Suggestions for Carrier Rework/Update

[Thunderstruck2016]

 

I don’t claim to be a carrier expert nor a carrier main.  Out of all the classes on World of Warships, I play carriers the least, 13%.  I do have a 50-65% win rate when I play CVs (except for the Essex because I just unlocked her and I’m still trying to figure her out).  I haven’t seen a lot of information regarding the proposed carrier re-work but last time I heard they were still open to suggestions so I figured I’d at my own and see what you guys think of it as well.

 

Please Read all the suggestions before commenting.

 

1. Make Co-op more rewarding for Carriers or allow manual drops in Co-op.

 

I understand the reasoning behind taking away the manual drop.  Seal clubbing (high skilled players purposely playing at lower tiers) was a major problem.  Taking away manual drop was not the proper solution to the problem.  All it did was make CVs even harder to play for people trying to learn them and seal clubbers just found different ships.  Auto dropping is only recommended if you are going to die before your planes get to their target.  It is easy to dodge with ships (played a T4 Hosho Co-op game and a South Carolina bot successfully evaded 2 auto torpedo drops).  Manual dropping is a must in higher tier games and learning how to successfully drop them against ships that cannot fight back as hard is a good learning environment. 

 

To get back to the main issue of seal clubbing, Wargaming could change the rewards for aircraft carriers in Co-op.  I played a stock Hosho game in Co-op with only the first win bonus as a multiplier.  I got 758 Ship XP.  To research the B-Hull is 3,050 XP.  I would have to play a minimum of 35 co-op games to research the T5 Zuiho and that is still playing with stock planes.  Then I would have to play more Co-op games to get the Ryujo (flat justice, ya happy RivertheRoyal?).  Playing in Random battles will earn more experience but not being able to manual drop will make your only targets lazy battleships.  (Thankfully you do get 2 torpedo squadrons in the Zuiho so cross dropping will achieve better results but only against large ships.  

 

Allowing players to manual drop in Co-op so that they have an easier time learning the proper torpedo arming range and lead for bombing destroyers is paramount.  I have never heard of seal clubbing in co-op.  (Even though bots are pretty stupid).

 

A different fix would be to have auto dropping aircraft drop their torpedoes closer to the ship that way if you drop on a broadside target there is a guaranteed 1 torpedo hit for Japanese aircraft.  (Auto dropping is significantly easier for US planes because they have 6 instead of 4 planes per squadron)

 

2. Get rid of stock planes being a tier lower than the Carrier.

 

This probably pisses me off the most.  For a comparison, you just unlocked your new Colorado or Nagato.  Oh boy, those 16in guns look good.  Wait, what?  I have to use the 14 in guns from the previous ship and upgrade the hull first before I can mount the 16 in guns?  That’s what it feels like when you unlock a new carrier.  There is a reason why my Essex is at a 38%-win rate, I don’t have Tier 9 planes with it and get matched against a Taiho often.  Having lower tier planes in a new ship just kills any desire to progress up a ship line.  They have already changed it so that some of the carriers already have same tier attack planes (Ranger, Independence, Bogue). 

 

Take the Essex for example, to get all Tier 9 planes I need 57.500 ship/free XP, my average per game is 1,377 XP (it should go up as I get better at the ship, but my average for my Lexington is 1601 XP).  That’s a minimum of 36 excruciating games with the stock flight module before I am fighting against same tier airplanes.

 

3. If they feel the need to research something other than hull upgrades and flight mods (if they get rid of lower tier stock planes) here are some suggestions.

 

All same tier as aircraft carrier.

Fighters- 7 knots faster (average speed increase is anywhere from 3-10 knots) but they have fewer hit points and carry 20% less ammo.

 

Dive bombers- carry two bombs instead of one (so that they can do more damage to destroyers) that have less damage per bomb and less fire chance.

 

Torpedo Bombers- torpedoes are 8 knots slower (so that torpedo booster commander skill does not negate it) but have an increased chance of flooding. (I don’t know the exact number but it does feel less than ship launched torpedoes).

 

4. Normalize number of planes per squadron and squadrons per ship, per tier.

 

Having 6 planes but fewer squadrons worked when the game first launched.  Having 6 fighters in US aircraft squadrons was better because there was no strafing.  Squadrons that had more fighters in them were more likely to win, this was countered by Japanese carriers having more squadrons.  With strafing, all that mattered was how many squadrons you had and how just 1 squadron of fighters can make 2 or 3 squadrons of attack planes turn away.  Normalizing the number of planes to 4 or 5 planes per squadron for all tech tree aircraft carriers will also make ships easier to balance and make premium ships more unique.

 

5. Have a way to fully retrain a captain to a new ship without the cost of doubloons.

 

Yes, this is a way for Wargaming to profit on their game by making a full retraining of a captain 500 doubloons.  Having an untrained captain just makes learning a new carrier that much more painful.  It was like how a new Destroyer captain was. You know, before knowing if you were detected (Situational Awareness) was free.  This meant you didn’t know if you were spotted until shells from the entire enemy team were raining down on you.  The most crucial commander skill for carriers is Air Supremacy (+1 fighter and bomber per squadron).  There is no partial to this skill while retraining.  If you’re a Japanese carrier that goes against a U.S. carrier, you’re going to have a bad time.  The only work around is having Commander XP, which you can only get by having a 19-point captain.  Which since playing this game since June 2015, I still do not have.

(I have three 18 point commanders and four 15 point commanders, but this was mainly due to me retraining a new captain for a new ship until I realized it was better to take the penalty).

 

Those are my suggestions.  I have seen the suggestion of having fully customizable flight modules, but I wouldn’t want that.  Having a balanced loadout, air supremacy, and strike loadout would be fine with me.  I could see fully customized squads leading to just Torpedo Bombers and Fighters and people never using dive bombers because flooding is more effective than fires. 

 

Thoughts?  Feel free to totally disagree with me if you’re a carrier main who thinks my ideas are crap.  I don’t play them that often but these are just some of the things that frustrate me the most when I play them occasionally.

 

[BladedPheonix]

not to sound like an A-hole but.,....if you don't know how they play or don't use them.. please don't suggest on how to improve them....

 

people will just get mad at you and mock/troll you.....

[Thunderstruck2016]

not to sound like an A-hole but.,....if you don't know how they play or don't use them.. please don't suggest on how to improve them....

 

people will just get mad at you and mock/troll you.....

 

Yeah, just wanted to throw stuff out there and what I thought about it considering most played Carriers (according to Warshipstoday) on NA are the lower Tier US CVs with the others.  Its common that aircraft carriers are in the bottom half of the list same tier ships in terms of battles.

 

https://na.warships.today/vehicles

[SullyQuindarius]

Nope. Sorry, but I really don't like that. Bombs do less damage? Torps EIGHT KNOTS slower??? Fighters that are even faster but melt quicker? Nope. No thanks. 

I do think that making CVs a bit easier to master (but without removing the skill of CV gameplay) is a great idea though.

 

I think they should give USN their old loadouts back, make their strike more equivalent to IJN. To balance out having two squads of torpedo bombers, have them drop in rows like the Kaga.