Are Battleships Killing the Game? Discuss

[NoZoupForYou]

The TL:DW - Battleships are a safety blanket for new players and they're popular due to said safety.  It reinforces bad playstyle habits.  WG during Gamescom admits their is overpopulation.  Deep water torps are their answer.  I don't think that will work.  Need hard caps of BBs per team.  Three new BB premiums on the horizon.

 

Keep the discussion civil and constructive.

 

 

[anonym_Hf93Jbjm9WjT]

Only one solution, BAN BATTLESHIPS! Who needs anyway them when my puny secondaries can sink them solo?

edit : video omits to mention that new funky and very original battleship for beginners, the KM Graf Zeppelin (it is a confirmed and viable battleship brawler)

Spoiler

Youtubers...

[Lonewolfpj]

I agree a hard cap might be needed

[Cognitive_Dissonance]

So take what I say with a grain of salt, as I am a "newish" player. Don't really have a problem with them overall, recent UK boats have created a log jam, one which I partook in and enjoyed, but I figure this too will pass. Outside of the recent logjam, when you think of naval battles, you think of Battleships, and I think the game is built around that. A good CV, DD or even coordinated cruiser play will nullify their threat, as long as your teams BB's are competent. I really think it all boils down to Map Awareness and team coordination - if you don't have that (which is common in pubs), then yes, the enemy BB's if semi-competent are going to have their way with you - but overall, I really don't think they killing the game, anymore than any other class that groups of mains will complain about.

[The_first_harbinger]

As long we have memes like Kutuzov, Mogami and Zao, or just any ship that heavily punishes poor positioning in general, I think we are good. Although I do believe that we should make cruisers AP shells in general more threatening to battleships, like a AP shell fuse time decrease for all non british cruisers.

 

I think the IJN dds should be buffed(well deserved), so that they can actually be an deterrent toward battleships without having the mighty wall of skill that flushes out dds and cruisers alike. Deep water torpedoes shows that WG is actually trying. +1WG

 

Also stop creating stupid bbs that is not only forgiving to play, but infringes upon the other class's duties.

[RipNuN2]

[SearsRoebuckandCompany]

They are the main reason a lot of people play this game mess with them too much and you may lose a lot of players.

[FratStar4Life]

I don't mind BB and Cruiser heavy games; what ruins the game for me is seeing 5+ DD on each team as it turns into a boring torp soup game

[Crucis]

12 minutes ago, NoZoupForYou said:

The TL:DW - Battleships are a safety blanket for new players and they're popular due to said safety.  It reinforces bad playstyle habits.  WG during Gamescom admits their is overpopulation.  Deep water torps are their answer.  I don't think that will work.  Need hard caps of BBs per team.  Three new BB premiums on the horizon.

 

Keep the discussion civil and constructive.

 

 

I haven't watched the video yet (but I will), but I think that in your text above you're missing the biggest reason why new players play BBs.  People play BB's because they're the ships that historically get most of the glory.  They're the capital ships (along with carriers).  Compared to the mighty battleships, cruisers and destroyers are just small fry, who exist to support them. The most memorable photos of naval vessels from WW2 are of battleships (and carriers).

When Churchill gave his historic order, he didn't say "Sink the Prinz Eugen!".  He said "Sink the Bismarck!"  

Cruisers and destroyers are also-ran's compared to battleships in the collective public memory of naval vessels from WW1 and WW2.  So should it be any surprise that new players go straight for battleships?  It shouldn't be.

 

 

 

 

[Bl4ckBaron]

Matchmaking is definitely the way to go to balance numbers for all classes per team/per battle (like real world combat fleets).

I understand WG worries when the population is low and the MM can not produce the necessary numbers of all classes to avoid very long queue times.

I propose that all classes have an hard cap per team during prime time (above a certain population number) and have another more forgiving mix at late hours (under a certain population number).

[Junkieturtle]

I don't see how a warship, which is one of the iconic classes of warships in the whole world, is somehow ruining the game. Why is it BBs that are bad? Why are the other classes automatically "better". I think this viewpoint tends to stem from a "skill = better" position, the idea that because DDs and CA/CL takes more "skill", that they are inherently "better". What about CVs? They are the other class that is commonly being said to ruin the game.

I'd be okay with a BB cap per round, but if we're going to start instituting arbitrary number caps, lets make it even across the board. Equal numbers of each ship class, plus an extra ship per round when CVs are present(to accommodate the CV). Since we're talking about making hard caps, wait times in the queue being a concern is automatically out the window. If players can queue as DD/CA-CL/CV instead of BB to escape the cap, they can do it for all three classes if there is more of some then others at a given time.

But I tend to be of the opinion that if more folks are playing BBs, that's what more folks want to be playing. At it's heart this conversation really feels like an elite vs. casual discussion commonly found in MMORPG games. The elites are obviously the "BBs are terrible" crowd, and the casuals are the "BBs are fun" crowd.

And god forbid folks play what they enjoy. This is a game afterall, the expectation that you can have fun instead of treating it like a real-life challenge is totally out of place here, am I right?

[ZARDOZ_II]

4 minutes ago, Hans_Rebka said:

They are the main reason a lot of people play this game mess with them too much and you may lose a lot of players.

A lot of people came to WoWS specifically to play BB's.  So I'd say yes, you'll likely lose a lot of players.  But there are ways to counter BB's.  Maybe buffing the range on CA/CL torps and a slight nerf to the massive Brit BB HE would help.  At least that might allow an effective attack against the Brit BB's without getting incinerated before you even get within gun range. 

[Komrade_Rylo]

I find that with each patch the class as a whole becomes progressively worse 

[Herr_Reitz]

29 minutes ago, NoZoupForYou said:

The TL:DW - Battleships are a safety blanket for new players and they're popular due to said safety.  It reinforces bad playstyle habits.  WG during Gamescom admits their (there) is overpopulation.  Deep water torps are their answer.  I don't think that will work.  Need hard caps of BBs per team.  Three new BB premiums on the horizon.

 

Bold underline mine for emphasis. 

 

Because - if they truly believe this, then why the missions which essentially handed out the first three RN BBs for a little bit of work? Those missions were easy compared to some in the past, everyone knows it. The entire line has OP-HE, clearly. Would you suggest giving away ships with OP-HE is an attempt to reduce BB overpopulation? Nope. 

 

An even better question really is this - why does WoWS/WG like the fire mechanic so much? Is it helping them sell more ships/consumables? 

[Wolcott]

BBs are why I play this game, followed by CVs. This is mainly because of the ships we all know and love from history (Hood, Nevada, Missouri, Yorktown, Gambier Bay etc). Isn't it bad enough that we had to wait a whole year for a new BB line?

[cheereereerios]

2 minutes ago, Herr_Reitz said:

Bold underline mine for emphasis.

Because - if they truly believe this, then why the missions which essentially handed out the first three RN BBs for a little bit of work? Those missions were easy compared to some in the past, everyone knows it. The entire line has OP-HE, clearly. Would you suggest giving away ships with OP-HE is an attempt to reduce BB overpopulation? Nope.

An even better question really is this - why does WoWS/WG like the fire mechanic so much? Is it helping them sell more ships/consumables? 

Along with the part you quoted, followed by: three new BB premiums on the horizon. LOL.

[SlamF1re]

Didn't take the time to watch the vid, but there are already is a hard cap of 5 BB's per team in place. And no, I don't think BBs are ruining the game. What ruins the game for me currently is the lack of player skill across all classes, and the way that sometimes all of the players get dropped on your team while the enemy team gets stacked with good players. Really doesn't matter what ship type they play, as each one has a role to fulfill and not fulfilling that role hurts the team. WG needs to work on implementing player education tools into the game itself and adding a skill based match maker into the game. 

[Mavairo]

A lot of us graduate from BBs to ships with real match influence as we level. That being said, there are too many BBs in game. The cure? CV. Wargaming doesn't want to admit it, but that's the truth CVs have always been the best tool to punish bad battleship captains. The problem is of course, wargaming doesn't want CVs in their game (hence why we are 9 months into the year and still no "great rework" in sight)

[PelicanHazard]

I don't think it helps that battleships are somewhat venerated in many nations. The US board game isn't called "Destroyer" (and the signature phrase isn't "You sank my destroyer!"), it's called "Battleship", even if that game includes carriers. Similarly, it's not "Space Destroyer Shimakaze", it's "Space Battleship Yamato". Et cetera and so forth. For a person who isn't steeped in naval history and simply downloads the game because it looks interesting, they're more likely to have a familiarity with battleships than other types of ships and therefore gravitate to them.

 

At least that's how I reason it, I could be totally wrong.

[Pata1985]

TBH I see bad Battleship, Cruisers, Destroyer and Carrier players everywhere.   

 

 So it's not a BB problem.

[m373x]

 We haven't seen any MM improvements for a long long time now. Zero effort on improving, lowest priority. Kinda makes you sad.

 

Lowering of citadels,  super heals, super HE, super concealment. Game is getting dumbed down a lot.

[Wolcott]

If BB overpopulation is really an issue they would've added only a partial RN BB line, like stopping at KGV at tier 7. Save them the time and effort making all those dubious paper designs so they could move on to other real ships still missing from WoWS. Yamato should've had the unique distinction of being the only tier 10 BB in the game.

[IronWolfV]

People whine about BB or DD heavy games. Never once have I heard people whine about cruiser heavy games.

[FayFay731]

Or WG could make queue times longer so every game there will be a cv. 

[Herr_Reitz]

5 minutes ago, IronWolfV said:

People whine about BB or DD heavy games. Never once have I heard people whine about cruiser heavy games.

 

Because one, they aren't that common and two, they are a lot of fun when thy do occur. I had a match recently that was nothing but cruisers. Nothing else - it was great.