RNG, the Playerbase, and Their Effects on Your WoT Experience

 

RNG

Many new players may never realize the effects that factors outside their control have on the average World of Tanks experience. Indeed many have likely quit due to not realizing that these factors exist, and how to either take advantage of them or lessen the effect they have. Had I known all that I know now about this game, I probably would've quit awhile ago myself. This isn't to say the deck is stacked against you all the time, or that there's nothing you can do to have an impact on the outcome of a match, but I am not the biggest fan of how large the RNG spread is. It becomes obvious in some matches that the RNG may not be on your side, and this directly correlates to a negative gameplay experience.

For those who don't know, the RNG, or random number generator, is an effect in WoT which partially determines whether or not your shot hits, whether it penetrates the armor of the opposing tank, and also whether or not it does damage, and how much damage. Any decent player in this game will tell you that it's all about damage to the enemies' actual hit point pool that matters, not module or crew damage, more on that later. The RNG in WoT is +/- 25%, which many believe to be far too much for a game trying to become a major e-sports platform. Beyond the 25%, there are also other factors that can determine whether or not your shot lands in the dirt, or where you aimed it. Taken from the WoT wiki:

"Every shot you take is dispersed randomly around the center of your aiming reticle, i.e. you will not necessarily hit exactly where you aimed. The actual dispersion amount is based on a Gaussian (normal) distribution curve and depends on your gun and the turret it is mounted to."   (http://wiki.worldoftanks.com/Battle_Mechanics#Accuracy_and_Dispersion)

This mechanic can indeed be maddening at times, when you have a perfectly aimed in shot, with 100% crew, a very accurate gun, and you still miss. Sometimes, a perfectly aimed shot will hit, penetrate, only to damage or destroy a module or crew member of the enemy. This is yet another RNG mechanic, as all modules and crew members of tanks have hit points which are separate from the tanks hit point pool. When you're about to die, and you put a shot into the enemy which takes out his radioman, or driver, or fuel tanks (without setting him on fire), or engine, instead of killing him, you will then understand that this mechanic is just unnecessary. Wargaming has put so many elements of RNG and luck into the game to increase the level of frustration, and we all know WoT is not without great amounts of that.   

In my opinion, this mechanic and most RNG mechanics are in place to give worse players a higher chance of success, while at the same time dampening the impact a good player has on a given battle. Still, the fact that good/great players' performance all but ensures victory or defeat in many cases, truly means that these players are above and beyond the level of most players. This is despite sometimes going through terrible bouts of bad RNG, so essentially it means good/great players (green, blue, purple for WoTLabs.net) are even better than their stats would suggest, in general. It also suggests the opposite for bad players, who, when given good RNG, are still not likely to not use it to their advantage and win a match. Yes, the RNG goes both ways, but good players will win games if given average-good RNG, bad players will not. Good players will even sometimes draw out or win matches when given bad RNG, and thus, you can see why they are good players.

 

 The Playerbase

potato is as potato does

   

I mentioned earlier that the RNG may be a major factor in whether new players stay in the game, and this has proven to be true in countless forum posts by angry new players. They may not like the RNG, or the camouflage system, or something else, but it drives them to other games nonetheless. This is something that Wargaming really should consider, especially knowing that War Thunder ground forces is gearing up for closed beta soon (December 4th). 

When looking at player retention, let's consider the following current numbers from wot-news.com:

Players who played between 0-500 battles =   3,156,512 players (60.24%)

1-1,000 battles =   1,730,263 (33.02%)

1,000-1,500 battles =   65,066 (1.24%)

1,500-2,000 battles =   45,345 (0.87%)

2,000-2,500 battles =   34,473 (0.66%)

2,500-3,000 battles =   27,206 (0.52%)

9,500-10,000 battles =   4,020 (0.08%)

(source: http://wot-news.com/stat/server/us/norm/en, bottom chart)

As you can see, Wargaming really has a problem keeping new players playing more than 1,000 battles. Also of note, not even 1% of players play more than 1,500 battles. These are telling statistics, as, while many players still play and enjoy the game, there is something fundamentally wrong with how WG is going about it. I believe RNG is only one factor here. There is also the camouflage mechanics, spotting/view range mechanics, physics and how they change the game, tank imbalances, tier imbalances, map imbalances, matchmaker imbalances, and the list goes on (all of which could be entirely separate articles in and of themselves). 

I read the WoT forums a lot, and almost every day I see some new player complaining about any one of these mechanics or imbalances, and while some players are helpful to them, others simply write them off as noobs or troll them. This is another factor that determines player retention, if a player is helped by the community, or trolled, he may or may not stay with the game. In many cases the forum can hurt new players more than it helps, which to me is sad.

There is no doubt that there are overall more players playing WoT than there ever were, on all servers, but this is mostly due to extremely aggressive advertising on Wargaming's part, free-to-play games becoming hugely popular, and a virtually perpetual downturn in the global, and US, economies. Given the above player retention statistics, it's a safe bet that most of the current populations of all servers are new players, or newer players.

#yoloderp

This leads me to my next point, player skill. If you look at all the various mechanics and skill level required to be a good player in WoT, you will know that new players are almost inevitably bad, very bad. Now, when I first started off, I was absolutely horrible, and had no idea what I was doing, and understood almost nothing about the game. But, I made sure to stay in low tiers, enjoy the game, and have fun, while also learning the game and how it works. This is something all new players should do, if they want to become better. 

Unfortunately, many new players want to skip tiers or play a tier 8 premium tank (which anyone can purchase even if you have 0 battles played), both of which are detrimental to them actually learning the game properly. There's also the problem of bots and afk'ers, but sadly some new players are even worse than the previously mentioned parties, which takes real skill. There are more and more of these bad players running up the tiers every day, and for players like me, it only makes the game worse. 

If you look at WoTLabs, you will find the average server statistics for NA:

Server Statistics

Average Win Rate: 48.78%
Average Tier: 4.91
Average Efficiency: 873
Average WN7 Rating: 772
Players Tracked: 217763
(source: http://wotlabs.net/)

WN7 is a metric used as an alternative means of calculating player skill, and while it is not a be-all-end-all of skill measurements, it has its merits. The following graph can be used as a tool for comparison:

source: http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/184017-wn7-what-is-it-and-how-does-it-work/page__st__1980

For a breakdown of what WN7 takes into account, we can look at these statistics:

For example: M8A1 tier 4 td, Win, 1176 dmg done, 4 kills, 5 detected, 33 defense points. A 3776 WN7 game which breaks down into.
1176 dmg = 1020.85
4 kills = 1645.98
5 detected = 625.00
33 defense = 220.00
win bonus = 264.23
tier bonus = -0.32
Total = 3775.74 WN7
(source: http://quickybaby.com/general-discussions/wn7-breakdown/)

As you can see, the average WN7 is 772, which is red, and red is generally pretty bad. I don't believe the average win rate of the server reflects the actual skill of the average player, I believe WN7 more accurately does. Playing this game in beta and on release, it's very obvious to see the average skill level has become far worse than it once was. There were many players with actual common sense and some kind of tactical awareness, mini-map usage, and game mechanic knowledge. Now, many players simply want to get to tier 10 as quickly as possible, no matter what. By the time they get there though, they find that not only did they not learn how to play the game, but that tier 10 is where most of the best players reside, making the task of a bad player becoming good nearly impossible. If you ask any veteran player who has been here even since release, they will tell you that the playerbase has gotten considerably worse, and there are many more lopsided 0-15 and 15-0 battles than there used to be. Anyone who has fun with those types of battles, doesn't really know what fun is.

WoT has really become a game of "new player and veteran player retention doesn't matter, it's all about brand new players coming in and dropping cash", which many do. It's sad that Wargaming doesn't seem to value their veterans or try to retain people, instead focusing solely on how much money they can get before this game inevitably dies to something like powercreep, connection issues (Telia.net), other games coming out (WT ground forces), clan wars issues (ROTA and campaigns 1 and 2), or simply Wargaming's continued ignorance of known game issues other than the ones previously mentioned. If they valued their customers, they would make changes, but this is not likely to happen, as they are for now, and have been for awhile, the only (tank) game in town.

Most considerate developer ever?