A (very) brief experiment with Juliet Charlie flags

[guns_at_last_light]

As an experiment, I stopped running detonation flags on my DDs to see if the "this happens once every 100 games" adage was somewhat accurate. I didn't use Magazine Mod 1, but also didn't didn't include any flags that increase the chance of detonation. I detonated twice in 10 games: once in the Halland and once in the Z-52. Both from shells fired by another DD (Ostero and Shima), and in both cases I was between 25% and 50% HP.

While the sample size is obviously way too small and this is not how you design a good experiment, it was still kind of funny in a "why on earth is this mechanic still in the game?" sort of way.

UPDATE:

I continued the experiment today. I didn't use Juiliet Charlie or the Magazine Mod 1. Was detonated by a NC that hit the back of my Halland with HE. I was above 50% HP.

The sample size is still small, but 3 detonations in fewer than 20 games definitely seems off. 

[warheart1992]

I'd say the "happens once every 100 games" part is pretty reliant on shot placement. Shells or Torpedoes hitting the base of the turrets where the magazines are at are the ones leading to detonations. I can imagine also bombs if dropped in a specific way can get similar results.

Here's some more info.

https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Detonation

Based on what is written, the weak magazine protection of your DDs led them to be detonated easily.

[Jakob_Knight]

Maybe should be 'happens every 100 hits or so', since being in a game where you only take 20 hits and one where you take 300 and detonate aren't really the same.

 

Personally, the reason I like detonations as part of the game is to keep people from relying on pure hull point numbers in deciding if they are going to risk their ship.  A battleship with 25000 HP left facing a cruiser with 10000 hp left might be unconcerned about engaging that cruiser, except for that one-in-a-blue-moon chance of detonation.  While a player can reduce the chance with upgrades and completely remove it with a consumable flag, that's action the player has to choose.  And, in the exception of the guaranteed immunity flag, the player always knows there is a chance their carefully laid calculations can fall apart due to a lucky hit.

 

That's my own viewpoint, and dets are what keep me cautious about taking too many chances in ships I want to keep alive.

 

 

[Rouxi]

14 minutes ago, Jakob_Knight said:

Maybe should be 'happens every 100 hits or so', since being in a game where you only take 20 hits and one where you take 300 and detonate aren't really the same.

 

Personally, the reason I like detonations as part of the game is to keep people from relying on pure hull point numbers in deciding if they are going to risk their ship.  A battleship with 25000 HP left facing a cruiser with 10000 hp left might be unconcerned about engaging that cruiser, except for that one-in-a-blue-moon chance of detonation.  While a player can reduce the chance with upgrades and completely remove it with a consumable flag, that's action the player has to choose.  And, in the exception of the guaranteed immunity flag, the player always knows there is a chance their carefully laid calculations can fall apart due to a lucky hit.

 

That's my own viewpoint, and dets are what keep me cautious about taking too many chances in ships I want to keep alive.

 

 

I have never once taken detonations into consideration when judging the risk of an engagement so I don't think it's working so well.

[Morpheous]

Playing a lot of CAs in last few months and it is not the detonations killing me in one fell swoop, but getting hit by 4+ BB shells and going WOOF anyways.  (chalking this up to dead eye)

[iDuckman]

27 minutes ago, warheart1992 said:

Based on what is written, the weak magazine protection of your DDs led them to be detonated easily.

There's a number of instances in WWII where magazine detonations caused their bow or stern to be blown off.  Some survived.

38 minutes ago, guns_at_last_light said:

"why on earth is this mechanic still in the game?"

It's still a thing because it was a thing.

[Sabot_100]

I would keep detonations just so that low HP ship at least has a chance vs the full HP ship. A lot of luck (good or bad depending on what end of the det you are on) is still required.

It was also a factor in real battles (Hood).

[Zenn3k]

I won't play a battle without this flag equipped, regardless of ship type.  

[HamAndCheez]

56 minutes ago, iDuckman said:

There's a number of instances in WWII where magazine detonations caused their bow or stern to be blown off.  Some survived.

It's still a thing because it was a thing.

While I see where you're coming from and I agree with many of your posts, even you have to admit the whole "historical realism" aspect was never really in this game to begin with. That's just a fake talking point WG uses to lure folks interested in history into playing this game. 

Yes, detonations were (are) a "thing", but there is so much that is unrealistic in this arcade game at this point, why not keep the unrealistic train running and remove detonations?

[iDuckman]

28 minutes ago, HamAndCheez said:

While I see where you're coming from and I agree with many of your posts, even you have to admit the whole "historical realism" aspect was never really in this game to begin with. That's just a fake talking point WG uses to lure folks interested in history into playing this game. 

Yes, detonations were (are) a "thing", but there is so much that is unrealistic in this arcade game at this point, why not keep the unrealistic train running and remove detonations?

I look at it more as the glass half full.  Keep everything realistic that you don't have to discard to make a game. 

[xalmgrey]

If WG has their way we won't get these for detonations which to be honest is the only upside to getting detonated in the first place.

Otherwise it is just a middle finger with no upside.

[HamAndCheez]

Just now, xalmgrey said:

If WG has their way we won't get these for detonations which to be honest is the only upside to getting detonated in the first place.

Otherwise its just a middle finger with not upside.

Funny you should mention that:

 

[xalmgrey]

1 minute ago, HamAndCheez said:

Funny you should mention that:

 

Yeah, this is what I was referring to.

I really hope they don't do this.

It's not like people are getting enough flags to never run out from achievements.

And for like i mentioned, being detonated is a sucky achievement but at least you are awarded flags that can prevent that for a few matches.

It's bittersweet, take the flags out and you lose the sweet part.

[SteelRain_Rifleman]

I seem to remember that WG explained in a video series about how detonations worked. It was based on how close to how low HP you were and the next shot you got, plus whether you had the signal or not. No signal and it was a high probability based on that specific criteria. With signal, None. Signal guaranteed no chance of detonation. 

But back in the day, I remember we used to detonate players all the time with just the click of a mouse and a darn good citadel. And the grans, moans, and the what the "duck" happened would be screamed over chat followed by accusations of using an aid. 

My all time favorite was just after open beta and well one or two months in with my Amagi and I citadeled a player from max range and the player asked "Who did that, who dares citadel me, I am the great (can't really remember much of the name back then) and I will dominate all of you and get revenge!" I then Citadeled him again, and he sunk. It made both sides laugh. we won, but that was hilarious. Since he healed, it was a Dev Strike. But he ranted and raged rest of match. 

Ah, those were some crazy days. Most of us were reckless and funny. Between the silly citadels and the RTS CVs making us scatter like roaches, I think it made us feel so alive.

"And We Would All, Go Down, Together!

Yes, We Would All, Go Down, Together!"

[BrushWolf]

1 hour ago, Zenn3k said:

I won't play a battle without this flag equipped, regardless of ship type.  

I just use the 75% module on my DD's and save the flags for my rare incursions into the competitive modes like Ranked where you have to min/max to the extreme.

[ArIskandir]

3 hours ago, guns_at_last_light said:

As an experiment, I stopped running detonation flags on my DDs to see if the "this happens once every 100 games" adage was somewhat accurate. I didn't use Magazine Mod 1, but also didn't didn't include any flags that increase the chance of detonation. I detonated twice in 10 games: once in the Halland and once in the Z-52. Both from shells fired by another DD (Ostero and Shima), and in both cases I was between 25% and 50% HP.

While the sample size is obviously way too small and this is not how you design a good experiment, it was still kind of funny in a "why on earth is this mechanic still in the game?" sort of way.

 

Experiment successful, ships go BOOM

[HamptonRoads]

43 minutes ago, SteelRain_Rifleman said:

I seem to remember that WG explained in a video series about how detonations worked. It was based on how close to how low HP you were and the next shot you got, plus whether you had the signal or not. No signal and it was a high probability based on that specific criteria. With signal, None. Signal guaranteed no chance of detonation. 

But back in the day, I remember we used to detonate players all the time with just the click of a mouse and a darn good citadel. And the grans, moans, and the what the "duck" happened would be screamed over chat followed by accusations of using an aid. 

My all time favorite was just after open beta and well one or two months in with my Amagi and I citadeled a player from max range and the player asked "Who did that, who dares citadel me, I am the great (can't really remember much of the name back then) and I will dominate all of you and get revenge!" I then Citadeled him again, and he sunk. It made both sides laugh. we won, but that was hilarious. Since he healed, it was a Dev Strike. But he ranted and raged rest of match. 

Ah, those were some crazy days. Most of us were reckless and funny. Between the silly citadels and the RTS CVs making us scatter like roaches, I think it made us feel so alive.

"And We Would All, Go Down, Together!

Yes, We Would All, Go Down, Together!"

Detonations occur when damaging a magazine.  RNG determines if the damage was enough to be catastrophic or not.  There will never be a roll for detonation if the ship has more than 75% hitpoints remaining, or if she has JC signals.  

Detonation - Global wiki. Wargaming.net

[Parliament_Funkadelic]

Playing a DD (and most cruisers) in a PVP game and not using a Det flag says everything about said player.

There isn't a player in this game in a good clan that would be caught dead without a det flag playing DD unless he forgot it.

[Zenn3k]

1 hour ago, BrushWolf said:

I just use the 75% module on my DD's and save the flags for my rare incursions into the competitive modes like Ranked where you have to min/max to the extreme.

If it was -99% chance it wouldn't be enough for me, cause I have the worst luck possible in this world and I WILL get detonated with only a 1% chance.

[Florendo19]

feeling this really bad right now just got detonated at full HP one kill from kraken. To be fair I took a full HE Yammy broadside to my bow but still hurts how close I was but I forgot my flag. I even had them in stock before the free flags and forgot to check

[Tokamak_Raven]

Detonation happens more if you're carrying harder.

It's their way of keeping things balanced.

[guns_at_last_light]

4 hours ago, BrushWolf said:

I just use the 75% module on my DD's and save the flags for my rare incursions into the competitive modes like Ranked where you have to min/max to the extreme.

The annoying thing about detonations isn't that they happen at all as much as they happen to a specific class, destroyers, far more than any other class.  DD players must make a choice with module 1 whether to not blow up thanks to RNG or protect their armaments, which are far more fragile than the modules of other classes. Destroyers are the only ship class that really has to make these considerations.

I would prefer WG balance module slot options so that there's a bit of a tradeoff between types of protection. Rather than each module being 100% focused on armament, survivability, or detonations, have each module option emphasize one type of protection more than the others. For example, it could look like this:

1. Heavy on armament, but some survivability and detonation
2. Heavy on survivability , but some armament and detonation
3. Heavy on detonation, but some survivability and armament

In some ways this is kind of like what some of the ships had in Big Hunt. 

[Snargfargle]

7 hours ago, guns_at_last_light said:

While the sample size is obviously way too small...

My detonation odds have been 76 dets in 13,342 matches or 0.6%, and I usually only run det flags in Ranked.

[Wrath_Of_Deadguy]

Detonation chance in an average game? Extremely low.

Detonation chance the match after you run out of JCs? Dead certain.

[SteelRain_Rifleman]

I explode no matter what about once a week if I forget to mount a flag. Then a super container arrives with 100 of them as a reminder. Sort of like those times when you get soap as a gift because you have really bad B O and WG is just dropping hints like jokes.