When is the right time to switch from Co-op to Random play?

[AMajor]

Realized that I was grinding through the tiers and not spending enough time learning each ship, so I've slowed down and have spent more time at Co-Op.

The Bots are good teachers and you can make mistakes and not die right away.

Background - I play cruisers and dds at 4-5 tier and go back to my tier 3s when I need a confidence boost.  I've tried BBs and ACs and don't like playing them:

My playing style is best described with the famous quote: "Give me a fast ship because I intend the sail her in harm's way"

When should I start the transition to Random battles with a new ship?  Is there a target XP for the commander and/or ship that you all would recommend?

 

[Warped_1]

I would play Kuma with the style you have described.  Also, you seen to have given up on BBs but I think you would enjoy IJN line from Kongo on.

[Spud_butt]

15 minutes ago, AMajor said:

Realized that I was grinding through the tiers and not spending enough time learning each ship, so I've slowed down and have spent more time at Co-Op.

The Bots are good teachers and you can make mistakes and not die right away.

Background - I play cruisers and dds at 4-5 tier and go back to my tier 3s when I need a confidence boost.  I've tried BBs and ACs and don't like playing them:

My playing style is best described with the famous quote: "Give me a fast ship because I intend the sail her in harm's way"

When should I start the transition to Random battles with a new ship?  Is there a target XP for the commander and/or ship that you all would recommend?

 

now.

you have already played well in the phoenix in Random, with 66% win rate. with a 100% win rated in PvE, it's obviously too easy for you. the more time you spend in there, the harder the bad habits will be to unlearn.

your main battery hit rate in random is fairly low, but your survival rate is good. once you spend more time in random, you will figure out humans are not predictable, nor forgiving, like bots, and really go to work on aiming.

T4 is a good place to learn in random. 

[Wulfgarn]

37 minutes ago, not_acceptable said:

now.

you have already played well in the phoenix in Random, with 66% win rate. with a 100% win rated in PvE, it's obviously too easy for you. the more time you spend in there, the harder the bad habits will be to unlearn.

your main battery hit rate in random is fairly low, but your survival rate is good. once you spend more time in random, you will figure out humans are not predictable, nor forgiving, like bots, and really go to work on aiming.

T4 is a good place to learn in random. 

[HMCS_Devilfish]

The fact is a loss in Random is worth usually more XP than a win in Co-op and a win in Random can easily be 4-5 times more XP than a Co-op win

so for me the answer is when I wanted to start seriously grinding ship lines

Random games have much bigger rewards and you get to meet some really nice players and also some not so nice players, 

[Herr_Reitz]

When you get a new ship, take her to coop and pound the poodoo out of her in coop mission for at least ten missions, if not twenty. Completely stock. With no point commander if you have one. You will then know how she responds to your personal play style. Only then do you want to add your modules, flags and setup your commander skills. 

 

I agree with others - tier four is a darn good crossover point. I should like to mention while bots can provide targets for skill enhancement, bot play-style is often nothing like a random battle. Hence coop can teach you bad habits like "showing your long side (broadside) to the enemy." So, use coop to learn your gun timings, turning in the midst of battle, techie stuff like that - but don't use it for strategic training. 

 

GL HF

[AVR_Project]

Do what you feel like doing.  This is a game.  Play the game until it starts getting bothersome.

Campaigns are usually Random, so there's your incentive for that.  They give some decent rewards.

Co-Op is easy, scenarios are more rewarding, and Random has a nice score - but there are risks.

For grinding high point captain training on premium ships, I use dragon flags in Random.  It takes fewer games.

[AMajor]

Thanks for the advice, folks.  Got it.  See you "out there"

[MasterDiggs]

I have found myself going back into coop more because I have found it to be more fun than dealing with the potatoes and the ragers. I am not giving up on randoms completely yet though.

[Taylor3006]

1 hour ago, MasterDiggs said:

I have found myself going back into coop more because I have found it to be more fun than dealing with the potatoes and the ragers. I am not giving up on randoms completely yet though.

There are lots of great people in random battles, the problem is we tend to remember the idiots. I play PvE almost exclusively now for lots of reasons, but would urge players to stick with PvP for as long as they can tolerate it if they are good at it. The difference in payout is just too huge and makes the grind really long if playing lots of coop. Plus all the freebies they throw at PvP players that you can not get in PvE. 

BTW the "bad habits" you pick up in Coop are aggressive play style. Not showing your broadsides, WASD hack, etc are all stuff you do in Coop as well. I do poorly in Random play because once you start shooting at someone they turn and run and you end up chasing them. It gets old. I do well in Random matches when I get attacked, usually when the tide has turned against my team and the reds come in for the kill. I always laugh at this, the humans do exactly what the bots do. One thing you learn in PvE play is how to defend yourself when you are attacked. 

[MasterDiggs]

11 hours ago, Taylor3006 said:

One thing you learn in PvE play is how to defend yourself when you are attacked. 

Indeed, I don't think I have been bum rushed by an entire team of angry reds in random but I certainly have in coop. Armor angling, wasd action, and timely torps thrown over your shoulder while the authorities are chasing you down is more fun to me than what I usually get in randoms. I have limited time to play so I focus on enjoyment.

I still take my premium bbs into randoms for credit grinding but I have taken the rest into coop almost exclusively. The games are more fun and shorter so I can usually fit twice as many of them into the time I have.

I am goofing off with the US DDs in coop and once I am decently comfortable with them I will give random a go.

[anonym_R4E0uAEtVTPH]

I use Co-Op to teach me the basics, to get me to think, learn better tactics, learn a ship, learn a style of ship (DD, CL, BB, etc)  But if you want to grind to get a new ship, just remember that a new ship and a higher tier will by itself not get you more wins/xp/jcoins/etc.  It is you and your tactics for that class and that ship that will get you your wins/xp/coins/etc.  If you focus on cruisers, and for example the US cruisers, you could use co-op to teach you how to probe, aim, manouver, keep your broadside away from the red team, how to wiggle and run away, to see the mini-map and watch things develop, etc.  Then jump into random.  As you may recall from the above comments, people are not predictable, bots are.  Very different.

[anonym_R4E0uAEtVTPH]

Remember, US DD's are first gunboats, and use their torps only when the situation comes up.  Use the guns, use HE shells, get hits and experience.  Burn them up, look for the time to torp and kill them.  Bots are good to learn from.

[WhiteRecon]

I love this OP, imagine, someone is practicing before buying a T8 premium yolo boat. 

 

Without looking at my stats, I played 1-200 CO-OP battles total.  I little low tier practice, then again when I bought my atago way too soon.  I would stay out of CO-OP once you know basics of game.  The only bad thing about Random at T5 & T6 is that you play against some ppl that have skill and of course you are fighting some higher tier ships that can be monsters - but that's a great way to stretch and learn.  Youtube is a huge help if you want to geek out on this game - and a better use of time than CO-OP.  My $0.02  

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

I generally stay in co-op because I consider myself a potato, and because if I screw up, I only make a fool of myself in front of half as many people (I figure the bots neither know nor care, or at least I hope they don't). 

 

That being said, my fondest memory of the game so far is the one I wish I'd known how to record before I started it, and that was in Random with a Black Swan: Kraken unleashed, High Calibre and Confederate and 1211 base XP, and I lived to tell the tale. Now if only I could repeat that performance every day, I'd feel better about playing in Random. :p

[Taylor3006]

11 minutes ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

That being said, my fondest memory of the game so far is the one I wish I'd known how to record before I started it, and that was in Random with a Black Swan: Kraken unleashed, High Calibre and Confederate and 1211 base XP, and I lived to tell the tale. Now if only I could repeat that performance every day, I'd feel better about playing in Random. :p

There is a group of PvP players who play only Tier 1 ships. I wish I could remember the names, but that is what they enjoy. 

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

1 minute ago, Taylor3006 said:

There is a group of PvP players who play only Tier 1 ships. I wish I could remember the names, but that is what they enjoy. 

I can sort of see why. No torpedoes, no smoke, no radar/hydro... just straight-out gun duels, and too slow to run from those if you stick your neck in someone's proverbial noose. Almost impossible to TK too, unless you accidentally plug a friendly who's on almost zero health.

 

I learned very, VERY bad shooting habits in the Black Swan - get in close and hosepipe them in open, non-binocular view. It's lazy but it works, and it kept my head in situational awareness after several games in which I was contemptuously and rightly blown up because I had my head in sniper view and my ship on autopilot and was concentrating wholly on gunnery to the exclusion of literally all else. I tend to YOLO a bit much, but as a newcomer I am very worried about being called bad things if I stay back and lurk rather than rushing in and taking chances.

[WhiteRecon]

21 hours ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

I generally stay in co-op because I consider myself a potato, and because if I screw up, I only make a fool of myself in front of half as many people 

 

200 battles is a drop in the bucket, 10x that before you are really honing in on skills.  Difference between noob and potato. 

[HazeGrayUnderway]

Honestly, I'd start Random Play at Tier I.  Co-op does not teach you anything about the more dangerous threats a player can do to you.  The sooner you start, the better.  The longer you put it off, the bigger the shock will be.  This is a case of being better off diving right into PVP as soon as possible, as early in the tiers as possible.

 

The only good thing co-op teaches is making a new CV player learn how to carry a team, because his bot teammates typically all die first and the CV is often left alone to sink the rest of the enemy team and still win.  It adds a layer of stress and forcing clear thought, quick action to carry the team to victory.  That is the only thing co-op is good for.

[anonym_R4E0uAEtVTPH]

On 9/12/2017 at 8:05 PM, not_acceptable said:

now.

you have already played well in the phoenix in Random, with 66% win rate. with a 100% win rated in PvE, it's obviously too easy for you. the more time you spend in there, the harder the bad habits will be to unlearn.

your main battery hit rate in random is fairly low, but your survival rate is good. once you spend more time in random, you will figure out humans are not predictable, nor forgiving, like bots, and really go to work on aiming.

T4 is a good place to learn in random. 

Regardless of the tier, when I start to loose Random battles consistently, I go back to battling  bots until I realize what I was doing wrong.  Remember, it is not the failure of the ship, it is our tactics with that ship.

I concur with the above quoted comments.  Pick your ship, watch youtube videos, dont rush into combat (you will be the center of the red team attention!), and think about your strength, weakness, team placement, your placement.

Enjoy the grind!

[Kizarvexis]

On 9/12/2017 at 10:34 PM, AMajor said:

Realized that I was grinding through the tiers and not spending enough time learning each ship, so I've slowed down and have spent more time at Co-Op.

The Bots are good teachers and you can make mistakes and not die right away.

Background - I play cruisers and dds at 4-5 tier and go back to my tier 3s when I need a confidence boost.  I've tried BBs and ACs and don't like playing them:

My playing style is best described with the famous quote: "Give me a fast ship because I intend the sail her in harm's way"

When should I start the transition to Random battles with a new ship?  Is there a target XP for the commander and/or ship that you all would recommend?

 

 

Lots of good advice here. If you abandon co-op for random before T5, I would recommend jumping back in at T5 vs bots until you get comfortable being in a T5 vs T7 bots. Then jump back into random where mistakes are punished much more quickly.

 

On 9/12/2017 at 11:05 PM, not_acceptable said:

now.

you have already played well in the phoenix in Random, with 66% win rate. with a 100% win rated in PvE, it's obviously too easy for you. the more time you spend in there, the harder the bad habits will be to unlearn.

your main battery hit rate in random is fairly low, but your survival rate is good. once you spend more time in random, you will figure out humans are not predictable, nor forgiving, like bots, and really go to work on aiming.

T4 is a good place to learn in random. 

 

If you are playing well in random already and most importantly LIKE playing random battles, then stay there and use co-op to learn new ships and to try new tactics.

 

On 9/12/2017 at 11:58 PM, HMCS_Devilfish said:

The fact is a loss in Random is worth usually more XP than a win in Co-op and a win in Random can easily be 4-5 times more XP than a Co-op win

so for me the answer is when I wanted to start seriously grinding ship lines

Random games have much bigger rewards and you get to meet some really nice players and also some not so nice players, 

 

Yes, random is much better rewards than co-op. Here are two games, not long after I got the Adm Graf Spee, that were 12 or so hours apart, so the skill difference wasn't much. I was the bottom earner in the PvP game and barely did anything before I got deleted by a Leander. I did much better with the bots as I didn't get deleted the first mistake I made. In a T7 PvE match I did 49.5k damage for 647 XP. In a T6 PvP match I did 6.8k damage but got 1,292 XP.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

On 9/13/2017 at 0:16 AM, Herr_Reitz said:

When you get a new ship, take her to coop and pound the poodoo out of her in coop mission for at least ten missions, if not twenty. Completely stock. With no point commander if you have one. You will then know how she responds to your personal play style. Only then do you want to add your modules, flags and setup your commander skills. 

 

I agree with others - tier four is a darn good crossover point. I should like to mention while bots can provide targets for skill enhancement, bot play-style is often nothing like a random battle. Hence coop can teach you bad habits like "showing your long side (broadside) to the enemy." So, use coop to learn your gun timings, turning in the midst of battle, techie stuff like that - but don't use it for strategic training. 

 

GL HF

 

For all the PvP players that say 'never play co-op', this is why you do. Use co-op to learn new ships and tactics. I disagree on strategic training tho. Practice it in co-op to get down what you are supposed to be doing without being deleted the first time you make a mistake. Once you are comfortable with the new tactic in co-op, take it to random to put the polish on. 

 

On 9/13/2017 at 0:26 AM, AVR_Project said:

Do what you feel like doing.  This is a game.  Play the game until it starts getting bothersome.

Campaigns are usually Random, so there's your incentive for that.  They give some decent rewards.

Co-Op is easy, scenarios are more rewarding, and Random has a nice score - but there are risks.

For grinding high point captain training on premium ships, I use dragon flags in Random.  It takes fewer games.

 

This most of all. Play what you like in the combo you like.

 

On 9/15/2017 at 8:56 AM, Taylor3006 said:

There are lots of great people in random battles, the problem is we tend to remember the idiots. I play PvE almost exclusively now for lots of reasons, but would urge players to stick with PvP for as long as they can tolerate it if they are good at it. The difference in payout is just too huge and makes the grind really long if playing lots of coop. Plus all the freebies they throw at PvP players that you can not get in PvE. 

BTW the "bad habits" you pick up in Coop are aggressive play style. Not showing your broadsides, WASD hack, etc are all stuff you do in Coop as well. I do poorly in Random play because once you start shooting at someone they turn and run and you end up chasing them. It gets old. I do well in Random matches when I get attacked, usually when the tide has turned against my team and the reds come in for the kill. I always laugh at this, the humans do exactly what the bots do. One thing you learn in PvE play is how to defend yourself when you are attacked. 

 

On 9/15/2017 at 8:34 PM, MasterDiggs said:

Indeed, I don't think I have been bum rushed by an entire team of angry reds in random but I certainly have in coop. Armor angling, wasd action, and timely torps thrown over your shoulder while the authorities are chasing you down is more fun to me than what I usually get in randoms. I have limited time to play so I focus on enjoyment.

I still take my premium bbs into randoms for credit grinding but I have taken the rest into coop almost exclusively. The games are more fun and shorter so I can usually fit twice as many of them into the time I have.

I am goofing off with the US DDs in coop and once I am decently comfortable with them I will give random a go.

 

Yeah, bots love to bum rush, so you can get lots of practice defending yourself. Especially vs multiple bots. If you play late at night and get a dumb bot team, it can be you vs 5 or so bots really quick. Conversely, sometimes you get the killer bots and then you are racing them to get kills on the dumb red bots.

 

On 9/18/2017 at 6:25 AM, HazeGrayUnderway said:

Honestly, I'd start Random Play at Tier I.  Co-op does not teach you anything about the more dangerous threats a player can do to you.  The sooner you start, the better.  The longer you put it off, the bigger the shock will be.  This is a case of being better off diving right into PVP as soon as possible, as early in the tiers as possible.

 

The only good thing co-op teaches is making a new CV player learn how to carry a team, because his bot teammates typically all die first and the CV is often left alone to sink the rest of the enemy team and still win.  It adds a layer of stress and forcing clear thought, quick action to carry the team to victory.  That is the only thing co-op is good for.

 

If you want to play as a Random main, I agree to play co-op only to learn new ships and to try a new tactic. Once you got the ship or tactic down, jump back into PvP to put the polish on. Bad humans are generally better than good bots. Play co-op late at night where you can get 5-7 bots on a team and you can practice carrying in any ship, not just CVs, fairly often. 

 

 

 

 

[comtedumas]

Every time you get a new ship, play it in coop for a while.  Learn the ship.  Take shots you wouldn’t normally take.  Do stupid stuff.  Earn some money to cover the cost of modules for the ship.  Get to know it better.  Then go to randoms.  

[Taylor3006]

24 minutes ago, comtedumas said:

Every time you get a new ship, play it in coop for a while.  Learn the ship.  Take shots you wouldn’t normally take.  Do stupid stuff.  Earn some money to cover the cost of modules for the ship.  Get to know it better.  Then go to randoms.  

I laughed when I read this, but you are correct and this is really good advice. It is pretty hard to lose money (or lose for that matter) in coop so it is a good place to play with ship handling and the like. +1 Comte, well said and succinct.

[anonym_R4E0uAEtVTPH]

As others have stated, bots and players play differently.  Be careful because if you establish tactics and expect players to be like bots, they will not!  Bots are predictable in so many ways, but players are usually not.  Look at your team, think of your tactics (where to go for your skills and to support the team, and NOT to get killed quickly!), then start moving.

Enjoy!

[_ENO_]

On 10/17/2017 at 10:18 PM, comtedumas said:

Every time you get a new ship, play it in coop for a while.  Learn the ship.  Take shots you wouldn’t normally take.  Do stupid stuff.  Earn some money to cover the cost of modules for the ship.  Get to know it better.  Then go to randoms.  

 

On 10/17/2017 at 10:44 PM, Taylor3006 said:

I laughed when I read this, but you are correct and this is really good advice. It is pretty hard to lose money (or lose for that matter) in coop so it is a good place to play with ship handling and the like. +1 Comte, well said and succinct.

 

I'm on the other side of this suggestion. It's certainly valid and I apply this methodology when I take out a carrier (particularly a premium) for the first 1000 times or so. Who am I kidding, I never bring my premium carriers out.

 

But for most ships I find that sloshing around in coop is like putting a race horse on a treadmill to warm it up for the Kentucky Derby. It also restricts your XP / credit earning potential unless you're an absolute rock star. It builds false confidence in the ship as well- making the trip into rando's that much more daunting when you get your donkey handed to you a few times. 

 

I recommend you do some research in advance- watch some videos... heck- set up the training room functionality. But don't hang out in coop for the simple reason of "getting a feel for a ship" since it will be giving you  a feel for a ship in coop. Unless that's where you play all the time (I can't check stats on this computer) then I'd advise against it.