I think they should add cruise missiles to the game

[Moggytwo]

A couple of years ago WG looked at the potential addition of cruise missiles in the game at high tiers (they even announced a few Russian DD's that were intended to carry them, that then went unreleased), but following testing decided they didn't like the implementation and dropped the idea.

I'm here to argue that I think they should revisit cruise missiles, how they should be implemented, why they would be good for the game, and what their role would be.

So there are a couple of major issues in the game with regard to BB's, and to a lesser extent DD's.  The BB population is extremely high, being around 40% of all battles played at high tiers on all servers, and pretty much every high tier battle has five BB's per team.  This population problem has been going on for a while.  BB's are just so comfortable to play.  I never feel particularly threatened in them, with the thought of imminent death being only a small mistake away as it is in DD's or cruisers.  So long as I don't really stuff up my positioning I can completely dictate how much damage I will take, plus I have a ton of alpha available that I can almost instantly apply at significant effective ranges.

It's too comfortable.  It's not balanced.  This is why the population is where it is.  BB's need that threat of imminent death if they make a mistake, and it needs to be primarily at the hands of a class that isn't BB's, and isn't cruisers, so that leaves a combination of DD's and/or subs and/or CV's.  BB's have by far the highest effective health, having the biggest health pools and plenty of heals.  That means that anything that is actually effective at countering BB's should have the highest damage in the game.  What we see though, is that BB's actually have the highest average damage in the game, significantly higher than cruisers and CV's, who are at a similar level of average damage, both being well below BB levels.  What this effectively means, is that nothing actually counters BB's, except perhaps BB's themselves.  This is a bit like the situation in the game pre-radar where the only thing that really countered a DD was another DD.  WG considered this unacceptable and introduced radar to provide a direct ability for the ship that was supposed to be the counter class to DD's to have a way to actually spot them and thus hurt them.  This was a significant improvement to the game.  Yet here we are over five years into the game, and BB's still don't have a real threat outside their own class.  Meanwhile the DD population is very low (less than half the BB numbers), and despite them being originally intended as a counter to BB's with their torpedoes, they have an average damage less than half that of BB's, making the failure of them as a counter to the highest effective health ships in the game very stark.

This is where cruise missiles come in.  I envisage them as a counter to BB's and large cruisers, or more precisely specific playstyles of these ships.  They would be high tier DD only, and fire and forget.  They would be quite fast (much faster than a plane, but much slower than a shell), have very long range (30km or so) and fly to a specific spot on the map that the DD captain aims at, and have a small area of seeking ability when they got to their target point.  They would hit very hard (harder than a torpedo), but if you were moving in your BB would be next to impossible to hit with.  If you stop moving for more than the briefest moments in your BB, you would be super vulnerable to these missiles.  You can't shoot them down, you can only avoid them by not sitting still.   They have a minimum range below which targets are too close to hit (say 10km).  They would not be a primary weapon, having low numbers available (1-2 per salvo depending on the DD - you could have two on specific missile DD's with no torps, but most general purpose DD's that had these weapons available would only fire one at a time), and have a moderate cooldown in the 1-2 minute range.  This means that you wouldn't be able to just sit at the back and only be a missile boat, they are more of a weapon of opportunity when the target arises, but then they would be a rapid counter to that target.  I would suggest that when you fire a missile the concealment mechanics work the same as if you fired your guns.

I hesitate to mention it, but this would be a good counter against static CV hulls that is only available to destroyers - I'll let you all consider if you would enjoy this ability in your DD.   It would also be a decent counter to ships like Petro and Stalingrad, if they chose to be too stationary.

Overall, this would encourage more high tier DD play, while discouraging static BB and cruiser play, be fun to use, and reward good play for all concerned.  I think this concept would genuinely improve the game as a whole, improve the seemingly permanent population imbalance, and be a really fun and satisfying addition to the game.

Make it happen please WG! 

 

[Herr_Reitz]

You know... it all sounds wonderful but... 

First I'd like actual damage being awarded to all ships equally. If your ship just got 50% of it's health shot out of it, by golly, I want either all systems diminished by 50% (meaning everything: guns, torps, AA, heals, you name it - if it is on the ship, part of the ship or owned by the player - I want it damaged. Alternatively, you could be notified 50% of your healthy was just taken - you get to choose the system damaged in three seconds or it is chosen for you. I think that would liven things up a lot more. 

Second, if you are going to give fire and forget missiles to destroyers/cruisers, you best be given a Phalanx system to carriers, even though of course they did not exist in the 40's/50's, they need that type of last minute defense because...? Because the first launch someone like you would drop would of course be at a known carrier starting location. 

In fact I'm almost sure people in clans know the starting positions of every ship type/class in the game on every match. If they don't their intel folks aren't doing them nice. 

You get those first two of my items knocked out the same time as your's is implemented and we might have a deal. 

[UPDATE}

I see only five of you felt it worth you time to down-vote my post. Good, good... I'm winning some of you over. Those who did neg-vote, look at the "mess" we already have on-going as it relates to balance. They will never give something without a counter. Their goal is constant strife around their attempted efforts at balancing. 

If you think they're gonna give the OP what he wants or anything near that without equally devastating counters which are also PB jelly to spread, seriously... open your eyes. 

[black_hull4]

22 minutes ago, Moggytwo said:

It's too comfortable.  It's not balanced. 

Which is why changes won't happen.

And another main problem with missile armed ships, is that they aren't usually armed with much else. Also, modern cruise missiles will not do  to a battleship's armor. 

[anonym_j09pJOQbXcQH]

I played enough games in my lifetime against AI Cruise Missiles by the dozen. Strike Fleet comes to mind. A batch of Blackjacks launch a horde of cruise missles inbound. You have about 100 of them to use to intercept them as they come in at 60ish miles. Leakers make it to 15 or so requiring your 5 inch and last resort your phalanx. Today's warships have other weapons systems that can and will be brought to use against a saturation of hundreds of them. Add more cruise missiles until enemy task force carrier group runs out of SAMS and eventually destroy the entire group in two hours or less. Call it 1000 missiles.

You are not going to find more than 15% of the current player base of Wows willing to man battlestations Missile for a hour or more.

There are some games online that dabble a bit into modern war and as far as I know there has been only a few missiles used against modern warships, including one of our Iowas off Iraq coast that was intercepted by a UK Cruiser with her in close in air defense.

In addition the modern BB Armor say the 16 inch plate of the Iowa is like butter to a hot knife of 2000+ pounds of modern cruise missile warheads. Islander comes to mind. Never mind the hypersonic ones. The BB will be totally trashed in a few minutes with thousands dead aboard. That type of armor is obsolete. What you need is special modern layered or cobham type armor with reactive plates AND active local anti missile systems such as the Trophy for the last ditch defense. And even if you did detonate a inbound vampire at 1 km or less the amount of metal will shred the ship in many ways that will require much fixing.

[Umikami]

17 minutes ago, Moggytwo said:

I'm here to argue that I think they should revisit cruise missiles

I'm in favor of missiles; I'm not, however, in favor of everything you suggest.

18 minutes ago, Moggytwo said:

That means that anything that is actually effective at countering BB's should have the highest damage in the game.

While I agree with this, I can almost guarantee every BB main who read this is screaming right now, as BB drivers think only BBs should be able to hurt BBs.

20 minutes ago, Moggytwo said:

They would hit very hard (harder than a torpedo), but if you were moving in your BB would be next to impossible to hit with. 

As it is not impossible, or even hard, to hit a BB with any other weapon in the game, this doesn't work for me. Moving BBs should be vulnerable.

22 minutes ago, Moggytwo said:

You can't shoot them down, you can only avoid them by not sitting still.

A BB, or any other ship, should have the same ability to avoid a missile that a DD has to avoid rockets.

24 minutes ago, Moggytwo said:

  I would suggest that when you fire a missile the concealment mechanics work the same as if you fired your guns.

Since you said earlier that missile ranges would go up to 30 km, this is just ridiculous. CVs aren't spotted when they launch planes.

4 minutes ago, Herr_Reitz said:

if you are going to give fire and forget missiles to destroyers/cruisers, you best be given a Phalanx system to carriers, even though of course they did not exist in the 40's/50's, they need that type of last minute defense because...? Because the first launch someone like you would drop would of course be at a known carrier starting location. 

Why? Because nothing should be able to hit or hurt a CV? I don't think so!

3 minutes ago, black_hull4 said:

cruise missiles will not do  to a battleship's armor.

Amazing discovery; in ARCADE GAMES any weapon will do whatever the developers tell it to do, or else radar wouldn't see through islands.

[Umikami]

2 minutes ago, xHeavy said:

You are not going to find more than 15% of the current player base of Wows willing to man battlestations Missile for a hour or more.

In exactly what way does this even remotely resemble what OP is suggesting? 

[AJTP89]

I like how this long involved post is basically a proposal to nerf CVs....

The biggest problem with what you propose is you could pretty easily hit the enemy blind right after start. The spawn positions are known, ships can't move than fast, target the map and let loose. Boom, everyone loses a nice chunk of health before the game even starts.

The other issue is there's no real counter play besides keep moving. That puts it in the same boat as CVs, and we all know how much the playerbase loves CVs...

[Helstrem]

Just now, Umikami said:

I'm in favor of missiles; I'm not, however, in favor of everything you suggest.

While I agree with this, I can almost guarantee every BB main who read this is screaming right now, as BB drivers think only BBs should be able to hurt BBs.

As it is not impossible, or even hard, to hit a BB with any other weapon in the game, this doesn't work for me. Moving BBs should be vulnerable.

A BB, or any other ship, should have the same ability to avoid a missile that a DD has to avoid rockets.

Since you said earlier that missile ranges would go up to 30 km, this is just ridiculous. CVs aren't spotted when they launch planes.

Why? Because nothing should be able to hit or hurt a CV? I don't think so!

Amazing discovery; in ARCADE GAMES any weapon will do whatever the developers tell it to do, or else radar wouldn't see through islands.

LOL.  DDs are the most important ships in the game.  In a match without CVs they are also the most powerful ships in the game.

Were it up to you the rules would be such that DDs were unassailably powerful and no other ship may as well be played.

 

Oh, you'll do the usual lying with statistics to show how DDs are so woefully underpowered while ignoring why DDs get the results that they get. (Hint: it is mostly because DDs feast on other DDs)

[anonym_j09pJOQbXcQH]

57 minutes ago, Umikami said:

In exactly what way does this even remotely resemble what OP is suggesting? 

You are going to have a problem with a majority of players playing missile defense. They are not going to be doing much ship driving or anything else thats fun. Ultimately its a math problem from hell. Thus many will leave a game like that.

[black_hull4]

1 hour ago, Umikami said:

I'm in favor of missiles;

Then you'll like IJN Ise when introduced. HMS Hood also has unguided SAM's.

♦

[TheCosmicTruth]

I like the idea but not really the missiles. This is WoWS, which is primarily WW2. Cruise missiles are not WW2. I know there are some ships post-WW2 (even to the 1980's), but cruise missiles don't really seem to fit.

However, I don't see a better way to fix the problem, and I like the implementation (although the missiles shouldn't home on targets that haven't been spotted), besides having torps deal more damage the heavier the target is (eg. 2x damage vs. BB's) or something.

[Umikami]

42 minutes ago, Helstrem said:

Were it up to you the rules would be such that DDs were unassailably powerful and no other ship may as well be played.

Well, OP brought the cheese; and I'd like to thank you for bringing the whine.

40 minutes ago, xHeavy said:

Thus many will leave a game like that.

You mean like they did when WG reborked CVs? They don't care; they want new players who haven't spent money, gotten burnt, and become bored yet.

40 minutes ago, black_hull4 said:

Then you'll like IJN Ise when introduced. HMS Hood also has unguided SAM's.

I thought Hood's missiles were anti aircraft only (and had gotten gutted by the CV rebork like all other AA did), I'm wait and see on Ise, but honestly have low expectations.

[AlcatrazNC]

No thanks I don't need more rockets / missle in my game. When I see the mess with CV rockets, I just don't think WG will be able to balance that.

 

If the goal of your missile is to counter BB/large cruiser, then play Goliath, Hindenburg or DD. Overall BB as a class isn't too hard to counter 

[Ado1fCarsar]

Cruise missiles are not even good for shooting heavily armoured targets. They are subsonic for the most part and dosent have as much penetrating capacity as large bb shells.

[SkaerKrow]

There are already numerous counters to BBs that result in inescapable doom on a single misplay. If you can’t work that out yourself then you really shouldn’t be making any suggestions for the game at all. 

[Akeno017]

3 hours ago, Moggytwo said:

The BB population is extremely high

Skip!

[BrushWolf]

A completely different game which could be interesting starting in the mid 1950's with the early missiles. While some of the ships that are in the game now would be in that version they were already changing with more AA and missiles added some times at the cost of some main guns.

[Royeaux]

1 hour ago, TheCosmicTruth said:

I like the idea but not really the missiles. This is WoWS, which is primarily WW2. Cruise missiles are not WW2. I know there are some ships post-WW2 (even to the 1980's), but cruise missiles don't really seem to fit.

Especially when WGing puts Russian ships commissioned the day before 1955 in the same matchmaking spread as US ships from 1917.  (Kutuzov vs New Mexico)

[Moggytwo]

2 hours ago, xHeavy said:

I played enough games in my lifetime against AI Cruise Missiles by the dozen. Strike Fleet comes to mind. A batch of Blackjacks launch a horde of cruise missles inbound. You have about 100 of them to use to intercept them as they come in at 60ish miles. Leakers make it to 15 or so requiring your 5 inch and last resort your phalanx. Today's warships have other weapons systems that can and will be brought to use against a saturation of hundreds of them. Add more cruise missiles until enemy task force carrier group runs out of SAMS and eventually destroy the entire group in two hours or less. Call it 1000 missiles.

 

1 hour ago, xHeavy said:

You are going to have a problem with a majority of players playing missile defense. They are not going to be doing much ship driving or anything else thats fun. Ultimately its a math problem from hell. Thus many will leave a game like that.

You may not have read the suggestion.  We're talking maybe a missile every minute or two from each DD, and they really are only going to hit targets that have been stationary for a bit.  AA won't be able to shoot them down, you avoid them by not being there when they arrive.

 

2 hours ago, Umikami said:

As it is not impossible, or even hard, to hit a BB with any other weapon in the game, this doesn't work for me. Moving BBs should be vulnerable.

The point is that static play is generally bad play.  You can stop, but if you stop for too long you can expect to be punished for it.  You know that feeling you get when you've been in your smoke for a short while and you just know that there are torps coming your way?  BB's need that feeling.  There's no fear of sudden retribution in a BB, playing the class is like putting a rug over your knees and cuddling a teddy bear.  There's a reason so many play the class, and it's because it doesn't have much potential of punishment for poor play.

 

1 hour ago, AJTP89 said:

I like how this long involved post is basically a proposal to nerf CVs....

The biggest problem with what you propose is you could pretty easily hit the enemy blind right after start. The spawn positions are known, ships can't move than fast, target the map and let loose. Boom, everyone loses a nice chunk of health before the game even starts.

The other issue is there's no real counter play besides keep moving. That puts it in the same boat as CVs, and we all know how much the playerbase loves CVs...

I think that's the first time I've been thought of as anti-CV on these forums!  My opinions tend to be fairly CV supportive, as a few regulars here may attest.

I don't think hitting the enemy while unspotted at the start would be particularly viable - the flight time would be 30s or more to max range, and you'd have to get pretty lucky to connect even when knowing the spawns.

Also, positioning and maneuvering is the counter to literally everything in this game, from incoming shells, to torpedo avoidance, to avoiding CV attacks.  That literally is the game.  Yet for some ships sitting bow in and not moving much is a viable strategy, and the problem is it is brainless to do yet effective.  So putting in another tool to encourage maneuvering to avoid damage by these ships is precisely what these ships need.

[Singularity_invader]

Just play cold waters.

[Moggytwo]

1 hour ago, AlcatrazNC said:

No thanks I don't need more rockets / missle in my game. When I see the mess with CV rockets, I just don't think WG will be able to balance that.

 

If the goal of your missile is to counter BB/large cruiser, then play Goliath, Hindenburg or DD. Overall BB as a class isn't too hard to counter 

This couldn't be more different to CV rockets.  There is a second or two from releasing CV rockets to hitting the target, where there would be a fair bit longer than shell travel time for missiles.  They aren't remotely comparable.  Missiles are much more comparable to shells, or perhaps flying torpedoes.

See the OP for why all the ships you mentioned don't counter BB's.  Being able to chip away at a BB a bit faster than everyone else does not make you a counter.  Having great alpha when you can only apply it very occasionally is not a counter.   The fact that DD's are supposed to counter the class with the highest effective health in the game by a mile, yet having the lowest average damage (about half of the second lowest!), means that clearly they are not doing their job properly.  If DD's were truly the counter to BB's, then they would have the highest average damage by a good margin.  The only thing that comes close to countering a BB is another BB, and that is just bad design.  As I said in the OP, this is the exact reason why radar was added to the game - because the primary counter to DD's was other DD's, and cruisers who were supposed to be a primary counter had no real way of doing so.

29 minutes ago, SkaerKrow said:

There are already numerous counters to BBs that result in inescapable doom on a single misplay. If you can’t work that out yourself then you really shouldn’t be making any suggestions for the game at all. 

No, there aren't.  BB's are the least punishable class on the game.  Sure, if you want to commit suicide in your BB's there are ways to do so, but you have to do a number of pretty major stuff ups to get to that point.  Meanwhile DD's and cruisers are much easier to punish for much smaller mistakes.  There is a reason why the population of BB's is through the roof.  The fact that very low skill play styles can result in survival and sometimes even success in a BB is something that needs to be fixed.

23 minutes ago, Akeno017 said:

Skip!

You think the BB population is fine?  There are five BB's per team in every single high tier match - the limit of the match maker.  I'm seeing more MM dumps with more than five per team lately as well.  Last night in prime time there were over 200 BB's in the high tier queue.  Two hundred!  The suggestion in the OP goes a long way to solving that problem, because they need to do something about it.

26 minutes ago, BrushWolf said:

A completely different game which could be interesting starting in the mid 1950's with the early missiles. While some of the ships that are in the game now would be in that version they were already changing with more AA and missiles added some times at the cost of some main guns.

Tiers 8-10 in this game start to move well into the 50's, and even the 60's.  In no way is this game only up to WW2.  Cruise missiles would fit perfectly on many of the high tier DD's, are historically fitted to many DD's of the era, and would fit the feel of the game at high tiers very well.  It's surprising that WG haven't put them into the game already, and really the only reason they haven't is because they haven't come up with an iteration that feels like good enough.

I'm here to help with that problem. 

[Royeaux]

Just now, Moggytwo said:

You think the BB population is fine?  There are five BB's per team in every single high tier match - the limit of the match maker.  I'm seeing more MM dumps with more than five per team lately as well.  Last night in prime time there were over 200 BB's in the high tier queue.  Two hundred!  The suggestion in the OP goes a long way to solving that problem, because they need to do something about it.

What's the problem?

[BrushWolf]

1 minute ago, Moggytwo said:

Tiers 8-10 in this game start to move well into the 50's, and even the 60's.  In no way is this game only up to WW2.  Cruise missiles would fit perfectly on many of the high tier DD's, are historically fitted to many DD's of the era, and would fit the feel of the game at high tiers very well.  It's surprising that WG haven't put them into the game already, and really the only reason they haven't is because they haven't come up with an iteration that feels like good enough.

I'm here to help with that problem. 

The problem is even the earliest missiles out ranged all but BB's by a good margin, like I said a completely different game.

[Freecloud]

46 minutes ago, BrushWolf said:

A completely different game which could be interesting starting in the mid 1950's with the early missiles. While some of the ships that are in the game now would be in that version they were already changing with more AA and missiles added some times at the cost of some main guns.

Oh!  That sounds like a cool idea - a Cold War-focused naval game.

In my opinion, it would be really cool if WG could go backwards and focus on the older big-gun warships...like the pre-dreadnoughts.

That wouldn't require a big change to the current meta and can give the lower tiers a fun boost.

[Royeaux]

Just now, Battlecruiser_Yavuz said:

Oh!  That sounds like a cool idea - a Cold War-focused naval game.

In my opinion, it would be really cool if WG could go backwards and focus on the older big-gun warships...like the pre-dreadnoughts.

That wouldn't require a big change to the current meta and can give the lower tiers a fun boost.

Yes please!  Give us the era of Pre-Dreadnoughts!

And the Era of Ironclad Battleships