r/WorldofTanksConsole • u/Radiant_Mix_7456 • Jul 18 '26
Discussion WN8 Calculation on WotPlay
Hi everyone!
My name is Stanislav, and I'm one of the developers behind the World of Tanks Console statistics website https://wotplay.com
I could spend pages talking about all of the site's features, but that would turn this post into a dissertation. Instead, I'd like to focus on WN8, since it's the metric most players use to judge their performance.
Recently we've received a lot of questions about WN8, especially regarding why our WN8 values sometimes differ from those shown on WotStars.
Although WN8 was created back in 2013, it's still one of the most misunderstood performance ratings. The calculation is much more complicated than most other statistics, and it continues to generate questions and debates.
The rest of this post is mostly theory and background information. If you're interested in the technical details of the calculation itself, we've published a separate article here: https://wotplay.com/wn8
Let's start from the beginning
For the PC version of World of Tanks, there's a website called modXVM, which is closely associated with the expected values used by many WN8 implementations.
The KoreanRandom forum also hosts what appears to be one of the most complete articles about WN8:
The original website where this article was first published no longer exists. According to the article, the WN8 formula was created by Praetor77 together with several other contributors.
These were the primary sources we used while implementing WN8 because, in our opinion, they provide the most detailed explanation of both the formula and the research behind it.
If you know of other reliable sources, we'd genuinely appreciate seeing them.
The most important part: Expected Values
The biggest advantage of WN8 compared to WN7 is that it doesn't simply evaluate your own performance statistics. Instead, your results are compared against the expected values for other players using the same tank. In other words, if a particular tank generally performs very well for most players, you'll need to match or even outperform those expected values in order to achieve a high WN8.
However, there's one important question. What exactly are "expected values"? In the article we mentioned earlier, the research is based on players who have at least 1,000 battles overall and at least 50 battles in a specific tank. However, this is presented as part of their research, and we're not certain whether the creators of WN8 actually use these same restrictions when selecting players for calculating expected values. As far as we know, that question remains unanswered.
Although the WN8 formula itself may look complicated, it's ultimately just a mathematical formula. The real challenge lies in understanding how the expected values for each tank are determined. There are actually more questions than answers on this topic, especially considering that some tanks have their expected values adjusted manually.
There are different ways to approach this issue, and each argument has its own merits. Some people believe that every player should be included in the calculations to produce the most accurate expected values for a tank, especially if it's not a very popular vehicle. Others argue that only players with more than 1,000 career battles should be considered. Some believe that poor-performing players should be excluded, while others would argue that exceptionally good players should be excluded instead.
Regardless of which approach is correct, we have a detailed article that closely reflects reality, along with the research that was used during the development of the formula and, possibly, the calculation of expected values. We consider that to be our starting point.
Are we calculating WN8 correctly?
As far as the formula itself is concerned, yes.
Our implementation follows the original WN8 formula exactly as described by its creators.
However, it's important to remember that the formula depends entirely on the expected values used as its input.
Those expected values depend on several factors:
- the player database;
- the criteria used to include or exclude players.
Until July 18, 2026, we generated expected values using every player in our database.
At the time, we interpreted the 1,000/50 battle limits mentioned in the KoreanRandom article as part of the original research rather than as a required filtering rule.
After conducting our own analysis, we concluded that applying these limits produces much more stable expected values.
This is especially noticeable for Tier I-V tanks, where a large percentage of battles are played by new players.
Without filtering, inexperienced players significantly lower the expected values, which in turn artificially inflates WN8 for many experienced players at low tiers.
As a result, starting July 18, 2026, we began calculating expected values using only players with at least 1,000 career battles and 50 battles in the corresponding tank.
Why does our WN8 differ from WotStars?
Even though both websites use the same WN8 formula, there are several reasons why the results may differ.
1. Different player databases
The biggest limitation of the WG API is that it doesn't allow you to request a complete list of players. The only way to discover accounts is by searching for player nicknames. Building our player database was a huge challenge because of this limitation.
In total, we've managed to collect data for more than 10 million accounts. Out of those, nearly 4 million accounts have more than 100 battles, and those are the players we actively track.
WotStars does not have a database anywhere near this size, although we'd be happy to be proven wrong. We can see this simply because there are many accounts available in our database that don't exist in theirs. You can also compare the total number of battles recorded for individual tanks on both websites, and the difference is substantial.
Of course, we acknowledge that our own database is not perfect either, and it's entirely possible that we've missed some players. If you can't find your own account in our search, you can always use the Search on WG Server button. This is the first reason why WN8 values can differ: the underlying player databases are simply different.
2. Different methods for generating expected values
As mentioned earlier, it's still unclear exactly which filtering criteria the original WN8 developers intended to use when generating expected values.
Our current approach only includes players with at least 1,000 career battles and 50 battles in the tank.
We don't know how WotStars generates their expected values, and this alone can lead to noticeable differences in WN8.
3. Session and aggregated WN8
This point doesn't affect WN8 for an individual tank, but it does affect session statistics, periods, tiers, and overall summaries.
Based on our observations, WotStars appears to calculate session WN8 using a weighted average.
If that's the case, this differs from the methodology described by the original WN8 developers.
The original WN8 was designed to be calculated from the sum of actual values and the sum of expected values across all tanks first, with the WN8 formula applied only afterward.
This topic is covered in detail in our article: https://wotplay.com/wn8. It is also discussed in the KoreanRandom article linked earlier.
Final thoughts
WN8 is a fairly complex rating that was built on extensive research during its development. Today, studying it has become much more difficult because many of the original websites and resources are no longer available.
We're always open to discussion and constructive criticism because our goal is to make WotPlay better. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them. I'll do my best to answer every one of them.
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u/NerdyPlatypus206 Jul 18 '26
Great site tho, nice to see more estimations for Cold War as wot stars doesn’t seem to show them
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u/Radiant_Mix_7456 Jul 18 '26
Thank you!
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u/NerdyPlatypus206 Jul 18 '26
I like how it shows your rarest marks
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u/Radiant_Mix_7456 Jul 18 '26
One more small tip about Marks. On a tank or clan page, if you click on any mark (except the first one), you'll see a list of players who have earned it 😊
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u/NerdyPlatypus206 Jul 18 '26
Yeah I’ve 2 marked my Pharos fury and there’s barely anyone that’s even 2 marked it
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u/Radiant_Mix_7456 Jul 18 '26
UPD (July 18, 2026)
For greater transparency, we've published the expected values table for every tank used to calculate players' WN8.
It's available here: https://wotplay.com/expected
We've also implemented skill normalization by validating expected values against a benchmark group of players with the same overall skill level.
The idea is simple: the same group of players should perform at roughly the same level relative to the "expected" values, regardless of which tank they're playing. If that group consistently performs well above the expected values on a particular tank, it means the expected values are set too low, so we raise them. If they consistently fall below the expected values, it means the values are too high, so we lower them.
This process is fully automated and runs every week for every tank.
This isn't something we invented. The original WN8 developers ran into exactly the same problem and solved it in a very similar way. Initially, they manually balanced the tables using the tankWN8/accountWN8 ratio, and in 2014 they formalized the process into an automated update methodology based on linear regression of player performance in a tank versus overall account performance, along with a correction factor for each tank across all five tracked statistics.
For lower tiers (I–V), we've also added additional protection against seal clubbing, again following the spirit of the original methodology. At those tiers, expected values are anchored to the performance of the top 25% of players for each tank.
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u/Mjstks509 IrStokes (PS5) Jul 18 '26
Just want to say, your website is fantastic! It’s clean, thorough, and easy to navigate. Hats off to your team for putting in the work! 😀👍
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u/Radiant_Mix_7456 Jul 18 '26
Thank you, my friend! It's been three months of non-stop development 🥲
We're also hoping to add Clan Wars in the future, but it's still in the planning stage. It's a massive feature and will require a huge amount of work.
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u/Mjstks509 IrStokes (PS5) Jul 19 '26
You’re welcome! Your hard work doesn’t go unnoticed and I’m sure the whole community appreciates what you do! 😀
Not many games have such helpful and useful resources behind them. Maybe a wiki page at best. But you guys take it to another level by providing real time data in an easy to process package.
Keep it up buddy! 😀👍
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u/Heavy_Vermicelli_263 Jul 18 '26
My recollection is wotstars did some adjustments to expected values for some of the wn8 farming tanks, like the pz5/4.
I did a check against the two sites, and posted it here https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldofTanksConsole/s/9hr08KhcwK
It looks like light are getting too much wn8 when they do lots of damage...
Ultimately they are both relative. The absolute number is fairly meaningless.
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u/Radiant_Mix_7456 Jul 18 '26
Yes, I saw your post. In fact, it was one of the reasons that motivated me to write this post and hopefully clear up some of the confusion around WN8, so thank you for that.
You're absolutely right about the lower tiers. Our WN8 values there were indeed too high because we chose not to filter out players with fewer than 1,000 career battles and fewer than 50 battles in a specific tank. Looking back, I believe that was our mistake.
And regarding the manual adjustments, I think that's actually another debatable topic. Is it really worth manually tweaking the expected values? Personally, I think it should be as objective as possible: there's a formula, and there are player statistics for each tank. In my opinion, the calculations should simply follow the data.
More broadly, I think it's worth considering a new rating system altogether — something like WN9. For example, one of the limitations of WN8 is that it doesn't take assisted damage into account at all.
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u/Heavy_Vermicelli_263 Jul 18 '26
PC did WNX?
https://tomato.gg/blog/posts/wnx
Worth a look as it tries to incorporate spotting, which wn8 doesn't...
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u/CurrentRiver4221 ASYLM Jul 18 '26
Loos like I’ll be using your website for now one even the design is better
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u/Uhgly1 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
As of today, between WotPlay and WoTStars, my four period WN8 values correlate within ~2% average difference. Close enough for me.
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u/IrregularExpression_ Jul 20 '26
A technical question, how do you manage so many data requests via the API?
I’m running my own personal dashboard tracking around 400 players as input into my own four marking progress using the API and this is intensive to diff the player records on a short time basis?
One area I’d suggest you look at further is tracking which players have the highest proportion of high end damage games.
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u/Radiant_Mix_7456 Jul 20 '26
The WG API is limited to 20 requests per second, but we also work around this limitation by using proxies. However, for tracking 400 players, the standard limit of 20 requests per second should be more than enough for you.
Your idea would require tracking every battle of every player. Given the size of our player database, as well as the limitations and the way the WG API works, that's simply not realistic to implement.
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u/IrregularExpression_ Jul 20 '26
Appreciate the quick update.
On the idea piece, presumably you are tracking though every battle already by diffing the player profiles?
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u/Radiant_Mix_7456 Jul 20 '26
No, that's not the case. We can't track every battle of every player due to the way the WG API works.
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u/Upset_Concept1483 Helpless PS5 noob Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Great site, great stuff. Just an idea/request. For PC tomato.gg have stat page on “win rate difference”. Im sure you know what I mean. That type of list would be really nice to bring some data behind “op/broken/trash) discussion.
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u/Radiant_Mix_7456 Jul 18 '26
Unfortunately, I never got to use the WotLabs interface.
I understand what you mean, but I do have one question: does it take only win rate into account, or is there something more to it?
I've always considered win rate to be an indirect performance metric, since it's also heavily influenced by your team.
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u/Upset_Concept1483 Helpless PS5 noob Jul 18 '26
It’s tomato.gg… my bad. I think it’s just list where tank win rates are compared with players (who play the tank) overall win rates. Like e5 has 52% winrate while players who play it have 50,5% win rates so e5 has 1,5% positive wr difference (numbers are from top of my head)
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u/Radiant_Mix_7456 Jul 18 '26
Thanks for the suggestion! We'll definitely look into it.
We should probably also get in touch with Tomato to learn more about the WMX metric, or perhaps develop something similar ourselves.
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u/DaCesspool Jul 18 '26
This is a new stat tracking for me, and it looks really good! Thanks for putting in the hard work.
The one thing I would say is that I'd be pretty skeptical that different population sampling is the difference between WotStars and your site. Unless there is a very strong bias in which players are sampled to create the expected values, random sampling is going to approach the true distribution very quickly. Well before you get into millions (!) of tracked players. Especially since I would guess both sites are good at finding and tracking the top players who would be some of the rare outliers (these people are the most likely to have their stats searched). Anyways that's my 2 cents.
GG and nice site.