The problem with WTR...

[Warlord_Deadeye_Pete]

I've played the game since not that long after it launched and enjoy it mightily.  For me it's one of the most entertaining, and enguaging computer games I've ever played, and that saying something as I've been playing computer games for over 30 years.  Somewhat longer  longer if you count such ancient products like Atari's "pong" which hooked up to the family television.  Though at the time it was more novelty then game.  I was in junior high school when the first electronic hand held calculators were introduced in the early 1970's and a company called Texas Instruments was the king of hand held electronic devices.   I used a TI scientific to check my results that I came up with using a slide rule. And I got in trouble for doing so!  Actually managed to get suspended from school for a week once after getting caught with a calculator in my book bag!  (if your younger, be glad you missed those years!).  Before that though I discovered the joys and frustrations of table top wargaming.  My first ever naval game was a product from Avalon Hill called Jutland, which was essentially a naval miniatures war game that used paper counters instead of ship miniatures and was based loosely on what was the "gold Standard" of naval gaming rules know as the Fletcher Pratt Naval rules set, which was still in use at the US Naval Academy as a teaching tool!  (I would imagine they use much more sophisticated tools these day!)

 

Any way, that's just back round.   To qualify my knowledge and experience.  The one thing that never changed in war gaming even when it was table top gaming, is players collecting statistics, and looking for the edge over the competition, and a way of measuring how good (or bad) they are.   Many of you might be shocked at just how little has changes in statistical sciences.   Companies like Wargaming Net use internal tools and numeric's that really have not changed a great deal since before I was born in 1957. Some of the terms used have changed and evolved, but the reality is it pretty much the same tools that would have been used 60 years ago.  Even today, it's all about the math and formula's and equations used, and now just as much as it was then.  Of course gaming has gone through a massive revolution and change since then.  It's far far more common and no longer the demse of geeky kids with socialization issues and IQ's far to high for their own good! (the image is very much still with us in spite of being mosly false, as it's always been!)

 

So back round done.. lets look at the statistical "Warships Today Rating"  there's been a number of you tube video's that have been brought out by community contributors that have debunked a great deal of what WTR is about, and what it's based on.  I find my self in the in the "thats bad science" crowd.. but then I was there before any of the CC jumped all over it.  I looked at the WTR and some of the players with a high WTR and realized right away that WTR was pure bunk.  But it became a popular mesure of skill anyway even though it is deeply flawed as a measure of anything other then WTR.  It's not a measure of real player skill or understanding of the game.  

 

  This NOT to say that players with a high WTR are not sklled players.. They are skilled players, but the vast majority of them tend to be more skilled and focused at manipulating statistics to give them selves a high WTR then actuall team tactical play, because you you "High Score" rules....

 

*sigh!*

 

 Brings back memories of coin arcade games down at the mall sucking quarters out of my pocket like no bodies business and spending my lunch money there instead of at the school cafeteria! And big flashy lights and alarms ringing some one achieved a new high score on some devilishly difficult arcade game...Heady days, heady days!

 

The issue with WTR is it's a great statistic for measuring a players single player skill and that right there where it fails.. and not a little bit fail, but a whole lot of deep bucket fill the ocean withyour tears FAIL.  And the reason is right in front of you.   This is a TEAM game, not some single player one on one ladder thing.  

 

A high WTR is achieved by simply having large numbers of damage delt, and surviving the match.  being on the winning side has zero effect on the WTR  (might explain why win rate is a separate entry in those little WTR sigs you see!)  

 

Now I don't have a high WTR..  My win rate is far more important to me, and having fun is even more important to me then that.  This is simply a game we play for recreation. Nothing we do in the game is going to change or improve the world around us.   Because of my knowledge and experience I have a deep seated mistrust of players with high WTR.  Mostly because so may of them don't play for the team, or even sometimes play for the win.  I see them go for the easy targets, not the important targets, and not the caps.  Their play is centered around having and maintaining a high WTR first and foremost above any other goal including winning the match!  The very best manage to do both.  But that group is a TINY minority of the player base.   I respect their skill, but the reality is they tend to be the "Bullies" of warships play.  Often time they also tend to be ill mannered and regularly display a level of poor sportsmanship that really has to be seen to be believed.. It's all about them.  It's not about the team or their team mates.

 

So take WTR with a very very big grain of salt.  Understand what it is, and understand what it is not.  Grasp it's limitations as a true measure of player skill.  There is only one way to tell the really good players from the merely good players and that's with the Mark-I eyeball.   Do they understand the appropriate movement strategies for a particular map?  Do they understand the strengths and weaknesses of different force mixes on a team. How well do they select targets?  Do they act to strip the opposing team of it's supporting DD's and CA's first.  Are they pressing the caps?  Are they defending the caps?  Are they offensively minded and aggressively focused on taking and keeping the initiative in the fight? Are they making a difference?  Statistics only hint at that in all but the most exceptional of cases.  Some of the most important player skills aren't even tracked statistically.  It's just not done.  We don't have "exams" to quantify statistically  player  map,ship and system knowledge.  We cant really even infer that information from the stats gathered.  Only physical observation over time of a player can tell you that.

 

WTR just doesn't really tell you how good a player is.  It can't.  It's just to limited.

 

I know obviously there are players that will not agree with me.  That's fine, they don't have to.  I'm not looking for agreement.  I'm looking to inform and educate.  I'm looking to make sure that those that get "stat shamed" understand what a hollow broken tool  WTR really is when it's used to put them down, to bully them, and to "put them in their place". And how badly it's over used.

 

If you want to really be good at this game, you have to study that's parts of it that your weak in.  You have to understand the movement options on a map while accounting for your ships size, speed, and agility or lack there of.   You also need to account for the capabilities of the other ships on your team, and then you have to account for the capabilities of apposing ships.  And just to make things really really  difficult you've really only the first 30 seconds of a match to figure this out! oh and this isn't even considering player skill of the the other 23 players in the match with you.     And that's just a wet fingertip in the bucket of what your going to have to learn to be "good". You will learn it eventually if you choose to. The more attention you pay to it, the sooner you will learn it.  ANd there will be matches where you do everything right, everything perfect, and the other 11 players on your team don't.  And that's just the way it is.

 

I believe it was Horatio  Nelson that said "no Captain can go far wrong that he put his ship against the enemy.  Some things must be left to chance"   (Not an exact quote, but pretty close!)  What he said over 300 years ago applies as much in this game today as it did then when England freedom hung in the balance then.   No matter how perfect your knowledge of your craft is, luck and chance still play a large factor.  The best you can do is slant the odds of victory in your favor, and that is a skill in it's own right!

 

Good Luck, Good Hunting, and I see you in game!

 

Warlord sends.

[centarina]

I don't play for WTR, but  as I got better, my WTR has gone up. it doesn't mean that you can't game it or such, but good player will have  high wtr no matter way.    you can't be good without doing lot of damage  and Win rate in most cases, and you can only kill steal only so much.  lol

[Teahee]

I agree that WTR has flaws - it is not a perfect quantification of a player's skill, and this is due to a number of factors. However, at present, it is the closest approximation of player skill that is available to us. 

 

 

[sbcptnitro]

33 minutes ago, TL_Warlord_Roff said:

being on the winning side has zero effect on the WTR

 

Actually, it does. 20% to be exact.

[evilleMonkeigh]

Yes, WTR is not perfect. Win rate is more important - winning, is after all, the point of the game. I'd disagree it is "not a measure of player skill at all."

You need to consider other stats too.  If you do 1/3rd of the average damage of a player, and survive only 1/3rd of the time, your understanding of the game is probably flawed.  You probably need to study what those metrics tell you as well, and adjust your play accordingly.  I'd say you are not understanding all those naunces of the game you mention.

I'm going to requote VGL_Lance from another thread, as he sums it up so well.  Consider which category you belong in:

Quote

 

It can't start a good debate because it's a debate that's already been playing out in one fashion or another every day on this forum. It all comes down to which camp you are in:

 

#1. Players who lack basic understanding of mathematics, probability and the law of averages who also, likely due to that lack of understanding, have an external locus of control (belief that they have little or no influence on outcomes). Both of which often results in below average performance and the metrics to reflect that. 

 

#2. Players who understand the math and know how to use the metrics to identify their greatest opportunities to improve and take personal accountability because they have an internal locus of control (belief that they can influence outcomes).

 

If you want to be among the top 20% of the player base, you have to be in the #2 camp. It's just that simple. There are no unicum players making external excuses. Players in the #1 camp will rationalize that players in #2 are lucky, but that's because rationalizing and making excuses is far easier to do than putting in the effort and brain power necessary to achieve high performance. Losers may not be good at the game, but they are unicum at rationalizing. Funny thing is that they make us the enemy when in reality, they themselves are their worst enemy. They are the biggest obstacle to personal growth and development and until their attitude and mindset changes, we will continue to see these posts every day. 

 

Think about it in any aspect of life. Take salespeople, realtors, anyone. Who are you going to trust more when it comes to knowledge and experience? The guy/gal with all the awards on the wall and the big house and fancy things or the guy/gal that fails every month to make quota and less than three months of money in the bank to cover expenses?

 

My sister thinks she can make a living as a life coach yet she can't even be independent and take care of herself. She's what I call a hobosexual.  She jumps from one relationship to another for food, shelter and clothing.  At one point she even lived on the streets.  She's a conspiracy theorist including being a 9/11 Truther and I have yet to find someone as masterful as her when it comes to rationalizing and making excuses and pointing fingers at everyone and everything as the reason why she has struggled all her life.  You never, ever hear her taking personal accountability.  Blaming external forces to her has become a religion.  You cannot help people who refuse to help themselves.  And they are also masters at contradicting themselves.  They claim in their conspiracies that anyone who tries to disclose the evil secret society exists are killed, even people with the means and connections in high places to protect themselves.  Yet for some reason my sister with no defensive means whatsoever can freely and openly talk about this all-knowing, all-powerful secret society and she's still breathing.

 

There are people on this forum that will fight tooth and nail to defend the extremely irrational people for whatever reason and they can have each other. You can't fix everyone, some people are just far too self-destructive. 

 

"Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it can't be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone." - Ayn Rand

 

Before someone shouts "stat shaming"

Quote

I'm looking to make sure that those that get "stat shamed" understand what a hollow broken tool  WTR really is when it's used to put them down, to bully them, and to "put them in their place"...

I don't see people use WTR much at all on the forums. Win rate, damage, survival, yes, but now WTR.

Referring to stats is not "stat shaming" when it is used to show someone understanding of the subject matter; whilst the hobo living under a bridge MAY have better financial sense than the realtor with a nice house and a huge savings, I know who I'd take advice from.

[VGLance]

Waste of time. No one stat should be used to determine performance. It's the collection and analysis of all stats. Wise people already know this and the rest mostly fit in the "play only for fun" boat which is also a paradox. People toss out that "fun" card acting like winning or performing well and having fun are mutually exclusive and they are not. 

 

And the very things that make a very high WTR naturally occur from a skilled player doing what is necessary to win. You can't take out ships without doing damage. And the more damage you do, the less your team has to. Someone has to take out all that BB health whether it's you or your team so the ship type fallacy floating around is garbage too. 

 

And lastly, the more people manipulate WTR, the more it simply raises the standard of what constitutes a high WTR, so it cancels out. 

 

Bottom line is that smart people know how to determine the general skill of a player and there is more than enough data to do so. The only people who disagree with that reality are either voluntary clueless "it's just a game," "winning has no bearing on fun," etc. or lack the proper perspective / have an unhealthy relationship about visible and historical performance metrics. 

[evilleMonkeigh]

Mr Lance, I think you are my favourite forum poster. Stop taking my +1s.

[IronWolfV]

Here's the problem with WTR. It's a third party metric rub by PLAYERS. WG does not and never will acknowledge it and we the players hove it validity. Want WTR not to be worth 2 s***s? Stop using it! Amazing how that works.

[Mizzerys_Fate]

First, I play to have fun.

If I can finish in top 5 of my team with over 1k base exp, as I do most of the time, then it was a fun game.

 

Yesterday I had the most fun ever..pulles my Shiny horse out and hit 2 brothers hard.

Top tier, said I was pushing b aggressive and needed help.

3 kills high caliber and 7 torpedo hits in 3 minutes 45 seconds. (Yay for adrenaline rush).

Dead at 4 min 10 sec mark. 4 ships died around me due to team support. 

Won by reducing team to 0 points in 8 minutes or so.

Finishes top if team, had a blast.

All that matters in a game, fun.

[DOCTOR_CITADEL]

24 minutes ago, sbcptnitro said:

 

Actually, it does. 20% to be exact.

 

You beat me to it. 

 

I loathe bad information being propagated on the forums. 

[FayFay731]

What if I told you you can play the objective while maintaining a high WTR.

*inserts Morpheus meme but I can't because I'm posting with my tablet*

[Saetre]

Personally, win rate will always be the most important statistic to me when considering a player's abilities.  

 

That doesn't mean WTR is bogus.

[Junkieturtle]

I think some stats can be better metrics than others. Average experience is one of them, since that takes into account not just your damage but your teamplay and whether you're performing the role of your ship class. Win rate is practically worthless which is why I laugh when I see folks trying to stat shame or brag based on win rate. Win rate as a stat is probably THE most dependent on everyone else on your team than any of the others, meaning it is not a measurement of personal ability but rather your luck with MM, which itself involves multiple variables.

Mostly though, people want to be able to compare and will probably use whatever is available to them, even worthless things like win rate.

[DOCTOR_CITADEL]

No matter what statistic or metric is used, they are almost all based on averages among participants.

 

If there are enough outliers on the upper end, the average moves upward as well. The same is true on the lower end.

 

Look no further than the USS Flint if you want a great example of this. Although the leaderboards on Warships.Today no longer seem to work for individual ships, iirc one of the highest WTR scores on the Flint was barely over 1200 WTR. WTR, as many metrics do, judges you by the relative competence of your peers. While it is certainly not a perfect system, it is fairly accurate at measuring the relative difference between one player and his peers, at least in the areas that are measured. As mostly above-average players have the Flint, the bar to achieve a high outlier score (unicum) is set even higher, making it more difficult to achieve. In this case, 1200 WTR would be, for all intents and purposes, a unicum score.  

 

The damage portion of WTR can be massively inflated by farming BBs. Even so, if one player is better at doing that than another player, then they will have a higher score. Using WTR as the only metric is a flawed way of looking at a player's proficiency. You have to also take into account W/R, survival rate, etc. If two solo players both have an overall score of 1400 WTR, but one has a W/R of 55% and one has a W/R of 60%, the latter player is most likely focusing the correct targets in order to win the game, and the former is most likely just farming BBs. 

 

Ideally, we need a metric that takes into account damage done to ship class, like WG's XP metric does, but afaik, we don't have access to that information in the API. We can't use XP as-is either, because it calculates in premium time modifiers.

 

TLDR: WTR is not perfect, but since everyone has the same opportunities, it does work to measure the relative success of one player against another. Still, you have to use W/R and other factors to get the full picture. That's not to say that a 1000 WTR player is near the same level as a 1400 WTR player. You have to be somewhat good at the game to be able to farm damage in the first place, yeah?

[Flashtirade]

You wanna know how I "stat-padded"? I learned how to perform well in non-meta ships that I enjoyed, like the Bogue (pre-nerf) and the Akatsuki.

[Crucis]

Some thoughts on WTR. Not a perfect stat, but so much of what is done in this game cannot be measured. The best stat would be base XP, but the XP that is in WG's stats API is not base XP, but overall XP including premium account modifiers.

 

Win rate could be good, but IMHO it's flaw is that you have to be playing at your best for it to give a good measure of skill. And frankly, if I'm in a bad mood, I may not care about whether I win or lose. This isn't pro sports where I'm being paid to give my utmost.

 

[holycrazyasian]

22 minutes ago, Junkieturtle said:

I think some stats can be better metrics than others. Average experience is one of them, since that takes into account not just your damage but your teamplay and whether you're performing the role of your ship class. Win rate is practically worthless which is why I laugh when I see folks trying to stat shame or brag based on win rate. Win rate as a stat is probably THE most dependent on everyone else on your team than any of the others, meaning it is not a measurement of personal ability but rather your luck with MM, which itself involves multiple variables.

Mostly though, people want to be able to compare and will probably use whatever is available to them, even worthless things like win rate.

Avg BASE exp is different due to having premium or not. Made a small post about that showing proof in my Des Moines

[Crucis]

3 minutes ago, holycrazyasian said:

Avg BASE exp is different due to having premium or not. Made a small post about that showing proof in my Des Moines

It shouldn't be different. BASE XP should be calculated before any other multipliers or modifications, which is why it would be an excellent stat. Sadly, it's not part of WG's stats API.

 

[Wingslinger]

So, exactly how much of a base XP bonus do premium ships earn?

[Combined_Fleet_HQ]

56 minutes ago, FayFay731 said:

What if I told you you can play the objective while maintaining a high WTR.

*inserts Morpheus meme but I can't because I'm posting with my tablet*

 

 

 

On an unrelated note, VGLance once again takes my +1

[Parliament_Funkadelic]

1 hour ago, VGLance said:

Waste of time. No one stat should be used to determine performance. It's the collection and analysis of all stats. Wise people already know this and the rest mostly fit in the "play only for fun" boat which is also a paradox. People toss out that "fun" card acting like winning or performing well and having fun are mutually exclusive and they are not. 

 

And the very things that make a very high WTR naturally occur from a skilled player doing what is necessary to win. You can't take out ships without doing damage. And the more damage you do, the less your team has to. Someone has to take out all that BB health whether it's you or your team so the ship type fallacy floating around is garbage too. 

 

And lastly, the more people manipulate WTR, the more it simply raises the standard of what constitutes a high WTR, so it cancels out. 

 

Bottom line is that smart people know how to determine the general skill of a player and there is more than enough data to do so. The only people who disagree with that reality are either voluntary clueless "it's just a game," "winning has no bearing on fun," etc. or lack the proper perspective / have an unhealthy relationship about visible and historical performance metrics. 

As you know, you and I do not see eye to eye. However, since you linked your wedding photos...well, I clicked on the link.....While I will pray for your detonation 1000 times in this game, congratulations on a beautiful wedding and an even more beautiful bride. Well done sir!

[VGLance]

Another thing to consider is the natural conflict that arises between the have's and the have not's.  Intelligence, skill, money, etc.  It's all the same.  Those that have below average intelligence, skill or money will rationalize why others have more than them.  There are always outliers, exceptions that explain why people come into good fortune.  But using outliers to justify a position is what irrational people do.  Given enough time, and in this case enough battles, the outliers are nullified and meaningful conclusions can be drawn.  Like the pink player I encountered yesterday with thousands of games played and an average damage of less than 5k who drove his Fletcher to an island at the corner of the map at the start of the match and parked behind it.  When I confronted him about why he's consciously sabotaging the match, his true colors came through.  Cursing, trolling, etc. clearly showing he was griefing on purpose to get a rise out of people.  When I told him I have replays enabled and he can enjoy his ban, it magically got him moving and contributing, even though the ToS violations in his language continued.

 

I cannot imagine the level of depression or turmoil a person's life must be experiencing to find pleasure in trolling behind the safety blanket of anonymity.  It must be some extreme level of hell.  But these players exist.  And in WoWs, there is an unusually high percentage of them, or at least I'd like to think they do not represent the numbers found in society.

 

Now one can argue that the stats aren't really reflective of skill then, because when he finally did get moving he made an impact enough to finish in the middle of the score board.  Perhaps then the stats are more of a prediction of potential output.  And I couldn't agree more.  I tend to encourage people to move away from the use of the word skill and change it to "expected output."  Because even a super unicum player can get UPS knocking at the door to sign an important package or wife aggro or baby aggro or whatever and the performance in game ends up not matching their performance history.  But skill is a 5 character word, and we are communicating through text, so we tend to shorten as much as we can hoping the readers can connect the dots.

 

Another interpretation of "skill" is to incorporate the soft skills.  The emotional intelligence attributes not easily tracked by metrics (perseverance, patience, personal accountability, punctuality, self-awareness, empathy, humility, conflict resolution, so on and so forth and of course, in the example above with the Fletcher player... self-discipline,  so in a sense, one can argue that his stats do effectively reflect his skill as a total player when factoring in both soft and hard skills.

[Wingslinger]

What's this 'taking +1'?

[VGLance]

1 minute ago, Sweetsie said:

As you know, you and I do not see eye to eye. However, since you linked your wedding photos...well, I clicked on the link.....While I will pray for your detonation 1000 times in this game, congratulations on a beautiful wedding and an even more beautiful bride. Well done sir!

She is clearly the better half and to say I married up is an understatement, so thanks for the compliment.  And if it makes you feel any better, I got detonated yesterday.  It was actually an odd game, it had three detonations.  I don't recall ever seeing a single match with that many.  Maybe you were working extra hard to focus on my demise yesterday and you ended up causing some collateral damage. :P

[Wulfgarn]

If I look at someone's stats, I look at everything together, not just one stat.