Skipper on Deck

[Boat_Ape]

What's the criteria for receiving the  "Skipper on Deck"achievement award? The award explanation is beyond cryptic.    I don't have an elite admiral and I haven't given up skills so I don't know what "feeling" I am supposed to understand. 

"Skipper on Deck" is a phrase that I see as similar to "Capitan on the Bridge" or "Officer on Deck"  which are expressions of respect.  I see an old man with his face in his hand, which I would take to mean embarrassment, frustration or anger which doesn't seem fitting for an award of respect.  However, it does seem fitting for "[edited] of the day" and if this is the point of the award that I've already won nine times in 2 days,  I'll mentally file it's meaning with the other 1000 or so that I've earned over the years in real life.

Still, if that's the case, it's impossible for me to figure out how I can win a [edited] award for a tier IV battle (Phoenix) with results of:

Damage-84,167  Targets Hit-116  Incapacitated-2  Destroyed-3  On Fire-9  Citadel Hits-6  Asst. Capture-1

I also won it with the Omaha, Cleveland, Pensacola and Des Moines and in two these battles I will tell you they were not my best work.  

 

[Boat_Ape]

What was edited:

Dumb + South end of a north bound donkey.

 

[AJTP89]

It's either play a game with a commander of a certain level, or gain 1500 commander XP, I forget which. Pretty easy, I get one every game. There's a list somewhere on here with all the medals and their requirements. It's supposed to be cryptic, but they've all been figured out. 

[RipNuN2]

 

[awiggin]

Why is it, players insist on posting, rather than spending a minute reading topics, and perhaps learning more about the game?

Since they are hidden achievements, they are supposed to be cryptic. 

[desmo_2]

14 minutes ago, awiggin said:

Since they are hidden achievements, they are supposed to be cryptic. 

But why does WG do this?  Why have cryptic achievements?  If players do not come here or Reddit, how the heck are they supposed to figure these out?

Why not just post the requirements to complete the achievements?

[pmgaudio]

[surratus]

1 hour ago, awiggin said:

Why is it, players insist on posting, rather than spending a minute reading topics, and perhaps learning more about the game?

Since they are hidden achievements, they are supposed to be cryptic. 

OP has five posts...you gotta start somewhere. Don't be such awiggin's!

[ExploratorOne]

2 hours ago, desmo_2 said:

But why does WG do this?  Why have cryptic achievements?  If players do not come here or Reddit, how the heck are they supposed to figure these out?

Why not just post the requirements to complete the achievements?

When they do this it is supposed to be sort of a scavenger hunt.  The community also seems to enjoy figuring the requirements out.  If you check the thread posted earlier, you'll see what I mean.  For those that don't like puzzles or scavenger hunts, you just have to check the forums for the inevitable solution thread(s).

 

Its just an extra bit of fun for those that like it 

[Goodwood_Alpha]

23 minutes ago, ExploratorOne said:

When they do this it is supposed to be sort of a scavenger hunt.  The community also seems to enjoy figuring the requirements out.  If you check the thread posted earlier, you'll see what I mean.  For those that don't like puzzles or scavenger hunts, you just have to check the forums for the inevitable solution thread(s).

Its just an extra bit of fun for those that like it 

This.

It's all about getting the community involved, and luring people to the forums who ordinarily wouldn't come.

[desmo_2]

Okay, as long as there are enough who enjoy the puzzle, I suppose.  I'm one of those who will just come here, see what everyone's testing has uncovered and just go for the achievements.

Now get off my lawn.  Bah, humbug.

[comtedumas]

11 hours ago, AJTP89 said:

It's either play a game with a commander of a certain level, or gain 1500 commander XP, I forget which. Pretty easy, I get one every game. There's a list somewhere on here with all the medals and their requirements. It's supposed to be cryptic, but they've all been figured out. 

I think it's 2500 commander so.  

[Iridium81]

8 hours ago, ExploratorOne said:

When they do this it is supposed to be sort of a scavenger hunt.  The community also seems to enjoy figuring the requirements out.  If you check the thread posted earlier, you'll see what I mean.  For those that don't like puzzles or scavenger hunts, you just have to check the forums for the inevitable solution thread(s).

 

Its just an extra bit of fun for those that like it 

Part of me accepts this, the other part says that WG doesn't even bother to properly document game mechanics within the client so that too is a 'fun' scavenger hunt.  

If the game is meant for the masses, and not the few hardcore enthusiasts; one would think they'd put this sort of stuff in the client so that it is well documented, and clear to the reader.

[ExploratorOne]

I thought that they purposefully don't document many details for a couple of reasons.  One is so that it is more difficult for competitors to copy/steal their techniques - the formulae and other details are proprietary.  Another is that it makes it more difficult to hack into the servers.  Restaraunts have their secret sauces and recipes, WG (and most other profitable game companies) have their game engines.  I ran into an example of this that surprised me many years ago. 

 

As an Air Force technical instructor I discovered a surprising thing: frequently the technical orders (repair manuals, if you will) were intentionally wrong.  It seems that companies are required to provide detail information covering the exact theories, processes, and construction of any equipment sold to the US government.  What actually happened is that a component or section of circuitry would be omitted or a couple of connections would be mislabeled or drawn wrong.  An individual in the field might not notice it.  As instructors, though, we had the time and need to actually trace signals and examine circuit boards.  It seems that since the documentation required would pretty much give anyone else the ability to duplicate the equipment exactly, the manufacturer would insert errors.

[Ozric]

16 hours ago, desmo_2 said:

But why does WG do this?  Why have cryptic achievements?  If players do not come here or Reddit, how the heck are they supposed to figure these out?

Why not just post the requirements to complete the achievements?

I had the idea that such a system was developed to dissuade the player from finding out how he received the achievement and thus hopefully to keep the player from farming for certain medals when they should actually be helping their team to win the round.  Just my supposition and I could be wrong.

[Iridium81]

2 hours ago, ExploratorOne said:

I thought that they purposefully don't document many details for a couple of reasons.  One is so that it is more difficult for competitors to copy/steal their techniques - the formulae and other details are proprietary.  Another is that it makes it more difficult to hack into the servers.  Restaraunts have their secret sauces and recipes, WG (and most other profitable game companies) have their game engines.  I ran into an example of this that surprised me many years ago. 

 

As an Air Force technical instructor I discovered a surprising thing: frequently the technical orders (repair manuals, if you will) were intentionally wrong.  It seems that companies are required to provide detail information covering the exact theories, processes, and construction of any equipment sold to the US government.  What actually happened is that a component or section of circuitry would be omitted or a couple of connections would be mislabeled or drawn wrong.  An individual in the field might not notice it.  As instructors, though, we had the time and need to actually trace signals and examine circuit boards.  It seems that since the documentation required would pretty much give anyone else the ability to duplicate the equipment exactly, the manufacturer would insert errors.

That is grade A bologna as far as I understand.  Anyone can look into these things if they dig enough, just as you did, its just that the average player doesn't know to look, or doesn't care to because its too involved.  So you get an uneducated population of people that are frustrated with game mechanics that were never properly told to them.  WG would do themselves a service by educating the consumer so that they can make educated decisions, and enjoy the product more.  I would imagine any nation interested in copying a piece of equipment would be limited by production capabilities more than espionage these days.  China stole/bought knowledge on US MIRV systems ~20 years ago but only just now have gotten them into testing stages.  

 

More to the point, I don't think WG does this intentionally, unless they truly desire a 'have/have not' population so that one group can ridicule and demean the other because they spent an extra 15 minutes reading a wiki page.  Which just seems asinine to me.  

[Final_Spark]

The reason why the picture for the reward is facepalming is because it represents the release of the new commander system back in patch 0.6.0. At this time most of what the community was talking yelling about was the Radio Location skill. It's a MWF meme (My Feeling When or My Face When) where you can imagine the developers facepalming when they present their new system, yet the only thing people are concerned with is whether a particular skill is broken or not in their eyes.

[Spud_butt]

I thought I had that one figured out, but actually I don't. got over 40 so far, pretty sure it's for losing.

[ExploratorOne]

14 minutes ago, Iridium81 said:

That is grade A bologna as far as I understand.  Anyone can look into these things if they dig enough, just as you did, its just that the average player doesn't know to look, or doesn't care to because its too involved.  So you get an uneducated population of people that are frustrated with game mechanics that were never properly told to them.  WG would do themselves a service by educating the consumer so that they can make educated decisions, and enjoy the product more.  I would imagine any nation interested in copying a piece of equipment would be limited by production capabilities more than espionage these days.  China stole/bought knowledge on US MIRV systems ~20 years ago but only just now have gotten them into testing stages.  

 

More to the point, I don't think WG does this intentionally, unless they truly desire a 'have/have not' population so that one group can ridicule and demean the other because they spent an extra 15 minutes reading a wiki page.  Which just seems asinine to me.  

 

I do see your point.  I think I misunderstood your original point and I was mainly referring to American competitors.  Thought you were referring to hidden values like sigmas and the actual Sims XP ratio.  You might consider joining the Wiki team or just adding some of the information that is missing.

 

I figure that casual players just load in and shoot.  I mentioned something in game chat once about a basic mechanic (it was leading a target at tier V) and the player said they didn't care about the mechanic because they were a casual player - that shocked me a bit.  A quick google search on something will bring up at least one YouTube video.  There are beginner guides, beginner missions, and beginner videos produced by WG, as well as others.  A lot of information is in the trough, getting the horse to actually drink the water is a completely different matter.  The 5%, or so, of us that dig into this stuff on the forums and find it interesting may be a bit frustrated, but a large portion of the player base seems to be basically driving around and blowing stuff up.

 

I actually look forward to these scavenger hunts.  WOWS is like chess to me, to others it might be like a quick came of checkers...

 

(Full disclosure: I make my living providing information to people and trying to actually get them to access and use it.)