Slimeball91

What placeholders?

Now that I think about it the T4 Giussano has okay AA/air defense (by T4 standards) because it has the fighter consumable and some AA. I think it and the Yubari are the only T4 cruisers capable of shooting down planes. I think there are 2 or maybe 3 BBs capable of downing planes, so a total of 5 ships capable of some amount of self defense at T4. This is why low tiers CVs are overpopulated, and flat out bad for the game. I think we've flushed out another CV player.

I didn't say you're a CV main, I said a CV player. But let's not worry about that, how about you address the point I made. You were playing alongside the only AA ship at T4 against a poor CV player, how does that mean multiple CV matches are balanced against ships that have little or no AA???

A single T4 cruiser won't keep you safe from one CV let alone two (with maybe one exception). The only cruiser that has DFAA at T4 is the Yubari, a little played premium. No other cruiser gets DFAA until T6. You played one game next to what was most likely the only low tier ship with any meaningful AA and against a very low skill CV player so you think everything is balanced. I really don't think you'll find many people agreeing with you this. I'm sorry, this reeks of a CV player trying to push a narrative of everything is fine.

With the logic we apply to the game currently I agree, concealment is almost always going to be the better choice. However, I can see some potential changes that could shake things up. We know subs are coming and there will be BB players that will want more torpedo warning. The other thing I think could be looming are the odd tier "utility" CVs. I think WG needs CVs to help counter subs, and the current CV population isn't going to cut it, especially at high tiers. I think WG will make another push to get the CV population much higher. If they succeed concealment will take a big hit. So more torps in the water from subs, and less value for concealment because of CVs keeping you lit, and this new mod starts to look better.

You are right. A CV shouldn't be able to repeatedly attack an AA specialist and not be heavily punished, I'd go as far as to say the CV should be completely deplaned. Instead it only lost 13% of its planes. So rings hollow is dead on accurate.

I think its fair to point out the Indomitable's planes are different than other carriers. Still, to repeatedly attack an AA specialist and only lose 13% of its planes shows a problem with AA.

DFAA wasn't nerfed for cruisers, its still +50% DPS, the only thing that changed in the rework was removing the panic debuff. Mino's max DPS is 1213, Wooster's max is 1692 with DFAA, and 1209 without.

I don't know if the RTS carriers could be saved, but they certainly could have been balanced. Whether that would be enough to save them or not, well, we'll never know. Balanced or not the RTS playstyle was never going to be popular, and that may have meant its days were always going to be numbered. The fact that there was never a real attempt to balance the RTS carriers tells me WG didn't want them balanced. The fact that most of the fundamental problems with CVs still exist tells me WG was never serious about fixing/balancing them. I can only take heart that WG knows the rework was their biggest failure and when people's jobs no longer depend on the rework being a "success" WG will revisit this mistake.

I'm sorry but I just can't agree with you. This is a PvP game and player skill should always be the primary factor of the outcome. Any archetype or mechanic that has no counterplay flat out does not belong in a PvP game.

My point was its not immune to CV attack. Do the math and you'll see strikes from most T8 planes will get through, and that's not including sling shot drops. Yeah, 9 planes at T10, with T8 planes its pretty likely none of the planes will make it out alive after the drop. We agree, its not worth it under normal circumstances. I pointed out there is more to AA balance than just mid range AA. I'd guess you have no problem with the Baltimore's 203mm main batteries having a higher alpha than the Friesland's 120mm? You accept these are different guns and one is capable of doing a lot more damage, but when it comes to the Friesland having 40mm AA mounts capable of vastly superior rate of fire its not okay??? Or is it that the Friesland is a DD so it shouldn't have good AA no matter what AA mounts it has? I'm just not seeing your logic.

Friesland isn't immune to air attack. Even T8 planes can get through to strike her, that's with a full AA spec, with sector, and DFAA active. I'm not saying you will find it worth your while to go after a Friesland, I'm just pointing out its not immune. Just wait until it takes some damage and much of its mid range AA is knocked out and its a push over, just like the other DDs. I'm not sure I agree. Friesland has a 52% WR, just over 50k average damage, 1855 average XP, 0.8 frags, 3.79 plane kills, and a surprisingly high average base capture of 33.37. By all accounts the Friesland is a strong DD, with good utility. The Friesland's 40mms are some of the most modern AA mounts in the game, I would expect them to be strong. Add to that the Friesland doesn't have any short range AA. The Baltimore has something like 100 more total DPS than the Friesland. All of this seems reasonable to me.

When I saw WG's response that the slingshot attack isn't an exploit, well, it screamed to me they simply weren't going to spend the dev time/money to fix it. You know I'm not a rework apologist, however, I have no doubt they went way over budget. I mean how could they not have, they spent more than twice as long "tweaking" than planned/budgeted. You work in a corporate setting so you probably understand there is a real limit to the spending allowed. As far as WG was concerned they had CVs functional enough so it was time to move on. I'd even go as far as to say I think they knew they wouldn't be able to make the playerbase happy, coupled with the realization they were never going to see a return on the massive investment on rework. They had to move on and see if they could hit pay dirt with....subs. I suspect it was WG cutting their losses. I don't think they wanted another popular T8 carrier.

There's a serious flaw in your thinking. You have a double standard, that's flawed reasoning. You believe in personal accountability (and so do I), but you don't seem to hold the people at WG to the same standard; because they shouldn't be trying to take advantage of people with compulsive behavioral problems. So if you really do believe in personal accountability then you better hold WG responsible for their role in this. Is it that simple? There's a lawyer friend of mine that likes to say "things are only simple for the simple". In a perfect world people would be able to make the right decisions all the time. We all know that isn't how things actually are. There are people that don't make rational spending decisions for various reason, some of those people just aren't capable of making rational spending decisions. These people shouldn't be taken advantage of, and when a company targets these people there is no justification for it. I hope you'll take some time to think more deeply on this in the future.

I don't think the ships won in lootcreates would have an appreciable impact on the overall population, the Italian Cruiser line may well have. By all accounts the Italian line isn't all that good, so I don't know how much of an impact it would on the population weeks later. With the new cruisers and the PR grind this downturn for DDs might just be a temporary thing. We'll see.