Carrier balancing issues

[Scott_C]

I don't want this to be a Japanese vs American on who's stronger, but the balance system is really weird.

I play IJN, and I like them, and I'm not saying American version is better though my comments about them might suggest that.

It's mostly in the extremeness. Automatic win/loss with Fighters, AA causing panic with too sever an effect, AA in general slaughtering squads.

 

 

#1. Japanese Dive Bombers and Torpedo Bombers from Tier 4-10 have the same damage, where as American gradually climbs then stays the same up until Tier 10.

 

#2. On a 1 on 1 squad comparison, the American Fighter, Dive Bomber, and Torpedo Bomber does more damage, plus have more planes. Only saving point for Japanese is that they usually have an extra squad of something. Only at Tier 7 can Japanese win a Fighter vs Fighter match by using 2 v 1 squads. Prior to that, it's an automatic loss for Japan. I've come to accept that IJN Fighters are only for Bomber & Torps, and diversions. This was extremely frustrating at the start. At the very least, shouldn't the Japanese have superior Dive Bombers?

 

#3. Why 4 and 6 units in a squad for all 3 plane types? Why not IJN 5 Fighters, 4 Torps, 6 Bombers, and similar mix up for American? What's the next nationalities going to have? All 5s?

 

#4. "Panic Mode". I'm not sure what the official name for it is, but you'll all likely know what I mean. Where the planes are very severely diminished in it's effectiveness. With Torp planes, you can actually still hit your target. For Dive Bombers, you'll miss almost 100% of the time.

 

#5. "AA Damage". Carriers damage is capped early on in the tiers. They're good, then their effectiveness drops off. Example, their torps are maybe 1/4th the damage of a DD at T10. The high level of AA over compensates for a Carrier's impact. At Tiers 4-6, you can hit CA, CV, and BB. At Tier 7-8, it's mostly CV and BB. At Tier 9-10 the BB's themselves have high AA, and it's not worth the loses to reach the CV. You start to run out of things to hit aside from other CV planes. Perhaps Americans are better off at end game. They're already better Fighters and they'll have more planes remaining in their squads when they reach their destination as they're being shot down. I'm only guessing on that. 

[Carrier_Taiyo]

They're changing fighter mechanics next patch to make fighter vs fighter less one-sided.

[BladedPheonix]

can wait for German and British carriers to get into the mix, then it'll be a real power struggle to see whose "better/the best"!

 

[Fast_Battleship_Iowa]

The first thing I noticed was that the IJN TB torpedo damage stays the same across the board, and while I don't have any trouble doing nice amounts of damage it does seem a bit unfair, especially higher tiers when ships start getting torpedo bulges and take minuscule ammounts of damage from a lot of torpedoes.  

[Numbah18]

They're changing fighter mechanics next patch to make fighter vs fighter less one-sided.

 

They are also upping the damage of rear gunners Which should make things interesting. Op you have hit some of the problems between IJN and US CV. I do understand the frustration of using IJN FT from my time back in CBT and I really would like to make things less one-sided.

I would like to give a bit of a view from the US side of the fence. Playing a US CV amounts to hoping your enemy either doesn't have anything that could even slightly mess with your TB or doesn't know how to focus your planes.

[krazykarl]

how about raising the number of planes a cv carries, or hell make them unlimited like torps on a dd?

[Bril01]

They're changing fighter mechanics next patch to make fighter vs fighter less one-sided.

 

Hopefully they will then modify the US load outs so we are not stuck with less effective fighters and bombers while going up against more balanced load outs and improved fighters.  Right now fighters are the only thing a US CV has going for it over the IJN.

[Leganie]

how about raising the number of planes a cv carries, or hell make them unlimited like torps on a dd?

 

That would be beyond insane to allow unlimited planes. These carriers atleast carry historic max plane loadouts. As for squad size and mixes I can't say I know that info. You make planes unlimted damage across the board would need to be dropped by 80-90%. People would just spam waste planes on targets till they were dead. As for the IJN/USN balance. I am maining USN CV for the fact of better air control assuming I can take out everything before I get wrecked by a IJN carrier with it's at T5 12 TB in 3 TB wings and 8 DBS in 2 wings. My bogue I am rocking the 1 fighter squad and 1 TB squad. Yes USN does get a damage increase from torps and bombs. But look at it this way. USN does not get 2 TB squads till T9 and dive bombers are crap atm. This comes from me playing other ships on the DB info. Personally I think niether side is OP when you look at the whole picture of loadouts and what not. A 2 fighter wings USN carrier can cause havoc in most cases vs IJN carrier but they wont be doing hardly any damage in return even with a decent bomb damage sadly. None the less I only have a T5 CV but I play T7+ matches with my Pensicola.

[minimike86]

Just having the teams both get a carrier in a game would be nice! SO sick of one team being OP af when the game starts