Marks of Excellence

POSTED BY mnamestnik January 5, 2022

What Are They?

  • These are little rings (or stars) around the barrel of your tank’s gun that show you have mastered playing that tank to a certain level. All marks are bestowed per tank, when the player has performed in said tank better than X% of other players on the server for the last 14 days (damage and assist combined). Once a mark has been added to a tank, it can never be removed, even if you never performed well in the tank again a single match afterwards.
    • 1 Mark: This is granted for performance better than 65% of other players
    • 2 Mark: This is granted for performance better than 85% of other players
    • 3 Mark: This is granted for performance better than 95% of other players

Why care?

  • Marks Of Excellence are a way to show off your skill to other players
  • Players with 2 or 3 marks are generally considered a team player to keep alive when it comes to pubbies

How it works

  • MoE uses an exponential moving average and this is recalculated after every match, with 100 being the number of matches that the average is weighted against
  • Every single match is actually used to calculate your moving average with your oldest matches weighted exponentially less than your most recent match
  • This allows the client to store 1 (exponential moving average) value instead of the last 100 matches of data. It then compares your average to that of the server over the last 2 weeks and awards marks based on that comparison
  • Formula used for calculating MoE
    • EMA = pEMA + k * (CD – pEMA)
    • EMA = (Exponential Moving Average) current average combined damage
    • pEMA = (previous Exponential Moving Average) previous average combined damage
    • k = 2 / (N+1) where N is 100 battles. For this equation N is always equal to 100, therefore k becomes a constant that equals 2/101.
    • CD = (Combined Damage) which is calculated by: Damage Dealt in Match + Maximum Damage by spotting or tracking* – damage to allies
      • The game looks at tracking assist and spotting assist and only uses the higher of the 2 values
  • Here’s an example: let’s say your pEMA or your moving average prior to the match was exactly 2000 average combined damage; if you play a match and generate exactly 3000 combined damage for that match then your EMA will be updated like the following
    • EMA = 2000 + (2/101) * (3000 – 2000)
    • EMA = 2000 + 20
    • EMA = 2020
  • Another example: Let’s say you have a bad match, and only earn a combined 1000 damage for that match
    • EMA = 2000 + (2/101) * (1000 – 2000)
    • EMA = 2000 + – 20
    • EMA = 1980
  • Which explains why you cannot earn an MoE after only 2 matches. Lets say your first 2 matches are exactly 2000 combined damage. The EMA would look like this:
    • Match 1:
      • EMA = 0 + (2/101) * (2000 – 0)
      • EMA = 40
    • Match 2:
      • EMA = 40 + (2/101) * (2000 – 40)
      • EMA = 79
  • Your most recent match is weighted 2 times more than the match before it (that is the 2 in k = 2 / 100 + 1). This exponential function makes the average a lot more responsive to changes based on your current matches. This is a double edged sword. One good match can balance out the 2 previous bad matches. However 1 bad match can cancel out 2 good matches as well.
  • Streaks can have a massive impact on your MoE progress. Achieving a MoE can really just be about getting one good run of consecutive good matches. However a bunch of bad matches can massively drop your EMA.
  • A bit of advice from 13Disciple: If you are on tilt and you begin to experience consecutive bad matches in a tank you are close to marking, stop playing that particular tank. Come back to it after you take a break for a few hours, or in a couple days.
  • As for the server average you’re being compared to, it’s unclear how Wargaming calculates it. The claim is that the server average is based on 2 weeks of historical data which would imply that the server maintains the EMA of all players for every single tank over 2 weeks and then uses all that data to determine the requirements for 65%, 85% and 95%.
  • Server averages change over time, and get updated every day on server reset, which means that the 14 day average shifts every day. The EMA you must exceed isn’t displayed in-game, but you can estimate the requirements based on your percent changes.
  • Over time, server averages can change dramatically as server population fluctuates and tanks get rebalanced. This is why you might experience a large jump or fall in MoE progress if you haven’t played a certain tank in a while. Your EMA isn’t changing much, but the wide margin of server change can cause as much as a 3-4% (up or down) jump in as little as a month of not playing a tank

Gaming the MoE System

  • You can use an incoming game patch to strategically make achieving a given MoE easier
    • If a tank is expected to see a large nerf, you can play the tank as best as possible up to the day of the patch, then not touch the tank for at least 2 weeks (or more). As players play the nerfed tank over time, the expected server values will fall and then you can play sometimes even just 1 match after time has passed and end up getting the tank mark
    • If a tank is expected to see a large buff, you can get your mark as high as possible prior to patch, and then on the day of the patch you can make a push to get the mark up. The tank will be performing better than it has previously, while still being compared to the server averages prior to the buff

Marks of Excellence Mod

  • There is a mod, created by Spoter and ProTanki (https://www.pkmods.com/marks-of-excellence-calculator-by-spoter/), which allows you to track MoE progress both per tank in the garage, and also in-game so you can see as the match progresses if you’re going up or down on mark to know how much you need to do before the match is over to hit your target(s)
  • It also updates the MoE tracking portion in vehicles->awards section of the player’s service record so you can see what you need to maintain per match going forward in order to hit 1, 2 or 3 marks


The content of this document is derived from the following sites: https://www.13disciple.stream/how-moe-work.html, https://wargaming.fandom.com/wiki/Marks_Of_Excellence, https://forum.wotlabs.net/index.php?/topic/14704-how-marks-of-excellence-work/