97 replies to this topic

[12_inch_Hawk]

Through my own experience I know I have gone through the following 5 stages of learning this game.  I have also been able to recognize these stages in others. 

 

Stage 1 - You haven't got a clue.  You still think Spitfires are OP because they do everything well but nothing great.

 

Stage 2 - You have learned to kill stuff but not how to win.  At this point you know how to boom and zoom, you understand ACM, you have developed good situational awareness, and you can put up good scores in almost any plane but you still don't understand why you still lose battles.  You might even have a decent win rate by this point but most people still use the excuse they play for fun but not to win as if the two are mutually exclusive.

 

Stage 3 - You have learned to win.  You know how to work the maps and know the bot behavior and patterns.  Even when you do lose you know why and what you did wrong.  You take responsibility for your own actions and don't blame bots or RNG for everything.   You start looking at your daily win rate but its more out of curiosity than a major motivating factor.

 

Stage 4 - You start to get overconfident and experiment with maximizing points and medals while still trying to win.  You end up losing more battles because of your own ego than anything else.  You try to drag out battles too long and it ends up costing you the win.  The upside is when you aren't screwing around you can carry most battles.  

 

Stage 5 -  You know when you can screw around to maximize points and when not to.  You know your own limits and win consistently.  This is the stage winning becomes important to you.  

 

I'm sure there is probably a stage 6 or even more but I'm not there yet.  I know I am still learning and trying to improve so there must be more.  

[Sink_Stuff]

Hmm, so I am only at stage 1.5? I don't fully know ACM yet. I bought a book, but yeah, i haven't read it all yet enough to fully get it. 

[12_inch_Hawk]

Sink_Stuff, on 13 July 2021 - 09:54 PM, said:

Hmm, so I am only at stage 1.5? I don't fully know ACM yet. I bought a book, but yeah, i haven't read it all yet enough to fully get it. 

I would put you at a solid 2.  You put in the effort to buy the book so although you haven't mustered it yet you still understand it and its relevance.  You are past the stage of shooting AA guns in a spitfire.

Edited by 12_inch_Hawk, 14 July 2021 - 03:11 AM.

[Corsair4790805]

I would break 2 into a couple of phases:

 

Stage 2 - You have learned to kill stuff but not how to win.  You might even have a decent win rate by this points but most people still use the excuse they play for fun but not to win as if the two are mutually exclusive.

 

Stage 2.5 At this point you know how to boom and zoom, you understand ACM, you have developed good situational awareness, and you can put up good scores in almost any plane but you still don't understand why you still lose battles.

 

For me, I learned how to kill things pretty quick and had a decent win rate (I was above 60% when I entered the HOF with 1,000 battles).   But there were a lot of nuances to ACM that I still had to (and still am) learning.   And things that exist primarily to move mud are a bit different - primarily in learning how to kill things on the ground vs in the air.

 

I would also say the progression is not necessarily linear - I would put myself at early prats of stage 3, while still learning some of the finer points of stage 2, especially boom and zoom, as I tend to turn and burn unless I get creative and/or desperate.

 

But overall I think you've captured the average player's progression pretty well, at least from my perspective/experience.

[aquabat]

I liked your scale. I'm probably at 1.5, at this point. Now, my question is how you suggest someone can get to a 3, 4 and 5.

 

I have seen your tips and I agree with most of them. When I needed to get a Gabreski, I was lucky and you showed me how you managed it (although it's not nearly as easy to me as it is to you for I could only do it twice). But there is certaintly more to it than just not advancing your plane beyond your pilot skill points.

 

So, if someone is willing to, how can he push beyond 2 or 3?

[12_inch_Hawk]

aquabat, on 13 July 2021 - 10:56 PM, said:

I liked your scale. I'm probably at 1.5, at this point. Now, my question is how you suggest someone can get to a 3, 4 and 5.

 

I have seen your tips and I agree with most of them. When I needed to get a Gabreski, I was lucky and you showed me how you managed it (although it's not nearly as easy to me as it is to you for I could only do it twice). But there is certaintly more to it than just not advancing your plane beyond your pilot skill points.

 

So, if someone is willing to, how can he push beyond 2 or 3?

I think you are being far too modest.  You are already a high 2 or low 3.  That is exactly where I like people to be when I try to recruit them into my clan.  That is the stage where you want to learn to win.  Winning isn't the most important thing ever.  This is still a video game and if you aren't having fun there is no point of playing.  At the same time if you are going to do something you might as well do it well.  There are two ways to progress.  The first is time and experience but that is a lot of time.  What really helped me was joining GW_S and having a mentor.  I had the opportunity to learn from 80% players.  It doesn't necessarily have to be GW_S but I highly recommend joining a clan with 80% players with one of them willing to mentor you.  When someone is at the stage you are at It makes it fun to be a mentor.  The person is willing to learn so you take pride in watching their progression knowing you had a small part in it.  I'm sure spiritfox and trikki can confirm this.  I have told you before you are more than welcome at GW_S. 

[wylleEcoyote]

Stage three for me.

I do stage 4 stuff when im trying to work through a weird mission. Like kill 7 enemy aircraft when attacking a sector, ugh. 

[Martymart1976]

Very nice, good to see that learning is a process and doesn't stop in game and in real life.  I am not sure what stage I am in however I learn constantly from flying against better planes and pilots and learning to counter them.  I get frustrated by hard losses when we dominate all game and lose at the end but it is what it is...

[gerr22]

oh damn i m .5 and going nowhere fast don t like this stages thing think of something else to troll us with

[12_inch_Hawk]

gerr22, on 14 July 2021 - 06:56 AM, said:

oh damn i m .5 and going nowhere fast don t like this stages thing

makes sense

[backseater60]

Yep, using your scale on the lower end of 2.  Makes you frustrated enough not to play for a while sometimes.

[12_inch_Hawk]

 

Based on the comments both in this thread and personal messages I have expanded on this idea and made some edits;

 

Stage 1 - You haven't got a clue.  You still think Spitfires are OP because they do everything well but nothing great.  You don't know what sectors are important.  You make classic noob mistakes like shooting AA guns in a light fighter, shooting your own team for "stealing your kills" or dying in sector repeatedly.  You are literally worse than a dumb bot and a hinderance to your team.  Based on these traits I would expect the person to have a win rate less than 50%.  Natural gamers may skip this stage all together or pick the game up so fast they spend very little time if any at stage 1.

 

Stage 2 - You have learned to kill stuff but not how to win.  At this point you know the difference between boom and zoom vs. turn and burn, you understand basic ACM, you have started to developed situational awareness, and you can put up good scores in some planes but you still don't understand why you still lose battles.  You might even have a decent win rate by this point but most people still use the excuse they play for fun but not to win as if the two are mutually exclusive.  Based on these traits I would expect the person to have a win rate between 50-59%.  I think a large majority of the player base fits into this category so win rates might be expanded a bit on the higher side but it is a general rule of thumb.

 

Stage 3 - You have learned to win.  You know how to work the maps and know the bot behavior and patterns.  Even when you do lose you know why and what you did wrong.  You take responsibility for your own actions and don't blame bots or RNG for everything.   You do well in most planes.  You start looking at your daily win rate but its more out of curiosity than a major motivating factor.  Based on these traits I would expect the person to have a win rate between 60-69%.  

 

Stage 4 - You start to get overconfident and experiment with maximizing points and medals while still trying to win.  You end up losing more battles because of your own ego than anything else.  You try to drag out battles too long and it ends up costing you the win.  The upside is when you aren't screwing around you can carry most battles.  You do well in almost all planes.  Situational awareness is good, you constantly check your mini-map and it isn't often someone can sneak up on you. Based on these traits I would expect the person to have a win rate between 70-79%.

 

Stage 5 -  You know when you can screw around to maximize points and when not to.  You know your own limits and win consistently.  You can play any plane in the game and still carry most games.  This is the stage winning becomes important to you.  At this stage you have honed your situational awareness to a fine edge.  You constantly look at both your mini-map and the main map by pressing tab.  You track the humans from both sides at all times.  You know where they are and where they are going at almost all times and what sector they will flip next.  When you do lose track of one you are constantly trying to reacquire their position.  Based on these traits I would expect the person to have a win rate of 80%+.  

 

I noticed how win rates were lining up to the different stages so I added them in but I don't think they are exact right now by any means, more of a rule of thumb using round numbers.  Let me know if your win rate lines up with where you are in the scale and if it is off by how much.  If you have a lot of battles use 28 day win rate to get a better idea of where you are now as opposed to how far you have come.

[12_inch_Hawk]

I think it would be interesting to study the traits and characteristics of 40%ers, 50%ers, 60%ers, 70%ers and 80%ers to see why they have the win rates they do.  So far this has all been intuitive and is in no way scientific.  It has made me think about it though. 

[losttwo]

I like the new updated scale. 

My guess is that i am sitting at #3. 

Yet my win rate for the last few months has been hovering at 59.80 ( highest ) 

Mostly due to trying to specialize and learn to fly the various planes in my hangar. 

Bombers for me are a struggle and I am very dependent on the bots or other humans in the match, 

Also flying the lesser played planes and trying to learn how to implement them into the match.

Planes like the Hs-129-B for example or the JU-87.  

[12_inch_Hawk]

losttwo, on 14 July 2021 - 09:31 AM, said:

I like the new updated scale. 

My guess is that i am sitting at #3. 

Yet my win rate for the last few months has been hovering at 59.80 ( highest ) 

Mostly due to trying to specialize and learn to fly the various planes in my hangar. 

Bombers for me are a struggle and I am very dependent on the bots or other humans in the match, 

Also flying the lesser played planes and trying to learn how to implement them into the match.

Planes like the Hs-129-B for example or the JU-87.  

59.80% is pretty damn close to 60%.  I think it would only make sense for there to be some overlap.  

[wylleEcoyote]

those mid tier german attackers are a rough road to say the least.

[Cenotaph]

Funny thing... I consider myself a 1 on that scale

 

Which always made me really sad, based on how the rest of the community performs...

[Commodore_Sailracer]

I think you have the win rate for stage 2 too high.  I would say stage 2 is centered around 50% +/-5%  Similarly, I think Stage 3 should be expanded to include down to 55% or so.  Yes, the stage 3 pilot with the characteristics and knowledge you describe is probably capable of higher win rates if flying a good plane, specialized with equipment.  I had a 48% win rate with 4K battles which I think was the turning point for me where I started learning how to win and entered stage 3.  I had spent a lot of time grinding and trying to get tokens for hanger slots up to that point.  I don't recall what my 28 day win rate was at that time, but I started digging out of that low win-rate hole steadily from that point on.  Joining a clan and flighting with others much better helped me see what they did gave me new insights into the game.

 

Based on a 28 day win rate now I'm at stage 5, but I would not say I have the characteristics where I can jump in any plane and achieve that win rate.  Against stage 1-3 players I like my odds, but against better players I can't go take a stock I-210 into battle and expect to win.  I recognize plane selection (along with equipment and skill points) is usually key to guaranteeing a win.  That's another thing I notice- I very rarely see stage 5 pilots flying around in weak, non-specialized planes and they mostly fly in flights with other stage 4/5 pilots  I still often blame my bots and teammates for losses when I out-score & out-cap and out-chevron the best player on the opposing team but still lose .  Maybe if that is stage 5, there needs to be a stage 6 for those who always overcome bad bots and teammates and make the game bend to their will.  Their shots never miss, their boost never runs out, the bots never get a lucky shot on them, AA does no damage to them and they seem to be able to flip multiple caps simultaneously despite being on the opposite side of the map!

[Commodore_Sailracer]

I should also add that I finished researching all the tech tree planes at about 10K battles.  Towards the end of that grinding I probably had a 65% 28 day win rate on average flying planes that weren't specialized or were new to me or even hated (I'm looking at you Ta-152).  In the 1000 battle since then, I have mostly been flying my favorite planes and getting all their equipment fully calibrated and pilots better trained and my 28 day win rate is around 80%.  I don't think I have gained much greater game knowledge in those 1000 recent battles and gone from a stage 3 to stage 5 but instead it shows how plane selection (and equipment/pilot skills) can influence win rate significantly.  Maybe based on that I am really at stage 4 trying to fake my way into stage 5 stats.

[losttwo]

I would like to add that to including a win percentage for stages there must be some considerations. 

Solo versus flights

varieties of planes. 

Take CUP for example and the fact he is mostly a bomber pilot.

37K battles in bombers and a 66+% win rate ( how much of that has been from hacking and cheating  )

I mean come on Captain give the other planes some love too.

 

Seriously, a foot note of " Win rates are a generalization your mileage  may very"