No CV revamp in sight, my own ideas on a complete overhaul.

[GoldPile]

War has changed (in this case carriers)

 

So I remember the pitch of carriers from a long time ago? One thing that kept being hammered into me was RTS gameplay. Now fast forward to where we're now, and well I guess it could scratch the surface of RTS. It's frustrating, the mechanics are rage inducing or curb stomping, the balance is wack, and fighting the UI is half the battle.

 

This isn't simply re-balancing suggestions, more of a complete overhaul in mechanics that have been tailored to what I believe the game engine can handle & to hopefully make carrier play a bit more "realistic".

 

BTW: Long reading, you've been warned of TL;DR.

 

---

 

Damage & Plane Health:

Let's get down to the basics, currently plane's are an all or nothing situation. You roll a dice between DPS & plane HP to see if you can shoot down a plane, there is no intermediate health of any kind. This can produce situations where a Kamikaze R can shoot down a whole Saipan plane or an Iowa shooting down barely anything from a Taiho.

 

Real HP bars:

Taking tips from past games such as Command & Conquer, I propose actual HP bars that drain with each hit of the AA aura. So all damage done to a plane will persist even once they leave your AA bubble. Planes are all healed when returned to the carrier. DPS can remain but we're going to introduce 2 new mechanics, accuracy & evasion. DPS can be a measure on the amount HP will go down per successful tick (hit).

 

Accuracy & Evasion:

It's like a dodge mechanic from RPGs, each type of AA gun has an accuracy rating that rolls against a plane's evasion rating. Accuracy is dependent on distance, the more overlapping AA bubbles a plane enters (within the same ship), an accuracy bump will be bestowed to all AA guns that have a range further than the latest bubble. As for evasion ratings, Fighters will have the highest, followed by Dive Bombers, & finally Torpedo Bombers.

 

An example: let's say you have 127mm DP guns firing at planes from max range, we can give it a base accuracy of 25%. Once the planes move into range of your 40mm Bofors with a base accuracy of 45%, the 127mm guns will now have a 20% accuracy boost for a total of 45%. Finally those pesky planes get within range of the 20mm Oerlikons with a base accuracy of 50%, all Bofors and 127mm DP guns will get an additional 20% accuracy boost. These are all purely hypothetical numbers & given as examples to demonstrate the mechanic.

 

Reasoning:

Thinking back on Command & Conquer (pretty much most RTS in existence) everything has an HP bar, that goes for planes too. In order to simulate some realistic accuracy of AA guns in WWII & allow developers to change plane survivability without altering HP, a dodge mechanic that rolls accuracy on evasion can ensure some staying power for planes, this idea is taken from most RPGs in existence. Defense mitigation will not be added as you don't put armor on planes. This can alleviate instances where you can loose a dogfight even though you have superior numbers & planes because the dice decided to roll that they shot down 2 planes in succession for no apparent reason.

 

Summary:

• Make HP true HP bars that take damage based on AA gun ticks
• A new accuracy & evasion system that works like a dodge system you see in RPGs (accuracy for guns & evasion for planes)
• Accuracy for AA guns will depend on gun type & range (more detailed explanation above)

 

---

 

Redone loadout system:

Shoo national flavored loadouts! Instead let's decide on your plane reserves. The current loadout system determines how many planes you can field at a given time & your plane reserves. Let's let the player decide on their reserves beforehand, with some plane caps. I propose that you can have no more than 1/2 of your total plane reserves as either Fighters or Dive Bombers, you can only have 1/5 of your total plane reserves as Torpedo Bombers. Loadout freedom!

 

Let's say we can field around 1/3 of our total plane reserves on the field at any time & 1/2 of our total Torpedo Bombers in reserve. All numbers will be rounded up to the nearest whole plane.

 

Fielding Planes:

I'm having a hard time explaining this so I'll just give an example. Going with the previous numbers, if you have a hanger reserve of 72 planes, you can field 1/3 of those at any time or 24 planes. So you have 15 Torpedo Bombers in reserve, you can field half of that at any time (balance purposes). This will cut into your 24 planes so you have 16 more planes left, you can field whatever other type you wish. If a plane gets shot down, you can immediately field another plane but you will still have to fly it to your destination as a singular plane. All fielded planes will have their deployment and landing times cut, at the expense that you're only capable of landing or deploying 1 plane at a time.

 

Reasoning:

Realistically you didn't launch of land planes in a conga line (like we do now). You're given more freedom of control on how you want to deploy your planes and control them. This system will be tied into the next idea.

 

Summary:

• No more loadouts, select your reserve planes (within limitations stated above)
• Fielding planes will be dynamically dependent on hanger reserves
• Planes will land & takeoff one at a time with deployment & landing times cut

 

---

 

Squadron system overhaul:

Dynamic squadrons, you can form groups of units in most RTS, we're going to be doing a similar thing here. Each squadron will consist of 6 planes max (independent of national flavor) and each plane must be the same type within the same squadron. You create a squadron by dragging a box around the planes you want in a squad (or double clicking), pressing any of the number keys will assign those selected planes into that numbered squad. You cannot remove any planes from a squad once they're engaged with the enemy. All planes within a squad get a buff with the lowest values at 2 planes, another bump at 4, & finally the max at 6.

 

Squadron formations:

New mechanic in sight! Squadron formations. Each squad will get a formation that provides various modifiers, this idea stemmed from The Battle for Middle Earth RTS. A formation can be selected at anytime and changed on the fly. Formations may only be used if there's a minimum of 3 planes in a squad, otherwise it will default to normal.

 

Examples:

Fighters

Normal: No modifiers

Wedge: +15% to DPS, -30% to evasion, & +20% to accuracy

Free form: +30% to evasion, -15% to DPS, & -20% to accuracy

Bombers

Normal: No modifiers, all manual drops will have auto drop radius

Tight: -20% to evasion, all manual drops have manual drop radius

Free form: +20% to evasion, -10% to speed, & all manual + auto drops will have panicked drop radius

 

These numbers are purely for example purposes.

 

Reasoning:

This system finishes the idea previously given, and allows for dynamic gameplay. Manual drop radius will become high risk high reward and your formation selection can quickly turn the tide of a battle for better or worse. Again trying to provide realistic backing, squadrons are a thing & formations are thing. Let's translate their roles into the gaming environment.

 

Summary:

• Dynamic squadrons that function similar to how groups are formed in RTS fashion
• Squadrons give a buff dependent on how many planes are in the squad
• Formations allow you to change the stance of your squadrons on the fly

 

---

 

Fighter combat overhaul:

Now this is one area that's simply not fun, strafing is clunky (& dumb, try strafing someone in midair in any WWII fighter game), point & click is a no-no, & you either roll over someone or get rolled yourself. One simple mistake can ruin everything. Worst of all, if you remove the strafing mechanic fighters are essentially glorified aerial melee units that cannot interact with the ground in any fashion besides spotting.

 

Fighters now have range:

I propose gun ranges on fighter planes, 3 range cones facing forward to be precise. Change fighters from melee units into flying AA guns. The furthest cone (or max range) will allow the fighter to engage but at low accuracy, the 2nd cone will bump up the accuracy, with the highest being the last cone. They can be color coded with red (furthest), yellow, & green (closest). You will no longer have to deal with frustrating melee combat if you don't wish to. This idea mainly stems from the fact that pretty much all RTS plane combat has range when engaging each other.

 

Dog fighting:

Let's make this a special ability, when you get within melee range of enemy fighters you will automatically engage in a dogfight. It's pretty much the same thing we have now, but now both sides have the innermost accuracy cone rating. Disengagement is possible, but instead of loosing 1 plane you will now initiate a disengagement order that will take... how about 5-10 seconds to fully disengage from the fight. The other side will be notified by an icon and once you escape, they will be frozen for 1-2 seconds so you have time to run away. If one side engages a dogfight from the rear (the opposite side of the firing cone), then the side that got flanked cannot fire their guns for ~5 seconds as they shake the attackers off their tail.

 

Strafing:

A much requested mechanic, fighters strafing ships. It will be similar to the World of Tanks new arty stun mechanic that debuffs a tank (in this case, ship) for a period of time. Once fighters are ordered to strafe a ship, they will be debuffed as long as the strafing persists. Of course this will drain ammo for every strafe run that persists on the ship. Let's have the strafe debuff last for 3 seconds after the strafe ends.

 

Example:

Strafing: -30% to accuracy & -20% DPS of all AA + DP guns, -15% to accuracy & -10% reload speed of secondary guns, -10% accuracy & -5% reload speed of main battery guns while strafe persists. The debuff simulates sailors having to take cover & firing while under pressure of being fired upon by a hail of bullets.

 

Reasoning:

How can I make fighters fun, realistic, & engaging? It's no longer all or nothing, setting up attacks requires cooperation between all your planes rather than moving stacks of doom to delete ships although you still can at the expense of planes shot down, it's your choice to make.

 

Summary:

• Fighters now have range cones
• Dog fighting is optional & can be strategically influenced
• Strafing ships lets fighters set up bombing runs & support their team

 

---

 

That's all I got so far, my attempt at making CVs more fun. I've tried making the mechanics cyclical so that nothing is truely mutually exclusive to each other while taking insights from past RTS games I've played. National flavors can now be offloaded to a variety of different stats, like giving USN planes more HP while giving IJN planes more evasion. We can do away with squadron size national flavors so both sides can fight on an even ground. Finally, fighters will play a vital role in engaging surface ships & there will be less "surprise bombers!" if the player sets up a fighter strafe beforehand, or it could be a feint you never know.

 

I hope you like these ideas for a more engaging & fun CV experience, do let me know your thoughts on the matter. I'll take criticism too (true criticism, not rants).

 

Also I can clarify things for you if needed.

[DaryaKonstantin]

[CankedTank]

Overall I think this is a great set of recommendations and I earnestly hope somebody at WG listens.

I don't think I could support the debuff that strafes would give to main battery weapons on ships simply because that seems like a little too much, but everything else looks awesome.

The dynamic squadron sizing is especially interesting, as it opens up the possibility for planes to be assigned to individual ships for torpedo-spotting patrol purposes, something that would be especially useful late-game when there are unspotted destroyers lurking and everybody is on low health.

I also really liked how you set up the health system, dogfighting, and squad formations settings.

Again, bravo.  Well explained.

[goldeagle1123]

I'm not discouraging people from making stuff like this, but lots of people have made stuff like this in the past, and regardless of community approval, WG seems very unreceptive to them, or the idea of changing the fundamentals of CVs in any way. So I wouldn't count on any change. Especially considering that WG promised change in the past, and changed almost nothing about CVs, save for dumbing them down even further.

[InspGadgt]

Those are some good ideas.  I really like the fighters strafing ships as an AA debuff idea.  I think the ranges idea could work if done right and could be where the whole national flavor thing comes in.  Say like USN aircraft used more of a boom and zoom tactic where IJN fighters were more of a dogfighter.  So USN fighters would get a buff at longer ranges but IJN would for dogfighting.  Actual HP for squadrons has been talked about in nearly every revamp discussion...this is really something they need to implement.  Dynamic aircraft selection also has been suggested and I do like the idea...I'm just not sure it wouldn't make things too complicated.  Remember a lot of the changes WG has made to CVs recently is to dumb them down to make them easier for the average person to play.  So that has to be taken into account as it seems WG doesn't want to make CVs more complicated.  I don't like fielding 1 plane and while I'm not a big fan of the current grouping...it does make it faster to get the planes into action instead of having to have them take off then box a bunch in to assign it a group number.  I think if we keep the grouping the same but add in the ability to reassign numbers to multi-squad groups that would be great.  For example hold shift and hit 1 and 2 it group squads 1 and 2 together.  Currently as soon as you click away that grouping is forgotten...I'd like to be able to shift 1 and 2 then assign that group to button 1.  I do like the formations idea too.

[SyndicatedINC]

I'm not discouraging people from making stuff like this, but lots of people have made stuff like this in the past, and regardless of community approval, WG seems very unreceptive to them, or the idea of changing the fundamentals of CVs in any way. So I wouldn't count on any change. Especially considering that WG promised change in the past, and changed almost nothing about CVs, save for dumbing them down even further.

 

While I agree wholeheartedly with your suggestions OP, unfortunately this comment from above is pretty much spot on in the predicted reception.

[VTAdmiral]

Many of these are things I've suggested before. So naturally I agree with them. And the rest is also pretty good.

 

Combining the 'ranged' fighter style with the clouds offered in my own air-to-air rework could make for some really dynamic fighter encounters, since it also gives them the chance to ambush bombers or other fighters for an advantage.

[GoldPile]

While I agree wholeheartedly with your suggestions OP, unfortunately this comment from above is pretty much spot on in the predicted reception.

 

Of course I understand this sentiment quite well, but simply being apathetic will not create any changes. I could sit here & twiddle my thumbs, complain about how CV play sucks, or come up with a solution myself. They say when you don't make your voice heard, then you have no right to complain. So I'm throwing my opinions into the lot & as an added bonus, plausible solutions that could work within the current scope of the CV game mechanics. Getting feedback is also an important step in a solution, what do people like? What do people dislike? These are all things I deal with on a regular basis when implementing business level suggestions. While there may be those apathetic to "another thread" & "nothing will get done anyway", that kind of thinking is what stagnates change. There will always be those who will have an opinion & can provide valuable feedback, even if they're a supposed minority.

[Yvonne_Swanson]

Love these ideas

[Reymu]

WG doesn't have enough staff to read their forums regularly.

 

Send this directly to Niko or whoever passes along suggestions to WG.

[Raptor_alcor]

The ONLY thing I disagree with is strafe affecting main guns of ships as a whole as this doesn't make sense, barring MAYBE the open back turrets of ships such as the farragut, I don't see how .50 cals or even 20 MM cannons would have any affect on 6+ inch armed ships or even encased 5 inch ships. 

 

Other than that I love the idea. 

[GoldPile]

The ONLY thing I disagree with is strafe affecting main guns of ships as a whole as this doesn't make sense, barring MAYBE the open back turrets of ships such as the farragut, I don't see how .50 cals or even 20 MM cannons would have any affect on 6+ inch armed ships or even encased 5 inch ships. 

 

Other than that I love the idea. 

 

I know that part was a slight deviation from reality, it was more brought up as a gameplay perspective. A similar thought has been shared earlier in this thread too, my reasoning was would you care enough to get those fighters out of the air if they didn't affect a critical component? A slight debuff to the main battery guns would surely annoy someone to get those fighters off. If this element is perceived as a negative then I'll remove the main battery debuff.

[SyndicatedINC]

 

Of course I understand this sentiment quite well, but simply being apathetic will not create any changes. I could sit here & twiddle my thumbs, complain about how CV play sucks, or come up with a solution myself. They say when you don't make your voice heard, then you have no right to complain. So I'm throwing my opinions into the lot & as an added bonus, plausible solutions that could work within the current scope of the CV game mechanics. Getting feedback is also an important step in a solution, what do people like? What do people dislike? These are all things I deal with on a regular basis when implementing business level suggestions. While there may be those apathetic to "another thread" & "nothing will get done anyway", that kind of thinking is what stagnates change. There will always be those who will have an opinion & can provide valuable feedback, even if they're a supposed minority.

 

Oh not apathetic, more like pessimistic, hence why I commented in support of your idea while also stating I fear it will be ignored. Essentially my experiences here have taught me "try, but don't get your hopes up".    

[Pope_Shizzle]

Interesting suggestions.

[crzyhawk]

I'm not discouraging people from making stuff like this, but lots of people have made stuff like this in the past, and regardless of community approval, WG seems very unreceptive to them, or the idea of changing the fundamentals of CVs in any way. So I wouldn't count on any change. Especially considering that WG promised change in the past, and changed almost nothing about CVs, save for dumbing them down even further.

 

I think this is because WG has no idea on how to balance them, and make them fit so that EVERYONE has fun, not just the CV players.  A lot of the changes proposed by various people would be great for CV players, and not so great for everyone else.  The stuff proposed by many surface ship players would make CVs just plain unplayable.

 

What I think that WG wants is that your average bad player can play them, and not be a detriment to their team, while keeping unicum players from deleting ships at will and showing too much influence on a game.  Additionally, they probably want to stop all of the CV hate, because lets be real; if players hate the encounters with CVs too much they /will/ quit the game which has a potentially huge impact on their bottom line.

 

WG is in a really crappy position with CVs.  I'm not sure that it's even possible to get them to where they probably should be from a game play perspective.

[GoldPile]

Oh not apathetic, more like pessimistic, hence why I commented in support of your idea while also stating I fear it will be ignored. Essentially my experiences here have taught me "try, but don't get your hopes up".    

 

I'm glad you dropped by either way. 

I might not have gleaming amounts of hope for an overhaul, but if WG needs ideas, here's some for a jumpstart. 

 

---

 

On on a separate note, I might rework my squadron idea to get rid of the singular plane problem.

[Backwards_Logic]

With all (or some of) those changes, not only could I see myself playing CV, but actually having fun doing so.

[Edgecase]

While I agree that the CV rework needs to come soon, I'm not sure how this list of suggestions addresses the core concerns around CVs. For instance, dynamic squadrons make it even easier to create complex or pinpoint-focused torpedo patterns at low tiers (ungroup them all and drop in one spot for 100% hits instead of losing a few to natural spread). You also aren't really solving the problem where torpedo bombers are made of solid gold compared to the third-tier trash that are divebombers, you're just accepting that they're plain better. I think a complete overhaul should be more ambitious in that area.

 

There are also multiple new problems introduced in this proposal. You're removing the only anti-alpha mechanic in the game -- the wacky "spray the sky" fighter AA strafe is definitely unrealistic, but it's also the only mechanic in the game that punishes plane blobbing. You're proposing to get rid of it with no replacement ability that scales well against massed planes. You've also introduced a problem with airborne plane capacity being tied to hangar capacity, in that some mid-tier CVs (looking at you, Independence) have very small hangars for historical and/or balance reasons -- this change would make them even more screwed for no good reason.

 

All in all, I'm not seeing the value here. Yes, getting rid of national flavor helps to even the playing field between the two national CV lines, but I don't see anything here that addresses within-CV or CV-to-other ships issues.

[OscarMike_]

Well done OP.  I like most of your thoughts.

 

Hopefully WG makes fixing CV's their TOP priority before 2020!

 

[GoldPile]

While I agree that the CV rework needs to come soon, I'm not sure how this list of suggestions addresses the core concerns around CVs. For instance, dynamic squadrons make it even easier to create complex or pinpoint-focused torpedo patterns at low tiers (ungroup them all and drop in one spot for 100% hits instead of losing a few to natural spread). You also aren't really solving the problem where torpedo bombers are made of solid gold compared to the third-tier trash that are divebombers, you're just accepting that they're plain better. I think a complete overhaul should be more ambitious in that area.

 

There are also multiple new problems introduced in this proposal. You're removing the only anti-alpha mechanic in the game -- the wacky "spray the sky" fighter AA strafe is definitely unrealistic, but it's also the only mechanic in the game that punishes plane blobbing. You're proposing to get rid of it with no replacement ability that scales well against massed planes. You've also introduced a problem with airborne plane capacity being tied to hangar capacity, in that some mid-tier CVs (looking at you, Independence) have very small hangars for historical and/or balance reasons -- this change would make them even more screwed for no good reason.

 

All in all, I'm not seeing the value here. Yes, getting rid of national flavor helps to even the playing field between the two national CV lines, but I don't see anything here that addresses within-CV or CV-to-other ships issues.

 

Valid points, let me try to address a few.

 

1. Squads tied to hanger space - I'll probably rework that idea & I might scrap it later on. I've played through the Independence so I know quite well first hand on how much of a difference hanger space can make.

 

2. Bomber effectiveness disparity - Honestly I don't have a thing for it yet so that's why I don't address it. I'm not going to suggest a half baked idea. If you have an idea for it (or anyone else) I'll be glad to hear it.

 

3. Blobbing - Let's provide an alternative to strafing, a new alt command that launches a "spray & pray". Basically the squadron will fill the air with bullets within the 2nd firing cone proposal. All bombers inside of that cone get a panicked status but at the expense of you outputting... say -20% DPS & -20% accuracy. The command will continue until you either issue a new order cancel the order or you run out of bullets (it will deplete at a constant rate as long as the command is active). Spray & pray can be active while moving to a different destination, cancel spray & pray by issuing alt attack again. Is it realistic? Who knows, but at least I could picture myself being a horrible WWII fighter pilot spraying bullets everywhere.

 

4. Torpedo Bomber accuracy - as stated in an earlier post I might remove the single plane ability. Currently I'm thinking of a better solution to the squadron issue.

 

The main goal of my changes was to address stressful fighter combat, frustrating DPS & HP mechanics, & add some new things (like squad formations, which seems positively received). Another big one was normalizing squad sizes, which is a big balancing issue.

Let me know if this alternative is regarded as an acceptable replacement.

[Edgecase]

2. Bomber effectiveness disparity - Honestly I don't have a thing for it yet so that's why I don't address it. I'm not going to suggest a half baked idea. If you have an idea for it (or anyone else) I'll be glad to hear it.

 

I think the major issue with TBs could be addressed (with or without the rest of these changes) by simply increasing the arming distance on air-dropped torpedoes. It gives ships more time to dodge, makes islands more effective as torpedo cover, and increases the "orbit distance" that planes need to maintain if they're going to set up their perfect drop angles (counterbalancing T9-T10 plane speed that normally allows them to buzzard-circle to a perfect drop angle every time for basically free).

 

3. Blobbing - Let's provide an alternative to strafing, a new alt command that launches a "spray & pray". Basically the squadron will fill the air with bullets within the 2nd firing cone proposal. All bombers inside of that cone get a panicked status but at the expense of you outputting... say -20% DPS & -20% accuracy. The command will continue until you either issue a new order cancel the order or you run out of bullets (it will deplete at a constant rate as long as the command is active). Spray & pray can be active while moving to a different destination, cancel spray & pray by issuing alt attack again. Is it realistic? Who knows, but at least I could picture myself being a horrible WWII fighter pilot spraying bullets everywhere.

 

You're functionally proposing making fighters into a moving low-dps DF bubble, which I suppose is okay, if not particularly exciting. It is a bit strange in that it makes fighter cover mostly useful during the drop rather than in an intercept capacity.

 

The main goal of my changes was to address stressful fighter combat, frustrating DPS & HP mechanics, & add some new things (like squad formations, which seems positively received). Another big one was normalizing squad sizes, which is a big balancing issue.

 

While I agree that comfort, randomness of the plane HP mechanics, and inter-line balance issues are frustrating, I don't think those are the most important issues to address, so perhaps we just have different priorities on what we'd like to see out of a complete overhaul. I can't see myself calling the CV rework successful unless it soundly addresses CV-to-surface-ship balance at the same time as the other issues.

[Yvonne_Swanson]

  How about for fighters we could add like a swarm or patrol sphere when we alt click on an allied ship, the fighters split up around the ship you click on flying in opposite directions at different altitudes creating a kind of shield.

Where any plane that enters the patrol swarm has the panic status effect applied to them and gets attacked at a low DPS, and if you add another fighter squad to the patrol the swarm sphere gets larger (up to a max of like 7km or 8km or something). When the fighters attack a group of planes they make a quick pass on the target then continue (to the next target if there is one) another circle around the ship they are guarding back to the target. Say if a enemy fighter group enters to try to alleviate the panic on there squad it will only reduce the panic effect by 25% 

 

Another thing i would like to add is for strike aircraft is when you are making a attack run they should have there accuracy be reduced by ships AA for every aura they cross into by like 5% (for DBs since they are at a higher altitude) - 10% (for TBs due to lower altitude) so this would also stack with an allied ship nearby.

 

An example would be like 2 ships nearby each other and you send your planes and they enter the first 2 AA auras -10%DB accuracy and -20%TB , then you enter the 2nd 2 auras -20%DB accuracy -40%TB etc etc..

 

edit:

hummm now that i think of it the % values should prolly be tied to what ship type or how much AA the ship has ...

[IronWolfV]

OP many of these have been asked for since Closed beta along with some other changes to AA.

 

Like for example, DP guns cannot do both surface and air combat at the same time. Either your guns are loaded for anti air or anti surface. No more magical both at the same time crap. 

 

Also manual secondaries and manual AA should work as we have now. If you don't have those skills you cannot select a primary target. Instead you can choose to focus your fire in a specific direction so you have a higher AA or surface damage in one direction while leaving all others significantly weaker.

 

That way you can choose to focus fire say to starboard but port, front, back and over top are far weaker.

[OscarMike_]

WG does NOT CARE about Carriers. <<<------------I wish I could make the font bigger.

All of the CV issues have been here since forever ago and yet, patch after patch, they only tease us about "future" changes and give very mild and meaningless tweaks here and there as if they are ok as is.

 

They also claim to try and stay somewhat historically accurate, but historically US Carriers dominated IJN Carriers, that is literally what won the war.  Yet, in game, it is exactly the opposite.  Many games the players complain about the US CV losing to the IJN CV, I just reply with, I play US CV for fun and because I love the history behind them.  Not to join the OP band wagon of EZ mode with IJN tier 8,9,10. (I have both Hak+Midway)  Personally whenever I get upset about the issues at hand and sometimes I do.  I just get in my US CV and run AS and do my best to ruin the other CV players day lol.  I figure after so much frustration and misery WG will work at a fix, at least that is the hope in the back of my mind lol.  One person complaining may not be a big deal, but a large community doing it, makes it a big deal.

[Battlecruiser_Siegfried]

Did the OP mention an interface overhaul? Because, IMO, that's the most glaring fault.