High Tier Gameplay is it about CAPs or Ships?

[DireWound]

Anyone else run into this issue a lot that I see? 

In high tier games I find the meta and how most people play forces the flow into a game where the first half of the game is basically deathmatch where you are best off playing fairly cautions with bursts of aggression to get a few kills (without losses) and create a ship number advantage.  The problem is many players play aggressive early on and then lose there ships rushing CAPs then blaming the rest of the team who is just still positioning and killing trying to get an initial team advantage.

​For me only after one team gets a ship advantage through a combination of conservative and aggressive play should they go too overboard to press contested CAPs.  Sure if you get easy caps early on it is great but it is not worth risking losing a major number of ships (2+ ships) to get a cap early on because guess what if the other team gets a significant ship advantage (3+ ships) they can usually just drive over the map taking caps with ease when all else is equal (skill, ship type, etc). 

​I bring this up because I often see games where in the first 5 mins of the game we or the other team lose several ships before even the big ships can get into position to have a real impact on the game, and then dead people sit around and tell the living ships their are whimps for not charging vastly larger fleets to try to take a cap in honor of them posthumously (sp) when that CAP will just flip back instantly after you yolo it or even worse you'll yolo it and not even take the cap.

​In short if feel CAPs are temporary, ship number advantages usually drive the game not caps.  This means play conservative at times, give up a cap if it means you are going to lose several ships (without inflicting major losses on the enemy) in the process of defending it.

Play aggressive when you have the local number advantage and try to keep the balance of ships positive for your team.  I often see teams where they have pretty much lost or disadvantaged the team severely in the first 5 mins of the game which for me is just a time when you should be jockeying and looking for people out of position to dogpile on and kill.  Ideally you thin out the other teams DDs before you press CAPs is all I am saying.  Big ships pressing dd infested caps without dd and some cruiser support that already died is so stupid unless the dd is about to die already.

​But then usually I find the people that do this probably don't read forums too much.

[pmgaudio]

play the objectives

 

nuff said

[Herr_Reitz]

Wha?! You think the "big ships are slow" because (more or less) it takes them five minutes to get into position? Implied by saying how many ships die in the first five minutes. So for the first five minutes all other ships should do what, hover around them? 

 

This has been pounded into the beach so many times; it is one of the influencing factors in many of the nerfs/buffs since going live. Economies where changed even to make things start happening at the higher tiers. Need I tell you how many times the guys/gals in the "big ships" expect every other ship to go forth, spot and die for them, so they may come out in the last couple of minutes and savage the remnants of the opposing, red team.

 

Like this?

 

 

And that's just the way it is... the only way I can ever see it changing is for WoWS/WG to start matches at those tiers on open water.... everybody can see everybody else at the start of the match. When the match starts, everyone starts firing and maneuvering. 

[mohawkdriver]

Yes, I do see what you mention in your post.  Frustration with your points are not confined to high-tier, however.  I don't know where the latest thinking comes from, but it seems to me that someone with only a few hundred battles that is already at Tier 9 or 10 has cheated not only himself, but his teammates also.  I see this quite often.

[Ajax_the_Great1]

Caps matter. It's really rare to see a team lose the cap battle but win the game.

[Seamus_44]

Interesting theory, have to disagree. In domination caps almost always count significantly in the win. If the other team has control of all three caps the game almost always goes to that team. They get points, the other side loses ships and their point count zeros out. A two cap advantage gives that side a quickly improving point count that is almost impossible to counter by killing more ships. All four of my solo warriors came in part from being able to survive and hold just one cap after an early domination of the caps. Games lost to the team with fewer ships due to points is a common occurrence. Each game is different, but in general take available caps without excessive losses, hold those and look for open caps, then kill. Drives me nuts when ships sit just outside an open cap hunting a kill as we lose points.  

[Mesrith]

Killing ships wins games, and once one team has a sizable numbers advantage, they pretty much control the map as long as they're not defeated in detail from being too spread out.  However, caps provide pressure on the enemy team and give your team the luxury of patience, if they're smart enough to utilize it.  Once one team has a cap advantage, the other team is forced to overcome it by taking away caps, or running up a kill advantage.

 

So, both.  They go hand in hand usually.  If a team does very poorly in either category, they'll lose more often than not.

[pmgaudio]

Killing ships wins games, and once one team has a sizable numbers advantage, they pretty much control the map as long as they're not defeated in detail from being too spread out.  However, caps provide pressure on the enemy team and give your team the luxury of patience, if they're smart enough to utilize it.  Once one team has a cap advantage, the other team is forced to overcome it by taking away caps, or running up a kill advantage.

 

So, both.  They go hand in hand usually.  If a team does very poorly in either category, they'll lose more often than not.

 

[BrushWolf]

Anyone else run into this issue a lot that I see? 

 

In high tier games I find the meta and how most people play forces the flow into a game where the first half of the game is basically deathmatch where you are best off playing fairly cautions with bursts of aggression to get a few kills (without losses) and create a ship number advantage.  The problem is many players play aggressive early on and then lose there ships rushing CAPs then blaming the rest of the team who is just still positioning and killing trying to get an initial team advantage.

 

​For me only after one team gets a ship advantage through a combination of conservative and aggressive play should they go too overboard to press contested CAPs.  Sure if you get easy caps early on it is great but it is not worth risking losing a major number of ships (2+ ships) to get a cap early on because guess what if the other team gets a significant ship advantage (3+ ships) they can usually just drive over the map taking caps with ease when all else is equal (skill, ship type, etc). 

 

​I bring this up because I often see games where in the first 5 mins of the game we or the other team lose several ships before even the big ships can get into position to have a real impact on the game, and then dead people sit around and tell the living ships their are whimps for not charging vastly larger fleets to try to take a cap in honor of them posthumously (sp) when that CAP will just flip back instantly after you yolo it or even worse you'll yolo it and not even take the cap.

 

​In short if feel CAPs are temporary, ship number advantages usually drive the game not caps.  This means play conservative at times, give up a cap if it means you are going to lose several ships (without inflicting major losses on the enemy) in the process of defending it.

 

Play aggressive when you have the local number advantage and try to keep the balance of ships positive for your team.  I often see teams where they have pretty much lost or disadvantaged the team severely in the first 5 mins of the game which for me is just a time when you should be jockeying and looking for people out of position to dogpile on and kill.  Ideally you thin out the other teams DDs before you press CAPs is all I am saying.  Big ships pressing dd infested caps without dd and some cruiser support that already died is so stupid unless the dd is about to die already.

 

​But then usually I find the people that do this probably don't read forums too much.

 

Yeah, the high tier ships are so deadly that a large chunk of the match is very tentative. This will apply at any level, if it comes down to it make sure that your death counts, take someone with you, preferably the same class or higher.

[Stonehammers]

[dbs1701]

Ships or caps? Yes. Every match is different and I dont think there is any single strategy that will always be effective. When someone says "play the objectives" remember that both sinking and capping are considered objectives. I usually learn more from losses than victories (so by that logic I'm basically Nelson at this point lol), but I've had games where we lose all caps quickly and are never able to get the initiative and also lose too many ships trying to turn it around, as the "cap first" camp would say, but I've also seen matches where we cap very quickly but then the team melts in mid game so that by late game it is going the other way.

 

Think about it this way perhaps: Capping grants you the initiative but sinking enemies will have bigger ripple effects later in game. What you can't have is get behind in both areas right away. If you get ahead in caps, you need to be especially careful to not throw away ships doing it, if you get ahead in ships you should look for the strategic opportunities to advance and retake caps.  General thoughts, you're mileage will vary.

[Captain_Dorja]

Controlling caps is a good way to get a ship kill advantage too. If enemy team loses too many caps, they are left having to choose between playing safe but earning a defeat by cap, or playing risky in order to prevent a defeat by caps. Ultimately, if given the option to kill a ship or take a cap, I'd rather have the cap 99 times out of 100.

[DireWound]

play the objectives

 

nuff said

 

​I just did what you said in epicenter.  Took the center with Khab instantly the other team barely contested.  We had the free extra points ticking for the whole game. 

 

My team got bored in the standoff looking over the center I took, so they lamely charged the other team who was camping near their spawn side.  My team died one by one, the other team leisurely came out of the spawn and killed the rest of us then took the epicenter.  By me playing the cap early it made not one bit of benefit to the team.  CAPs don't seem to help except as tie breakers when the teams are very close in overall skill and competence.

 

​The caps need to be worth more points or something or maybe they ramp up to more points the longer you hold them, that would punish teams that just group up, hide behind a rock and wait for stupid people to drive out and die until the herd is thinned.

 

At high tier a mass of people focus firing seems greater than the value of an early cap.  For me early rush cap is risky, unless the other team is asleep, the more passive team will get free kills.

 

​Oh and someone else said this, killing ships is one of the stated objectives.  So not capping and killing ships is still playing the objectives but many people seem to think CAPs are inherently better than killing a lot of ships which I actually find to be not true.

[DireWound]

Wha?! You think the "big ships are slow" because (more or less) it takes them five minutes to get into position? Implied by saying how many ships die in the first five minutes. So for the first five minutes all other ships should do what, hover around them? 

 

This has been pounded into the beach so many times; it is one of the influencing factors in many of the nerfs/buffs since going live. Economies where changed even to make things start happening at the higher tiers. Need I tell you how many times the guys/gals in the "big ships" expect every other ship to go forth, spot and die for them, so they may come out in the last couple of minutes and savage the remnants of the opposing, red team.

 

Like this?

 

 

And that's just the way it is... the only way I can ever see it changing is for WoWS/WG to start matches at those tiers on open water.... everybody can see everybody else at the start of the match. When the match starts, everyone starts firing and maneuvering. 

Well the funny thing is I play big and small ships equally, I would rather our DDs stay with the fleet and not scout at all over run in and die then blame the big fat ships for not "supporting" them.  When supporting them means driving into a CAP with multiple DDs that can instantly delete you at short range.

 

​For me the biggest problem with WOW is two things.

1. Scouts that don't know how to look at the mini-map to determine that a CAP isn't worth it because the other side has overwhelming firepower in place to delete you.

2. BBs/Cruisers that don't support scouts and spend the first 10 mins of the game lobbing shells at max range without even trying to put pressure on caps.

 

​In the end, I think maintaining a good team ratio of kills to deaths is far more useful in the first part of the game, CAPs only seems to have a huge impact in tight games or if they are ignored for too long.   The problem is I don't think a lot of people get that so they just charge caps instantly, die fast, then blame team for lack of support.

 

​I've tried both strategies and the more cautious one of not fully jumping into the cap with both feet seems to help the team most, unless you have determined nobody (or just one ship) is around to stop you from yolo/solo.

 

​I am also seeing frequent games where my team takes two or three caps instantly but still loses just because the other team is more focused and just mows through teams that scattered to try to charge caps too early.

[DireWound]

Interesting theory, have to disagree. In domination caps almost always count significantly in the win. If the other team has control of all three caps the game almost always goes to that team. They get points, the other side loses ships and their point count zeros out. A two cap advantage gives that side a quickly improving point count that is almost impossible to counter by killing more ships. All four of my solo warriors came in part from being able to survive and hold just one cap after an early domination of the caps. Games lost to the team with fewer ships due to points is a common occurrence. Each game is different, but in general take available caps without excessive losses, hold those and look for open caps, then kill. Drives me nuts when ships sit just outside an open cap hunting a kill as we lose points.  

 

​I guess 3 caps is the most extreme case, but I have seen them turn around too often.  Most commonly I am in a scenario where we have one cap the other team has two.  People freak that we have only one cap and feel they must instantly get a 2nd cap to change the balance, so they get reckless, start calling the rest of the team wusses because BBs have to reposition slowly, they lose ships at a faster rate as a result causing the point counter to just spiral faster to the enemy team.  By focusing too heavily on caps we get screwed over.

 

​What I am saying is if you have one cap and you are maintaining a good ratio of team kills to team deaths, in the long haul you will usually win in spite of being down a cap.   Eventually the other team starved of ships will lose that very slow ticking cap which is offset by kill points anyhow if your team is deathmatching and they are spread out trying to protect spread out caps.

 

​This seems most prevalent in high tier too with so many death star ships that can instantly swing a battle.  The players that come from lower tier to higher tier seem to understand this least since in mid/low tier early CAPs seemed more useful to me somehow.  

 

At high tier if you overextend you get killed faster than at lower tier is what it seems due to soo many ships with longer range guns/radar/sonar/sattelite/etc that can refocus on the early cap, this has made my agressive DD play less fun for instance.  I noticed this big time around tier 8+ it's like playing two different games. 

[BrushWolf]

 

​I just did what you said in epicenter.  Took the center with Khab instantly the other team barely contested.  We had the free extra points ticking for the whole game. 

 

My team got bored in the standoff looking over the center I took, so they lamely charged the other team who was camping near their spawn side.  My team died one by one, the other team leisurely came out of the spawn and killed the rest of us then took the epicenter.  By me playing the cap early it made not one bit of benefit to the team.  CAPs don't seem to help except as tie breakers when the teams are very close in overall skill and competence.

 

​The caps need to be worth more points or something or maybe they ramp up to more points the longer you hold them, that would punish teams that just group up, hide behind a rock and wait for stupid people to drive out and die until the herd is thinned.

 

At high tier a mass of people focus firing seems greater than the value of an early cap.  For me early rush cap is risky, unless the other team is asleep, the more passive team will get free kills.

 

​Oh and someone else said this, killing ships is one of the stated objectives.  So not capping and killing ships is still playing the objectives but many people seem to think CAPs are inherently better than killing a lot of ships which I actually find to be not true.

 

You benefited your team greatly. They just snatched defeat from the jaws of victory as happened to the enemy team in this WoWP match.

 

[tugdual]

The problem is not tactics of forum's player, this problem is lot of player don't know :

- they ship

- other ship

- see a mini-map

- map awarness

- he don't have mind.

 

Today, we erase a ennemy tean in T7-T5 battle by YOLO rush on cap in 6vs10, we just lose the Cleveland because he go in knife-fight against Graff Spee. We win by shock and awe with less firepower. But LOL

[DireWound]

The problem is not tactics of forum's player, this problem is lot of player don't know :

- they ship

- other ship

- see a mini-map

- map awarness

- he don't have mind.

 

Today, we erase a ennemy tean in T7-T5 battle by YOLO rush on cap in 6vs10, we just lose the Cleveland because he go in knife-fight against Graff Spee. We win by shock and awe with less firepower. But LOL

 

​I like the map awareness point, so many people just blurt out catch phrases like you must cap B or else we lose without looking at other things like sow, wow, we have twice as many ships as the other team we don't need to even cap B and risk dying to the torp boats stealthed at B waiting to kill people was they hurry to the "must cap B".  We can just carefully pick off ships one by one and win easily is what I see but many players do not get that.

 

​I am seeing it a lot where patience and better group play completely invalidates any early caps.   Then if you do go as a group though people say it's a lemming train when it usually is not.  There is a difference between lemming and working as a group that many miss out on.