YeOldeTraveller

That is the exact reason it had to go.

They clearly expect you to buy more ships.

I spent several hours shuffling captains around last night. I had enough ECXP to push Ovechkin and Yamamoto to 21 points. They have access to the most ships that I do well in, so they were first in line. As for the Dunkirk brothers, that are on Daring and Jutland currently. Neither had enough Skill Points to get special treatment.

@Hapa_Fodder, yet again we have to pay extra for this upgrade. In the past, we could usually upgrade our client while waiting for the servers to come back up. Now, we are forced to upgrade when we could be playing, and then again when the servers are upgraded. This should be optional until the actual Upgrade. I want to be able to fire off the client upgrade after I am done playing for the night. Now, you are eating playing time for no good reason. Thanks for the link (when it finally arrives) for the Captain Reset. However, that delay means we cannot do anything permanent with the Captains until after we use the link. I would like a link for the Module Unmount, but I doubt we will get that. For those guessing (and at this point, there should be no need to guess), I 'm figuring 500K Commander XP for the 20th Skill Point, and 700K Commander XP for the 21st Skill Point. (That is lame, but it fits the number we have been given, and the amount of thought that appears to have gone into this change.) I appreciate the Doubloons to assist with the retraining. It is better than nothing. Lunar New Year is usually one of my favorite events, but this re-bork has put a sour taste in my mouth on this entire Update. I've looked at the claimed reason for the change, and the effect of the change as near as I can tell based on the information provided. I don't see that this accomplishes the goal of allowing more flexibility. In fact, it appears to be to severely reduce the actual flexibility. One of the most obvious indications of this is the severe damage done to the playability of many ships in the game. The required changes to Atlanta are the strongest indication of how broken this change will be. (It is one of the few indications that WG is listening to anything we are saying, but it feels like that was almost by accident as several other similar ships are not getting the same treatment.) Finally, one of the things I have found most enjoyable about playing this game as been the development of commanders that fit the ship (sometimes multiple to have different effects). This change trashes that 4-year effort, and I do not see that the replacement will be nearly as much fun. This is mostly due to the fact that I enjoyed finding alternative means of approaching a ship. This change pretty much requires you to approach a ship only in the way the Spreadsheet Has Decreed. The things that make this game attractive to me 4 years ago have all been removed from the game. The most significant feature then was that the Top Tier ships could only be acquired through game play. Even the Tier 9 Free XP ships required playing the game to gain the XP, Free or converted. This went away when Jean Bart was sold in the Premium Shop. (I knew then it was only a matter of time before one could just buy a Tier X ship.) That started chipping away at the trust that WG cared about the actual play of the game and players themselves. Puerto Rico took another chunk out of that trust, but I did not ask for a refund as I has done the math and knew what I was getting, and what I still have to do to complete the deal. (The worst part of that event was the extreme compartmentalization of the tasks that required many times more game time to complete. It appears that at least that lesson has been learned to some extent.) Then we get the Russian Cruiser spilt. I was looking forward to this as I like to experience new ships. However, before the Patch dropped, I had 20 Tier X Tech Tree Permanent Camouflages, and after the Patch dropped I only had 19. and I was told I should be happy about that. This still stings. I did not need the generosity of the previous splits, but I resent that I am worse off after the split as I will have to spend another $20 to get back to where I was. There is NO trust left. The primary effect of this change is a significant increase in the grind and a reduction in the survivability of many of the ships. I see this as an attempt to extract even more money from the player base. I don't have an issue with monetization of the game. I know there are expenses that need to be covered, and a business needs to turn some profit to be viable. Unfortunately, I do not trust that there is a reasonable return on any investment of time or money. I plan to reset my captains, unmount all my modules, move a few captains around while I can do that relatively cheaply; and then I will take a several month break. This is no longer than game that excited me 4 years ago, and that makes me sad. Fair Winds and Following Seas!

Good fortune to you and yours. Thanks for the contact we have had. May all go as well as can be hoped in the New Year.

I bought the Starter Packs with available Doubloons. I looked at the return on the Steel and RB Points and decided it wasn't worth it. I'm focusing on Snowflakes and drop a ship class when the class-specific task is done. Getting close to finishing Stage 2.

I'm focusing on Snowflakes. I filter ships by Snowflake, and then any class that does not have a class-specific task. I bought Strasbourg as that takes the time pressure off, and I had the Doubloons available. I'm on the Final Task of the current Strasbourg Campaign, and on the last stage of the Fates Campaign. I already had all the Tier 5 ships to be acquired. I used the Award Ship specific Task while I ran the battle to finish the next Stage. I have actually completed a couple of them in the one needed battle.

Snowflakes complete down through Tier 8. Tier X did not yield any ships. Steel allowed me to get Somers. I am now working through my 46 Tier 7 ships.

My biggest complaint is the "improvement" of the Epicenter mode. Much better to capture all from the center. Then there is a reason to go there quickly.

Only 27 million Elite Ship XP here. Only 3 ships with more than 1 million: Orlan(1.8M), Missouri(1.4M), and Musashi(1.0M).

I'm currently grinding that line, so I saw no reason not to sign up. I don't plan to do any different than I was already planning to do which is only a single battle a day while I am melting Snowflakes. It is the only Random battle most of the time to increase the likelihood that I get the first Daily mission completed. I don't expect to get anything, but it costs me nothing to toss my hat in the ring. All that said, this is the clearest indication of how poorly these ships have been received by the average player. When the Spreadsheet tells you to run an event, you know you have a problem.

Tier 9 Steelflakes complete. Somers is now in port. Working through Tier 8 now.

This is my last Tier X: 36 Santa Crates, no ships. Plenty of other stuff, but I was hoping for at least one. Since the Patch dropped, I've opened 42 Santa's Gifts and 1 Santa's Big Gift. I've gotten several Doubloons, some Coal, and a bit of Free XP. I am working down from the Tier X. I did the Tech Tree US Destroyers so I could reset that line after collecting their Snowflakes.

Since the new client is not actually required until the server is updated, can we not force the player to wait for the client update immediately when it becomes available? The negates most of the advantage of being able to download the client ahead of the server update. I am still forced to wait for the update when I would prefer to be playing. The only thing that has changed is which that wait will have to occur. Also, now I might even have to wait more as I will still have to wait while the server is updated.

Un-assigning all the captains is not a good idea as then you have to pay to train them for the ships all over again. Even if the retraining is free, there is no benefit to un-specializing a commander. I am in full agreement on resetting the Skills for all commanders. It is really the only fair solution. After the way Moskva was handled, I have zero expectation that WG will do the right thing. They will follow the Spreadsheet.