Fixing CV's - give and take

[WanderingGhost]

Well, it's been a popular theme the last few days, and I've been wanting to throw this up the last few days and now is as good a time as any to just throw it in a thread of it's own where I can tweak as I need to as I recall anything I missed. But all these ideas, some good, some bad, some down right insane, they've been mostly one sided. "Buff this thing I use", "Nerf this thing I don't use" "Nerf this for them and buff this for me". And that is all it has really been the last 2-3 years with CV's. At any given time, only one side is being listened to by Wargaming, if at all. AA buff after AA buff from non-CV players complaint's, Changes to USN fighters when IJN really was dominating the game for a time, etc. But aside from Wargaming usually fixing the wrong thing (USN needed strike power, so they buff fighters, AS OP o they just remove it and leave us with one set up that has issues that give other CV's the same advantage they complained about, Manual drop they just keep buffing AA), it's seemingly only looked at from one side, and it hasn't worked. The problem is that we need sweeping changes in both directions, to both CV lines, to the other ships because of AA, to fix this issue. And this is not something you can really just "phase in", this needs to be handled like Arty was in tanks, one patch, change it all, tweaks thereafter. 

The current list I have, copied from a different post I posted it in -

• Strafing needs to be reworked so it's not all about micromanaging and close the gap between the super skilled/experienced players and the not so much and newer ones. A debuff to DPS that gives you some control over the aerial fight with fighters and a temporary debuff to bomber accuracy but without being as brutally punishing as it is now for players.
• Manual drop needs to be removed from TB's or reworked that it's arming range is more similar to autodrops because we should not be dropping torps 1km or less from a ship.
• USN needs HP buffs to fighters and bombers while taking a DPS nerf, while IJN maybe gains a little DPS but loses some ammo to try and equal out fighters while keeping them different.
• USN needs, after fixing it's fighters, the return of it's AS set ups, IJN needs in most cases (where it would have more fighters) it's AS setup's removed and replaced with it's own "strike" set ups that match USN's in fighters and maintains it's group numbers just in additional strike groups.
• USN HE DB's need an accuracy buff plain and simple.
• CV's may need to have their damaged nerfed slightly on torps and HE DB's, and definitely on the AP.
• AA on all ships (with manual drop TB's removed from the equation or fixed that they have to drop at range) save maybe DD's other than for weapon consistency, needs a pretty hefty nerf.
• Re-integrate AA mod 2 and Secondary mod 2 into 1 mod again that buffs both AA and secondary range.
• Especially with fighters no longer stomping and deleting one another or groups of attack planes, consideration of giving all BB's their own DF AA that has a 1.x or 1.1x multiplier that really just causes the bombers to be less accurate and easier to try and dodge some of the incoming attack. Cruisers or ships like DoY will still have the one that not only debuffs but is far more threatening to CV's planes.
• Make "Emergency Takeoff" a built in mechanic, not a skill, and change the skill to maybe lessen the penalty we get from it. As it currently stands the skill is effectively useless and do just as well, arguably better, just investing in DCP II, maybe the flags/skills that cost less to hasten it's cooldown. 
• Overall fighter DPS rework to lessen the power gap between tiers

One of the big issues is in simpler terms "good vs bad" CV players, and a big factor in that is strafing. And I get there should be some skill and player influence in it, but the current auto delete, no matter how you dice it, is a problem and "git gud", the usual answer, is not the solution. It needs a rework and if for fighters caught in it it becomes a DPS debuff that's reasonable, it can give the player using strafe an edge, and makes it worth using, while still leaving the other player, should luck be on their side, a chance, while also meaning if it isn't, they can still maybe hold up the fighters for a time. And make it debuff bombers like DF AA does but maybe sticks for a few seconds after and/or slowly recovers as the groups "get back in formation".

Manual drops by TB's are a big reason AA has been buffed so much, and why at one or two points ship agility was buffed (though agility was also partially torps in general). And look, I get for as things work now, drops on targets in smoke and taking longer range shots, rare as that last one seems, are a thing it's used for. But as it currently stands, the ability to drop torps under 1km where they can't really dodge is a problem. And let's be honest for a second, those o us that have played long enough and/or are good at it already know how to compensate for the only way to counter it - turn into them before they arm, so that even though they turn in, they still arm. The mechanic does more harm than good and despite what some people say about "auto drop being useless", it's not and if for some reason CV's are that hampered without it, I doubt they will be unless they fully remove it so we can't torp ships in smoke, they can make changes to auto like they did at tier 4 and 5 to compensate.

USN vs IJN needs a ton of work as does tier vs tier. USN fighters need to be brought down to a level that IJN is actually competitive in a one on one fight. Which also means we can also balance other nations fighters better. And IJN fighters need some slight tweaks as well. The backbone of USN striking power has been DB's since day one, and the HE DB's need to be a bit more accurate to actually be truly effective. And where as IJN has numbers, USN needs a bit more raw survivablity than IJN's attack planes. With fighters balanced we need the fighter group count of set ups to match, so, as an example, Lex get's 2,0, 2 back for AS and keeps the 1,1,2 for strike while Shokaku AS is the 2,2,2 and it's strike is 2,3,2. All lines should have an AS option and strike option, not one way to play. And a lower tier CV needs to be able to stand a chance against a higher tier one unless the plan is CV's only see CV's of the same tier. It's needs to be a flavour where IJN fighter planes hit a little harder, but run out of ammo faster and don't do as well in AA with faster DPS drop off as they lose planes, where as USN fighters don't hit quite as hard, but DPS doesn't drop off as fast, they better withstand AA and have ammo to spare. Not terribly different from now, but evened up a bit. On the attack side, IJN has sheer numbers to overwhelm defense and get planes through AA, but is a little more likely to be taking losses where USN has those fewer groups, but higher HP means they aren't losing as much with less to be shot at. IJN basically having that good feeling alpha punch people like, where as USN is really more for DoT and smaller ships, or people that just want to watch the world burn.

With manual drop properly tweaked or gone, AA needs to change. It needs to be lowered so that ships that run off on there own, even if they build AA, are not completely immune to air attack. CV's should lose some planes attacking lone ships, but not necessarily entire groups, and definitely not whole strike forces. Unless of course they attack a huge group that is a couple BB's and cruisers popping DF AA, then heavy/total losses should almost be expected. But they should be able to attach 1-2 ships without catastrophic loss of aircraft on the way in. Go back to needing some actual teamwork when a CV is present in case it's bombers get past your CV's fighters. But, while the actual damage is nerfed, Secondary and AA mod 2 should be recombined into a single mod that buffs the range of both once again so those that take it aren't just upping AA or secondary range. Also, perhaps consideration that as said above, BB's get a DF AA consumable, other than ships like DoY and Hood  that would have unique versions, that offers little or no buff to AA damage, but scatters the incoming planes to lower their accuracy to try and make it some more of the damage can be dodged. Especially if for IJN strike, as the IJN line has always had torps as it's thing, expands on TB groups at lower tiers than it used to. 

To hell with realism, as that was some's argument for it to be this way in the first place, but CV's, that have the longest time between strikes (30 second rearm for IJN, 40 for USN, 10 seconds for 1 group to take off, travel time, variable time to land planes based on ship speed, angle to planes, etc, wash, rinse, repeat), need to not be totally shut down by fires. Yes, in an ideal scenario they should never be on fire, but  happens. What we currently pay 3 points for, "Emergency Takeoff", should just be a built in mechanic and the skill takes time off the penalty. Because as it stands it is better time wise to actually have DCP II, and if you want to make it even better, equip flags and skills to lower it's cooldown, that cost less than Emergency Takeoff.

 

And if, after we've lowered AA to a reasonable level, maybe given BB's a way to debuff attack plane accuracy if they have no cover once or twice, maybe upped some ships AA ranges with the modification change, and moving torp attacks far enough back there is in fact time to maneuver, CV's have somehow come out over-performing and doing too much like the days of old, well, maybe at that point we need to eat a bit of a damage nerf to ordnance to even things out a bit. Maybe there are other changes in general CV's are going to need that, as of this moment, I haven't recalled or thought of. But we need tweaks that lower the gap between "pro and Joe" CV players, we need to fix the performance gaps between IJN and USN, we need to balance out AA while not allowing CV's to come in with point blank alpha strikes that can deal 40k+ damage. Maybe I have the right ideas, maybe my ideas are off, but there is one thing that isn't going to change - CV balance can not be dictated by just 1 group or community of players, or by any 1 group/community at any given time. The Pro's at 60%, the Joe's around 50%, the IJN players, the USN players, The CV, BB, CA/L and DD players, we all need to hash it out and be willing to compromise on changes that may not fully satisfy all parties because it's not exactly the thing they want, but at the same time is acceptable to all parties as a decent enough middle ground of what everyone want's. It can't just be the BB/CA/CL/DD players shouting "Nerf CV's", the CV players saying "Nerf AA" or "Buff CV's", the Pro player's saying "Git Gud" and the Joe players going "remove X that the Pro's abuse on us", The IJN CV players saying "Nerf USN or "Buff our CV's" and USN CV players the same thing about IJN CV's and theirs. This hasn't worked for basically 3 years now, 1 of Alpha/Beta and 2 of release, we all need to compromise if we want this issue finally fixed, and fixed right. Or at least right enough for everyone to be content.

[Prothall]

throw in that something NEEDS to be done about CV spotting. When CV planes spot a dd that should just place an image on the mini map. Nothing is so helpless as a DD that is perma spotted and you want to get rid of AS load outs. that means the DD will probably stay spotted. You want to ease CV frustration and not have them deal with AS then you have to ease the DD frustration of being spotted and nuked and not being able to do anything about it.

[Hyyena]

Resume of OP text: Make cvs useless plox

[Dareios]

its a well written argument, but still.... the tldr im getting is 'pls make only rock vs scissor, so I can have biggest rock'.

[WanderingGhost]

22 minutes ago, Prothall said:

throw in that something NEEDS to be done about CV spotting. When CV planes spot a dd that should just place an image on the mini map. Nothing is so helpless as a DD that is perma spotted and you want to get rid of AS load outs. that means the DD will probably stay spotted. You want to ease CV frustration and not have them deal with AS then you have to ease the DD frustration of being spotted and nuked and not being able to do anything about it.

One I forgot but honestly beyond maybe what you suggest I got no idea right now how to fix DD spotting short of maybe give DD's a spotted by air range of 1 km or the like.

25 minutes ago, HyenaHiena said:

Resume of OP text: Make cvs useless plox

Trying to make them useless by suggesting we make it easier for us to get planes through AA to hit other ships and take fewer aircraft losses and making USN DB's more accurate so they can score more hits and deal more damage, with the only other bit being a slight range increase in some ships with a certain mod and maybe the ability for BB's to debuff accuracy if it's needed  - can you explain that logic to me?

2 minutes ago, Dareios said:

its a well written argument, but still.... the tldr im getting is 'pls make only rock vs scissor, so I can have biggest rock'.

That's in no way my goal so either I've explained it poorly or as I said, perhaps my ideas are off. I want USN and IJN, and any future lines because there is at least 1 more, able to contest the air as equals and be equally as capable at damaging ships yet they do it in different ways. While they can better attack ships and not take catastrophic losses going after a lone ship while not returning them to the death gods they were in Beta Weekends/Alpha when they first introduced them and AA was actually too low in some cases.

[Hyyena]

9 minutes ago, WanderingGhost said:

Trying to make them useless by suggesting we make it easier for us to get planes through AA to hit other ships and take fewer aircraft losses and making USN DB's more accurate so they can score more hits and deal more damage, with the only other bit being a slight range increase in some ships with a certain mod and maybe the ability for BB's to debuff accuracy if it's needed  - can you explain that logic to me?

">  Manual drop needs to be removed from TB's or reworked that it's arming range is more similar to autodrops because we should not be dropping torps 1km or less from a ship.
>  CV's may need to have their damaged nerfed slightly on torps and HE DB's, and definitely on the AP.
>   Re-integrate AA mod 2 and Secondary mod 2 into 1 mod again that buffs both AA and secondary range.
>  Especially with fighters no longer stomping and deleting one another or groups of attack planes, consideration of giving all BB's their own DF AA that has a 1.x or 1.1x multiplier that really just causes the bombers to be less accurate and easier to try and dodge some of the incoming attack. Cruisers or ships like DoY will still have the one that not only debuffs but is far more threatening to CV's planes."

 

All that sugestions are terrible for cvs.

- Manual drop is the best thing on cvs, you can aiming and hit your targer and make a consistent DMG, you can only make one atack like that in 2-3min so you need hit and hit hard. Not be able to drop near to ships its gonna kill the major dmg from cvs.

- Ask for a nerf on torps, he, and ap bombs.

- Ask for more AA on this game

- Ask for even more AA on this game...

 

Btw bombs are too much rng dependent for be the main focus of dmg for cvs.

[HKRevolutionOfOurTime]

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/7je82e/how_to_provide_constructive_feedback_to_game/

 

[Magic_Fighting_Tuna]

36 minutes ago, HyenaHiena said:

 

Btw bombs are too much rng dependent for be the main focus of dmg for cvs.

Unless your using the second load out for the Kaga as your single torpedo squad tends to get destroyed the minute their spotted leaving only your dive bombers to do most of the work.

[WanderingGhost]

5 minutes ago, HyenaHiena said:

">  Manual drop needs to be removed from TB's or reworked that it's arming range is more similar to autodrops because we should not be dropping torps 1km or less from a ship.
>  CV's may need to have their damaged nerfed slightly on torps and HE DB's, and definitely on the AP.
>   Re-integrate AA mod 2 and Secondary mod 2 into 1 mod again that buffs both AA and secondary range.
>  Especially with fighters no longer stomping and deleting one another or groups of attack planes, consideration of giving all BB's their own DF AA that has a 1.x or 1.1x multiplier that really just causes the bombers to be less accurate and easier to try and dodge some of the incoming attack. Cruisers or ships like DoY will still have the one that not only debuffs but is far more threatening to CV's planes."

 

All that sugestions are terrible for cvs.

- Manual drop is the best thing on cvs, you can aiming and hit your targer and make a consistent DMG, you can only make one atack like that in 2-3min so you need hit and hit hard. Not be able to drop near to ships its gonna kill the major dmg from cvs.

- Ask for a nerf on torps, he, and ap bombs.

- Ask for more AA on this game

- Ask for even more AA on this game...

 

Btw bombs are too much rng dependent for be the main focus of dmg for cvs.

Manual drop TB's - Before this was even added to the game CV's were dealing 200k+ damage to ships, and I still consistently score hits without it. just not always the insane auto delete a BB kind. Assuming they can get through the overbuffed AA I can still knockout 150k damage the team doesn't fold in 5 minutes without it. And I'm not even a great CV player, i'm maybe okay.  And it's only TB's or moving the range back because we shouldn't be able to drop close enough they can't dodge. Definitely not with the kinda damage they can do.

Secondary/AA mod 2 recombine - Aside from being another thing that wasn't a issue really in the past, this basically gives extra AA range to ships already using the sec range mod, and more sec range to anything that was using the AA mod, and if you read the other suggestions, only after we nerf the hell out of AA damage. What's giving a few ships that equip the secondary mod an AA range boost (as the others had it already anyway) of about 1 km max, when were nerfing their AA damage say 40% or more?

DF AA on BB's - The first "Maybe" if the kind of cuts to AA I'm talking about and the fact fighters no longer auto delete 30+ planes just cause they are grouped at all, leaves them too easily battered by CV's as they once were, to alleviate that. And even then it's not "more AA" unless it's the 1.1x multiplier, which is a whopping 10% increase which is on top of again, AA that has been significantly nerfed. The whole point of this DF AA consumable isn't shooting down planes like the 3x version on Cruisers, it's meant to simply give them 1-2 shots, like CV's, at panicking the planes so maybe, they aren't hit as hard and can try and dodge.

Damage nerf - While I will make no bones about my belief that AP bombs need a nerf, and have thought it since E first showed up with them, my proposal for an overall damage nerf is the biggest maybe if you read past that point. That is "okay, we can't buff AA anymore without it getting out of control again, they can't drop torps point blank at BB's anymore, AND we gave the BB's a defensive fire to reduce accuracy once or twice and CV's are doing stupidly high amounts of damage". It is the last ditch change after every other possibility has been used. This is a change only on the list if tier 6 CV's are consistently doing 150k+ damage with the noobiest of noob drivers and craziness like that after all the other changes are made.

 

Also, DB's can be effective, RNG or not. Saipan's do pretty damn well, USN DB's in particular used to be more accurate till Wargaming caved to the cries to nerf them, and have been hurt by all the AA buffs. Even in their current, fairly crappy state, I did almost 86k between the hits and resulting fires of a 168k damage game yesterday. Just under 83k with torps and resulting flooding, with only 1 manual drop I recall against a parked Takao. And that was bottom tier 14/51 managing to hit after getting through AA somehow,  27%. So, What happens if, given this was in Lexington, we increased that accuracy a bit so that 27% was not only a bit more consistent but maybe a bit higher, and DB's can actually get through even one at a time because of Nerfs to AA so you can hit, start a fire, and they have to either put those fires from the first group out, or use it and get hit again that can start more fires, maybe even more than the 1-2 you just put out.