DevBlog 391 - European Destroyers - Closed Testing

[Konception]

Hello, Captains!

A new DevBlog has been posted here: https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/391  

Please leave any feedback you have here. 

Thank you!

[Crazy_08]

No stats?

[Amogussy]

Man this line was so solid all the way up until the T10. WHY WHY WHY WHY must it be a lazy copy pasta of Mogador? Oh well, I guess the research team has a severe case of Pan-American Cruiser Syndrome.

The original teaser announcement mentioned, "...It will bring in representatives of several European countries, such as Poland, Norway, Turkey, and Greece...", with no mention of Yugoslavia. I for one welcome the late inclusion of Split at T8, as it is a sensible, historical transition to the concept of the 140mm gunboat that the line has at higher tiers. +1 from me on that front. Hopefully this also means that whatever ship was originally going to be the T8 is turned into a premium that comes out alongside the line.

And I really hope the smoke+radar combo doesn't stick, give the T8-10 a heal and let them choose between smoke and radar instead.

[mcgibe]

1. Where was this level of research for pan America?

2. Smoke and radar with flat ballistics sounds like ridiculous combo. Could have terrible DPM but it's still going to be a nightmare to deal with. Give them a heal and smoke or a heal and radar instead

Other than that, not really much issue with these

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

26 minutes ago, mcgibe said:

1. Where was this level of research for pan America?

Where are the built in steel options for Pan-American cruisers above Tier 7? I reckon WG figured there weren't any that didn't come across as lazy copy-pastes so they made an executive decision, started with extensive changes to Worcester basics and added torpedoes for good measure. 

27 minutes ago, mcgibe said:

2. Smoke and radar with flat ballistics sounds like ridiculous combo.

Waiting for explosions of rage from certain corners of the Black owners' community, especially the ones who paid steel for it. This combination seems designed to go up against Italian destroyers and **** them over in their own smoke with complete impunity.

[Amogussy]

8 minutes ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

Waiting for explosions of rage from certain corners of the Black owners' community, especially the ones who paid steel for it. This combination seems designed to go up against Italian destroyers and **** them over in their own smoke with complete impunity.

I bought my Black for steel and honestly I'm not too burned by this. It's a pretty toxic consumable combo in the right circumstances, as you pointed out with the Italian DD example. In general though, these ships appear to be designed for mid to long ranges: with their flat arcs, (presumably) poor maneuverability, and (probably) high speed but low damage torps. So the value of the smoke+radar combo will likely be limited for these ships, it just won't really mesh that well with their other stats. Obviously it's all subject to change though.

[Copperhead550]

half of these are brit designs lawl

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

16 minutes ago, Amogussy said:

I bought my Black for steel and honestly I'm not too burned by this.

I should have added that I'm in the same boat. 

[Jemention]

Glad to see the Grom and the Split. Not sure about the 9 and 10 but at least they make a bit more sense than the Pan-American CL line.

29 minutes ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

Where are the built in steel options for Pan-American cruisers above Tier 7? I reckon WG figured there weren't any that didn't come across as lazy copy-pastes so they made an executive decision, started with extensive changes to Worcester basics and added torpedoes for good measure. 

Either the Grau or one of the Brooklyns would have made more sense at Tier 8. The Proto-Worcesters, especially with Torpedoes, make very little sense.

[tfcas119]

Well at least a lot more thought and research went into this than the Pan-Am line, even if the T10 looks like a Mogador with different turrets and centerline torps. Plus the T5-8 are real (somewhat if we forgive Split appearing in as designed and not as completed) plus Stord and Grom have history to them.

In the current concept, these newcomers are "gunboat" destroyers equipped with Smoke Generator and, starting at Tier VIII, with the Surveillance Radar consumable

Radar is in a different spot than smoke, right? Right? Am I reading this correctly that these have smoke AND radar or is this WG communication at its finest?

[mcgibe]

21 minutes ago, Copperhead550 said:

half of these are brit designs lawl

It's less egregious here because they actually either served in the navy, were real designs for said country, or with the T9 and T10 there's not really else to go off of

Not happy with the mogador lazy asset flip, but it's nowhere near as bad as pan America

[Copperhead550]

Just now, mcgibe said:

It's less egregious here because they actually either served in the navy, were real designs for said country, or with the T9 and T10 there's not really else to go off of

Not happy with the mogador lazy asset flip, but it's nowhere near as bad as pan America

thats true! I am still happy with the line, just woulda been cool to have a brit dd split with these or wel lthey still can...

[JediMasterDraco]

Anyone else think they’re pushing out new lines at an eye-raising pace? We’re in Early Access for Japanese light cruisers, we’ve got American Hybrid Battleships up next, Pan-American cruisers were just announced (and disparaged by the community) and now a branch of Pan-European destroyers have been announced.

[Copperhead550]

3 minutes ago, JediMasterDraco said:

Anyone else think they’re pushing out new lines at an eye-raising pace? We’re in Early Access for Japanese light cruisers, we’ve got American Hybrid Battleships up next, Pan-American cruisers were just announced (and disparaged by the community) and now a branch of Pan-European destroyers have been announced.

not to mention brit + russian subs

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

41 minutes ago, Copperhead550 said:

or wel lthey still can...

Three of the Pan-Asian destroyers were British (Tiers 3, 5 and 7). Of the three, two were built in steel and the T5 was an unbuilt project that was a copy-paste of a ship that WAS built in steel.

[Amogussy]

10 minutes ago, JediMasterDraco said:

Anyone else think they’re pushing out new lines at an eye-raising pace? We’re in Early Access for Japanese light cruisers, we’ve got American Hybrid Battleships up next, Pan-American cruisers were just announced (and disparaged by the community) and now a branch of Pan-European destroyers have been announced.

Under normal circumstances I'd agree, but the current spread of upcoming lines are relatively cheap to produce:

- American BBVs: Reuses NC, Iowa, and Montana hulls & assets respectively

- Pan-American CLs: Pretty much entirely made of asset reuses from UK+US cruisers, Hercules and Navarra have original models but are likely asset reuses from the Commonwealth T1 and Spanish T3 CL respectively

- Pan-EU DDs: Features some original models (Stord, Split and Lambros Katsonis), but the other ships are mostly reused models (T5 Muavenet is an Icarus, T7 Grom is Blyskawica, and Gdansk is a Mogador)

- Russian Subs: Only 3 boats*, and small models, so relatively easy to produce

- UK Subs: Ditto for VMF Subs

[JediMasterDraco]

4 minutes ago, Amogussy said:

Under normal circumstances I'd agree, but the current spread of upcoming lines are relatively cheap to produce:

- American BBVs: Reuses NC, Iowa, and Montana hulls & assets respectively

- Pan-American CLs: Pretty much entirely made of asset reuses from UK+US cruisers, Hercules and Navarra have original models but are likely asset reuses from the Commonwealth T1 and Spanish T3 CL respectively

- Pan-EU DDs: Features some original models (Stord, Split and Lambros Katsonis), but the other ships are mostly reused models (T5 Muavenet is an Icarus, T7 Grom is Blyskawica, and Gdansk is a Mogador)

- Russian Subs: Only 3 boats*, and small models, so relatively easy to produce

- UK Subs: Ditto for VMF Subs

Maybe, but it still feels like they’re leaning into quantity over quality.

[Copperhead550]

@Ahskance E-class cruiser... so emerald at tier 9?

[JediMasterDraco]

23 minutes ago, Copperhead550 said:

@Ahskance E-class cruiser... so emerald at tier 9?

Minus a citadel. And it can only take 10% damage from a BB-grade SAP/AP shell. Plus I imagine both the guns and torps will be much improved. Stealth probably won’t be a forte of this line if that and the Mogador variant are any indication.

[Nevermore135]

1 hour ago, Copperhead550 said:

@Ahskance E-class cruiser... so emerald at tier 9?

Yes and no. The ship is supposedly based on the 2.7-3k ton design from the same project, while the Emerald-class cruisers displaced around 7.5k tons. For comparison, the Mogador-class destroyers displaced just under 3k tons.

In many ways, this ship will be like the Italian Leone-class, which were designed around the same time prior to WWI and finally completed and commissioned as small scout cruisers in the mid-20s that displaced ~2200 tons. Given the evolution in ship design and the increase in the tonnage of DDs in general over the interwar years, the ships were re-classified as destroyers in 1938.

[Trophy_Wench]

3 hours ago, Jemention said:

Glad to see the Grom and the Split. Not sure about the 9 and 10 but at least they make a bit more sense than the Pan-American CL line.

They really don't though. It's the same hand-wavy, if-then fanfic justification as the LATAM ships for the IX and X designs. I had postulated plenty of designs that, actually seem to fit in quite well with what they are going for ( minus the increase in caliber) but instead they seem fit to just try and imagineer their way into coming up with a DL line that looks outwardly similar to the French and Italians,.just gimmicked up differently. 

I'll admit this line is as egregiously lazy as the LATAM line, but it's still not good.

[Rolkatsuki]

pan-asian cruisers: lazy but good job with the tier 6.

pan-american cruisers: just all round lazy.

pan-euro DDs: do I even need to repeat myself!?

[Jemention]

32 minutes ago, Trophy_Wench said:

They really don't though. It's the same hand-wavy, if-then fanfic justification as the LATAM ships for the IX and X designs. I had postulated plenty of designs that, actually seem to fit in quite well with what they are going for ( minus the increase in caliber) but instead they seem fit to just try and imagineer their way into coming up with a DL line that looks outwardly similar to the French and Italians,.just gimmicked up differently. 

I'll admit this line is as egregiously lazy as the LATAM line, but it's still not good.

The specific designs may not be, but at least they are from nations that did the build ships for the smaller navies. I actually find the Tier 9 to be more questionable than the Tier 10. Using a preliminary design for a late WW1 scout cruiser seems a bit off.

[Karstodes]

Can they just stop pushing a new line every weeks? And what is it with announcing them with unfinished model and no stats?

[Copperhead550]

14 minutes ago, Karstodes said:

Can they just stop pushing a new line every weeks? And what is it with announcing them with unfinished model and no stats?

They told us they were going to be open about many new things last year, they are being open to the community and this is for 2023. even the models aren't completed so they wont be entering the game for at least a few months