Dev Blog - New Commander Halsey/Campaign

[renegadestatuz]

ST. New commander.

William Halsey is added to the game as a unique commander. He has both talents and improved skills.

Expert Loader skill
-75% (up from -50%) to reload time when shell type is switched

Expert Marksman skill
+3 (up from +2.5) deg/s to traverse speed of guns with a caliber up to 139 mm
+1 (up from +0.7) deg/s to traverse speed of guns with a caliber above 139 mm

Hit hard! talent
After receiving the Confederate achievement, the ship under Halsey's command gets following bonuses:
-20% to the main battery reload time
-20% to plane service time
-10% to torpedo reload time

Hit fast! talent
After receiving the Double Strike achievement, the ship under Halsey's command gets -10% to base detection radius, which can accumulate if a player receives the achievement multiple times during a battle.

The ship that William Halsey is assigned to will have a unique pennant and colored tracers for the main battery shells. Upon receiving achievements that activate the talents, fireworks will be launched from the ship.

Localization is underway.

ST. New campaign.

New permanent campaign "Hit hard! Hit Fast! Hit often!" is added to the game. The campaign tells about the military career of Admiral William Halsey Jr.

Localization is underway.

 

[Sventex]

Oy, more campaign grinding...I still haven't gotten Yamamoto because tier 10 games are so painfully boring.

[chewonit]

3 minutes ago, Sventex said:

Oy, more campaign grinding...I still haven't gotten Yamamoto because tier 10 games are so painfully boring.

I don't remember there's any T10 only mission. Plus you can just redo other ones.

[Erebthoron]

More important: Guadalcanal campaign including night battles.

[Sventex]

8 minutes ago, chewonit said:

I don't remember there's any T10 only mission. Plus you can just redo other ones.

When I play a tier 8-10 ship, so often I end up in a endgame map either either tier 10 ships, or a tier 9-7 the still plays the same, meaning not much action happens.

As for redos that is why I'm still in the middle of it, spamming the 1 star exp task and credits task takes bloody forever.  Mission 3 alone requires you earn 12,000,000 credits and 190,000 exp if you want to use Battleships.

[DeliciousFart]

I must say that I'm not a fan of the "dynamically" boosted skills on Halsey, it seems far too strong. Confederate is not exactly difficult to achieve, and I have five times the number of Confederate as I do Kraken. Furthermore, from my experience, I often obtain the Confederate award during long matches where the outcome can swing either way; I've gotten plenty of Confederate medals during losses. The reload boost from Halsey will have too much influence on the outcome for these kinds of prolonged matches, I can't see how it's not a balance problem.

Frankly, I had hoped that these "dynamics" buffs would just be a one-time thing with Yamamoto but it appears that WG has doubled down on it with Halsey and even made the buffs much easier to obtain. I really can't see how this is a healthy addition to the game.

[Sventex]

6 minutes ago, DeliciousFart said:

I must say that I'm not a fan of the "dynamically" boosted skills on Halsey, it seems far too strong. Confederate is not exactly difficult to achieve, and I have five times the number of Confederate as I do Kraken. Furthermore, from my experience, I often obtain the Confederate award during long matches where the outcome can swing either way; I've gotten plenty of Confederate medals during losses. The reload boost from Halsey will have too much influence on the outcome for these kinds of prolonged matches, I can't see how it's not a balance problem.

Frankly, I had hoped that these "dynamics" buffs would just be a one-time thing with Yamamoto but it appears that WG has doubled down on it with Halsey and even made the buffs much easier to obtain. I really can't see how this is a healthy addition to the game.

Then again, the USN has been languishing in power creep.

[DeliciousFart]

16 minutes ago, Sventex said:

Then again, the USN has been languishing in power creep.

How so?

[Xlap]

3 minutes ago, DeliciousFart said:

I must say that I'm not a fan of the "dynamically" boosted skills on Halsey, it seems far too strong. Confederate is not exactly difficult to achieve, and I have five times the number of Confederate as I do Kraken.

Frankly, I had hoped that these "dynamics" buffs would just be a one-time thing with Yamamoto but it appears that WG has doubled down on it with Halsey and even made the buffs much easier to obtain. I really can't see how this is a healthy addition to the game.

This, confederate is relatively easy to get. And the bônus is huge. So far Halsey seems OP.

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

46 minutes ago, Sventex said:

if you want to use Battleships.

This is why I diversified the ship lines I play after North Cape. That was a wake-up call.

That being said, I am NOT looking forward to the Tier 8+ limited missions any way you slice it. T7 and T8 destroyers and battleships are a LONG way off for me; doing it with an Edinburgh (and eventually a Cleveland) in the meantime is going to be interesting.

[Sventex]

7 minutes ago, DeliciousFart said:

How so?

The competitiveness of the New York, New Mexico, Colorado, North Carolina and Iowa have fallen with each new BB line introduced, and the Pensacola, New Orleans and Baltimore haven't been that competitive since nearly the start.  These ships were balanced around a meta that existed back in beta that has since changed.  Also see Midway nerf.

[RedSeaBear]

I have two questions; Does this campaign let me mount two flags on my USN ships? And will I be able to change the color of some camos?

I also need to figure out what ship a captain like this would work with. I'm thinking a USN DD or maybe a unreleased USN T10 cruiser. 

[DeliciousFart]

2 minutes ago, Sventex said:

The competitiveness of the New York, New Mexico, Colorado, North Carolina and Iowa have fallen with each new BB line introduced, and the Pensacola, New Orleans and Baltimore haven't been that competitive since nearly the start.  These ships were balanced around a meta that existed back in beta that has since changed.  Also see Midway nerf.

The solution to the problem of power creep isn't more power creep and certainly not something as drastic or potentially overpowered as Halsey.

[Reymu]

Halsey will only be OP if confederate is easy to get with him commanding. Realistically, that award is much harder to get than it sounds, you need time and opportunity to damage 6 cruisers and DDs--and especially w/ stealthy DDs, that's difficult, more so if they have BBs backing them. Double Strike is a lottery to obtain anyway, so I'm not concerned about it unless people w/ Halsey put him on Midway.

Then again, I've seen Confederate in fewer than 20% of my matches.

For me, Halsey would be best as a BB captain. Cruisers (excluding DM) benefit from the improve EL, and the need of Confederate to buff plane rearm time makes CV career a bit dicey. The DDs need Confederate (difficult w/out torp hits) to get the torp reload buff.

[Sventex]

2 minutes ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

This is why I diversified the ship lines I play after North Cape. That was a wake-up call.

That being said, I am NOT looking forward to the Tier 8+ limited missions any way you slice it. T7 and T8 destroyers and battleships are a LONG way off for me; doing it with an Edinburgh (and eventually a Cleveland) in the meantime is going to be interesting.

I've tried using my Fletcher for the tasks but it doesn't help.  Trying to spot torps mean putting myself in radar range and reducing my life expectancy.  The 25 capture flags are a sick joke and 100k dmg solely to Battleship is a little too rng dependent for my tastes.  I also have no way to track damage via spotting so that task was abandoned.  Once a Battleship opens up at 25km, I'm not the one spotting it anymore right?

[Jazzyblaster]

Thanks for posting!

[Sventex]

1 minute ago, DeliciousFart said:

The solution to the problem of power creep isn't more power creep and certainly not something as drastic or potentially overpowered as Halsey.

Isn't it though?  You make old lines competitive with buffs, or you nerf all the new ships to compensate.

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

2 minutes ago, Sventex said:

I've tried using my Fletcher for the tasks but it doesn't help.  Trying to spot torps mean putting myself in radar range and reducing my life expectancy.  The 25 capture flags are a sick joke and 100k dmg solely to Battleship is a little too rng dependent for my tastes.  I also have no way to track damage via spotting so that task was abandoned.  Once a Battleship opens up at 25km, I'm not the one spotting it anymore right?

Noted and acknowledged.

You'll be pleased to know that a damage-by-spotting counter is becoming available in update 0.7.4, as is a potential-damage counter. These tasks will be easier now, for whatever that may be worth.

[DeliciousFart]

Just now, Sventex said:

Isn't it though?  You make old lines competitive with buffs, or you nerf all the new ships to compensate.

New ships wouldn't be "nerfed" if they weren't designed from the start to include gimmicks that WG seems to be increasingly fond of.

 

Furthermore, I don't think the power creep for USN is as pervasive as you believe. It does exist and the worst hit are the T4-7 Standard battleships and mid-tier cruisers, but NC and Iowa are still very competitive and the Montana remains the battleship of choice in the competitive environment (we'll see how Republique and its strong AA shapes up in the upcoming competitive tournament), while the Gearing remains a staple of competitive teams as well. Admittedly, the competitive meta is considerably different from random battles and tend to play to the Montana's and Gearing's strengths, but the point still stands.

[Sventex]

1 minute ago, DeliciousFart said:

New ships wouldn't be "nerfed" if they weren't designed from the start to include gimmicks that WG seems to be increasingly fond of.

 

Furthermore, I don't think the power creep for USN is as pervasive as you believe. It does exist and the worst hit are the T4-7 Standard battleships and mid-tier cruisers, but NC and Iowa are still very competitive and the Montana remains the battleship of choice in the competitive environment (we'll see how Republique and its strong AA shapes up in the upcoming competitive tournament), while the Gearing remains a staple of competitive teams as well. Admittedly, the competitive meta is considerably different from random battles and tend to play to the Montana's and Gearing's strengths, but the point still stands.

I never spoke to the pervasiveness of the power creed, only that it was there, but let's talk about that shall we?  The USN DDs are certainly good, but many of the CVs, BBs, and CAs are lagging below average.

New York is bottom at winrate, New Mexico is bottom at winrate, Colorado is bottom at winrate, North Carolina is bottom at winrate, Iowa is second to last at winrate, and Montana is bottom at winrate.

Omaha is 7th place out of 9 on winrate, Cleveland is 11th out of 14.  Not counting ARP, Pensacola is bottom at winrate.  New Orleans is bottom at winrate, Baltimore is bottom at winrate, and only Des Moines managed a decent rating at 2nd place in winrate.

[DeliciousFart]

2 minutes ago, Sventex said:

I never spoke to the pervasiveness of the power creed, only that it was there, but let's talk about that shall we?  The USN DDs are certainly good, but many of the CVs, BBs, and CAs are lagging below average.

New York is bottom at winrate, New Mexico is bottom at winrate, Colorado is bottom at winrate, North Carolina is bottom at winrate, Iowa is second to last at winrate, and Montana is bottom at winrate.

Omaha is 7th place out of 9 on winrate, Cleveland is 11th out of 14.  Not counting ARP, Pensacola is bottom at winrate.  New Orleans is bottom at winrate, Baltimore is bottom at winrate, and only Des Moines managed a decent rating at 2nd place in winrate.

I don't think looking at average win rates in random battles provide a fair picture. For the most part, American ships have a steep learning curve but fairly high skill ceiling, so they tend to punish poor play while rewarding good ones. This means that average and inexperienced players tend to perform poorly in them and drag down their performance. Again, this is why you see ships like Benson, NC, Montana, Gearing, and Des Moines as staples of competitive tournaments even with all these new additions. That being said, I do agree that mid-tier American ships are hit the hardest by power creep and can certainly use some help.

 

Furthermore, I'm not opposed to buffs for certain ships to let it better adapt to the current meta, but I prefer something more gradual. For example, moderately buff the NC's TDS to something comparable to the Bismarck (22%), nothing too crazy. Or slightly improve the New Mexico's sigma or the New York's extremity armor. But I don't believe in adding gimmicks.

[Xlap]

28 minutes ago, Sventex said:

The competitiveness of the New York, New Mexico, Colorado, North Carolina and Iowa have fallen with each new BB line introduced, and the Pensacola, New Orleans and Baltimore haven't been that competitive since nearly the start.  These ships were balanced around a meta that existed back in beta that has since changed.  Also see Midway nerf.

Wut? NC and Iowa are some of the best BB  at their tier, Colorado got a nice buff recently, NM is fine. Only NY is a bad ship, but all lines have bad ships. The USN cruiser line is getting a rework. And CVs as a whole are a mess. 

[Sventex]

7 minutes ago, Xlap said:

Wut? NC and Iowa are some of the best BB  at their tier, Colorado got a nice buff recently, NM is fine. Only NY is a bad ship, but all lines have bad ships. The USN cruiser line is getting a rework. And CVs as a whole are a mess. 

That's merely an opinion.  The Iowa in the last 2 weeks has scored a 46.97% winrate on the NA server and was 2nd worst at average damage and winrate.  The North Carolina has scored 49.28% winrate (dead last) and it also scored the worst average damage.  At tiers 5-10 for both the USN BB line and CA line, only the Des Moines rises above the halfway point.

[Xlap]

9 minutes ago, Sventex said:

That's merely an opinion.  The Iowa in the last 2 weeks has scored a 46.97% winrate on the NA server and was 2nd worst at average damage and winrate.  The North Carolina has scored 49.28% winrate (dead last) and it also scored the worst average damage.  At tiers 5-10 for both the USN BB line and CA line, only the Des Moines rises above the halfway point.

This is very relative, UNS ships ar some of the most played ships, which means a lot of potatoes playing them and dragging th stats down. NC was one of the best, if not the best BB last ranked season. Iowa is a special case because the good players left Iowa and moved to Missouri. Montana was to go to BB for CW. In competitive scenario USN ships are some of the best ships to have. 

[gmrbull]

First blood for Yamamoto isn’t hard to get either and that gives that captain an extra consumable.