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Haswell

On Russians

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Something has always bothered me in games with international playerbases: there’s always a small but incredibly noisy portion of players who seem to have an irrational hatred towards others who don’t speak their language, or otherwise appear different.

That’s right, I’m poking directly at all the people who go “RU players bad EU/NA master race”.

 

Let us say there are 10000 active players in the game right now for the sake of argument (the actual number is far lower, but 10000 make math easier), and that there’s a 70/30 split in favor of the RU region. Let us also assume that 90% of all the players are “bad”, arbitrarily labeled again for the sake of argument here. RU and EU have the same exact proportion of bad players, meaning out of all the RU players there are 90% of them that are bad, just as there are 90% of all EU players that are also bad.

Time for some slightly more complicated math: if there are 3000 EU players in total and 90% of them are bad, that means there are 2700 bad EU players. Likewise, 90% of bad players out of 7000 RU players total means there are 6300 bad RU players. Oh no, clearly there are more bad RU players than bad EU players, does that mean the haters are right all along?

Let’s look at the other side of the coin: good players make up 10% of each RU and EU populations, this means there are 700 good RU players and 300 good EU players. Oh crap, there are more than double the amounts of good RU players compared to good EU players. But that’s impossible they said, what about all those people and anecdotes proclaiming EU superiority?

 

Confirmation bias is a fascinating phenomenon. For those who are unfamiliar this bias occurs when people pay extra attention to events that support their beliefs, but conversely pay less attention to events showing the contrary. This runs especially rampant in AW, where the belief of “RU bad EU good” becomes reinforced when players are primed to the irrational idea and then exposed to innumerous variations of gameplay. I personally find it quite amusing when players focus only on the occasions of being let down by others, while brushing off the times when all players in a match performed competently or even outperforming themselves. I suppose this is a case where beliefs are supposed to be proven true rather than proven false; there is no empirical proof that RU players are somehow “worse” or “better” (which I haven’t even quantified so far) than EU players given the assumptions I have provided above, so this belief is utterly baseless so far.

Alas, people are irrational creatures by nature. Trying to convince them that their belief isn’t correct is extremely difficult, even more so when they are constantly being reaffirmed by others who share the same incorrect belief. After all they can’t all be wrong, right? Oh wait, the Earth isn’t a flat Frisbee no matter how many flat-Earth believers there are, clearly people can be wrong en masse. But this also shows even if there are irrational people there will always be others who try to talk reason into them, for better or worse. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don’t.

 

So here’s a question for everyone who are enlightened enough to recognize the fallacy of “RU bad EU good”: how would you go about to curb this thinly veiled racism? Trying to straight up refute the believers is akin to bashing your head against the wall, is there a better and more effective way to drive this awful belief (and variations of) away?

 

/ramble

 


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I combat it by simply stating my own experiences.

Right after the merge I noticed 2 things.  There were a LOT of brand new (to me) VERY BAD players, and a few brand new (again, to me) VERY GOOD players.  Both of these extremes were beyond what I was used to seeing on the NA server - either much worse or much better players.  I did not notice a lot of brand new "average" players.

Since most of theses brand new players seemed to have Cyrillic letters in their names, it was easy to assume that they were from the Russian server.  But whether or not that was true (and it's mostly irrelevant), what most people seemed to be missing was that some small portion of these brand new players were extremely good.  Like blindingly good unicum-style players.  I noticed them because they were causing me to miss out on blue stars that I was used to getting pretty regularly.  I did also notice the VERY BAD players, but only as a side note because I was used to pretty regularly beating everyone in PvE.

Now it seems like a lot of those VERY BAD players have learned and are now average.  It was really strange for a few months where there'd be 1-2 VERY GOOD players (including me) in my missions basically carrying the whole thing for the 3-4 VERY BAD players.  Now there are players of all skill levels in my missions.  I do still see roughly the same percentage of the VERY GOOD players, but the rest seem to have improved to where they're no longer useless.  And the mix of names is also now blended.

My suspicion is that most of the whiners are closer to average.  They were used to being near the bottom in PvE, so they didn't really notice those few VERY GOOD players who were new.  But they did notice the VERY BAD players because they were beating those players and weren't used to beating that many others in PvE.  They didn't notice the people above them because they didn't really hold out any hope of getting a blue star, but they did notice the people below them as they moved up about 1 place in the rankings.

Just my theory.

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Well, TLDR, you're right. The "RU is bad" is mostly a myth. Some time ago (this data isn't very fresh, but it is post-merge and I doubt it changed too much) we checked the winrates for each region and the Russians are, on average, slightly better. They do have somewhat higher number of objectively bad players (more per capita than EU, but not by much), but considerably more truly good PvP players per capita (the higher you go, the higher the disproportion). This was most likely caused by the exodus of good western PvP players before the server merge.

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6 hours ago, Crossfader said:

only plays PvE, problem solved.

Last numbers we were given is that PvE is 75%, GLOPS is 18%, and PvP is 7%.

So yeah, PvE is what matters.

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14 hours ago, Flavio93Zena said:

The solution for this is very easy - call everyone trash and you're done :kek:

(jk jk... Maybe)

To be fair, compared to you, we usually are :)

Also, what I've noticed in game, usually people bitching about THE RUSSIANS! are just projecting their own inadequacies.

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You just need to look at the results of international AW tournaments to understand that the average level of russian players is much higher than that of european ones. The fact is that many players from the WoT moved into our game, who were not in the last roles there either. So the Easy alliance originally consisted of really very strong players in the WoT. The same can be said about other top russian alliances (TD42, AVISO, PAND, MERCY etc).

Also, russian players prefer PvP more, because the skill of a player when admitted to a clan is judged primarily by statistics in PvP (not PvE or GLOPS). In PvP, after all, they often have to play apart from the team (especially in the old balance), and it is there that they can demonstrate pure skill. Haven't you noticed how difficult it can be to just hit a player from EASY/18ARM/PAND etc? One-on-one, even ordinary members of such alliances are extremely difficult to destroy for the average player. Russian players in terms of skill are the best in the world now, and this is not the so-called. patriotism, but simply an indisputable fact.

PS: and besides, you can just turn off global chat and simply enjoy the game )

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On 9/12/2020 at 1:23 AM, knutliott said:

My suspicion is that most of the whiners are closer to average.  They were used to being near the bottom in PvE, so they didn't really notice those few VERY GOOD players who were new.  But they did notice the VERY BAD players because they were beating those players and weren't used to beating that many others in PvE.  They didn't notice the people above them because they didn't really hold out any hope of getting a blue star, but they did notice the people below them as they moved up about 1 place in the rankings.

That's matches my experience both in WoT and AW pretty accurately, pubbies throw blame around in general only when they perform (relatively) well and rarely if they get carried.

On 9/12/2020 at 1:46 AM, Silentstalker said:

Russians are, on average, slightly better. They do have somewhat higher number of objectively bad players (more per capita than EU, but not by much), but considerably more truly good PvP players per capita

I'm guessing that might be due to the RU preference for PvP, and that they get more practice there than EU players simply because there are more opponents to practice against. Constant practice yields improvement, and having better opponents to practice against mean their skills get honed faster and more sharply.

On 9/13/2020 at 7:48 AM, tahax said:

 Russian players in terms of skill are the best in the world now, and this is not the so-called. patriotism, but simply an indisputable fact.

I can definitely believe this, again simply because they get a lot more practice and experience than EU players. Even in WoT the skill level of pro RU teams are miles ahead of EU and NA.

On 9/13/2020 at 7:48 AM, tahax said:

international AW tournaments

I'm curious, are there any stats for the pro EU and RU teams in the competitive scene here? I believe EU players tend to favor PvE more, but how are the overall quality of good EU PvP players compared to RU? Are EU players even interested in the tournaments and competitions?


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PvP still alive. Some EU alliances (CZE, NASTY) have really good skilled players but all of them cant compare to russian no-lifers ))

Yeah, PvP still alve

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Tanks are indeed very popular, iconic stuff in RU. Also mainstream TV and Internet creates great interest to military and armor vehicles. Like Haswell said, more very casual players -  potentially more practice, training (and WR stats for stat padders). But even in RU region AW got a reputation of half-dead niche game,  with which even mighty powerful mail ru can do nothing about. So what interest you would expect in other regions?

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Being from Australia, I don't have a dog in EU/Rus/NA fight,  i think if you looked at bad players per capita by region, it would be fairly even,Ruskys stand out because of Cyrillic names, and the shear number of them playing ,crapola  player Bigdik69 (made up name) could be from anywhere, so his country doesn't get brought into it,   peeps need to remember if it wasn't for the Rusky population, we prolly wouldn't have a game to play, 

Edited by Travlla (see edit history)


 

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I always hear people say "Russians always have a plan.  They never go to the toilet without a plan".  

There are some good ones out there.  But there are some who really, really like to make a bad name for themselves.  

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I tend to find the worst players on my teams are the ones most vocal about everyone else being bad, about RU hackers, cheats, campers, yolo and generally useless players - as they come bottom but have to blame someone. 

Some are bad but not any more than others from NA or EU. Some wipe the floor with everyone (they must be hacking of course). 

Played matches with some of the biggest moaners in global chat and they are everything they bitch about the Russians, the game, the useless tanks (even when we are in the same vehicle, when I am top and they are bottom - its the vehicle they are driving thats bad - not them)

 

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On 9/24/2020 at 2:35 AM, CWolf1 said:

"Russians always have a plan.  They never go to the toilet without a plan".

Tom Clancy's Hunt For Red October.


 

"If you were not birthed with claws or fangs, store bought will do just fine."

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Haswell,

I've kept a bit quiet about this for the most part because you do have a point.  This me-good-you-suck mentality exists and it seems to split along national lines and it needs to end.  At times in AW going back to the beginning it had its up and down.  Some times it was pretty severe, and when times were good they were great.

The issue I have with the Russians isn't who is good and who is bad.  I have issue with their attitudes.

 

I lost count of the number of times I was hull down in a key location in a PvE match by myself with zero help.  There is always that one that pings the map and complains about secondaries and they are in an AFV or LT  just farming away damage, pinging on my location about why I'm not doing something.  Sorry, gun is reloading and there is too much coming at me to be able to get out of the spot I'm in, take a number.  In the back of my mind, my thought is "Better yet, why don't you go and get it?  You are providing zero help at the moment?"

Or last night I'm in the QN-506 needing to do the mission for the event and I need to grind the crew.  I stop in a location trying to wait for the spawn to clear out, providing what help I can, tracking tanks and getting my whimpy 56 HP of damage in one rocket at a time.  One of the other MBT's come from my far left, circles back around and comes in right behind me and pushes me out of the place I just happened to stop right out into the open and he fires his gun and I get all the incoming fire meant for him.

In these examples, take a guess at the nationality.

 

In a team game, the ones that are good are damn good.  There are the ones that squeak by, they get a pass for at least showing up and trying, clutch shot here and there.  It's the others that go out of their way to not work as part of that team to win the match, or they do something that pegs the ThatWasDumb'ometer for whatever reason and create more problems than they solve.  They ping the map for you to go "fetch" (yes, I was told to go fetch a secondary in an MBT so they could in a Marauder go farm damage).  I've seen PvP matches get thrown because someone accidentally brushed up against a Russian at the beginning of the match as they all rush to the same location and decided that it was an horrendous act that required repayment.   But you see a significant amount of this behavior from them.

As for the loud mouths in chat that blame everyone but themselves for why something doesn't go their way since based on what they claim they are the best thing since the invention of sliced bread and fire so its everyone elses fault.  Everyone has kinda figured out what their geographical locations are and they aren't Russian from what I've seen so yeah those reinforce your point that you made.

 

It's the attitude, and that is what draws my criticism of them.


 

"If you were not birthed with claws or fangs, store bought will do just fine."

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9 hours ago, RuAI said:

Enjoy

That's just sad. Totally hilarious those "elite" players think you should cap for them, while literally all 4 sit around the cap. But it's N-B-G so I'm not surprised.

Kinda proofs the point of this post. Idiots are everywhere. :snrk: 


Spoiler

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5 hours ago, TeyKey1 said:

Idiots are everywhere.

I believe that's the best answer.

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