Clan Battle Participation

[Quincy71_GWP]

I figured I would paste a post I made to my team this morning. It's relevance goes beyond just our clan and is certainly an elephant in the room.

 

"This season of CB is very disappointing. While I really enjoy the 8v8 format, it is clearly a detriment to our participation. This also affects the matchmaking when so few teams are able to participate. We felt that last night. It seems inevitable that we will always play a much higher rated team than ours when in a playoff. Last night one opponent was two leagues ahead. This is very disheartening from a competition standpoint. I wish WG could see how this further erodes anyone's motivation to play clan battles. The participation numbers are way down for a lot of reasons, but some conscious decisions on the part of WG have certainly driven this. Nobody wants to play matches on an uneven playing field. "

 

These are just a couple of the factors killing my clan members motivation to play clan battles. These are some dedicated and passionate players as well. 

[Capn_Nugget]

Our clan usually has 45 or so members but only 10 or less show up for clan wars. I wonder if other teams have that issue? We like the 8v8 2 battleship lineup but that makes it longer wait to get our 8 together.

[Destroyer_KuroshioKai]

You lose very little when facing higher tier opponents, while you stand to gain a sizable point gain if you pull off the upset.  Look at it this way, get aggressive and try to surprise them by taking the fight to them, if you lose, at least it didn’t take much time, if you win you will be smiling all night.

[SilverPhatShips]

Think a lot of people lose sight that this is a marathon not a Sprint yes you are going to face better teams and lose its gonna happen

 While it may not be fun you need somebody that's gonna pull a positive out of the losses, otherwise people lose morale 

 Best thing to do is point out that experience is a win always and learning from mistakes and maybe someday you'll be the better team beating up everybody else but it takes time

 

 

[Quincy71_GWP]

31 minutes ago, Destroyer_KuroshioKai said:

You lose very little when facing higher tier opponents, while you stand to gain a sizable point gain if you pull off the upset.  Look at it this way, get aggressive and try to surprise them by taking the fight to them, if you lose, at least it didn’t take much time, if you win you will be smiling all night.

You don't gain points in a playoff. Win or lose. But you know this.

[Quincy71_GWP]

36 minutes ago, Capn_Nugget said:

Our clan usually has 45 or so members but only 10 or less show up for clan wars. I wonder if other teams have that issue? We like the 8v8 2 battleship lineup but that makes it longer wait to get our 8 together.

We have 25 members. We prefer to keep it that way to keep it personal. Members know each other. If we take someone in that doesn't participate in anything but only takes our clan base bonuses, they are quickly let go. Considering you have nearly twice the membership and can't get enough, our problem is exponential. We have only scraped together a team for 3 partial sessions. Or competitive members are at least dedicated and very experience. But we are always 1 short while we sit around hoping for one more. 8v8 also makes for inconsistency within your team. Just to play, we need to take a lesser experienced player just to play. Not the idea way to compete. Forget getting a B team playing simultaneously. I guarantee dual teams has become impossible for almost every clan.

[Capt_Ahab1776]

I am curious as to is this going to be the format going fwd, 8 vs 8. I kind of doubt it, the Ranked is going 1 vs 1. Naval Battles scoring changes every third or fourth one to damage or ribbons instead of base XP. 

I know this doesn't help your clan this season but who knows what next season may be? It may go back to 7  vs 7, or it may change to 6 vs 6.

Our clan is playing less through the week because of the extra spot to fill. It's becoming more of a one person short Wed and Thurs night events.

[SilverPhatShips]

Kinda torn I do like the 8v8 but we don't have enough to do the 3rd team like we normally do because of it

 

[MEANN]

1 hour ago, Quincy71_GWP said:

You don't gain points in a playoff. Win or lose. But you know this.

what league are you in the struggle for?

[MEANN]

18 minutes ago, NoLoveForPhatShips said:

Kinda torn I do like the 8v8 but we don't have enough to do the 3rd team like we normally do because of it

 

we are usually like 2 short as well. for the 2nd team. our guys have had lots of life get in the way. lol

[dbw86]

In the nearly 2 years I've been in this clan, and am the Vice Cmdr of our Clan, I've seen membership from a high of 40 to a low of 6, and currently, we are at 23 after one of our members "Labedoyere" (or as we affectionally knew him "Noodles") unexpectedly passed away.    In previous seasons we have from time to time operated 2 teams in Clan Battles, but last season and this it has dropped to only 1 Team.    Then, last night, for only the 2nd time in my memory we were one short and unable to field a team of 8 for Clan Battle.    From reading in the Forum here and on Reddit I get the feeling that a number of other clans are struggling to field the same number of teams as they have in past seasons.    Of course, we won't know unless WoWs divulges this information to us.    There is a problem in Munchkin Land and I don't believe the Good Fairy Queen will be assisting us.

So here are some questions we need answers to:

1.   Has Wows experienced fewer Teams per clan participating in CB Season 7?  

2.   Or fewer Clans Participating in CB Season 7?

3.  Has your Clan's, compared to total membership, fielding of teams in CB Season 7 been reduced from past seasons?

4.  Are you Clan's members not participating as much as in prior seasons of CB?

5.   What has your Clan done to increase/spark/revitalize member's participation in CB Season 7?

6.   Any Ideas to resolve any of the issues raised by the above questions? 

[rutilius83]

OP, i feel your pain and my clan does too. 

i like the 8V8 teams. i feel having too many things going on at 1 time is cutting down on finding players in any mode. there are times when i que up and see 9 players in my range. no match is going to happen if there are no players. 

i hope WG will space things out a bit so we don't have 4 things going on at once. ( clan, halloween, RM cruisers, twlight ( halloween 2 but different prizes so different ). try 2 maybe, release a line and run 1 other so the players base isn't split up too much.

maybe there is some spread sheet reason to drive players away by burning them out. 

[BrushWolf]

2 hours ago, Capn_Nugget said:

Our clan usually has 45 or so members but only 10 or less show up for clan wars. I wonder if other teams have that issue? We like the 8v8 2 battleship lineup but that makes it longer wait to get our 8 together.

We are lucky to have seven people online let alone interested in CB, eight has made it pretty much impossible for use to play CB.

[Destroyer_KuroshioKai]

1 hour ago, Quincy71_GWP said:

You don't gain points in a playoff. Win or lose. But you know this.

Which is the vast minority of games played over the course of the season, but you know this.

Its a competitive environment.  You are going to face teams better than you.  Learn from it, improve or wither and die.  

[Karandar]

6v6 we ran some 350 battles - even had multiple teams at the same time some evenings. 

8v8 with humans with real lives mean weekdays are pretty much out for 8v8 - We have been sitting with 7 players ready to play clan battles nearly every single day. The 8th is elusive despite growing the clan. We have university students who need to study from time to time, a couple members dealing with health issues, never mind family life. 

A great base of captains who play a ton of warships, but 8v8  means we are unable to play over 1/2 the days. Sad, because so many of us enjoy/prefer playing the competitive mode together. 

Also - to the matchmaking - when we have been on - longer waits for another team, and many times, these teams are very very experienced compared to us. We accept the challenge and are learning quickly, we have over a 50% Win rate, but it is very obvious that more than half the time we are facing teams who know the maps better and have been doing this longer than we have. (you improve more quickly playing stronger teams, and often we give em what for, but it is noticeable and more difficult to progress than previous seasons) 

________________

So, WG after making really solid progress trying to promote more clans to play clan battles with clan brawls, smaller clan seasons like 6v6 , the traditional 7v7, While I do like the 8v8 2 BB format, I think you have done more harm than good frustrating the base this season. 8 players seems too difficult to arrange. 

 

Some thoughts on how to fix the problem of low participation(my guess is well under 50% the games played vs last season)

1) Stick to smaller team sizes and add more varied sizes. 5v5, 6v6, 7v7 ... the 3v3 clan brawl was Brilliant, and we had massive participation, multiple teams. Also continue to vary the tiers to try getting newer less experienced players into the clan experience. From my experience, most who play clan battles at T8 will work hard to try participate at T9 and T10. 

2) Shorten the seasons from the current 6+ weeks to 1 update cycle(about 4 weeks),  then add more seasons. Be sure to alternate these with ranked battles. NEVER at the same time like a couple updates ago - you induced much anger doing that. 

Full clan season ? Ranked sprints

Full ranked season ? Clan brawls - and single day clan brawls are a blast - and thank you for dropping the time from 6 hrs to 5 - much less burned out! You could do weekend clan brawls Friday - Sunday or Sat & Sunday rather than just a single evenings ... you can mix it up! Variety is the spice of life WG. 

3) PLEASE !!! Finally Add in game multi recipient messaging! We already have check boxes in front of every clan member name - simply add a "Send message to all checked  recipients option !! 

You can limit spam by making this option only available to clan leaders of certain ranks, and also - Multi recipients can only be in your clan. 

We should not have to rely on Discord and personal websites to communicate with each other in a multi player game in 2019 - having to message each player individually is cumbersome, frustrating and frankly insulting to clan leadership. Help us leaders help you WG. 

 

Just some quick thoughts to grow the competitive community rather than alienate it through frustration. 

Good Hunting, 

Kar

 

[mushmouthmorton]

We are a small fun clan that plays mostly co-op. We purposely keep it small due to issues many of our members have experienced in other clans. We know we will never break into the top ranks, so having fun is the major goal when we play clan wars. There is not a lot of "fun" factor available when you are constantly pitted against teams one or two leagues higher.

This lack of fun plus the fact we are a small clan has prevented us from even starting to participate this season.  I don't believe our clan has ever had more than 10 people show up for clan battles. Last season we were fighting to get 7 on a weekend. There were very few (if any) times we got 7 guys together during the week. This season, with the requirement for 8 players, and some of our members having real life interfere with their on line life, and other members having lost interest, we have not had any chance at all to form a team.

[Pura__Vida]

2 hours ago, Destroyer_KuroshioKai said:

You lose very little when facing higher tier opponents, while you stand to gain a sizable point gain if you pull off the upset.  Look at it this way, get aggressive and try to surprise them by taking the fight to them, if you lose, at least it didn’t take much time, if you win you will be smiling all night.

all true.... but... that may work on 3v3 on 4v4 and win with a punchers chance. The more players, say 8v8 and competing against your clans skill level literally takes out any luck that a group of Average Joes would win.

[Severed42]

31 minutes ago, BrushWolf said:

We are lucky to have seven people online let alone interested in CB, eight has made it pretty much impossible for use to play CB.

This pretty well sums up my clan the same. 40 member clan, generally oir membership is near or at max. We will have between 1 and maybe 12 people online, during peek hours.  Struggled last couple seasons to get full div but this 8x8 teams, like the rest explained..  has brought us not only to a standstill,  but our players online count has dropped in half since the clan battle night before last. too many nights in a roww sitting, waiting for that ONE person short to show.  I honestly dont blame anyone for just writing CBs off. I have not been able to justify being upset with any of them either. 

Very dissapointing to say the least.

[eviltane]

Guys I think many  clans fail to realize that due to the way CBs start its basically an uphill struggle the entire way.    Yes you are more likely to have easy opponents when starting low .  However it takes time for the clans to climb up to typhoon and hurricane. As such its important to pay attention to clan ranking for NA during the entire season and not get to focused on which exact league you are fighting in during the first 2 weeks.     For example we as Salvo  usually play between rank 35-25 in the top NA clans that means we do an awful  lot of struggles to get into typhoon.   If you want truly easy matches and not face  07 or the Cutes along the way then you kind of have to start your season almost 2 weeks late when those clans have already left the range of the bottom ranks.  

 

As far as participation.  Our clans has somewhat improved as the season went on.  Last season we could field between 2-3 teams a night.  Start of this Season was only 1 team per night.  Until this week really.  Both Wednesday and thursday nigth were 2 teams almost all night long. 

[BrushWolf]

5 minutes ago, Severed42 said:

This pretty well sums up my clan the same. 40 member clan, generally oir membership is near or at max. We will have between 1 and maybe 12 people online, during peek hours.  Struggled last couple seasons to get full div but this 8x8 teams, like the rest explained..  has brought us not only to a standstill,  but our players online count has dropped in half since the clan battle night before last. too many nights in a roww sitting, waiting for that ONE person short to show.  I honestly dont blame anyone for just writing CBs off. I have not been able to justify being upset with any of them either. 

Very dissapointing to say the least.

Our clan had some excitement awhile back and dropped to 32 where we have stayed. We couldn't even get a group together to play a single match to get the reset.

[J0nk]

I would say facing better teams you can learn a lot.

You can make note of the strat they are using, the positions they use and you can try using those.

Yes they are demoralizing but look at it in a positive way and try to get better by learning from the strats

[JaysUsedBoatParts]

Clan battles are too aggravating to participate. 

Wg needs to git rid of this mode and focus on ranked modes that all can participate in at their leisure.

[Destroyer_KuroshioKai]

12 minutes ago, Waxing_Gibbous said:

all true.... but... that may work on 3v3 on 4v4 and win with a punchers chance. The more players, say 8v8 and competing against your clans skill level literally takes out any luck that a group of Average Joes would win.

Dont have many players, recruit.  You know what helps with that?  Winning.  

Short on skill?  Then build the skill.  I just dont get it.  My clan puts in several hours per week watching and learning and teaching it to our sub clans.  I have received replays from several clans asking for review analysis of their CB battles.  These teams saw dramatic improvement in their performance.  The information and help is out there, its up to the horse at the end of the day to drink.  Has your clan seeked help with strats and calling?  When was the last mandatory training your clan had?

CUTE when it was founded was a tiny but experienced clan of probably less than 12 members spanning the globe, and we built it to what it is today, a weeb riddled monster spanning CUTER, CUTE, CUTIE, 2CUTE and CUTEZ.  It took time and effort, but its been worth it.   To sit back and say oh well, wish WG would fix this for us never dawned on us.

[dEsTurbed1]

3 hours ago, Capn_Nugget said:

Our clan usually has 45 or so members but only 10 or less show up for clan wars. I wonder if other teams have that issue? We like the 8v8 2 battleship lineup but that makes it longer wait to get our 8 together.

Despite having last 30 clan members who joined specifically to do clan battles, our 47 member clan could not field a team last night.

When we do field a team with our "A" team, we usually beat many higher rated clans.

It's all about map control and focus fire. Not caps and kills early on.

[Quincy71_GWP]

Clan Brawl is the most fun we have had in any mode. I'd like to see that on a regular basis. It also allows all team members to play.