Polite online gaming
Mar. 11th, 2015 01:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzI've been playing World of Tanks for a little over a year now and I've progressed to tier 5 and 6 vehicles. My two highest-level tank are the Hellcat and the KV-2, both on tier 6. I'm starting to recognise what I like to do and what I don't like to do.
Although World of Tanks is a massive multiplayer online game, you're forced to play with a random team of 15 individuals. As soon as you select which tank you'd like to drive, the Matchmaker just throws you into a team and tries to balance two teams against one another to make it as fair a battle as can be.
The problem is that there are fifteen individuals who each have their own thoughts about winning a battle. Usually, experience on a map means you recognise the 'standard' routes to take. Heavy tanks go this way, light tanks go that way... But not everyone is that smart or thinks about which routes are lesser defended or worse: left completely open. Often enough an entire flank is left open and all it takes is one fast light or medium tank (-destroyer) that finds out the quick route to your artillery and base means not having any resistance.
Sometimes your team just sits there, chatting about "Maus is best tank in game" and waiting for the enemy to pick them off one by one (I was scouting in my KV-2, since no-one else seemed inclined to advance. Yes, this was a Tier 6 game on Fiery Salient *headdesk*).
The problem is not just that people hardly look at the mini-map that instantly shows you what is going wrong. It's not even the lack of communication about tactics, although it would help a lot if there was any tactical communication going on besides the standard-programmed "defend the base" and "help!" sentences
It all starts with XVM and the missions...
XVM is a mod that shows you player statistics. It awards a colour to a player according to its effectiveness rating. The effectiveness rating of a player is made up of hit ratio, number of battles played, average damage per battle (caused directly and indirectly) and win ratio. Although I'm hovering around 52% win ratio, my hit ratio is only 30% and I've only been playing for a year or so. Because I play the lower tier tanks, the damage per battle is very low: a tier 10 tank does far more damage than a tier 3 tank, after all.
At the start of a battle, XVM shows the calculated winning chance your team has for this battle. And that's where it goes wrong. A 16% chance to win doesn't mean an 84% chance to loose, since you can also have a draw. If both teams and its players are matched very well, the chance to have a draw might be really big, meaning your win and loss chances are quite small in comparison. But it takes far less effort to make a win from a high draw chance, than to make a win from a high loss chance!
Still, a lot of players think that if your own team is made up of 'red' players (bad XVM rating) and there's only a low chance to win, the battle is already lost! This is just not true.
The other side of looking at this also happens: people with an awesome win rating think the game is already in the bag, and they suddenly lose all sense, charge on ahead, do stupid things and subsequently lose the battle. Because they didn't try their best.
One of the best video's on YouTube illustrating what I'm talking about is this Epic Win video. It shows a tank battle where the team with the worst players (all with orange or red ratings in XVM) have a 16% chance to win. The other team, with people having 11k battles under their belt, are getting their asses handed to them. The 10-minute Epic Win video (spoiler: they do win, despite the 16% chance to win!) is worth watching because of the way the game is played and of course the dulcet tones of Jingles telling the story.
The missions are another problem. Recently, personalised missions were introduced, trying to provide people some insight on how their tank works. The missions are calibrated so they highlight each tank type's special abilities: how light tanks are fast and great spotters, how tank destroyers keep their distance and are a hidden menace, how valuable an artillery's long-distance support is and how heavy tanks like to get in close and fight in the dregs.
But they also alter people's personal objectives for the battle. In stead of trying to win with their team, they are trying to win their mission. And these missions are worth finishing, with 50.000 credits or special equipment to win for completing them. I've seen dozens of light tank drivers sacrificing themselves by driving straight into enemy lines because their mission was "spot two enemies". But their kamikaze-approach means their team not only lost a teammate, they also lost that teammate's gun and anything else he might have contributed that battle. If that light tank was still alive, he could sneak around an enemy and attack them from behind, where the armour plating is thin.
Not everyone approaches the missions this way -- I find some of them very hard to complete because some of them are just not my style -- but there are enough examples in my replays to illustrate.
What I find most irritating, though, is the way people react to the above two factors. Sometimes when XVM gives a low win chance, people will immediately start griping about it in the battle chat. They have already given up.
People's actions are also a favourite thing to moan about. Sometimes there's an open request to report another player for being a bot. Of course, there are those players who quit the battle when they see a very low win chance, and anyone I can see hasn't moved during the entire battle will get reported, but I always report people that start namecalling. That can happen when you derp someone (=killing them in a single shot. Hilarious to do, not so hilarious when it happens to you).
How hard is it to drive carefully? It seems to be a sport to half-ram your teammates when they're driving on what is apparantly, your road. Sometimes you get pushed out of a bush or hiding spot that was apparantly reserved for your teammate.
Wasting ammo is also fun, it seems. Shooting the soil in front of your artillery at the start of the battle is hilarious. Shooting random houses too. Never mind ammo costs credits and firing your gun can give away your position....
Some nights I can take it. I congratulate the enemy artillery for hitting my tank perfectly while I think I am unspotted and add a smiley so they can see I am sincere. I wish the other team "GL & HF" and joke about slow artillery in battle chat. Other nights I just shut down the game and take up my knitting.
It's a game that can be quite fun, if everyone is trying their best. Let's try and work together to make it nice out there.
Although World of Tanks is a massive multiplayer online game, you're forced to play with a random team of 15 individuals. As soon as you select which tank you'd like to drive, the Matchmaker just throws you into a team and tries to balance two teams against one another to make it as fair a battle as can be.
The problem is that there are fifteen individuals who each have their own thoughts about winning a battle. Usually, experience on a map means you recognise the 'standard' routes to take. Heavy tanks go this way, light tanks go that way... But not everyone is that smart or thinks about which routes are lesser defended or worse: left completely open. Often enough an entire flank is left open and all it takes is one fast light or medium tank (-destroyer) that finds out the quick route to your artillery and base means not having any resistance.
Sometimes your team just sits there, chatting about "Maus is best tank in game" and waiting for the enemy to pick them off one by one (I was scouting in my KV-2, since no-one else seemed inclined to advance. Yes, this was a Tier 6 game on Fiery Salient *headdesk*).
The problem is not just that people hardly look at the mini-map that instantly shows you what is going wrong. It's not even the lack of communication about tactics, although it would help a lot if there was any tactical communication going on besides the standard-programmed "defend the base" and "help!" sentences
It all starts with XVM and the missions...
XVM is a mod that shows you player statistics. It awards a colour to a player according to its effectiveness rating. The effectiveness rating of a player is made up of hit ratio, number of battles played, average damage per battle (caused directly and indirectly) and win ratio. Although I'm hovering around 52% win ratio, my hit ratio is only 30% and I've only been playing for a year or so. Because I play the lower tier tanks, the damage per battle is very low: a tier 10 tank does far more damage than a tier 3 tank, after all.
At the start of a battle, XVM shows the calculated winning chance your team has for this battle. And that's where it goes wrong. A 16% chance to win doesn't mean an 84% chance to loose, since you can also have a draw. If both teams and its players are matched very well, the chance to have a draw might be really big, meaning your win and loss chances are quite small in comparison. But it takes far less effort to make a win from a high draw chance, than to make a win from a high loss chance!
Still, a lot of players think that if your own team is made up of 'red' players (bad XVM rating) and there's only a low chance to win, the battle is already lost! This is just not true.
The other side of looking at this also happens: people with an awesome win rating think the game is already in the bag, and they suddenly lose all sense, charge on ahead, do stupid things and subsequently lose the battle. Because they didn't try their best.
One of the best video's on YouTube illustrating what I'm talking about is this Epic Win video. It shows a tank battle where the team with the worst players (all with orange or red ratings in XVM) have a 16% chance to win. The other team, with people having 11k battles under their belt, are getting their asses handed to them. The 10-minute Epic Win video (spoiler: they do win, despite the 16% chance to win!) is worth watching because of the way the game is played and of course the dulcet tones of Jingles telling the story.
The missions are another problem. Recently, personalised missions were introduced, trying to provide people some insight on how their tank works. The missions are calibrated so they highlight each tank type's special abilities: how light tanks are fast and great spotters, how tank destroyers keep their distance and are a hidden menace, how valuable an artillery's long-distance support is and how heavy tanks like to get in close and fight in the dregs.
But they also alter people's personal objectives for the battle. In stead of trying to win with their team, they are trying to win their mission. And these missions are worth finishing, with 50.000 credits or special equipment to win for completing them. I've seen dozens of light tank drivers sacrificing themselves by driving straight into enemy lines because their mission was "spot two enemies". But their kamikaze-approach means their team not only lost a teammate, they also lost that teammate's gun and anything else he might have contributed that battle. If that light tank was still alive, he could sneak around an enemy and attack them from behind, where the armour plating is thin.
Not everyone approaches the missions this way -- I find some of them very hard to complete because some of them are just not my style -- but there are enough examples in my replays to illustrate.
What I find most irritating, though, is the way people react to the above two factors. Sometimes when XVM gives a low win chance, people will immediately start griping about it in the battle chat. They have already given up.
People's actions are also a favourite thing to moan about. Sometimes there's an open request to report another player for being a bot. Of course, there are those players who quit the battle when they see a very low win chance, and anyone I can see hasn't moved during the entire battle will get reported, but I always report people that start namecalling. That can happen when you derp someone (=killing them in a single shot. Hilarious to do, not so hilarious when it happens to you).
How hard is it to drive carefully? It seems to be a sport to half-ram your teammates when they're driving on what is apparantly, your road. Sometimes you get pushed out of a bush or hiding spot that was apparantly reserved for your teammate.
Wasting ammo is also fun, it seems. Shooting the soil in front of your artillery at the start of the battle is hilarious. Shooting random houses too. Never mind ammo costs credits and firing your gun can give away your position....
Some nights I can take it. I congratulate the enemy artillery for hitting my tank perfectly while I think I am unspotted and add a smiley so they can see I am sincere. I wish the other team "GL & HF" and joke about slow artillery in battle chat. Other nights I just shut down the game and take up my knitting.
It's a game that can be quite fun, if everyone is trying their best. Let's try and work together to make it nice out there.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2015-03-12 12:34 pm (UTC)I found there were some people who were indeed harping on the win percentages, but they were mostly in the low tiers and on the NA server. In the EU server from tier 5 upwards, I find it much less. If I do notice it. I mostly zone these messages out, because I'm playing for fun. That said. I did once blow up a former team member who was trying to teamkill me, because I was between him and an enemy tank. After he turned blue he got some nice love from the AMX-40 in his face. That was fun.
I do agree it can sometimes be somewhat frustrating if you play well, but the team throws it all away. I'm be all means not the greatest player around (still learning the game), but judging by the amount of 'Fire for Effect' medals I have, I do think I manage to pull my weight in the average teams. But sometimes it just is not enough and the universe is trying to tell you something. Other times, though, the ROFL stomp is the other way around. I think those aren't the most fun games either.
I hardly use the chat, other than pointing out targets, when I scout (I like the go-cart scouts like the Luchs, or the ELC), calling for help, if the enemy avalance is coming or when I'm all alone on a flank. Other times, I'm just too busy fighting my tank, to be able to also type in chat. And that is the weak point in coordinating a battle between 15 strangers. Either you fight and don't have the time to chat, or you chat, but can't really fight. That makes the few times, when you find another player who works well with you, even without communicating, all the more fun.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-12 01:22 pm (UTC)Sounds like you're pulling your weight in battles. Although it hardly ever works for me if I use the quick commands to point out one flank is being overrun or the enemy is crawling all over our arty. Sometimes it does, mostly people only notice when it's already too late. It happens.
I often use the cruise control (punch R a couple of times for fast forward) so I have my hands free. Works like a charm when you're crawling up a hill or slowly advancing in your KV-2. Time enough to kill while you wait for the enemies.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-12 07:57 pm (UTC)