I'm wargamings worst nightmare.....I've been playing for 8 years and never spent a cent. And the person you describe is exactly how I've done it, much of the time with a standard account not a premium.

Don’t forget the fact that you are playing wows almost every day! I was also making progress when I had the time to play 6-10 battles every single day. Later I only played on the weekends. Time passed, I was down 6-10 battles a month. I had to catch up the game every time, up to the point it was not worth the effort. I have not played it in the past 2-3 years, but I still enjoy watching you, Trenlass, and the others playing or listening to Jingles’ commentaries.

Grind and grind and grind. That's what us poor folks who played alone did.

Thanks to you for a genuinely interesting series of vids. I'm an average joe 50% WR F2P player and the game CONSTANTLY pushes you up the tiers well before you should go there. But, unlike Flambass, I get their business model and it doesn't bother me. I ain't paying, so I can't complain.

Nice, betting your experience is slightly better than someone new to the game but good to see your progress and how it can be done free to play.

It also makes a difference how long a person can play. For instance, you get 7 days premium free. However you have a job and family so you get to play maybe 3-4 games a day at most (and that's being generous - truthfully you can maybe only play it at weekends and that is still only 3-4 games a day at the weekend). You get 21 - 28 games with bonus xp. A person's time is the most limiting factor in all this. So a normal player like this will take considerably longer in battles and time. Rather than someone who can spend longer per day during which premium time is available.

As far as I remember, it took me a little less than 200 games as a total beginner to get to tier X. And that was the JP cruiser line for whatever reason. My win-rate was abysmal and I had (have?) no idea what was happening, but I distinctly remember the annoyance of CVs when I was going up the DD line. I stopped playing after exactly 1000 games when they introduced subs. As an end result I got all JP ships with the exception of CVs. None of my commanders got to 21 points and I spent maybe $30 in total for some premium time and camos over all. I still enjoy watching WoWS videos and hope the game gets better one day so I can get back.

This was very informative. I play wows for 8 years and I spent money only on 3 premium ships: Sims, Atago and Cossack, I bought them on Black friday when there was a discount. One thing Flambas didn't explain was the Captain skills. How he managed captains through tech tree from one ship to another. Back in the old days you could train captain from one ship to another with spending credits or gold, but now is open only with captain xp and gold and geting captain xp is harder than credits. You can progress thorugh tech tree ship from tier 1 to tier 8 easly. But the progress in captain skills is very slow. So a lot of people have high tier ships with captains like 7 or 10 points.

Thanks Flambass, this is a really worthwhile and interesting experiment.

This is exactly my situation. Took me 7 years (1.3k games) to get two Tier 10 ships that I don't use, because I'm to bad. I don't do damage, because I don't get Citadels, because I don't know where to shoot or how to aim propperly. And the moment I get swarmed by planes or subs, I ragequit. So, after 7 years I have no idea of the game, I dont learn and I am as bad, as on my 1st day of playing. I think I'm part of the problem.

Thank you Flambass, I have been wanting to play the game because of the carriers. This video helped me to finally redownload the game because I was afraid of the grind needed by being behind.

I‘ve played all the way until my first tier 10 F2P, which was the Preussen. That was about the time it replaced GK. I needed about 120 Games in my Freddie to get there and I think that was good. I am still a firm believer, that Tiers need to be locked until a player has a certain amount of battles. It‘s sad that Wargaming doesn‘t not care about this issue, but actively make it worse, like you said with the ARP Yamato.

If you don't have a whole day playing the game, than your progress is painfully slow. After work and kids i have time for maybe 2-3 battles, so with that in mind, it took me almost a year just to get 1 tier 10 ship, grinding only one techtree. Oh, forgot to mention, only F2P. My premiums always expired too soon, so i was not able to get advantage of it, because of not enough time to play the game.

I've been a F2P player ever since I started playing it, Flammy, 5-7 years now - (I can't even remember that now) - Unable to play that much, or often either, but I also haven't spent a single penny of my own money on anything. Credits, Coal or Gold only, or gaining ships through container drops rarely, and I've only got a few T10 ships even now. I even missed out on a few good ships only because I didn't have either the credits or Free XP amounts at the time when they took them off being available - Missouri and Belfast, etc . . . I even started a Clan with some Gold - only because getting the points lowered the cost of buying and repairing ships, etc, and it still only has a few members - but, we are basically all Solo players in it, and all just play as and when we like - so we never play games together, or do team plays like Clan Battles even . . . So if you want to join a Clan that doesn't actually play together and who only do their own thing, then let me know - even if it's just for you to join to grab your 100 Gold left to get and then leave it again - that'll be OK, as at least you'll be able to finish off another task, m8 . . . 👍

Thank you for the video! I'm a closed beta player in Wows, but not really active due to work/life, and of course a free to play user. So I thank you for the video that confirms my choice of being F2P is not a futile grind. Personallly I'm on Tier 9 US BB and German Cruisers, close to reach Tier 10 on both, while grinding UK DDs and US CVs, bot at Tier 6. While I do not have the same experience as you, 'cause you play it much more often than me, the grind is manageable(~500 battles and 51% winrate). Also the F2P allows to better understand the ships, while at the same time watching you, Flamu, and other CCs to get insights. Hopefully you'll continue uploading F2P account games, as these are fun!

i´ve followed you for years now but this is one of your best projects ever. I love the knowledge that new players can get out of your F2P experience and i just find it very interesting to follow you doing that. AND it´s just all around well done by you! Thx for the great content man.

Great experiment, thanks for the video. Valid points on the fresh T10 players. It's true that you can research ships pretty quickly. But how many more battles do you have to play to BUY those unlocked ships. To me as a F2P player credits were a problem.

I started as f2p and got my first tier 10 completely free, however when I got there, in randoms, I could win and make no money. I then bought battle pass, for 12.8 and 9, and stopped this one. Yeah if you want to take forever to get ships that are fun, but you did it like you were on a mission, that's 100% different from not knowing anything and starting. You know what's good, how to play, what to save for, what to spend or not, what currency matters, but good advice.

An interesting video. I see (at 15.00 mins) in the upper left of the screen the account registration date was 08.09.2023 and the current date was 14.10.2023 so just over one month's work to progress that far. Be interesting to see the total number of battles done in that time across all of the lines. As a pensioner I like the "free" bit too, now just got to get one hell of a lot better before moving on up from currently reaching as far as several T6 ships .

Same here and good video. I created an alt F2P on NA server called tytewad. With that account I created a clan and recruited Justin_Simpleton. I've been the typical player doing the typical things new players do, so my stats are representative of a typical player.

This is great to see. I have played only free to play and not spent a penny at all on the game. Only issue is getting time to play and having to do a big download first any time I do get time to play 😕

I'm three months in. 700 games in. Over 500 random battles. I am having fun and having a higher and higher percentage of games I feel good about. I'm playing DDs, BBs, and cruisers only. My best ship is the tier VII Shiratsuyo. My next ship will be the Akizuki, if I don't give in and aquire a tier VI BB first. Grinding credits was an issue, however ship slots are my real limit. Found out recently I can sell ships so I can probably solve that. I like playing a variety, but some ships I'll obviously never play again. Looking at you Pensacola. My biggest problem is the learning curve. Just found out from your video about the news tab. I honestly don't know how long I'll play. One reason I will not spend money. Won't join a clan either, because I'm not joining to socialize. All that said, I enjoy the game as a good way to decompress for an hour or two. Nothing more.

On the other hand, the grind during closed and open beta was real and I'm not sure that extreme was a whole lot better. Now, I haven't played in _ages_ so I can't really judge how much things have changed nowadays (aside from watching you). I guess, what I'd like and what _might_ bring me back would be a happy medium between those two extremes...well, and WG not being WG, lol. P.s. I stopped playing when WG released that first dockyard ship...um...A-something, the one WG pretended could be earned with a free account but actually couldn't.

merci , vous etes un ange pour les petits joueurs ages comme moi , prenez soin de vous 😉

Great video. I have always been ftp. I don’t sell ships so have many now. Often play without flags and with low point capt. 1st T10 was Mino and now I have an Alaska, a Bourgogne and a Petro with unique upgrade. My win rate has never been great (light CA main) but I really think you do learn more grinding this way.

Absolutely nailed that ELEPHANT in the room.....

I have been playing for free since I started playing. Only thing I have bought is membership twice.

I played this game off and on F2P for 5 years (it been a while now, i got frustrated with submarines) and what you demonstrated to me with this playthrouh is wat a difference skill and knowledge brings to this game.

Thanks. Just started recently. I was curious when I would hit the paywall. Glad to know it is grindable.

Flambass....I have skill......some of the games I've seen beg to differ lol. Yourbthe best dude, keep going. 👌

The ease of progressing in the game is totally different now. My original account it was a grind, but even a couple years ago when I made an EU account to play with a friend it was much faster even without my experience. Your test in this shows my same experience.

I purchased my way into the Closed Beta Test to start my adventures in World of Warship. I have purchased with REAL Money the HMCS Haida for I am Canadian. I may have once purchased some Premium Time (30 days). I have 157 ships including 24 Tier X and 1 Supership. I play between 3-5 game a night except during Clan Battle Season when I may play up to 10. When I first began, I moved a tier at a time in almost every Branch. That is difficult to do now as there are so many countries and branches. I would recommend only pushing to tier V before starting a new branch. Only after you have 6-10 Tier V ships would I begin the push beyond that. Flambass has the great advantage of know the game and the ships, and having HIGH skill level, so pushing onto Tier X is easier for him. The rest of us mere mortals, (especially if your new at the game), should take your time. It is just as fun playing tier VI as tier X.

This should be the first video new players need to watch before getting out of CoOp

I like your idea. I think I'll try doing this. I don't spend much time playing WOW but this is interesting.

Pappa Flambino has spoken! and you have a point...

The difference is though Flambass my dude is your so much better than 99% of the players that would start and play the game and that have played the game for years it will be much easier for you to grind through stuff. You know what people are like they see those fancy ships in the premium store and just cant help themselves from buying there way to better stuff. I have mates that play the game and most of there ships are premium i tried my hardest to get them to grind but no they wanted it straight away. Trying to explaint to them how they were making the game worse by doing that without gaining experiance by grinding and learning was like talking to a brick wall

I think the only caveat to getting this kinda progress at the speed you are getting it is to be an experienced player. I think if a completely new player tried this they'd probably only have half the stuff you have now and has probably run into a skill ceiling on top of it,

You are crazy good too. LOL. And knowing the other ships and capabilities in battle is an important and time consuming skill to master.

You are a more patient player than me, first 2 years I went the free to play route getting to tier 6-7 on multiple lines. They finally broke me (literally) and I purchased as little as possible to get the ships I wanted to play. I didn't sell any ships (I probably should) but I learned my ships. The Fuso and Kuma are still a favorite of mine.

I played the game for free for years (I bought a few ships during one holiday event, but that's about it), before leaving it earlier this year for similar reasons to what you mentioned. I could be 60% wr in small-scale ranked, but toward the ends I found randoms to be a miserable experience. Between CVs, subs, and constant steamrolls, I finally resigned my commission. It wasn't worth the aggravation. I've enjoyed gaming a lot more since I started playing other games.

waiting for next video. you are my fav YT of wows

8 years going, zero money spent, have boats like Missouri, Musashi, Smolensk, and Friesland. However, I will be honest here, I have had people gift me ships such as Sharn, Atlanta, and even some dubs to get the Pay-to-Rico.

It is absolutely possible. As a WoT player, I highly enjoy how much stuff WoWS players get for free. Y'all have it real good, and it is very enjoyable f2p.

Great. Show the new players how they can grind the lines. This will make the game better for them and the health of the game. THE OBJECT OF THE GAME IS TO WIN NOT TO STAY ALIVE. OTHER PLAYERS WILL RATE YOU ON YOUR WIN RATIO. Please keep these tutorials coming for me and other new players. 1100 games played.

2 years since my last battle....never looked back. Love the vids though!!

Thanks Flambass - I think that was a great video, agree almost 100% with everything you said, and good to see other people's experiences. I've been ftp for at least 4 years, initially I bought Warspite when I downloaded the game, and 300% gold bonus got me enough for Massa (my most played ship by far). I think four times I bought tiny amounts of gold, so my outlay has been under 30 Euros, I think. I used to play something like 15 hours a week, but now it's about a tenth of that - frequently I play 2 or 3 games and just get frustrated with the experience (I guess like your video yesterday!). For an average player like me, it takes a lot longer to grind through the tiers (and am probably spending credit on modules, I don't need), but it's not bad, and I totally get your point about people being able to get tier 10s too easily. The captains, I do find slow to progress though, my best 3, I think: 21 point on my Massa, 20 point on Halland, and I think 17 on a Russian ship (mostly Sinop). I look forward to another update on your progress later on. Cheers.

same, played since open beta, and never spent a penny on this game, just time. Never felt i was missing out, and the challenge is greater in my opinion. Higher tiers are a waste of effort, too much OP. i usually play the dreaded floating citadel, Omaha. And do pretty well in T4-T7 games. Getting what I can when I can get it, and just having fun on and off. I never stress in the game. Sure i get one-shotted from hand of Stalin russian bbs a lot, but learning new tactics is part of my process.

The catch-up mechanics are a must have for games running long like this. Look at WoW - with every expansion the old content gets significantly easier just for new players to be able catch up faster and enjoy the "end game". If you would have to spend 100s of games grinding t4-6 just to compensate for credit drainage playing higher tier ships is. So ppl get a lot of free stuff to be able get there quicker, then they figure out they actually need to spend some money so they can play more comfortable and the goal is achieved. F2P player converted to guy who buys at least premium time. Also i would add that a completely new player without any knowledge of the game, while not being utter ignorant, and willing to learn would take on average maybe 4-5 times more games to get where you are and the experience would be way more painful. So the "ability to get all for free" sure is there due to all catch-up mechanics and free stuff, but not in time even remotely close to what you have spent (300ish games). You basically don't just know only the mechanics, have game sense etc, but you also know how to "utilize" the best all the possibilities of free stuff offered. Oh yea, and ofc you are able to finish the missions quicker as you are just better (so you actually are able to get more free stuff then average person on timed events). The skill and knowledge advantage you have is a snowball which is getting bigger and bigger by every tier you move up (until the new player gets like 10-20k games under his belt).

Spend wisely, don't care about early access don't care about fantasy bundles, just keep grinding, get any profitable events and combat mission or even campaigns without spending real money, this is why I have abundant of funds and resources ready to go whenever I need most. Many gonna question this method but in the end, you're the one who will have the resources that you need, the only advantage of F2P player have is time.

I have been F2P except buying the Atlanta, Anhalt and Congress as fun premium ships. Besides these which other than earning coin and such havent helped me too much. Other than that i have 7 Tier X's and continuing to grow my fleet mostly for free

Have been watching you on KZfaq for years mate - you pretty much taught me to play (more than anyone else). This is such a good idea - thanks for showing people that you CAN do this if you are willing to put in the time. Sadly, you are always going to have people willing to pay whatever $$$ if it means they can access t9/t10/super immediately. It was always the argument NOT to let people just buy straight into the top tiers - sadly given decline in player numbers they have opted to allow this more and more recently - the whales are what are keeping this thing afloat unfortunately.

Always love your videos posted on KZfaq. Very rarely do I make a livestream, but that's great too! I play this on PS4, and I've gotta admit I enjoy my Tier 5 Pensacola! It was my first experience where someone shot at me, and I was able to bounce their shells. Agreed that the guns are slow, but I try not to get into close range encounters. Your play style is too aggressive for this ship, where I like to play a more support role. Love ya man keep doing what you do!

Simply put...........Thank you!!!!

I played mostly for free..Ive had a month or 2 here and there of premium, and bought a few ships..but for most part Free.. getting the Ships wasnt too bad, but getting good Capts took me a very long time!

Thank you Flam Bass for the truth you are the MAN !

I haven't paid anything for the game for quite some time, even just dropping off for years. I used to have the money to buy up a ton of premium ships, still do in a way, but there is just way too much for me to catch up on. But even when I did buy those ships, such as Tirpitz when it came out. I ended up not playing it until I got to at least tier 7, just so I got a feel for how the game would go as I climbed the tiers. Them giving out Bismarck for a campaign reward annoyed me however, which I just sold outright without even playing it. I was in tier 5 on the german battleship line at the time and to be just given a tier 8 tech tree ship made me feel like they didn't want us progressing naturally. Had it been a premium I wouldn't have minded as much, but that isn't what happened.

i really love that you do this man! thank you!

I 100 percent agree. Have been playing for 7 years now and sometimes tier 10 is miserable to play. Some of the teams I play with get rolled so bad it's not fun. Then toss in subs, cvs and credit card captains. Makes me not want to play. I have been playing more and more mid tier 5 to 7. There is a more balanced play at those levels sometimes. Playing on weekends is nuts so you get the angry drunks playing more. You can tell by the chat. They blame everyone and lose their minds over a game. In some ways it's funny.

i played like you,from time to time i bought premium days...oh im "ships lover" so i bought same ship for example: Błyskawica,Scharnchorst that all

I had been playing this game since 2015 without spent a single penny on it. I gave up playing and turned to cloud gaming on KZfaq because of the frustrations with teammates, as you showed in this video. I had 4674 battles with 58.7% WR, half of them are under tier V. I had 997 battles on König with 63.4& WR 1075 XP, 4.6KD, and 9 most destroyed. I gave it up after they nerfed her accuracy. Next is CLEMON, she is my favorite. I had 920 battles on her with 65.6& WR, 955 XP, 4.78 KD, 8 most destroyed. I gave her up soon after they nerfed the stealth fire. The third one is the good (OLD) FUBUKI, I had 417 battles on her with 56& WR, 1142 XP, 2.66 KD and 5 most destroyed. It was fun to seek and hide with KAGEROs. The top tiers in my port are Fletcher and Neptune. I only use them when teaming up with another Nep or DM. My Fletcher became useless after they nerfed her AA. And I love Fiji more than Nep. It was fun and engaging for me to play in lower tier battle, but more and more server bots and client side bots showed up and ruined the fun.

It's not a like for like comparison (You are not even close to your typical, fresh to the game, newbie.) Your experiment doesn't take into account the significant skill/experience gap at play. However, your experiment is useful to calibrate the grinding experience for the rest of us mere mortals! 😁

Hi Flambass I have been playing the Game (10 months) main free I did try the premium account for a couple of months but I worked out that its just not worth it. I started playing after coming across Mighty Jingles and your videos. Whilst I enjoy watching and playing I do know that I have my limitations. It would be great if you could do (if not done so already) a breakdown of what to do against different ships not ship types (maybe explain where you are aiming etc..... I understand a lot of players examine every aspect of the ships citadels and work as teams. But I'm alone player with a hectic work life. I just want to enjoy playing the game. I have managed to grind out ships for Coal including Turpits, Gallant, Malta and Duke of York. I rarely play the Malta just just due not having the time to really learn it. but I will I'm sure at some stage spend time on it. Keep posting on here they are a great watch. Thankfully I have never gone up against you in a battle yet

Well in 2020 during Covid I started I was cluesless. Watching u jingles and others I started to learn and btw in same age as jingles. Always loved ww2. I recent started throwing money for year premium and premium battle pass and if I like The dockyard ships I’ll buy them. Buts that’s it. Flambass w what model is they behind you definitely German. I have do. Sharnhorst and bizmark plus test Americans Missouri the sulivan’s Arizona

I'm a F2P player who started about a year ago, and at this point more or less given up on the game. Occasionally I log in, but the grind is so absolutely atrocious, that I just feel completely demotivated. Since I always play the longest range caster / sniper / poke option in any game, I immediately went down the IJN carrier line. In retrospect, this was a dumb idea, wince without any understanding of game flow and macro, my presence as a carrier was about as impactful as a wet paper-towel. I persevered, and after something like... 300+ games on the Shokaku, I finally unlocked the Hakuryu. I was elated to finally get there. Then I realized that without premium it's literally impossible for me to play, because I lose credits every game, no matter what. Then I saw that my credit reward is dependent mostly on percentage of health is damage any ships for, so I went all in on torping easy targets ever game, to maybe get enough credits to stay afloat. I didn't, and since I stopped caring about winning altogether, just wanted the most damage, my winrate tanked to bot levels. I started to grind other lines, and I run into a lack of credits, lack of eco-bonuses and flags. Having to play 50+ matches to unlock the next ship, while your current one is underpowered since you don't use modules and your cap starts at lvl 1. I got premium from an event, and man, the speed at which I ground increased so much, it feels absolutely garbage to grind without it. So yeah, I went from playing daily, to weekly, to now maybe once or twice a moth when the friend of mine who got me into the game wants to play.

Stats are immaculate though for only solo games with only tech tree ships, even at the low tiers which are mostly bottom tier. Of course they're not the horrendous tech tree lines, but still huge respect.

I remember back when you need 15 points to get concealment expert on your commander. I ground the minekaze for like 400 battles before I moved on to t6 and above.

Welcome to the real WoWs experience! Stopped spending since CV rework. Patience and real hate towards CVs and Subs are key for success! 😆

Flambass, where rushing to tier 10 is not a great idea is where you point out you have something a new player lacks, the experience. 2 years playing and I still do not have a single line where I could get a tier 10. Just play a few battles a day, no signals, no cammos, and slowly working my way up in most lines to truly learn and understand how to use each ship and know if it is one I want to play again.

There is one more way to earn... don't sell boats to unlock lines. You save them from Tier V. Why? well the celebrations of course. Anniversary, and Christmas.... where you play the ship to turn the snowflake into coal or whatever. You'll also find that you'll be rewarded with boat slots at a fairly good pace, too. But you can always wait until they are on sale, and spend the free doubloons for slots.

A great video, but you are a super skilled player 😛 I stopped playing when subs came in ... and in virtually every game the P2P players had an obvious advantage.

I've stopped playing this game half a year ago after a huge error of the customer service. They made a mistake, admitted they made a mistake, offered something pitiful to remedy the situation. I got cross and decided it is the last straw with this game and that I need to quit after spending quite a lot of cash over the years on this time and money sink. At first I wasn't too happy about "loosing" my fleet and my gaming outlet and what I though was my "stress release". Then I was surprised how much more relaxed and happier I am and how much more time I have to pursue other things. Quitting this BS and all the toxicity of random matches is a great plus for your psyche. Now I only watch vids from MightyJingles, Flambass and Flamu, sometimes seeing all the BS that made playing this game so toxic, but now laughing about it because it is not me in the game. Not sure why this F2P effort triggered me to write this. Maybe something in me went "Maybe let's try F2P and not get too invested in this BS this time.". It seems like it might be a slippery slope... Nah... must stay strong and not get dragged back into this circus. :D

This is how I have been playing since 2020. I think I started during the Covid shutdown. Try to at least login once a day and claim the daily rewards. But you know, life happens. 🤷‍♂️

I've been playing f2p since 2016, back when I could only repair every two minutes because I didn't have the premium repair...

i used to a free to play player but i have been buying premium for a few years now, it makes all the difference

Excellent food for thought, but the gap in experience + time available to play of your average player versus yours is quite massive. As a guy who works full time and is a caretaker for my wife; it's a great night if I get in 4-5 games. That's 40 days of focused play in a game where RNG has more to say about results than skill at times. They make that premium boost look attractive; especially as less experienced players make up the highlight reels of ships being Dev-Struck at 18:25 in the match.

Flambass, you are a unicum level player. So I am not suprised you breeze through the content free-to-play. I dare say the average Joe will take three or four times as long 🙂

As far as F2P goes, 6 years ago WoWs was very generous, and one month of premium was 10 dollars or something, the only thing I bought 95% of the time. And back then I loved IJN so I bought Atago, a really bad investment as far as captain trainer goes because all IJN lines are shit, but a great ship on its own.

As a counter-example, I am a F2P player playing since 2016, and only get my first T10 (as in bought, not researched) after 2,000+ battle. My first T9 was Ibuki and I got spanked hard in high tier match so I spent two years hanging around in mid-tier, grinding new lines, accumulating skills and knowledge, and stopped when I reached the T8 of each line before finally man up and buy Zao. And frankly, I just don't understand why people insisted on playing T10 all the time; it s hardcore, so tryhard up there (well, at least back then). Every match lost dented your credit income, the modules are so expensive, and you burn through your flags to eke every advantage you can get. Even now I still don't get why new player always try to rushed the tech tree instead of branched out and playing other lines.

The last purchase I made on this game was Xmas sale of 2021 getting a year of premium. I have not spent a dime since. I have not run out of premium time. With freebies and such over 2022 I finished the year with still 6+ months of premium time. I wasn't going to buy another year just let it run out. Well I got more 24 hrs here, 7 days there. I did get lucky with a 30 day give away at some point this year I think from a special box/giveaway. As of right now I have 64 days left. I like that I spent only 6 months equivalent of cash and I am getting 2 years of premium. I did get lucky along the way so not doable for everyone.

They make it very difficult. I’ve been playing pretty much since launch to 2018, and took a break until coming back this year. I’m not a great player, my win rate is about 45%, so keep that in mind, but I also play for fun, not to be perfectly competitive or win every match. Still, without premium, the Econ was terrible to struggle through. I had the Roon (tier 9) from my time long ago, and even when I won battles, I was netting maybe 60k credits a game, closer to 20k if I lost. When ships cost millions or 10’s of millions of credits at higher tiers, for someone playing free, and playing less than all day ever day, I find this to be functionally impossible to go through the lines. Averaging 38k a game with my stats, I’d need to play my top earning ship for 157 battles just to get enough to buy a T7/T8. So yeah, I broke down and got premium, and now my earnings are at least usable progress. The problem is the insane resupply costs that get docked from your match earnings. I’d have a 150k match, and lose 110k to resupply. With premium, I’ll net close to 100k after resupply. Still not great, but it’s more than twice as fast as before.

Have been playing this game for 7-8 years now and I never spent any money on it so this is my experience. The grind at the start was really annoying in retrospect many because I wasn’t all that good so I didn’t get that many credits/xp but now that I have a lot of t10s and premiums I don’t feel like I have that much of a disadvantage.

when I first started I played a couple hours a night. this was 5-6 years ago. it was soooo much harder back then. there was nothing but grinding available to you. in the last 2 years i've grinded 2 full branches to 10 on maybe 5-10 games a day. so yeagh way easier now. and I'm not really that good. 45-50 ish win rate. and when they pumped up co-op dude, made alll the difference.

A basic question: How do you get port slots to get more and more ships? Apart of buying them with the scarce doubloons you get from missions. Apart of selling lower tier ships (under 5) to reuse the slots. Apart of getting the slot fulfilling missions. I think these two or three methods may not provide enough slots.

I started doing this about 6months ago with a new account, pay no money what so ever. Ive also given myself a rule I must play at least 10 games per tier befor I can unlock the next in teir meaning if im going from teir 4 to 5 all ships in previous teirs must be played 50 games, it forces me to play the lower teirs and to be honest there's been some pretty good tactical games down there - i do this by nation - not across nations,

I can confirm what Flambass is saying. I'm not a good player and have managed to grind more than 12 T10 ships without spending a dime.

Got my 8 year flag here too. Haven't spent a cent. Got lots of old paint jobs.

i play for 8 yeras on and off becouse i work but watching u all the time i create a second account and i did petro des moines haragumo line and going to reset that line 3 time to have paolo emilio since it make easy 300.000 to 600.000 every game and u can buy ships my best dd for research is akizuki did make 50,000 xp in one battle

I've been playing for years now and I've spent money exactly 3 times. Always for credits and I did it with the birthday certificate so I get the free gold as well. All of that is for credits mostly and flags when needed. So I'm not totally F2P, but in not cash cow either. I can tell u that yes you absolutely can grind these ships as long as u stick to it. I use free XP only to skip horrible grinds like Vermont and to upgrade but u don't even need to do that honestly. At it's root this game has some really good stuff to it. Just the monetization by WG is brutally obvious at times.

I have a EU account in which I play as a free account. It does take some time to do this. I have been playing multiple lines and I only have one tier 10 so far.

I will remember u that in wot u need to pay more credits to shoot better ammunition und wot everyone can shoot the same the cost are no problem in wows

Playing without all modules is BEAST MODE, damn

Interesting that they’ve made the progression through lower tiers so easy in PC - I play WoWs Blitz (I just don’t have the time to play PC, whereas with blitz you can play a quick game pretty much wherever you want) and have f2p account as well as my normal one. The grind takes more battles in blitz than you describe here, which I think is healthier. Players in t10 with tech tree ships have had to grind through more battles so at least they are more familiar with the mechanics (which are also simpler than PC), whereas premium ship players are a mixed bag.

For me my 1st T10 was Hindy and took me like 6-8 months to grind it, after 2 years I had maybe 6-7 T10. It is easier with all the boosters to grind faster, but the experience is pretty bad. I remember when it was maybe 2018 I grinded Z-52, there were only 2 radars ships you would watch out for, DES line and MOSKVA line and people played all sorts of ships. It was gun for me if I saw a radar CA on 1 side I would just go on the other way, was harder to torp cause everyone had hydro but still could play the game. Now CA radar, CL radar, DD radar few BB radars, CV, SS so much "fun" playing DD torp lines xD

join the club..Not paid for anything and stick with co-op at mo.. Still working out Captins.. Thanks For info Flambass...

Every think you have said make perfect sense. If you don't learn how to play you ships what chance do you have at Tier 10. I have some Tier 10 ships but I know my limits so I play few Tier 10 battles.

I've seen a couple of 15k battles players, with multiple premiums of each tier, with not a single t10 tech tree ships

Impressive achievement Flambass, but I don't think that "experienced" quite explains those stats. I mean, 71% win rate in randoms isn't just experienced is it? It's what, top 5% in the world? Better? Also, experience doesn't just translate into in-game performance. You know what ship lines are good, which are good for you specifically etc. I completely new player I don't think would be able to do 50% as good as you. I think we'd be looking at ~33% of the progress that you have made (scaled of course, so they'd still be in T6/7 considering the ramping costs). And probably nowhere near the same credit total with lower win/damage rates.

I think wows F2P works quite well, as long as you play every day, or every other day. Because of job reasons i maybe play every 2-3 weeks for a few days, and there credits becomes more of a problem for me, but I also hold on to most ships of a line from t5/6 onwards, since i wanna use them in brawls/ranked/operations. And credit income with only grey boosters and no premium for an 51% player is not that high in the higher tiers sadly.

I played F2P completely when I started, but back then I got Missouri with Free XP and I had more credits than I could ever spend just by playing her every now and then. Later on I bought a few Premium Camoflages for Tier 10 ships because they reduced the cost per game by 50%. With those camos you could make money playing Tier 10, best investment for the money. Now I have no clue how that system works, I heard they reworked economic camos.

Great content thanks.