Clear Sky's New Requirements Reach Absurdity

[Compassghost]

So, the new Clear Sky requires that you shoot down at least 50% of ALL of the enemy planes, INCLUDING scout planes on cruisers and battleships, with a minimum of 30 plane kills.

 

The problem is that, surprise surprise, a fair bit of these planes are actually on cruisers and battleships, and virtually inaccessible to actually being shot down. A Yamato, for example, with 8 planes, will probably go through 4 at most, and sending fighters to take out one of those 4 planes is greatly questionable.

 

Let's say we have an ideal T10 fight. Two Carriers, 4 Battleships, and 3 Cruisers, and 3 DDs.

 

The two carriers bring along about 200 planes. The battleships bring on average 6 (because Japan) for another 24, and the cruisers will probably bring another 9.

 

To get Clear Sky, you need to shoot down 115 planes. The server record is somewhere near 110. Most players will probably not crest 100.

 

This gets even more terrifying at mid to low tiers, ironically enough.

 

 

 

Needed 48 on that one @_@

[Spagz]

Yup. Thats Wargaming though. Tend to leap before they look.

[StationaryAA]

How in the hell do things like this make it live?  It's like they don't even play their own game.

[atPrick__]

I guess they are overcompensating a bit, Clear Sky was trollish easy for CVs to accomplish before.

[danredda1616]

I guess they are overcompensating a bit, Clear Sky was trollish easy for CVs to accomplish before.

 

I think it was done so that the award could be got at low tiers too (where CVs had <30 planes) moreso than to make it harder. IMO they just need to make it 30% or so, as the 50% is just waaaay too hard (especially at tier 8/9/10)

[Compassghost]

 

I think it was done so that the award could be got at low tiers too (where CVs had <30 planes) moreso than to make it harder. IMO they just need to make it 30% or so, as the 50% is just waaaay too hard (especially at tier 8/9/10)

 

There's still a 30-plane minimum. If nothing else, they made it harder. 6 cruisers and BBs with 3 scouts = you need to kill 9 of those planes.

[ReddNekk]

How in the hell do things like this make it live?  It's like they don't even play their own game.

 

I'm of the opinion that they don't. Which seems to be common in most MMOs.

[Barritus]

Not to mention it becomes impossible to achieve for Cruisers.  I believe the tooltip also states that they have to be manually targeted by AA (setting enemy aircraft as priority targets for your aa).  No way any ship could kill enough planes for this anymore.

[Misniso]

 

They need to exclude Scout planes, Float planes, etc from the calculation entirely. Then they can up the requirement to 90% for all I care, as long as it's carrier planes and as long as they stand a chance of being launched during the match. The current Clear Sky requirements are just WG trolling us.

 

But the scout fighters do count as planes.  At least in old-style Clear Sky and the missions showing up nowadays.  So it'd be kind of unfair not to count them.

[UnseenSpectacle]

Yeah, I saw that and decided "Well, that's not gonna happen!" I would love to see the earn rate of the new "Clear Skies" compared to, say, "Solo Warrior."

[BnaditCorps]

Make it 40% of carrier aircraft and 15% of Scouts, float-planes, etc. that way you have to still down a lot of carrier aircraft, and the rest are most likely gong to die as a side effect.

[atPrick__]

Yeah, I saw that and decided "Well, that's not gonna happen!" I would love to see the earn rate of the new "Clear Skies" compared to, say, "Solo Warrior."

 

solo warrior sounds easy in comparison to pulling of a Clear Sky in an Atlanta...

[bad_arcade_kitty]

solo warrior isn't particularly hard, it just needs you to be very lucky and play a dd

[10T0nHammer]

 

 

To get Clear Sky, you need to shoot down 115 planes. The server record is somewhere near 110. Most players will probably not crest 100.

 

Only 115? Gitguud Compass

 

Seriously, that 50% plane kill line pretty much killed that medal for a lot of people.

[UnseenSpectacle]

Yeah, I saw that and decided "Well, that's not gonna happen!" I would love to see the earn rate of the new "Clear Skies" compared to, say, "Solo Warrior."

 

solo warrior sounds easy in comparison to pulling of a Clear Sky in an Atlanta...

 

solo warrior isn't particularly hard, it just needs you to be very lucky and play a dd

 

That's my point. When they make Solo Warrior sound like an easy achievement, you know they've gone overboard with the requirements!

 

[CaptHyatt]

 

 

That's my point. When they make Solo Warrior sound like an easy achievement, you know they've gone overboard with the requirements!

 

 

Flags for days.

[hipcanuck]

Im convinced that WG has absolutely no clue whatsoever when it comes to anything airborne. 

 

WoWP is pretty much a failure...

 

They've made CV's useless and its rare to see CV's in a match now...

 

Then this.....

 

No clue....none.

[MagusGerhardt]

Agreed.  Absolutely ridiculous.

 

The only thing I could see us doing to express our disfavor with this change is refusing to buy packs of the now inaccessible flags Clear Sky awards.

 

...but I don't see that happening, either.

[Vaidency]

The real kick the teeth here is that it counts the floatplanes carried by battleships and cruisers, most of which never even get launched in a game so there's no opportunity to shoot them down. 

 

In fact, some BB's carry so many planes they CAN'T launch them all in a game.  My Izumo has 6 floatplanes.  With a 6-minute duration and a 3-minute cooldown, it's not even possible to launch all 6 during a 20-minute game unless they're all almost immediately shot down so the cooldown starts a lot faster.

[Destroyer_KuroshioKai]

Not to mention it becomes impossible to achieve for Cruisers.  I believe the tooltip also states that they have to be manually targeted by AA (setting enemy aircraft as priority targets for your aa).  No way any ship could kill enough planes for this anymore.

 

Hell Yes.

 

I thought I was doing really good in my Atago one day.  For some reason I thought it was 20 planes for the award.  I was protecting C cap on North and CV kept flying everything right over me.  Shot down 22 friggin planes.  No award.  Atago may as well throw rocks for AA, it would be an improvement.  I ended the match chasing planes trying to get that award, since we won, and that award is rare for a DD/IJN CA player.

 

The most I had ever killed before was 10 in a C Hull Mutsuki of all things.

 

Maybe break the reward into two awards if CV is too easy.  If it has to be done in manual to hell with that award, I'll never get it.

[208twelve]

Are we certain that it actually counts all aircraft, launched or not, or only aircraft that actually see flight time? Seems stupid to count aircraft that never actually leave a ship, if that is indeed what they have done.

[Compassghost]

Are we certain that it actually counts all aircraft, launched or not, or only aircraft that actually see flight time? Seems stupid to count aircraft that never actually leave a ship, if that is indeed what they have done.

 

All aircraft, launched or not.

[Granitebeard]

30 planes minimum, I kind of wish they just left it 50%. Imagine all the medals then tho... but yea, barely pulled it off the other day. Kind of a dumb move on their part....

 

[208twelve]

 

All aircraft, launched or not.

 

Hmm, I expect this will likely be changed in the future when it's realized that the rate of achieving the medal has dropped unreasonably low. 

[TenguBlade]

slak__, on 28 December 2015 - 07:20 PM, said:

I guess they are overcompensating a bit, Clear Sky was trollish easy for CVs to accomplish before.

Definitely agree on this one, I had only one match in my Hiryu before the update hit and got Clear Sky against a fully-upgraded AA Ranger with only 1 fighter squad of my own.  It's just too easy at high tiers because of the massive pool of planes T7+ carriers have, while at low tiers it's impossible without 2 carriers because of the small plane reserves each ship has (assuming your teammate in CV doesn't get any or only a few).

 

While I scorn AA carrier gameplay (and the change has certainly decreased the number of AA trolls I'm running into), I think there are few viable options.  One would be to decrease the reward to 30% of the enemy fleet's total plane count, but if fighters and spotters constitute the majority of the enemy plane pool then it's not fair to the CV; this is a scenario more plausible at T4 and T5.  Another would be to increase the rewards for plane kills while keeping the benchmark for Clear Sky at where it is; that, unfortunately, will encourage AA carrier gameplay which does nothing for a team as the winrates indicate.  Yet another is reverting the change, which would make it impossible at low tier and too easy at high tier.