Lost battles: nothing softens the blow of being told you suck more than...

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

...ending up on top of said losing team by a fair margin.

I had one of THOSE games in my Kagero last night. Went into B cap with a Roon right behind me. Enemy DD enters the cap. I tag it, even fire on it, but what is the Roon doing?

Smoke up, evade, back into the cap and take it solo. 

Leave, turn around, enter another cap, making a torp run along the way. Take that cap solo too. Meanwhile my team is falling apart. Before the game ends, I've attacked three other destroyers with guns and tried (unsuccessfully) to torpedo a battleship.

You would think that at least one of those other destroyers would've got fragged by my team, but in fact it managed to sink one of my BBs despite the fact of me having spotted it. Yeah, he just blundered into cap and got nuked.

I was the only one even trying to cap all game.

It was absolutely disgusting.

 

The follow-up was a game in which I admit I derped. But part of that derpage was being just about to drench a smoke cloud with torpedoes when one of my own ships cut directly in front just as I was about to fire. By a miracle I held the shot, but it meant that my turn-out was too late and I ran into a very large number of torpedoes that I might have evaded.

I'd had enough. I apologised to my team for the derp-ness and went back to co-op for the rest of the night, thoroughly disgusted by the experience.

[Guest]

carry harder! 

[Ace_04]

Even better when you have more XP on the losing team that the top ship on the winning team.

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

Just now, Ace_04 said:

Even better when you have more XP on the losing team that the top ship on the winning team.

Sadly, that wasn't the case. But I seriously think there should be an achievement awarded for that. 

[Ace_04]

Just now, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

Sadly, that wasn't the case. But I seriously think there should be an achievement awarded for that. 

Yes.  In Randoms and Ranked.

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

5 minutes ago, Ace_04 said:

Yes.  In Randoms and Ranked.

I'm sure @AdmiralThunder wouldn't mind a co-op one for going down swinging when all eight of his bots have decided it's their turn today to be useless. 

[loco_max]

The problem is that too many cruisers Caps don’t know how to support a DD decided to fight a cap...when capping, very often  I get more support from good BB than from cruisers...

[tm63au]

26 minutes ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

...ending up on top of said losing team by a fair margin.

I had one of THOSE games in my Kagero last night. Went into B cap with a Roon right behind me. Enemy DD enters the cap. I tag it, even fire on it, but what is the Roon doing?

Smoke up, evade, back into the cap and take it solo. 

Leave, turn around, enter another cap, making a torp run along the way. Take that cap solo too. Meanwhile my team is falling apart. Before the game ends, I've attacked three other destroyers with guns and tried (unsuccessfully) to torpedo a battleship.

You would think that at least one of those other destroyers would've got fragged by my team, but in fact it managed to sink one of my BBs despite the fact of me having spotted it. Yeah, he just blundered into cap and got nuked.

I was the only one even trying to cap all game.

It was absolutely disgusting.

 

The follow-up was a game in which I admit I derped. But part of that derpage was being just about to drench a smoke cloud with torpedoes when one of my own ships cut directly in front just as I was about to fire. By a miracle I held the shot, but it meant that my turn-out was too late and I ran into a very large number of torpedoes that I might have evaded.

I'd had enough. I apologised to my team for the derp-ness and went back to co-op for the rest of the night, thoroughly disgusted by the experience.

Well there is your problem right there you weren't in a stronk Russian ship.

500 games in Coop in Bogatyr, Oleg or  Varyag now hop to it

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

8 minutes ago, loco_max said:

The problem is that too many cruisers Caps don’t know how to support a DD decided to fight a cap...when capping, very often  I get more support from good BB than from cruisers...

THIS. When I go up to a cap behind a DD, I at least try to fire at anything that might be an issue for it. I don't know what the Roon was firing at, but whatever it was deleted him pretty fast. In retrospect I wonder if he drove up right behind me almost to cap edge, went AFK and then died. Also we had ships hanging around A cap for ages without shoving their noses in it, including a Yugumo that ended the game with two kills (and a lower-half placing). They were afraid to step into it like it would jump up and bite their genitals off. I ended up taking it in the second half of the game, but by then it was long past saving.

[RyuuohD_NA]

35 minutes ago, Ace_04 said:

Even better when you have more XP on the losing team that the top ship on the winning team.

But what if the top EXP on the losing team has less exp than the last place in the winning team?

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

1 minute ago, RyuuohD_NA said:

But what if the top EXP on the losing team has less exp than the last place in the winning team?

Then I start drinking (when I'm not on call, at least).

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

I see the OPs predicament a lot when i play carrier.

Some teams just refuse to be carried. You do your best, but the friendlies are determined to demonstrate their lack of competence.

I rinse the experience out by playing Mount and Warblade now.

[mpwardawg]

1 hour ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

Sadly, that wasn't the case. But I seriously think there should be an achievement awarded for that. 

Excellent idea.  It would provide another reason to fight it out rather than try to run to the edge of the map and prolonging the inevitable.  It is aggravating to have one red ship left running his tail off in just trying to go dark and survive.  

The new achievement could be named "Leader of the Derps."  Or more seriously, "Valiant Effort" or something along those lines.  At least it may remove a little sting from the loss.  

[Murcc]

1 hour ago, RyuuohD_NA said:

But what if the top EXP on the losing team has less exp than the last place in the winning team?

Then that whole team should be glad the game is over.  It was doomed from the beginning.

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

22 minutes ago, mpwardawg said:

It would provide another reason to fight it out rather than try to run to the edge of the map and prolonging the inevitable.

If it's a narrow fight and the run to the edge of the map is to stay alive and maybe scrape a victory on time or points out of a tactical wipeout, I don't mind the last ship running. They might also have one of the permanent campaign missions locked in that requires them to live. 

[Murcc]

2 hours ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

I had one of THOSE games in my Kagero last night. Went into B cap with a Roon right behind me. Enemy DD enters the cap. I tag it, even fire on it, but what is the Roon doing?

I've had similar experiences in a DD.  You spot a DD or two for more than 10 seconds, but no one shoots at them.  You take a gander around, and the closest cruisers are either farming BBs much farther away, or are tucked so tight behind an island that they can't fire at anything at all.

When I am in a cruiser and I spot one of our DDs headed into a cap, I try to keep my guns aimed in that direction.  If something pops up, I shoot it.  If we can eliminate a DD there, it makes our game experience so much better.  The earned XP is also better than for farming BBs, so why not.  It just doesn't show up on the PR rating as much.

[loco_max]

1 hour ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

THIS. When I go up to a cap behind a DD, I at least try to fire at anything that might be an issue for it. I don't know what the Roon was firing at, but whatever it was deleted him pretty fast. In retrospect I wonder if he drove up right behind me almost to cap edge, went AFK and then died. Also we had ships hanging around A cap for ages without shoving their noses in it, including a Yugumo that ended the game with two kills (and a lower-half placing). They were afraid to step into it like it would jump up and bite their genitals off. I ended up taking it in the second half of the game, but by then it was long past saving.

Support is not rewarded and it’s critical for victory. It should be rewarded..

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

1 minute ago, loco_max said:

Support is not rewarded and it’s critical for victory. It should be rewarded..

Trouble is, it's very difficult to reward. I might fire my cruiser's guns at an enemy destroyer and never so much as hit anything, but frighten it out of the cap so that its torpedoes - launched in haste - miss, my DD stays alive and goes unspotted, the cap becomes ours, and little things like these snowball into an eventual victory.

But how do you get the system to recognise that?

[loco_max]

20 minutes ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

Trouble is, it's very difficult to reward. I might fire my cruiser's guns at an enemy destroyer and never so much as hit anything, but frighten it out of the cap so that its torpedoes - launched in haste - miss, my DD stays alive and goes unspotted, the cap becomes ours, and little things like these snowball into an eventual victory.

But how do you get the system to recognise that?

Hitting a red  in the cap from a maximum distance of 5-7 km?

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

4 minutes ago, loco_max said:

Hitting a red  in the cap from a maximum distance of 5-7 km?

While one of your own ships is busy capping.

On that basis, you could start coding support XP bonuses for things like CAP fighter consumables shooting down enemy aircraft while there's a friendly ship in their influence circle. Or being the first to get rounds on target when someone F3's an enemy ship. 

 

The positional aspect - just BEING SEEN there and the enemy DD knowing you are there with radar or long-range hydro available and deciding to get out - is another matter. 

[Tzarevitch]

2 hours ago, loco_max said:

The problem is that too many cruisers Caps don’t know how to support a DD decided to fight a cap...when capping, very often  I get more support from good BB than from cruisers...

I've encountered the opposite. It's mostly my allied cruisers getting killed early trying to support me in a DD because the BBs are too far back to be a credible threat. I don't expect cruisers to help much in the beginning except for some specialized models. Unless they can smoke or get a good angle to fire from island cover or use radar, they are just turning themselves into BB piñatas and they don't do me any good if they are getting sunk early. Those cruisers that everyone accuses of yoloing early in the game are usually just doing a bad job of trying to support the DDs. 

I need the BBs to stop sniping from 22km, stop complaining about fires, and move a bit closer. BBs can tank a lot of fire damage with intelligent use of their heals and DCP. Certainly far more than a cruiser with no heals can. I don't want them so close to eat torps because that doesn't do the team any good and I'm in front of them to give them extra spotting time, but they need to be about 15km so they can hit the enemy heavies accurately and reliably. That provides a credible threat that makes the enemy team fire on them rather than the cruisers or me in a DD. Once the game develops and the BBs are spread out a bit the cruisers can and should close support, but most simply can't early in the game. 

 

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

6 minutes ago, Tzarevitch said:

Unless they can smoke or get a good angle to fire from island cover or use radar, they are just turning themselves into BB piñatas and they don't do me any good if they are getting sunk early.

I'll grant you that, but the point I was trying to make is that if you are going to push up that close to a cap anyway, at least have the decency to radar/hydro and shoot at the gunboat destroyer which is making life difficult for the IJN torpedo boat you tailgated all the way into B.

[Asym_KS]

2 hours ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

...ending up on top of said losing team by a fair margin.

I had one of THOSE games in my Kagero last night. Went into B cap with a Roon right behind me. Enemy DD enters the cap. I tag it, even fire on it, but what is the Roon doing?

Smoke up, evade, back into the cap and take it solo. 

Leave, turn around, enter another cap, making a torp run along the way. Take that cap solo too. Meanwhile my team is falling apart. Before the game ends, I've attacked three other destroyers with guns and tried (unsuccessfully) to torpedo a battleship.

You would think that at least one of those other destroyers would've got fragged by my team, but in fact it managed to sink one of my BBs despite the fact of me having spotted it. Yeah, he just blundered into cap and got nuked.

I was the only one even trying to cap all game.

It was absolutely disgusting.

The follow-up was a game in which I admit I derped. But part of that derpage was being just about to drench a smoke cloud with torpedoes when one of my own ships cut directly in front just as I was about to fire. By a miracle I held the shot, but it meant that my turn-out was too late and I ran into a very large number of torpedoes that I might have evaded.

I'd had enough. I apologised to my team for the derp-ness and went back to co-op for the rest of the night, thoroughly disgusted by the experience.

And, you now know why a great many of us DO NOT play Randoms anymore if at all possible not to....!   I was talked into a tier 9 Random match last night by the clan and all it was was radar ships and a carrier that followed me around in my Yugumo all match long.....  A total waste of time; because, even with 12 K torps, there was no way to even get within 10K of the enemy........  Another one sided Stomp and there was nothing that could have been done.  We logged off after that....  It's at that point of "lack of quality" anymore and I'm sticking to COOP/Scenarios from now on.  If they want to tinker in Random matches, good luck.  We did have several 4-5 star scenarios matches before that terrible decision though.

Playing Randoms just "leaves you with a sense of desperation" because of the lack of "balance" in the skill levels of the players......  I just can't explain that any better than that.......the "veterans" versus the "new players" feel.  And, that doesn't even count the "oooops!  Did I do that>?" mistakes I make just being an average player>?????   No thanks.

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

18 minutes ago, Tzarevitch said:

I've encountered the opposite. It's mostly my allied cruisers getting killed early trying to support me in a DD because the BBs are too far back to be a credible threat. I don't expect cruisers to help much in the beginning except for some specialized models. Unless they can smoke or get a good angle to fire from island cover or use radar, they are just turning themselves into BB piñatas and they don't do me any good if they are getting sunk early. Those cruisers that everyone accuses of yoloing early in the game are usually just doing a bad job of trying to support the DDs. 

I need the BBs to stop sniping from 22km, stop complaining about fires, and move a bit closer. BBs can tank a lot of fire damage with intelligent use of their heals and DCP. Certainly far more than a cruiser with no heals can. I don't want them so close to eat torps because that doesn't do the team any good and I'm in front of them to give them extra spotting time, but they need to be about 15km so they can hit the enemy heavies accurately and reliably. That provides a credible threat that makes the enemy team fire on them rather than the cruisers or me in a DD. Once the game develops and the BBs are spread out a bit the cruisers can and should close support, but most simply can't early in the game. 

 

Yes, i like to be about 5km short of the CAP, angled so incoming fire is little threat, with my firepower advantage covering the CAP.

Then its a matter of either creating conditions for a push (i.e. winning the firefight)...or covering the withdrawal of the flank as we slow and then kite the enemy push.

I dont hide my BB. Its why i enjoy German and USN battleships...but not so much the UK battleships.

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

4 minutes ago, Asym_KS said:

And, you now know why a great many of us DO NOT play Randoms anymore if at all possible not to....!

I can sympathise for sure.

My issue at the moment is that I'm trying to get as many early-unlock British cruisers as possible, and that means won games, and it also means speed-grinding in co-op (which I don't mind in the slightest).

If I weren't bothered about how many daily chains I completed, I could take repeated losses in Randoms and roll with it - but not being a childless bachelor means I can't always play to the wee small hours trying to get those wins. 

Next patch, the directives prize is a T6 heavy cruiser, plus the British commander for tokens. I've decided I don't need him, so I don't have to sweat the dailies. Randoms will be back on the agenda in a big way.