RESULTS OF CLAN SEASON IX: WARRIOR'S PATH

[Hapa_Fodder]

A message from our Devs:

https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/40

-Hapa

[Ranari]

While I am a pro-CV player, it's good that you are communicating to the population that you are listening to player's feedback regarding their distaste for the class.  That is important.

[AJTP89]

Good to see WG acknowledging the problems CVs caused. Hopefully this helps them see the issues with CVs in other gamemodes as well. Also they acknowledged the problems with AA (or rather the lack of AA). Whether they do anything about this remains to be seen.

T6 clan battles should be interesting, will be fun to see how things develop without the massive firepower of T10.

[Morzog]

  "With the lack of radar and no heal for cruisers..." The Graf Spee cruiser they gave away in dock has heal...why they say T6 cruisers have no heal?

...looking at British cruisers which ALSO have heal.

 

Edit: Now that WG has publicly admitted that CV play in CB's is much different that CB's play in Randoms...who would like to bet they will still stay with their "excuse" for not giving us FREE commander respecs for CB's?

[lloyd1701]

1 minute ago, Morzog said:

  "With the lack of radar and no heal for cruisers..." The Graf Spee cruiser they gave away in dock has heal...why they say T6 cruisers have no heal?

T6: World of River Plate since the cruisers that have a heal i.e. Spee and RN CA/CL's have a ridiculous advantage over those that don't in this mode.

And WG is indulging in wishful thinking in saying T6 CV's won't be as overbearing as T10 since there is no Kremlin equivalent at T6. 

[tfcas119]

it's great to see WG has actually for the most part agreed about CVs in clan battles being a disaster, and they are going to try to fix it, even if the best option is just get keep CVs out of competitive 

T6 looks very interesting for a clan season, as CVs aren't as stupidly broken versus the other tiers, and removing T-61 and Izmail, every ship at this tier is pretty balanced compared to each other. Although I do think cruiser play is gonna suck unless you have either a heal (only 4 do) smoke (only 4 do) range over 16km (only 3 can really say that) or smoke and heal (only Leander and London have both)

[KilljoyCutter]

Quote

Many players note the weakness of AA defense and/or the consumable “Defensive AA Fire”. We recognize that some improvements in the AA mechanics are possible. It's too early to talk about the details, but we will be happy to share them with you as they are developed.

 

Feedback for the devs on this subject:  

No ship should be helpless against any other type of ship, and no ship should be immune.  There needs to be a minimum AA efficacy for any ship that can face CVs in battle to prevent CV pilots from having easy cost-free targets.  Ships with very poor or no AA firepower need to be improved in this regard, without cost to other aspects, even if it means adding non-historical AA suits to those ships.  

The scaling of AA damage and aircraft HP between tiers is too steep.  At present, a tier 8 carrier can ignore most tier 6 AA, but has to avoid most tier 10 AA... while most tier 8 surface ships can brush off tier 6 aircraft, but struggle to shoot down tier 10 aircraft.   One of the strengths of WOWS compared to WOT and other games is that the tier gaps aren't insurmountable and are overshadowed by the player's decisions and actions, at least between the surface ships -- that needs to extend to the carrier-surface interactions.  

Too much of the AA damage is now tied up in flak bursts, and the flak bursts are too predictable.  One of the reasons given for the CV Rework was to reduce the skill gap -- yet this aspect of AA means that there is a huge gap in the gameplay experience and combat effectiveness of CV players based on how much of the flak damage they can avoid while making their attack run.   More of the damage needs to be moved to the continuous auras, to be reliably imposed on the CV player as a cost for attacking that ship.  Every attack run should be a risk-reward decision for the CV player, there should be no way to avoid all/most AA damage, there should be no free lunch.  

AFT should have its range boosting effect restored, and the flak damage bonus removed.   At the very least, it should boost the range of small and medium AA mounts, making them more effective by extending the distance and the time across which AA affects the attacking aircraft, and allowing ships with weak large mounts (and thus few or zero flak bursts) to meaningfully upgrade their AA efficacy.  This would be especially helpful in the tier 4 to 6 range where many ships face a large number of carriers but flak is far weaker on average.  (There is an argument that can be made to not have AFT boost the range on large/DP mounts, as this would give some ships massive AA zones.)  

AA mounts need to repair/regen.  Aircraft regen over time, AA should regen over time.  Or, set it up so that DCP and RP restore damaged but not destroyed AA mounts.  Something needs to prevent ships from being totally stripped of AA towards the end of long, HE-soaked battles.  

Finally, please do not try to make AA control or use any more manual than it already is.  Surface ship players do not need another aspect to micromanage, on top of avoiding enemy fire, avoiding torps, avoiding islands, avoiding collisions, watching the minimap, lining up their own shots, etc.  Add in the possible interactions with submarines upcoming (a whole other issue), and having to manually control AA fire would become task saturation.   Real warships had crews in the 100s, the ships in this game have a crew of one.   

 

Edit -- adding more items: 

Rework MAAF to be worth 4 points, and not a downgrade on most ships... still pondering ideas on this one.  Need suggestions.  Right now MAAF is a useless waste of points.  

Restore the aiming malus against aircraft while inside the envelope of active DFAA. 

Tweak rocket attacks to be reliable but less devastating when striking DDs -- perhaps by making the dispersion more circular, and adjusting to a greater number of lower damage rockets, making some hits on small ships more likely but less damaging.  -- WG appears to be working on this part, at least.  

 

 

[Spyde]

So WG gave up on T10 CB. 

 

Some changes look kinda bad.. some are ok.... Weather effects.. Should not be in CB...

[eagle_lance]

It's a little disappointing that all the feedback was heard, yet the next season will include cv's. Something like an alternation of 1 season with cv's and the next season without would satisfy most people. It's nice to see that they at least acknowledged that overall the interaction between both carriers and surface ships and specifically destroyers and carriers is in an awful place right now. I for one will be interested to see the kind of ideas that would be put in place to alleviate these issues. 

[Digital_Wind]

DFAA is broken.

Hydroacustic search doesn't stop the torps, just gives you more of a heads up.  Radar doesn't delete destroyers, just gives you a chance to shoot at them.  DFAA shouldn't be it's current insta-death via +50% machine gun/+300%flak damage...+50% from priority sector.....,  it should widen the drop circle like it did in the past.  This would put DFAA on par with other consumables.  It would be nice if it also granted unlimited priority sector time.  But 6000-8000 dmg PER FLAK when planes have 2k HP and the bubble can hit ALL the planes at once.  Come on.  DFAA is stupid broken.

[KilljoyCutter]

3 minutes ago, Digital_Wind said:

DFAA is broken.

Hydroacustic search doesn't stop the torps, just gives you more of a heads up.  Radar doesn't delete destroyers, just gives you a chance to shoot at them.  DFAA shouldn't be it's current insta-death via +50% machine gun/+300%flak damage...+50% from priority sector.....,  it should widen the drop circle like it did in the past.  This would put DFAA on par with other consumbales.  It would be nice if it also granted unlimited priotority sector time.  But 6000-8000 dmg PER FLAK when planes have 2k HP and the bubble can hit ALL the planes at once.  Come on.  DFAA s stupid broken.

The problem is, all that boosted flak damage is utterly avoidable by CV players who have cultivated the skill to do so. 

So some CV players have their aircraft butchered and say "AA is OP", while others come away with a mostly intact squadron and cause the other players to say "AA is useless".  

(Also, DFAA boosted damage AND inflated the drop area back in the RTS-like days.) 

 

 

[Ouiji_Apologist]

So weird how all these problems emerged after introducing one particular class. Man, I wonder what the solution to these issues would be. 

[Gaumut]

55 minutes ago, USMC_Coop_Main1975 said:

So weird how all these problems emerged after introducing one particular class. Man, I wonder what the solution to these issues would be. 

We should remove DDs, nobody play them anymore anyway.

Nice to finally move away from T10. And hope good changes will follow.

[MudRaker227]

I like how they spoke about the over-effectiveness of specific ships for specific actions, but successfully overlooked the lack of Harugumo effectiveness (due to full pen mechanic) in same battles.

Maybe it's time they listened to the damn players there too. 

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

From the Dev Blog article:

"No heal for cruisers..."

Graf Spee, Leander, London and Devonshire would like a short word with whoever wrote that! 

Bringing it down to a tier with no forbidden unobtainable premiums (GC, Kamikaze family) and no radar should make things very interesting, not to mention more accessible to clans with members who might be reliant on rentals for T10 (with all the disadvantages that those bring) or not have access to them at all (no T8 to play to unlock them), but can easily afford to field Tier 6 ships across multiple tech trees and nations.

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

What tier 6 BB would you take over Ryujo or Ark Royal?

Ryujo in tier 6 only matchmaking with a 19 point captain is certainly the best ship at its class.

[Sammy_Small]

When this change goes through:

" Destroyers' detectability range by air will be decreased by half, but when AA defense is turned on, their detectability range by air will be equal to their AA firing range for 20 seconds after the AA guns cease firing."

Expect the DD-mafia to call for USN Dive Bombers to be nerf-ed... more /again... If you don't play CVs you wouldn't understand why.

This post will be down voted by DD-mafia in... 3... 2... 1...

Edit:
If you would like to know the "Why"...
Take a higher tier (6+) CV into a training battle against a V-25 or some other tier 2 DD with sub 2km air detection... and you will understand, that it is only possible to line up an attack with USN DBs without losing track of a DD. Alternatively you will have to "drop" a fighter on top of them for any other plane type.  

[mingtendo]

The Big Issues

I'm afraid that they're going to rely solely on using weather as the main aspect of "balancing" CV spotting. It's easy, and it doesn't change any aspect of CB to be different than every other game mode. Another classic case of WG addressing the problem with a duct-tape solution. Seeing how they're already hesitant to alter the spotting mechanics of fighters, this might be their blanket solution: cover it up with a storm.

I also don't agree with DDs being spotted at their AA defense range for 20 seconds if they choose to enable AA. Turning AA off might sound good on paper with these proposed changes, but even with most DDs having aerial detection ranges in the ~3.0 km range, a CV can hunt down a DD pretty easily, especially if they drop Fighters. Additionally, allowing DDs to be spotted at their maximum AA firing range (for most DDs, that's 5.8 km) for a whole 20 seconds is more than enough for the carrier to turn around and sink them with ease as planes can swing around on a dime (this also ignores destroyers being shot at from other ships while spotted at this distance by air).

That said, if WG decides to follow through with all the nerfs that they have outlined here thus far, the game would certainly be in a more fair state in regards to CV-surface ship interactions (although a BB will never replace a CV even with the potential modifications). Among the changes, I'd most like to see significant buffs and/or reworks to AA, and significant nerfs and/or reworks of spotting mechanics by air. 

The most promising thing WG has mentioned in this section is that they will increase the number of BBs to 2 (which they did on one account); if they wanted to preserve this diversity, perhaps they could allow 1 CV and 1 BB (can I also add that it is incredibly hypocritical that they do not want to limit certain classes or ship types when they have been doing this all along, as previously CV was not included in Clan Battles). I would imagine that even with 2 BBs alone, it would already be quite fun and add diversity to team lineups, as the 1 BB-5 CA-1 DD meta of yore has gotten quite stale in itself. 

I can only hope that WG chooses to properly balance CVs instead of taking the easy way out and calling it a day.

"Nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution." -Russian proverb

 

Next Season

Despite the fact that WG has admitted that CVs are not balanced in their current state, they think that at Tier VI things will be different. I can already imagine a meta of Ryuujo with 6 Graf Spees (cruisers that have a heal and pretty much behave like battleships) or Devonshires (cruisers that have the best heal potential and can set a lot of fires). I would think that with how poorly Season IX turned out with its format, WG would at least try to return to its more conventional lineups of 1 BB, 6-7 CCs/DDs instead. I'm not sure why they think battleships and carriers are interchangeable as not only do they have different roles, one is clearly superior with its spotting advantages and ability to attack without being in harms way, and at any distance, with little consequences. Although at Tier VI the divide won't be as prevalent as at Tier X, I won't be surprised if the same thing happens again during this season's Clan Battles. 

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results." -Rita Mae Brown

 

[IsThatreallyTheplan]

Hmmm Tier VI clan battles, interesting. Was Tier X participation that bad? We gave up trying this last season.  Not sure my guys will warm up to giving the next season a go. Other than a lowered tier, what's really changed? We'll still, likely, have CVs spotting the entire time. So a rinse/repeat of the previous season.  Well, at least WG is trying something different. Good luck to all the participants!

[Bleispucker]

you should finally realize that it would be a good idea not to restrict the shipclasses but you should do restrictions on the Moduls ...

• allow only 2 of each Radar/Exhaust Smoke/Smoke/Reloadboost/Engineboost - Modul and so on ... in the Team

this would allow for a varaity of Playstyle and would work against this mess we had in the past.

And Tier 6 ... despite it will be the same like it was with T10 ... in T6 the Ships have even lower AA or the option to launch Fighter Planes, except of course the Premium once

 

[Digital_Wind]

15 hours ago, IsThatreallyTheplan said:

Hmmm Tier VI clan battles, interesting. Was Tier X participation that bad? We gave up trying this last season.  Not sure my guys will warm up to giving the next season a go. Other than a lowered tier, what's really changed? We'll still, likely, have CVs spotting the entire time. So a rinse/repeat of the previous season.  Well, at least WG is trying something different. Good luck to all the participants!

The general feeling is that TX is tedious.  Major burnout due to the frequency and intensity in which it is played.

[LCCX]

On 6/30/2020 at 10:38 AM, Hapa_Fodder said:

A message from our Devs:

https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/40

-Hapa

"One of the most popular suggestions which we received recently is introducing limits on classes or ship types to reduce the number of identical ships in lineups"

My 2c: Assuming that I read this correctly to mean that, for example, a Clan Battle team could not field more than 1 Stalingrad (or 1 Kremlin, or 1 Shimakaze, etc.) in the same division/match, I think that would be very interesting to see tried out sometime. Trial it in a Clan Brawl evening first and see how it goes over.

[Daedra_in_Oblivion]

I feel like CV in T6 clan battle would be more of a supporting role if taken, comparing to the dominating role in T10 clan war.

[theDJcat]

I'm actually quite looking forward for clan battles to be T6 this upcoming season, should be a nice change of pace. 

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

7 hours ago, Daedra_in_Oblivion said:

I feel like CV in T6 clan battle would be more of a supporting role if taken, comparing to the dominating role in T10 clan war.

It has better potential to spot (less AA)...

It has easy damage potential against cruisers and BBs...less AA and still has AP bombs.

PLUS, German CVs with AP rockets and spotting will be part of the lineup.

What will be different or better?