WG and more intuitive game design

[Theodosivs_Imperator]

(Adapted from a post in another thread).

I think one of the major issues with WoWs, and the one that's most troubling for WG's understanding of game design, is that most of the basic information needed to 'git gud' in the game is locked behind a very non-intuitive facade. Details like which ships benefit from IFHE and which ones don't, meta basics like armor angling, XP-related criteria like spotting damage, and the actual effective combat ranges of various guns (Just because Bismarck can shoot from 18km doesn't mean she's doing any good, for example). Until WG reevaluates their approach to game design and information presentation, I'm not sure that the potato problem will ever go away to any appreciable degree.

More broadly (and related to the last example of effective gunnery ranges), WG has consistently failed to build *intuitive* incentives for players to be aggressive. A rework of the spotting/LOS mechanic alone would make aggressive play far more obvious as the right choice. Here's what I'm thinking of, just as an example:

Currently, all ships within maximum spotting distance which fail a concealment check are visible and targetable by you. If you're a Missouri, and a Bismarck is 10km away, you can see and fire at him. If he's 20km away, but a DD up ahead of you spots him, you can target and fire at him equally as well. THIS is a major problem that encourages potato-play, IMHO. Spotting by secondary ships should not enable you to see and target an enemy ship. Instead, you should only be told that a ship of a certain class is over there, with their bearing and speed on your minimap (this would also apply to radar spotting, and would serve as the badly-needed nerf for that mechanic).
What are the consequences of this change? You would have to close to the minimum spotting distance required *for your ship and the enemy* to locate your target and open fire - that DD's spotting would tell you where he was, but not allow you to fire at him (except random guesswork).

[And if your minimum spotting distance is further than his (say, with targeting module equipped on the MO instead of concealment), you might detect him shortly before he detects you - but if you open fire, you of course reveal yourself to a counterattack.]

So rear-echelon camping would no longer be possible, as you'd have to close with the enemy to detect them yourself in order to use your guns effectively. However, your 21km range wouldn't be entirely wasted - if the enemy BB is 20km from you, but opens up at the DD right inbetween you, he'd reveal himself directly to you and allow you to target him and fire.

And now that I think about it, that could serve as a way to buff radar in a way that would make up for the nerf - radar loses the ability to allow other ships to target things it reveals, but it allows you to open fire at the full range of your guns to anything that it reveals. And since the basic framework of this is already in-game (the way that friendlies can spot ships beyond your maximum range - they'd just need to change how the different ranges relate to each other), it shouldn't be that difficult to implement.

Anyway, just my two cents.

[IronWolfV]

Would be nice, but I don't see it happening.

[Kapitan_Wuff]

Ok. So here are some bullet points I pulled out of this:

 

• Game is too complicated for you so you want it dumbed down. (Even though its a pretty simple arcade game with lots of resourses like the wiki, forum, and loads of youtubers)
• You think spotting is op and destroyers need a nerf
• You think radar isn't strong enough and needs a buff

Anyone wanna take a guess at what OPs most played ship type is?

 

[TTK_Aegis]

10 minutes ago, Theodosivs_Imperator said:

Spotting by secondary ships should not enable you to see and target an enemy ship.

I'm sorry but I stopped reading here. This is such a core and important part to how WoWS (and WoT for that matter) plays that to suggest removing it is suggesting replacing WoWS with another game. Plus, you're ignoring that this is fairly realistic. The main difference is that instead of having to creating firing solutions based on scout plane information, the game just makes the ship visible for you to fire at. Ships could and did fire at each other when they couldn't physically see each other from their decks. Heck this is why just about every ship with long range guns carried spotter planes. 

[Fog_Repair_Ship_Akashi]

20 minutes ago, Theodosivs_Imperator said:

(Adapted from a post in another thread).

I think one of the major issues with WoWs, and the one that's most troubling for WG's understanding of game design, is that most of the basic information needed to 'git gud' in the game is locked behind a very non-intuitive facade. Details like which ships benefit from IFHE and which ones don't, meta basics like armor angling, XP-related criteria like spotting damage, and the actual effective combat ranges of various guns (Just because Bismarck can shoot from 18km doesn't mean she's doing any good, for example). Until WG reevaluates their approach to game design and information presentation, I'm not sure that the potato problem will ever go away to any appreciable degree.

More broadly (and related to the last example of effective gunnery ranges), WG has consistently failed to build *intuitive* incentives for players to be aggressive. A rework of the spotting/LOS mechanic alone would make aggressive play far more obvious as the right choice. Here's what I'm thinking of, just as an example:

Currently, all ships within maximum spotting distance which fail a concealment check are visible and targetable by you. If you're a Missouri, and a Bismarck is 10km away, you can see and fire at him. If he's 20km away, but a DD up ahead of you spots him, you can target and fire at him equally as well. THIS is a major problem that encourages potato-play, IMHO. Spotting by secondary ships should not enable you to see and target an enemy ship. Instead, you should only be told that a ship of a certain class is over there, with their bearing and speed on your minimap (this would also apply to radar spotting, and would serve as the badly-needed nerf for that mechanic).
What are the consequences of this change? You would have to close to the minimum spotting distance required *for your ship and the enemy* to locate your target and open fire - that DD's spotting would tell you where he was, but not allow you to fire at him (except random guesswork).

[And if your minimum spotting distance is further than his (say, with targeting module equipped on the MO instead of concealment), you might detect him shortly before he detects you - but if you open fire, you of course reveal yourself to a counterattack.]

So rear-echelon camping would no longer be possible, as you'd have to close with the enemy to detect them yourself in order to use your guns effectively. However, your 21km range wouldn't be entirely wasted - if the enemy BB is 20km from you, but opens up at the DD right inbetween you, he'd reveal himself directly to you and allow you to target him and fire.

And now that I think about it, that could serve as a way to buff radar in a way that would make up for the nerf - radar loses the ability to allow other ships to target things it reveals, but it allows you to open fire at the full range of your guns to anything that it reveals. And since the basic framework of this is already in-game (the way that friendlies can spot ships beyond your maximum range - they'd just need to change how the different ranges relate to each other), it shouldn't be that difficult to implement.

Anyway, just my two cents.

[Theodosivs_Imperator]

3 minutes ago, Kapitan_Wuff said:

Ok. So here are some bullet points I pulled out of this:

 

• Game is too complicated for you so you want it dumbed down. (Even though its a pretty simple arcade game with lots of resourses like the wiki, forum, and loads of youtubers)
• You think spotting is op and destroyers need a nerf
• You think radar isn't strong enough and needs a buff

Anyone wanna take a guess at what OPs most played ship type is?

 

Actually, my point is that it isn't complicated enough, so way to go on your reading comprehension (and my suggestion would actually improve survivability for CAs and DDs, while making it harder for BBs). If this game were closer to the IL-2 Sturmovik series or the DCS simulators, I'd be overjoyed.

[TTK_Aegis]

4 minutes ago, Theodosivs_Imperator said:

Actually, my point is that it isn't complicated enough, so way to go on your reading comprehension (and my suggestion would actually improve survivability for CAs and DDs, while making it harder for BBs). If this game were closer to the IL-2 Sturmovik series or the DCS simulators, I'd be overjoyed.

 

Well there's your problem. Both of those are /simulators/. This is very, very not that. This is more Call of Duty: Warships. Just like how CoD guns look like the real things but are loosely balanced around the real things, WoWS ships look like the real things and are loosely balanced around the real things. 

 

If you're looking for realism, this isn't the place to find it. Game balance, fun-factor and ease of entry will always trump realism here. 

[Umikami]

23 minutes ago, Theodosivs_Imperator said:

I think one of the major issues with WoWs, and the one that's most troubling for WG's understanding of game design, is that most of the basic information needed to 'git gud' in the game is locked behind a very non-intuitive facade.

S E A R C H ! Try it, it freakin' works wonders!

24 minutes ago, Theodosivs_Imperator said:

I'm not sure that the potato problem will ever go away to any appreciable degree.

The potato problem will be here as long as the human problem is.

25 minutes ago, Theodosivs_Imperator said:

THIS is a major problem that encourages potato-play, IMHO.

Communications is OP; please nerf!

26 minutes ago, Theodosivs_Imperator said:

(this would also apply to radar spotting, and would serve as the badly-needed nerf for that mechanic).

This has been suggested (multiple times) and buried under a mountain of salt from cruiser captains.

[Stauffenberg44]

Your ideas have some merit but it becomes moot for the simple reason it will reduce the amount of damage you can dish out in the average battle length of 10 - 15 minutes. Reducing visibility of enemy ships you can see to shoot at--i.e. excluding a 3rd party spotter--would suggest this would be so.

[Edgecase]

1 hour ago, Theodosivs_Imperator said:

I think one of the major issues with WoWs, and the one that's most troubling for WG's understanding of game design, is that most of the basic information needed to 'git gud' in the game is locked behind a very non-intuitive facade.

 

1 hour ago, Theodosivs_Imperator said:

Spotting by secondary ships should not enable you to see and target an enemy ship. Instead, you should only be told that a ship of a certain class is over there, with their bearing and speed on your minimap (this would also apply to radar spotting, and would serve as the badly-needed nerf for that mechanic).

OP: Game is not intuitive enough, let's making spotting less intuitive.