A Criticism of WG's handling of Roma

[Phoenix_jz]

A Criticism of WG's handling of Roma

 

"Another buff Roma thread? You've gotta be kidding me?" 

Don't worry, that's not what this is. Bear with me here.

 

 

Roma is here. I’m both excited and thrilled, but yet also disappointed.

We’ve reached a very telling point with Italian ships in this game, with the premiums we have. Although I suppose this statement would work a lot better with Cesare; we’ve crossed a certain Rubicon.

I’m plenty sure if I had the power to see through screens I could see a collective eyeroll at what you think might come, so before that even comes up I’ll make myself perfectly clear;

 

This thread is in no way asking for buffs (although I'd love to see the HE swapped out for SAP). Roma has been modeled, tested, and now she’s arriving, as she is now. I’d like to thank each and every Community Contributor for their reviews on this ship and a clear picture of what it is. Roma gets nothing past this point (a least she’s not supposed to… glances at multiple post-release buffs on Cesare). What this thread is, is my opinion on how Wargaming has handled Roma. I’d like for them to consider these points when it comes to creating and balancing Italian ships for future lines and premiums, and for a potential way to see one of the most (in-country) favored of the Littorio sisters to be seen in-game alongside Roma and eventually Littorio in the Italian BB line (still over a year away at best).

 

Seeing Roma in-game is awesome.

 

However, she’s got a lot of weird stuff going on. We’ll go by, piece by piece.

 

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The Main Battery Range & Stealth Dynamic, and Granata Perforante vs. Palla

 

Main Battery Range & Stealth Dynamic

 

Main battery range (supposedly tied to the height of the rangefinders) and stealth (usually tied to the highest point on the ship) are usually related, because they’re a function of height. Ships with long range do not typically have good stealth, and ships with good stealth typically don’t have great range. This is good; it makes ships generally balanced, as a ship with high stealth but low range would absolutely suck to play, while at the same time a ship with great stealth and long range would just be ridiculously powerful.

Roma obeys this dynamic with incredible stealth for a battleship (14.94 km base, which can be reduced to a mere 11.2 km with all available upgrades), and only 18.1 km of range.

So what’s my point?

Well… this is just not a good idea. Such short range is not optimal on a tier VIII battleship, but it is manageable with such stealth. Plus, there’s always the spotter plane. The bigger issue here though, is the stealth. Battleships that are stealthier than cruisers are a bad idea, period, full stop.

Cruisers cannot get away from battleships easily, lacking alpha strike to dissuade them quickly, and speed to open the distance effectively against a 30-knot battleship. Their only weapon to not get destroyed by 15”+ guns is their stealth. However, at 11.2 km Roma is capable of sneaking up almost half of all cruisers she can meet in her MM window, from tier VI to X. Cruisers have not been in a good place for a while, and battleships like this do not help this in the slightest. Fortunately the French line seems to be a step in the other direction, having great range at the cost of stealth – but considering that all four Italian premiums up to this point have shared this low range/high stealth dynamic, this makes for a worrying indication for the Italian battleship line (granted, that’s not something we’ll see before 2019).

 

Palla vs. Granata Perforante vs. Granata Dirompente

 

One of the outstanding issues with the Roma’s main battery is that her AP is too strong and her HE is too weak. The 884.8 kg Armor-Piercing shells have a bad habit of over-penetrating their targets and end up resulting in low damage numbers from what salvoes do actually land shells (due to her bad dispersion and average sigma). Cruisers are almost impossible to land citadels on, and difficult to just get regular penetrations.

While some would say ‘just switch to HE,’ this doesn’t work either because Roma’s HE is crap.

 

Well, this is entirely historically accurate. The 381mm ‘Palla’ rounds, literally ‘Ball’ in English, was the main heavy armor-piercing shells of the Italian 381mm/50 M1934. However, the excessive penetration of these rounds was obviously known, which is why these shells were ONLY meant to be used against enemy battleships. Not cruisers, or anything else for that matter.

 

Well, that answers the question of the AP rounds. So, why were the HE rounds so bad?

Well, the HE rounds were so bad because there were no HE rounds. Italian HE shells, known as ‘Granata Dirompente’ (which loosely comes out as ‘Explosive shell’ in English), were never actually completed and used on with these guns. There was a 774 kg shell under development (with about an 80 kg bursting charge, which would give you roughly 5500 damage with a 38% fire chance). These are not the shells Roma uses in-game as HE. Obviously. So, this takes us to our third shell type.

 

Granata Perforante, or ‘Penetrating Shells.’ This was the alternate AP round Italian battleships carried to their Palla rounds, as well as the primary Armor-Piercing rounds for heavy cruisers, destroyers, and anything that happened to use the 135mm guns. The 381mm GP rounds were lighter than the Palla shells (824.3 kg) and carried a significantly larger bursting charge, and had magnitudes less penetration. At 20 km, where the Palla rounds could penetrate well over 16” of armor (406mm), the GP shells could only penetrate a little over 200mm of armor.

These were the shells designed to be used against anything that wasn’t a battleship. Any cruiser, carrier, or destroyer targeted by these guns fired the 824.3 kg Granata Perforante.

This Armor-Piercing round is what Wargaming took and used as an HE shell on Roma. Lo and behold, as it turns out, Armor-Piercing shells make really bad High-Explosive. I know, who’d have thought?

 

This is an actual penetration table from 1942 given for the 381mm Granata Perforante. 'X' is range in meters, And angle 'beta' is the angle relative to the ship being targeted.

 

The result is just ridiculous. Roma’s AP rounds behave pretty accurately, but her GP rounds act nothing like what they should, being low-damage shells that can only damage plates 63mm or thinner, and have a roll for a low fire chance relative to the caliber... because the game treats them as high-explosive.

 

What should’ve happened is one of two things;

 

 

Using Granata Perforante:

The first option (one I personally prefer as it creates a unique flavor) is to keep the GP rounds, but actually model them as Armor-Piercing, really an SAP style of shell. They would be rated for less damage than one of the Palla rounds most likely, and have considerably less penetration – almost half as much at any given range. They’d also be short fuse rounds à la Royal navy battleships – 15 milliseconds as oppose to the 33 milliseconds of most battleships.

The result is a round better suited to dealing with destroyers, cruisers, and carriers, which is exactly what this shell was meant to do. It’s very low penetration for a 381mm shell – penetration drops below 200mm at 24 km – and has a shorter fuse, making it much less likely to over-penetrate its targets.

Treating it’s damage potential the same way as any other AP round, the maximum potential damage should be 11800-11900.

This is a table illustrating what rounds are meant to be used at what ranges versus a given ship type for all major-caliber guns. Note that Palla rounds are never used against anything that isn't a battleship (there is only one exception; 320mm Palla is to be used against Baltimore-class heavy cruisers instead of GP). Also, note the clear difference between GP and GD (High Explosive) usage for the 203mm guns.

 

Using Granata Dirompente:

The second option is a conventional option. Nothing big here, all you do is use the actual HE rounds as HE as oppose to using an AP shell. The result is a slightly more powerful HE round. In strength, it’s slightly weaker than American 406mm Mk.13 HE/HC. It has 2% greater fire chance than the HE slung by American battleships at tier VIII+, but the American shells have an extra 200 maximum damage, and penetrates 4mm more armor (63 vs 67mm). It doesn’t make your HE godlike, or even that powerful. However, it does make it adequate, much more than the AP-turned-HE Roma uses now. At least this way you’ll probably consider loading it. The only hitch is, I don’t know at what velocity these shells were fired. 870mps is buzzing around my head at the time of me writing this, but I’m not sure.

 

 

My personal preference is for the GP rounds to be treated as SAP, a secondary AP for Italian battleships when the line eventually arrives. It's entirely based on historical fact for how Italian battleships operated, and creates a unique method of play compared to other battleships - you have to think when it comes down to what ammunition type will work better at a given range. GP is almost always better for beating lighter-armored ships at any range. Palla is more suited to cracking the belts of battleships. However, get close enough, and GP might be a better bet as it can avoid the threat of over penetrating battleship armor.

Plus, it cuts down on HE spam!

---

 

Anti-Aircraft Firepower

 

This is a shorty! Let’s call it the calm before the storm. Roma’s a premium; her AA suite is historically accurate. I have no qualms with the dps values of these weapons, and the ranges of her light AA weapons.

 

Her heavy AA, however…. There, we have an issue. I don’t know why we’ve got a tier VIII running around with 4.0 km ranged AA, especially considering the longer ranges of so many less capable heavy-AA weapons in game.

 

Give the 90mm/50 a maximum range of 5.0 km. It’s not game-breaking and it only makes sense. When you have weapons like the French 100/45 having 5 km range and the 90/50 has a full kilometer less range in-game... well, 

 

---

 

Protection

 

Torpedo Defense System: The Pugliese Cylinder

 

            Let’s be clear here; this system was not the disaster so many have painted it as. I’ve argued in its defense to a degree, notably here (which cites here, which is more detailed). It did the job it was meant to do adequately, and performed well compared to similar impacts on other systems.

However,

It was by no means an excellent or superb system. Wargaming, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but this applies to Cesare as well: Buffing the TDS of these ships does not make sense. When I saw the initial numbers for the TDS of these ships (19% and 25% for Cesare and Roma repsecitvely), I thought they fit quite well. Then they got buffed to 30 and 38%. Which does not make sense, especially on the Cesare. Let’s be clear about one thing: Pugliese’s effectiveness greatly depended on its volume. On the rebuilds (Cavour and Duilio classes), the effectiveness of this TDS was heavily reduced. A value around 20% makes sense versus a value on the Littorio-class that is most suited to 25-30%. The effectiveness of the TDS in real life does not justify values as high as what exists in game. The fact some of these buffs were done to Cesare after she was already released and noted as massively over-performing is something that is only more confounding.

 

 

Laminated Armor

 

Much of the deck armor of Roma’s deck was laminated. Her upper deck was not 45mm, it was 36mm laminated on 9mm plating. The magazine armor was not 162mm, it was 150mm laminated on 12mm plating.

 

What’s your point, Phoenix? 36 + 9 = 45, 150 + 12 = 162. Dude, do you even math?

 

No, I don’t math. I do ballistics, though. Mashing two plates together does not equal the strength of a single plate when it comes to ballistic resistance, and that’s a significant affect on Roma’s armor.

The following is a list armor values found on Roma, and what the effective thickness actually is (rounded to the nearest millimeter).

 

45mm upper deck: 42mm.

112mm citadel deck (machinery): 108mm

162mm citadel deck (magazines): 158mm

Outer deck abreast (machinery): 98mm

Outer deck abreast (magazines): 108mm

70mm fore battery deck: 67mm

 

While in my opinion I think this should be taken into account, I’m very much aware that it will never be a thing, as the acceptance of laminated plates into the game would result in a severe nerf to most higher-tier Soviet BBs such as the Sovetsky Soyuz-class (who used a laminated belt of 9” of Face-Hardened armor + 7” of Homogenous plating).

 

Citadel Volume & Protection

 

Roma’s citadel height is something I’m quite comfortable with in WoWs. I personally think battleships shouldn’t have have their citadels chucked below the waterline arbitrarily chopping machinery spaces in half glares at British battleships, and Roma’s citadel height is historically accurate – there wasn’t additional protection below the main deck armor.

I've even demonstrated that height before:

However, width?

That’s where we run into our issue. Technically, the real citadel wall of the Littorio was a 7-9mm bulkhead of ER steel, but that in reality isn’t going to stop much by itself as far as splinters go. However, that was also the last of several bulkheads important to Littorio’s defensive scheme, and WG has only modeled one.

What is technically the real citadel wall:

Spoiler

Two homogenous armor bulkheads acting as splinter bulkheads existed behind the main belt. The first was a 36mm plate placed 1.4 meters behind the main belt, where the 40mm bulkhead exists in-game (another thing that should be fixed).

About 4 meters behind that, however, existed a 24mm bulkhead angled back in the opposite direction that served as one of the last layers of defense. At any regular combat range, even if the main belt were penetrated, the opposing shell’s fragments would be hopefully defeated but the succession of bulkheads and finally the 7-9mm citadel wall. Effectively, the 24mm bulkhead is what we would consider a citadel wall in-game.

What the effective citadel wall was:

Spoiler

The problem is, this doesn’t exist in-game, and severely impacts Roma’s protection – it expands the citadel by 4 meters on either side, and adds an extra 3,648m³ to the citadel’s overall volume – easily about a 13% increase in the overall volume of the citadel (using the 24mm bulkhead as a boundary as opposed to the actual citadel wall). Because of the way shell fuses work in game, to give you an idea of how this effects Roma’s protection; this is the difference between a citadel and non-citadel sitting broadside 15 km from a Gneisenau, Bismarck, or Tirpitz.

This was not a part of Littorio’s citadel in real life, and nor should it be so in-game.

 

What the citadel should be (green) plus the addition space in-game (red).

 

This is an image I made a while back, showing the citadel dimensions from above. Note how it's within the bounds of the 90mm gun mounts:

This is that same image, overlaid with Roma's armor model, showing only 40mm plating. Notice how much wider the citadel is compared to the above image (actual citadel area is significantly darker than the rest):

 

Forward Armor

 

I can only guess this was the result of some confusion? The in-game model has the forward belt extended towards the bow, 130mm thick at this point. This should be 70mm.

 

---

 

 

Future Members of the class in-game

 

Battleship Littorio, in her camouflage of May 1942

 

Eventually we’re getting an Italian battleship line, and at that point we’re probably going to see the class leader Littorio at tier VIII in the tech tree position.

 

However, that still leaves one sister unaccounted for; Vittorio Veneto, the second sister of the class, who helped carry the Italian war effort at sea after the Taranto bombing until Littorio was able to rejoin the fleet. In my opinion, she’s a thousand times more qualified for a premium than Roma, but obviously WG would never give Italy a second tier VIII BB from the same class as the tier VIII premium and line ship. Well, at least I would hope so. It doesn’t stop people asking for Prince of Wales after all, or more American tier VIII BBs...

 

Well, Vittorio Veneto’s still got a good shot at being a premium in game regardless.

The twist?

 

At tier IX.

 

Whaaaaat????

 

No, you heard me right. America has Missouri as her tier IX freemimum. Japan’s answer, Musashi, is coming in to replace her.

So… why can’t Italy get Vittorio Veneto someday for this slot?

 

While I would’ve called bull on this idea beforehand, after seeing how Roma performs in-game with her current interpretation of her stats… I think this is quite viable.

 

How? - AA

 

The result of being a tier IX would have to be a mandatory AA suite upgrade – essentially something of a ‘what if Italy was successful in keeping her post-war.

The 90mm AA would be extended out to 5.0 km, which still wouldn’t be great, but this would be supplemented by the Bofors and Oerlikon love typical of Italian ships post-war. The overall AA output shouldn’t be anything better than Allied BBs, but it should be enough to make her not an freebie for high tier CVs compared to other BBs.

Actually, I'm a fool. I didn't even consider the existence of Musashi and her woeful AA battery. With this in mind, I think any a-historical upgrade would not be necessary. The only thing that would need to be touched is the range of the 90mm AA (I'm a broken record on these things), 4.5-5.0 km would be a lot more necessary.

 

How? – Main Battery

 

The main battery of Vittorio Veneto would also see an improvement over Roma’s to work at tier IX. The AP performance is already easily adequate, and the secondary shell type would easily work if WG either uses the actual HE shells developed for the class, or models the second shell as the AP it actually was.

From that point I’d recommend keeping the 30 second reload, but instead increase accuracy – perhaps a sigma as high as 2.0, or maybe a slightly improved dispersion line like that of what the British premium battleships Warspite and Hood enjoy compared to their tech tree counterparts. Perhaps both.

 

How – Propulsion

 

So, here’s the thing. In-game, Roma’s rated for 128,200 hp, and 30.1 knots. Mot sources will put the Littorio-class at the same power output and a speed ranging from 30 to 31 knots.

This is not the maximum power of this battleship’s class. In reality, while the aforementioned value was generally used as the maximum during the war in order to avoid stressing the engines, the real maximum output of these ships was 160,000 hp (propeller speed is 270 rpm as opposed to 250 rpm when operating at just under 130,000 hp). The powerplant could be run at this speed safely, and was done so, but only on single shafts for emergency maneuvers. On Littorio’s trials, at a lighter displacement (a few thousand tons) than full wartime loads, it was judged that making just under the actual maximum power at such a displacement the ship would’ve made 32.2 knots.

As if that wasn’t enough, however, the ship also had a built-in system that allowed it to raise this maximum power output by another 12%, although this was specifically for emergency use.

So, why not give Vittorio Veneto her full power and a top speed for 31.5-32 knots, and then throw on a speed boost of 8-12%? Speed boost makes more sense for an Italian ship (who actually ran ships over their rated power output frequently) versus the French who, meanwhile… didn’t. Yet they’re getting them on their BBs, and have an even more powerful version on their cruisers. And will get them on their destroyers too, by the looks of things. You get a one CL that can pass 35 knots, a few DD classes that can hit 37 knots, and then two that hit 40, and suddenly your nation is the speedboats nation. Meanwhile, if you all your DDs running at 38 knots and your slowest cruisers running at 34 knots and historical precedence for running your powerplants over their rated output, you get nothing...

 

How – Protection

 

The last area to go over is protection. The obvious pick would be to fix the size of the citadel.

However, there’s also another area in which her armor is lacking compared to real life… her main belt. In game, her composite belt (280mm KC, 250mm Cellulite, 70mm OD) is represented by 375mm of armor, which is quite tough… but not as tough as the armor scheme was in real life. This was an armor scheme that made Littorio capable of deflecting her own 15” shells at 16 km – equivalent to about 450mm of armor as a conservative estimate. While obviously sticking a 450mm+ belt on the ship would just be ridiculous, something around 420mm would still make the ship very hard to crack (you can bounce Yamato shells at 15 km angled at 45º with such a belt) - and keep in mind you've got low hitpoints for a tier IX BB.

 

The only other aspect of Vittorio Veneto that would bear changing relative to Roma would be the stealth/range aspect, a longer range (perhaps closer to 20 km? Still short range for a tier VIII+ BB) at the cost of concealment would work best.

 

The result is a better Roma more suited for tier IX. Your AA will still be sub-par for the tier, you’ll have tier IX MM, a hard cap on your DPM because of the damage – still only 15” shells with RoF being stuck at 2 rpm/30 seconds. You’ve still got bugger all for secondaries. However, your penetration is still more than enough for the tier, you’re probably going to hit more reliably than Roma, your armor makes you even tougher than before, and you’ve got heighted speed and thus maneuverability.

 

It’s another freemium to join the line up at the top. After all, why let the Americans and Japanese have all the fun?

 

[mfumukoskoldpadda]

[pmgaudio]

[Kaa1elWoWS]

[OstwindFlakpanzer]

well stated.  +1

[TheGreyGhost91]

I like it. Very well thought out. 

[xDiaboliquex]

Dang, son. Very well done. +1

[rutilius83]

outstanding post sir! 

very well thought out and researched. I wish they would model the naval rifles and armor more on what was really installed on the ships. it would give them many more points they could use for balance problems than the ones they use now. 

[JToney3449]

WG should so hire you.  Absolutely fantastic write up, well done.

[Battlecruiser_NewZealand]

That's... a lot of text. 

Ultimately, the Roma has a lot of little things wrong that don't, by themselves, render the ship as a disappointment. However, collectively, they seem to needle a great number of people. My guess is, fixing even 1-2 of them would shut everyone up.

[SkaerKrow]

Quite a passion project that you’ve put together. It’s very impressive. 

The forum has convinced me that I’m in the wrong for liking Roma as she is. She’s an awful, ahistorical ship that never should have been released, I guess. 

[kerensky914]

Great write up, lots of work and research.

My only real issue:  First you say that Roma "... is capable of sneaking up almost half of all cruisers she can meet ... ".  OK, that's a good point by itself.  Your next point is that "Cruisers are almost impossible to land citadels on, and difficult to just get regular penetrations."   Then why is the first point a problem?  It doesn't do much good to sneak up on cruisers if all you do is overpen them.

It seems pretty clear that these two traits were designed to balance one another.  Now whether or not that was successful is entirely debatable.

[kerensky914]

14 minutes ago, SkaerKrow said:

The forum has convinced me that I’m in the wrong for liking Roma as she is. She’s an awful, ahistorical ship that never should have been released, I guess. 

The forum is convinced that *every* ship is completely wrong and utter crap.  Except when they're convinced that they're overpowered and game-breaking.  Often both at once.

[Lord_Magus]

1 hour ago, Phoenix_jz said:

My personal preference is for the GP rounds to be treated as SAP, a secondary AP for Italian battleships when the line eventually arrives. It's entirely based on historical fact for how Italian battleships operated, and creates a unique method of play compared to other battleships - you have to think when it comes down to what ammunition type will work better at a given range. GP is almost always better for beating lighter-armored ships at any range. Palla is more suited to cracking the belts of battleships. However, get close enough, and GP might be a better bet as it can avoid the threat of over penetrating battleship armor.

Given that WG loves having "national flavor" for lines and this would be a flavor with actual historical basis, so I really hope they go with this for the Italian BBs.

Certainly more interesting than completely artificial flavors like German high-tier BBs and mid to high-tier DDs having hydro (or more accurately that other DDs don't have hydro), French everything getting super-speed boost, British CLs getting magic rudders, smoke, heal and no HE, Pan-Asia DDs getting deepwater torps, etc.

Plus it would make for the first BB line where ammo selection is truly essential. On most BBs you can get away with just always firing AP and for British BBs you can get away with being a braindead HE spammer. But if Italian BBs end up with AP and SAP, you'll definitely want to switch to SAP when shooting cruisers in order to not just get all overpens.

1 hour ago, Phoenix_jz said:

Her heavy AA, however…. There, we have an issue. I don’t know why we’ve got a tier VIII running around with 4.0 km ranged AA, especially considering the longer ranges of so many less capable heavy-AA weapons in game.

Give the 90mm/50 a maximum range of 5.0 km. It’s not game-breaking and it only makes sense. When you have weapons like the French 100/45 having 5 km range and the 90/50 has a full kilometer less range in-game... well, 

Or at least the same 4.5km as the German 105mm/65.

[dionkraft]

NICE presentation and GREAT explanation. BRAVO 2 U!!!

[SFM_Hobb3s]

The contradiction of stealth on the Roma is that it should never be used to sneak up on cruisers.  Getting that close to cruisers with its current shell state is a bad move for any Roma captain.  Your best bet, and its not a great one, is to switch to HE immediately if you are forced to engage cruisers at close range.  Your AP will only overpen them regardless of their angle otherwise.  

 

And this comes to another point.  The performance stats of the Roma will soon take a dive as cruisers everywhere exploit this weakness to yolo into the nearest Roma for a free kill.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

This *IS* a buff thread, just with a lot of words.  Roma doesn't need additional help.

[Phoenix_jz]

23 minutes ago, SkaerKrow said:

Quite a passion project that you’ve put together. It’s very impressive. 

The forum has convinced me that I’m in the wrong for liking Roma as she is. She’s an awful, ahistorical ship that never should have been released, I guess. 

 

Don't get me wrong; As a ship in the game, I enjoy Roma. I don't consider her a bad ship. However, it's in the context of the actual ship itself that it's representing, where I have my issues. 

 

8 minutes ago, kerensky914 said:

Great write up, lots of work and research.

My only real issue:  First you say that Roma "... is capable of sneaking up almost half of all cruisers she can meet ... ".  OK, that's a good point by itself.  Your next point is that "Cruisers are almost impossible to land citadels on, and difficult to just get regular penetrations."   Then why is the first point a problem?  It doesn't do much good to sneak up on cruisers if all you do is overpen them.

It seems pretty clear that these two traits were designed to balance one another.  Now whether or not that was successful is entirely debatable.

 

The point of her being stealthy is a criticism of the idea of stealthy BBs in general, and Italian battleships so far have set a dangerous precedent. Cesare does the same thing Roma does, after all, with being able to sneak up on cruisers, and she doesn't have the same over penetration issues as Roma. If this is going to be part of the Italian BB flavor (it seems better stealth than the ship's size would suggest is part of an Italian flavor, almost every premium so far having better stealth than they ought to), it's a dangerous precedent, especially when you consider only tier VIII+ will have to worry about over penetration issues (there's no way in hell the Model 1934 is ever being used on a ship below tier VIII).

 

I do see your point - they get away with this on Roma because of the extreme power of her palla - and the cost is a rather frustrating gameplay experience, which is probably one of the bigger issues with Roma as a whole in-game. She's a decent ship in-game as her extreme stealth makes up for many of her other failings - but her various attributes contradict each other. Great TDS and stealth lets you be aggressive, but the pitiful secondary battery and high-powered AP makes her bad at this. These two factors, plus the poor AA, means she's better suited for longer-ranged combat - but her range is short.

One set of attributes here is fairly true to reality. One is pretty much entirely done by WG's whim.

I don't want another Cesare, but there better ways to balance this ship for a more comfortable experience for your average player - ways that better align with what the ship was designed to do. Great stealth at the cost of range run contrary to this - and that's a conscious decision by WG. If you treat Roma like any other ship, you get a concealment & maximum range that's about that of Bismarck/Tirpitz. It's just... awkward.

[Phoenix_jz]

1 minute ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

This *IS* a buff thread, just with a lot of words.  Roma doesn't need additional help.

Anndddddd in which part did I ask for a buff?

I very specifically stated I was not asking for any buffs of any kind.

 

I am simply stating what my qualms were with the ship, in the hope that such a situation would not be repeated whenever Italian BBs as a line arrive.

At no point did I say 'shrink Roma's citadel.'

At no point did I ask for sigma/dispersion buffs.

Nor did I ask for them to buff her AA.

 

If this was a buff thread, than it was a terrible one because I asked for a ton of nerfs as well - Half of which are to this ship's biggest selling points.

[Dr_Venture]

Honestly I would rather see the two types of AP shells...screw HE....HE is for scrubs. 

[Veasel]

10 minutes ago, HazeGrayUnderway said:

This *IS* a buff thread, just with a lot of words.  Roma doesn't need additional help.

Ship WR's are only relevant when weighted against the WRs of the players using them, we don't have access to those, only WG internally.

Early WR or newly released ships, especially premiums tend to be skewed higher because of the user base. It's just too early to tell she compares to the other T8 battleship statistically, only Wargaming will have that data currently.

I wouldn't be jumping to any conclusions on whether she needs buff or nerf at least for another month with publicly available information.

 

 

[SparvieroVV]

I know I'm only now closing in on 15 games however I've started to accept what has been done.

 

My only thought on the citadel is that the ammunition feeds from the secondaries are being considered. However even in this case the Richelieu has an odd muffin top and skinny bottom to its citadel. So why would both ships have different approaches. Which brings one annoyance. The 152/55 turrets get knocked out way too easily. :p

Stealth is a lost argument. Which means crazy dispersion. As stated elsewhere while stealth is amazing, it must be used to maintain mid range. Getting in close is counter intuitive for the most part. Remain 10+ km. The salvos are frustrating however it is a pretty steady ~30% instead of one missed salvo vs one perfect salvo. My understanding was the main fire director is the calculation point for stealth?

I'd love to see the GP round as it stands right now I don't even switch to HE. Better to take the overpen damage. Which leads to another point. Italian HE was designed to make nice large splinters to cause much soft damage. Yet high HE content shells get the large splash damage AND burn chance. If WG goes with the possible HE round it has the benefit for WG of being a slower round. So would that still be penalized with 1.8 sigma and wide dispersion? 

 

Great post, gib Vittorio Veneto! 

 

[Veasel]

20 minutes ago, Dr_Venture said:

Honestly I would rather see the two types of AP shells...screw HE....HE is for scrubs. 

I actually really like the idea of multiple AP types.  

I did end up picking up the ROMA I don't mind the dispersion, it's not actually that much worse than the Germans, and I've always been able to live with that.   But those overpens!  Shooting cruisers and DDs is an exercise in pure frustration.  Even shooting the all or nothing battleships (North Carolina, Monarch etc)  is frustrating, the only time your getting decent salvo's is against the Germans or RNG makes all the shell magically converge on the belt.

Whether she needs buffs or nerfs, I can't say.  I've not played enough game to form and opinion.   But I do like the OPs ideas,  the HE is utter garbage and the AP is often frustrating to an extreme level (Though alternatively maybe fuse times or fusing threshold could also elevate these issues.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

15 minutes ago, Veasel said:

Ship WR's are only relevant when weighted against the WRs of the players using them, we don't have access to those, only WG internally.

Early WR or newly released ships, especially premiums tend to be skewed higher because of the user base. It's just too early to tell she compares to the other T8 battleship statistically, only Wargaming will have that data currently.

I wouldn't be jumping to any conclusions on whether she needs buff or nerf at least for another month with publicly available information.

 

 

Oh, there's PLENTY of people already going around demanding buffs for Roma, even those going flat out lying and saying she's doing terribly.  A quick look at stats across the the servers show she's doing very well.  I agree, the stats need time to average out, but the floodgates have already opened with buff demands for this ship.  She doesn't need it.  People really just want a Tier VIII Caesar when the game doesn't need a repeat of that.

[kerensky914]

1 minute ago, Veasel said:

I wouldn't be jumping to any conclusions on whether she needs buff or nerf at least for another month with publicly available information.

WG would probably prefer 3 months, and they've proven repeatedly that they don't change premiums unless they have no choice - they'd rather just take it off sale permanently. :shrug:

21 minutes ago, Phoenix_jz said:

The point of her being stealthy is a criticism of the idea of stealthy BBs in general, and Italian battleships so far have set a dangerous precedent.

I wouldn't mind it if WG just set an arbitrary minimum visibility for BBs of, say, 14km?  (just a random distance, maybe it's larger)  Take all the skills and camo you want, but it never goes below that cap. 

28 minutes ago, Phoenix_jz said:

Cesare does the same thing Roma does, after all, with being able to sneak up on cruisers, and she doesn't have the same over penetration issues as Roma.

True, but she does have other issues - penetration issues against higher-tier BBs especially.  But your point is well-made.