necessary if their goal is to achieve R1. And they should be playing to that goal.
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@Stawek: I stick to my idea that peak time randoms are mechanically good, but strategically bad or uninterested. I find “breaking the meta” fun.
I don’t find it fun to watch idiots going mid and dying or killing the enemy idiots, deciding the game without me. Nor I find it fun to go to mid and shoot idiots.
Finally, I’m a blogger, so my gaming goal is to create good blogpost material. Which post would you prefer:
– do X and your winrate greatly increase
– bunch of screenshots of me shooting idiots at mid in a Jutland
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Interesting take. I find in certain games (Clash of Clans specifically) I do far better in the morning and non-NA peak times. I always wondered if it was due to how other countries play strategies, etc. I also found it true of games like Magic The Gathering Arena.
Off to feel that competition is easier at certain times of the day, but not sure what drives that.
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@Gevlon Do you play clan battles? Would you consider creating a clan for the express purpose of breaking the clan battles meta? Clan battles seems to be the environment that has the most control. You control the ships and the players you bring. You don’t control your opponent’s’ composition. But that’s why “metas” exist.
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Isey: it depends on whether your matchmaking is achievement-based or not.
We can assume that peak times have higher percentage of people who play fewer hours than off-peak times. After all, they are peak times for a reason – namely more people find time to play the game.
We can also assume that people who play more are on average better than those who play less. I don’t think any explanation is necessary here.
Then we come to following conclusions:
If the players you match against are completely random, then peak times offer lower skilled opponents on average. The typical “Sunday driver” phenomenon. Off-peak times have more “hardcore” player base and therefore better opponents.
If the matchmaker is achievement-based (a number of points or such which have to be farmed) then your opponents will be better on average on peak times. Why? Because players with less free time available are staying behind the curve in their farming efforts.
If the matchmaker is skill based (a continuous ELO based ladder like LoL) then your opponents are the same no matter when you play.
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@Glen: clans do all kind of meta-breaking stuff, including only-Harugumo games. I doubt there is anything there I could add.
@Stawek: you wrote https://greedygoblinblog.wordpress.com/2019/02/14/what-i-seek-in-a-game/#comment-5565
“WG didn’t do it to disrupt the meta and create novelties, they did it to prepare the game for consoles and accommodate at least a few players from the failing World of Warplanes. Playability be damned.” If that’s true, than the peak-hour players are “console”-type people, otherwise Wargaming wouldn’t dare to do the changes. I mean if the the target audience is “console idiots” then we can assume that the casual base of the current game (= target audience) is similar idiots who drive to the middle, die and blame the Yugumo for not being a Jutland next to them.
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Peak time players are just people who don’t have time to play at other times. It doesn’t say anything else about them. It could be argued that somebody with little time on their hands will not buy a console that is designed for playing games only, as they don’t have much time to do it anyway.
I think they are making the same mistake most other products do. They try to cater to a broader audience and by doing so, lose the niche audience they have.
They don’t understand that it’s better when 95% of people hate you and 5% love you than to have 100% people think you’re OK. OK doesn’t sell and Pareto principle is a very visible evidence of that.
What’s the chance they can actually compete in the broader market against the established titles like LoL or Overwatch? In my estimation – none. WoWs has little action as it is, removing the strategic thinking leaves us with glorified Angry Birds.
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Amount of busy people could explain the difference between peak and off peak ranked play. Busy people are more likely to prefer quick games instead of slowly gathering buffs and sniping long range.
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