DevBlog 388 - Pan-American Cruisers - Closed testing

[Konception]

Hello, Captains!

A new DevBlog has been posted here: https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/388      

Please leave any feedback you have here. 

Thank you!

[Lert]

Oh nice.

Must've been a cheap line to develop though, with how many are based on ships already in the game. Still, seems unique enough to be an interesting additions to the game.

Now where are my Dutch DDs?

[littleruler65]

I wonder why the ara general belgrano wasn't added. real light cruiser that could've been the t8.

[SaiIor_Moon]

Ooohh, a Canadian-built River-class Frigate huh? You know that's gonna be the Tier I frigate for the eventually upcoming Commonwealth cruisers tech tree line : )

I actually LIKE Santander's design though 👀

[Fr05ty]

On 11/5/2022 at 11:00 PM, Konception said:

Hello, Captains!

A new DevBlog has been posted here: https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/388      

Please leave any feedback you have here. 

Thank you!

I would like to know the research process that went into the PanAm cruisers. 6/10 were never even contemplated for PanAm navies, and there were plenty of ships and designs SPECIFIC for PanAm navies that would've been suited. There was even a group of volunteers that provided research on them over 2 years ago at the behest of the then Latin American CM (ParceNautico) which he told us was handed over to the devs & research teams. Could you explain?

@Lert 6/10 ships have literally NO connection to LatAm. They've literally gone with "Well, they were allied to the US at the time, so why wouldn't they just get an American Cruiser" when the US refused selling Cruisers to LatAm up until the 2nd WW was done, which is why there were a LOT of Vickers designs for PanAm Cruisers... All of which are nowhere to be seen in this line. I really hope they never butcher another line like this one. There's 0 research done for it by WG.

https://reportedebatalla.wordpress.com/2021/10/29/propuesta-linea-de-cruceros-panamericana/

We did the research for it and made sure to get PanAm ships. What is this crap WG? It's just a damn American CL line, not a PanAm one!

[tm63au]

On 11/5/2022 at 5:06 PM, Lert said:

Oh nice.

Must've been a cheap line to develop though, with how many are based on ships already in the game. Still, seems unique enough to be an interesting additions to the game.

Now where are my Dutch DDs?

There seems to be a lot of " could have " might have " and  " maybe " expected" statements in the notes on high Tier Variants being loaned , bought and transferred by major Naval powers to Latin American countries.

While in principal  I am all for more ships from other Nations, this looks like a stretch of the imagination like that monstrosity there testing called Brisbane.

I don't no they just don't do a series of premiums for Pan America.

[Nevermore135]

“A distinctive feature of the branch will be the presence of Combat Instructions. However, the branch concept is still under development, so we'll share more details once it is closer to completion.”

Please don’t, WG. We need fewer atypical gimmicks that are nightmares to balance, not more. Leave that nonsense for (some of) the tier XIs.

[Nevermore135]

1 hour ago, littleruler65 said:

I wonder why the ara general belgrano wasn't added. real light cruiser that could've been the t8.

Likely because there is already a premium Brooklyn-class at tier VII - Nueve de Julio (as well as her American clone Boise). Using Worcester variants for tier VIII-X also allows for consistent ballistics and dual-purpose main batteries on those ships.

[tfcas119]

1 hour ago, littleruler65 said:

I wonder why the ara general belgrano wasn't added. real light cruiser that could've been the t8.

Because a Conqueror will nuke it before it even enters the map

So for the ships: T1 is a smaller Black Swan built for Canada but repping Argentina in her post war state.

T2 is an actual Brazilian design

T3 has Canarias' fivehead superstructure, so Spanish design repping Mexico (also doubt Spain would sell any ships to another nation seeing they were in the middle of a Civil War around this time)

T4 Bolivian Danae never bought by any Pan-Am country

T5 is a real Argentine ship with better guns than most higher tier British 152s.

T6: Italian Duca downgunned and sold to Chile. I totally see a country spending money nerfing their own ship to sell it to another.

T7:  A real Crown Colony that did serve with Peru. Success

T8: I doubt the US would sell a Worcester proto to another nation

T9: I doubt the US would sell a Worcester proto to another nation

T10: I doubt the US would sell a Worcester proto to another nation

 

4 real ships that served in a Pan-Am navy, 3 Mini Worcesters, 2 questionable hypothetical acquisitions, 2 actual Pan-Am designs, and one Combat Instruction gimmick.

Also can't wait for Vincentino De Mayo and Almarante Grau to appear as T6 and 8 premiums, with the latter trading D7P's airstrike for a Combat Instruction or the actual DPM she could obtain.

[Fr05ty]

4 minutes ago, tfcas119 said:

Because a Conqueror will nuke it before it even enters the map

So for the ships: T1 is a smaller Black Swan built for Canada but repping Argentina in her post war state.

T2 is an actual Brazilian design

T3 has Canarias' fivehead superstructure, so Spanish design repping Mexico (also doubt Spain would sell any ships to another nation seeing they were in the middle of a Civil War around this time)

T4 Bolivian Danae never bought by any Pan-Am country

T5 is a real Argentine ship with better guns than most higher tier British 152s.

T6: Italian Duca downgunned and sold to Chile. I totally see a country spending money nerfing their own ship to sell it to another.

T7:  A real Crown Colony that did serve with Peru. Success

T8: I doubt the US would sell a Worcester proto to another nation

T9: I doubt the US would sell a Worcester proto to another nation

T10: I doubt the US would sell a Worcester proto to another nation

 

4 real ships that served in a Pan-Am navy, 3 Mini Worcesters, 2 questionable hypothetical acquisitions, 2 actual Pan-Am designs, and one Combat Instruction gimmick.

Also can't wait for Vincentino De Mayo and Almarante Grau to appear as T6 and 8 premiums, with the latter trading D7P's airstrike for a Combat Instruction or the actual DPM she could obtain.

It's even worse than that. The 2 that you're counting as actual Pan-Am designs aren't. Those designs were never considered for a PanAm navy. It's literally 4 PanAm ships, and 6 MADE UP hypothetical acquisitions that have no basis on reality. They ignored all the actual Pan-Am designs. It's more an American CL line than a PanAm CL one...

[Cpt_JM_Nascimento]

The lack of real ships and proposals for the line baffles me.

Six out of the nine Brooklyn-class cruisers ended their carrers in South American navies... only Boise released some years ago as a premium is in the game.
25 de Mayo with 190mm guns as a premium?
Bahia as a low tier ship?
Latorre a light cruiser that fits the description of the line?
Almirante Grau, so we could have a DZP that isn't depedent on air strikes to compensate the nerfed DPM?
At least there are La Argentina and Coronel Bolognesi...

The tier I no matter if it is real or not is gonna be generic as all the other ones there.

Edit: and no Vickers-designs on sight or more British ships that the Royal Navy wanted to sell to pay the costs from the war until the US came and said: get my ships instead!
 

[Sidelock]

Okay.... im gonna make a confession here. I am from chile and while im happy at seeing my country represented in-game, the fact that is A) A ship that comes from a nation that had absolutely no possible way of even selling a ship to the Chilean Navy considering the British tradition and ties it had at the time (and still has, most of our main surface ships had been British ships for god's sakes), which meant most ship contracts were almost surely given to british shipyards, and B) Sailing a Name traditionally reserved for main surface combatants (The sister of the Almirante Latorre class Battleship WAS Almirante Cochrane) intruiges me... to say the least. You could had go with some other historical names (Baquedano, Zenteno, Pratt or O'Higgins) or even from some other nation like the French or Americans for the ship iself. 

Im not really sure at what to feel here, the line seems, interesting and im happy at seeing something from my land and from Latin America in general, but the historical innacuracy at least for a ship supposedly commissioned by my country is strange and kinda puts me off.

[Trophy_Wench]

What in the cinnamon toast f@$& is this? All the work that people like @Fr05ty @talleyrand, @COLDOWN and so many others to carefully craft plausible CL lines for this tree and it got pooped on by lazy kitbashing and likely only held together by some singular gimmick a la the Pan Asian line. 

Son, I am disappoint.

[Crucis]

3 hours ago, Lert said:

Oh nice.

Must've been a cheap line to develop though, with how many are based on ships already in the game. Still, seems unique enough to be an interesting additions to the game.

Now where are my Dutch DDs?

No offense intended, but it's still beyond me why there was a need to create separate Dutch (and Spanish) tech trees when WG had already added a European tree.

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

1 hour ago, Cpt_JM_Nascimento said:

Edit: and no Vickers-designs on sight

Got a funny feeling we'll be seeing those when the Spanish get their cruiser line.

[tcbaker777]

i.....im not sure what to say about these, but for some reason the high tier ones just look......wrong, i have no idea why

[Grand_Admiral_Murrel]

So, I'll confess I have almost zero knowledge of Pan/South American fleets except for a few WWI-era dreadnoughts. Reading the devblog, I was easily led to believe that this line was fairly representative of a "what-if" fleet. After reading the above comments by the likes of Fr05ty (whom I never see post something with such passion), I must say I'm going to side with the community on this one. If WG was going to give Canada it's own tech tree, I would expect a lot of UK DDs and cruisers, and maybe some loan ships from the USA, because that's what actually happened. These Pan-American ships having USA cruisers (which never left the drawing board for the US' own fleet let alone to be sold) is the equivalent of giving Canadians a French cruiser (one that was drawn on a napkin, naturally) because they were allies and it "might" have happened. 

I wouldn't say this branch needs to be scrapped. Instead, create a new US light cruiser line. Start back at Tier VI with a new line for the Pan-American tree (the Tier VII is fine though). For Pete's sake, the community has done the research for you! 

[Grand_Admiral_Murrel]

Unrelated to my previous comment, I'm not sure I like the sound of having combat instructions on an entire tech tree. I tend to disapprove of their implementation for superships (Tier XI) as it is. I would much rather see them have consumables (like reload booster rather than burst fire) than combat instructions. 

Maybe this new line could be a more survivable light cruiser (maybe heavier armor, underwater citadel, etc.). Light cruisers have it rough as it is. 

[Grand_Admiral_Murrel]

4 hours ago, SaiIor_Moon said:

Ooohh, a Canadian-built River-class Frigate huh? You know that's gonna be the Tier I frigate for the eventually upcoming Commonwealth cruisers tech tree line : )

We'll probably get shafted with some fictional Amazonian river boat (that was never built) but could have been sold to Canada - LOL. Also, the Canadian submarine tech tree will include German U-Boat designs, because U-boats were in the St. Lawrence and could have been captured. Tier XI Commonwealth CV Habakkuk confirmed. 

[SaiIor_Moon]

11 minutes ago, Grand_Admiral_Murrel said:

We'll probably get shafted with some fictional Amazonian river boat (that was never built) but could have been sold to Canada - LOL. Also, the Canadian submarine tech tree will include German U-Boat designs, because U-boats were in the St. Lawrence and could have been captured. Tier XI Commonwealth CV Habakkuk confirmed. 

Oof. I hate how you're probably right about all of this lols! XD

[SaiIor_Moon]

1 hour ago, tcbaker777 said:

i.....im not sure what to say about these, but for some reason the high tier ones just look......wrong, i have no idea why

Too American-looking, heck, not even USN has them yet. It's....kinda weird/off when you see something so CLEARLY American in design....as Pan-American ships. Same goes for the Pan-Asian cruisers (the Tier VII Flint/Oakland subclass, the Tier IX unique Atlanta-like design with Montana secondary turrets, and the Tier X Austin). When I look at these Pan-American Worcester-esque designs, I see American. I don't see Pan-American. So it's a bit of a visual disconnect, I guess.

Another example of this is Bajie. CLEARLY a Japanese Izumo, but Pan-Asian because reasons. I don't SEE it as "Pan-Asian" though. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[SaiIor_Moon]

3 hours ago, Fr05ty said:

It's more an American CL line than a PanAm CL one...

I agree with this. Those Worcester variants SCREAM American light cruiser line, NOT Pan-American cruiser line.

[Grand_Admiral_Murrel]

12 minutes ago, SaiIor_Moon said:

I see American. I don't see Pan-American.

Just had a thought: maybe the devs saw "American" in the word "Pan-American" and they thought that all of Central and South America are part of... America. *Angry Canadian noises*

[SaiIor_Moon]

1 minute ago, Grand_Admiral_Murrel said:

Just had a thought: maybe the devs saw "American" in the word "Pan-American" and they thought that all of Central and South America are part of... America. *Angry Canadian noises*

Wargaming, probably: "Well Canada is America right? Because the continent is North America, and both USA and Canada make that continent up."

[COLDOWN]

Wargaming, the content is appreciated.

But this is one of the worst crafted branches ever made.

I hope you will take your time to analyse the critical comments (WIP) and to reformulate the entire project again.