Is it my imagination, or are Random Battle matches ending a lot sooner now?

[ejlakie]

Seems to me they're ending sooner than they have to, makes it harder to come back when there's still 5-6 ships out there. 

Or am I imagining things?

[Uncle_Lou]

If one team loses several ships very early, it doesn't take much to zero-point that team and ending the match.

[_ENO_]

First of all yes- it’s your imagination. 
 

Follow up- It’s a jungle out there. Lose a couple ships early and it usually sets the tone. There seem to be fewer clutch players who can then turn that around- 3-4 ships down on your side and none on the opponent side- time to go selfish and just grab what you can get. 

[Herr_Reitz]

"It’s a jungle out there. Lose a couple ships early and it usually sets the tone."

Yeah, that's true. What's also true is sailing broadside to the reds tends to speed up the game a bit. So don't do it. 
Camping or soloing, pretty much the same, you are not part of the team's ability to deliver rounds downrange. Don't do it, you'll lose. 
Two groups of friendlies always seem to do better than one giant flustercuck or three smaller groups. Don't split into three, don't stay in one.
Finally, prioritize your targets. Weakest or best shot first. Shooting 20km away for a real minor maybe versus shooting 12 km away for a sure hit? Don't shoot the target 20 km away. 

I'm done. 

[DocWalker]

28 minutes ago, _ENO_ said:

First of all yes- it’s your imagination. ...

^^^

Most of mine today went the full 20 minutes ... of course it takes time to run down campers ... 

[Wolfswetpaws]

1 hour ago, ejlakie said:

Seems to me they're ending sooner than they have to, makes it harder to come back when there's still 5-6 ships out there. 

Or am I imagining things?

Most of my Random battles went for over 15 minutes and several used-up the full 20 minutes.
While not all Random battles go the full amount of time, it does happen often.  A few statistical outliers does not constitute significant evidence of a phenomena.

[Midnitewolf]

I think your right to be honest.   I just returned back to the game about a month ago with probably a 9 month absence and I can honestly say that the meta has completely changed.     I think a lot of it has to do with CVs to be honest but I also think much of it has to do with how many fire starters and big guns we now have in the game as well.

What I mean is, teams clump up massively now and not only do they clump but the clump all hide behind islands like they are afraid to show themselves.  BB don't tank at all any more and those who do tank are usually the exception and get focused down because the rest of their team is clumped up hiding behind an island.  I mean it is comical to see 3-4 BBs, a couple cruisers and of all things a DD all trying desperately to hide behind one little island just outside the cap.

To relate this back to what I said.  I think CVs are causing the clumps because you really need concentrated AA from multiple ships not to get farmed and ships like the FDR just make situations worse.  The hiding behind islands comes from how flipping easy it is to get burnt to the waterline if you show yourself as a BB and as a Cruiser, facing all these 457mm and up guns means you just get crushed no matter how you angle.  

What then tends to happen is one side will get a better angle on the other and just rain shells down on the clump taking out 2-3 in rapid succession.  The rest, realizing they are in a bad position scatter which makes them easy picking for the enemy clump or CV and a steamroll occurs.  This results in very short matches where one team gets completely routed before the timer is half way over.

 

[HTSMetal]

I spent some time the other day on WoWs Numbers, checking out stats of some people I've enjoyed playing with over the last four years. I was sad to see that the VAST majority of them hadn't played a game in a long time.

It doesn't surprise me that matches are ending sooner. So many of the experienced players are gone; they're burnt out or fed up.

WoWs suffers from one issue that makes it infinitely frustrating for the average solo player -- it doesn't matter how skilled you are, the vast majority of games simply cannot be carried by one individual. Sure, it happens, and divisions are another story of course, but in Randoms most players are at the mercy of their random team in most instances.  

I have been astonished recently at how little many players understand about the mechanics of this game. WoWs is a very complex game when all the myriad details are taken into account but even the newest players should, in theory, be able to avoid dying within the first 3 minutes of battle; if it happens often enough, a person should learn not to do the same thing again....right?

It's amazing how often wrong that last statement seems to be in World of Warships.

[HyperFish]

Thinking back to my 20 or so matches yesterday. 

One of them went the full distance and timed out. 

I think a couple zero'd out in the first 5-10 minutes when either mine or the red team were roflstomped. 

Between the remainders, say half when one team was completely knocked out, and one half due to capture of objectives. 

I kinda still believe that matches that time out should be a draw. If you can't cap the objectives or blap the red team in that time, no-one gets the points. 

[Capt_Ahab1776]

1 hour ago, HTSMetal said:

but even the newest players should, in theory, be able to avoid dying within the first 3 minutes of battle;

You ask a lot

 

It’s not just the new players.

[SeaborneSumo]

WG stated a couple of years ago that one of their goals was 'shorter matches'.  The reason for this is obvious.  Shorter matches means more matches, more consumables, more money per their bean counting spreadsheet nerds.

Tis why CVs are the way they are today. 

[Usedcarjock]

14 minutes ago, SeaborneSumo said:

WG stated a couple of years ago that one of their goals was 'shorter matches'.  The reason for this is obvious.  Shorter matches means more matches, more consumables, more money per their bean counting spreadsheet nerds.

Tis why CVs are the way they are today. 

I find that CVs are not really the primary cause to short matches. Loss of DDs is a more of a driving factor behind it, especially in matches without a CV. 

[CylonRed]

Depends ont he game - mine personally seem to take a bit longer but without data from 2 years ago to compare with - no real way to really know.  People remember the short ones far to easily so those stick out more than the longer games. 

[AdmiralFox08]

15 hours ago, _ENO_ said:

First of all yes- it’s your imagination. 
 

Follow up- It’s a jungle out there. Lose a couple ships early and it usually sets the tone. There seem to be fewer clutch players who can then turn that around- 3-4 ships down on your side and none on the opponent side- time to go selfish and just grab what you can get. 

ive only changed that tone once in a random battle, it was me and a bot vs 7 ships, 6 kills 108k dmg, best game yet

[AdmiralFox08]

4 hours ago, Usedcarjock said:

I find that CVs are not really the primary cause to short matches.

whenever i play my langley, i'm always the last person standing and it will time out or i'll get blown up by a BB at long range

[Im_with_goobler]

No. Its the ongoing trend that WG has bought upon themselves. If you are in any blowout matches that end in 6-7 minutes at tier 10, then have a look at the losing sides bottom ship player profiles. you will find 50% of them have less than 500 battles and somehow have access to tier 10 ships. Its obvious they dont understand ship strengths and mechanics and have no idea what high tier battles are about. They yolo in and die, or charge forward, gets detected and show full broadside to the enemy team in which they get deleted.

Its not a battle of good players in WoWS anymore. its the battle of how many uncarriable potatoes MM has put on your side and how hard do they throw. 

[Hukom]

1 hour ago, IHateWoWS_Ret_Playerbase said:

less than 500 battles and somehow have access to tier 10 ships. Its obvious they dont understand ship strengths and mechanics and have no idea what high tier battles are about. They yolo in and die, or charge forward, gets detected and show full broadside to the enemy team in which they get deleted. 

That's me! 🤣

[TheGreatBlasto]

2 hours ago, AdmiralFox08 said:

whenever i play my langley, i'm always the last person standing and it will time out or i'll get blown up by a BB at long range

How do you get blowed up if you're the last man standing?

[shinytrashcan]

1 hour ago, IHateWoWS_Ret_Playerbase said:

you will find 50% of them have less than 500 battles and somehow have access to tier 10 ships. Its obvious they dont understand ship strengths and mechanics and have no idea what high tier battles are about.

I remember when I started this game over a year ago, after I reached T5 I believed (not sure anymore) I got bombarded by WG with rentals for premiums like Atago, Eugen etc.

Since I had no way to know better really, I actually tried Eugen and took her out for a spin. All T10 game, at the beginning I ask around in chat what to do (people were quite friendly but told me to stay back and focus on long range spam). So I motored ahead and thought I just get a bit closer before turning out and start shooting. Having played only at mid-low tier before I had no concept of the high-tier battle flow, typical detection ranges and how close you might get before you are detected. And more importantly how quickly you get punished for it.

2 minutes or so (it was really quick) I get spotted by something and targeted. So I decided ok, better turn away and retreat. Focus fire took me down in about 30s. Red team had a laugh, though my team just added something to the effect of " congratz you just shot a rental". That stuck with me.

From then on I never touch high-tier rentals again until I was at least T7 and had some idea of what was going on and made a point of not playing above my weight. Maybe that is a personal thing but I don't get why people would think it is a wise idea to just yolo up the tech tree. But WG is really encouraging people to buy into high tiers and to rush up to T10. I get that someone has to pay the bills, but this focus on the highest tier is counterproductive in the long run.

[AdmiralFox08]

3 minutes ago, TheGreatBlasto said:

How do you get blowed up if you're the last man standing?

shoulda worded that better. last standing on MY TEAM, not the whole match. then i get blown up by a bb

[AdmiralFox08]

2 hours ago, IHateWoWS_Ret_Playerbase said:

 you will find 50% of them have less than 500 battles and somehow have access to tier 10 ships. 

and how is that? i have 250 battles and i have 3 t6s, only way i could play a t10 by the end of the year is thru a rental. i expect to be grinding for a while to get creds and xp for New Orleans, probably wont have it before the end of the month

[ArIskandir]

20 hours ago, ejlakie said:

Seems to me they're ending sooner than they have to, makes it harder to come back when there's still 5-6 ships out there. 

Or am I imagining things?

No, it happens. Your team is getting zeroed. If you have no "income" in the form of caps or kills, your team's points get depleted in something like 5 kills I think. It can happen really fast sometimes

[shinytrashcan]

My observation over the past weeks was that in high tier randoms the teams are really awful. You have everything from yoloing DDs to B-line sniping BBs. I think the playerbase is just declining in skill over time with more people leaving and new people being rushed up the tiers. The introduction of bots to lower tiers should have been a warning.

[shinytrashcan]

Current state of the game (symbolic picture)

Note the Yoshino humping the border in A3. All sunk ships were reds, all the surviving red BBs were at least at half health at the end of the battle when this image was taken.

[SeaborneSumo]

23 hours ago, Usedcarjock said:

I find that CVs are not really the primary cause to short matches. Loss of DDs is a more of a driving factor behind it, especially in matches without a CV. 

There are a lot of things driving shorter matches.

1. CVs first and foremost.  In enemy spawn 45 seconds into a match.   Their speed, much faster than RTS, allows them soo much spotting across the map, there is no ambush tactics anymore.  Its just run and gun, pew pew pew, Call of Duty type play with ships.
2. HE Flameslingers - SOOO many fast firing, no skill required, HE Spammers at high tier level.  Burning down BBs and CAs quite easily from smoke or behind islands.  Even at extreme ranges.
3. Increased Radar - with 3-4 radar ships on a side, DDs can be quickly and easily dispatched, resulting in a brawl.   Brawls end quicker.

Everything WG has done is to decrease match time.  Sure, some matches go the distance, but most of mine of late are over with a lopsided victory (or loss) within 10 min.