Aether Tech's thoughts about the current state of the game.

[aether_tech]

You may, or may not agree with what I am saying. But do try to keep it civil and refrain from using over-used tropes.

 

1. Low tier CV Seal Clubs - Getting multiple games in a row in tier 4 and 5 ships were there are 2v2 carrier matches going on. I've had two games out of several dozen in the last month that didn't have 2v2 carriers. The rest did. And usually, the CV's are the deciding factors in the match - I also sometimes look up their stats and it's pretty obvious that a lot of them are either A. strictly clubbing people with no or minimal AA; or B. just starting off in carriers and useless as nipples on horse barding. Which more often then not, leads to one-sided slaughter-fests because ships in tier 3, 4 and 5 besides the Texas and Omaha, do not have enough AA to defend themselves - leaving them at the mercy of the CV player being awful, the allied CV player having good fighter control, or ... any of another dozen awful situations. Not to mention some ships just don't have AA at all for all intents and purposes.

 

2. Over-abundance on Isokazes and Minikazes in low tier games. - I get multiple games while in tier 2-6 ships were there are anywhere between most, and all of the destroyers on each team being IJN.  For example, this lovely example from this morning: http://i.imgur.com/w5fhZPY.jpg 

 

3. Mid-High tier DD play is 80% gunboat HE and AP spam, with a lot of seals spamming torpedoes at other seals. - Mid and high tier IJN destroyers are pretty bad by the standards to which we compare them to the US and RU lines - however, they are still at least half - if not more - of the population of destroyers that I see in the mid and high tiers. HOWEVER, the successful destroyers - Mahan, Sims, Blys, Keiv, Tashkent, Benson, Udaloi, Fletcher, Khab and Gearing are the real deciding factors in the majority (and not just 51%, more like 70-80%) of the games I have been in. And it's all fire and broadside AP spam with a few potato players doing suicide rushes in tier 8-10 boats to get their cheap yolo kill.

 

4. High tier CV's make it VERY unfun to play any class in the game. - The number of squadrons an IJN carrier has in their pretty much invalidates most destroyers - except for the few that can defend themselves against airplanes with some effectiveness  (Fletcher, Gearing, Khab, and C-Hull Benson.) However, and one of the primary reasons I see players hating IJN DD's, is that they have no AA and can not get good torp drops on targets with planes scouting constantly. Additionally, the US-IJN CV balance being the ongoing and well-known joke that it is. As with Cruisers and BB's, unless you're playing the Kutuzov, or a high-tier german, or american cruiser - or North Cal, Iowa, or Montanna - torpedo and dive bombers are just a bloody nightmare. Here comes a squadron of torpedo bombers and you have to know open up your broadside to high-tier cruisers and battleships to citadel you - or take torpedos and floods. And additionally, they only avoidance system for Dive Bombers is relying on RNG not to hate you - which is the biggest load of [edited]in the game, when american carriers can drop multiple 5-10k unavoidable bombs on your head, PLUS fires.

 

5. Potatoes and Rutabagas - Nothing says "I hate teamwork and WG doesn't ever tell new players about how much team-work is in this game," more than seeing players YOLO their ships in for a single kill (or less.) Please, Wargaming, put something very obvious, and very visible something into the game that explains to new players (AND CURRENT players,) that they shouldn't just YOLO their one kill on a 40 health target and consider it a job well done.

 

6. Mid-Tier is a bloody mess. - Ruled over by Minikaze at tier 5, the Fuso at tier 6, and the Blys at tier 7. Plus the Schors, because it's balanced. Those are the ships I typically see at the top of score screens, when Carriers are not present. And when CV's are present, it's usually the IJN CV, or a AS US CV in the middle with a top dog DD or fire-spam cruiser above him. I've given up trying to find enjoyment in  5-7 & 6-8 battles.

 

7. Ridiculous RNG of BBs. I landed 4 salvos on a perfect broadside Wyoming from my Arkansas Beta today. And while I did get decent non-citadel damage rolls on each one (8-12k), he landed a single salvo on me, while I was angled against him, and citadeled me. The same thing happened two days ago against - of all things - a Myogi while in my Nikolai, and a New York a game after that. Then of course, there's the close-in-accuracy issue of having a DD 3-4km away and seeing shells go under and over his hull.....all of them - while the DD is broadside.

 

8. Overall Armor Angling Mechanics - They just aren't consistent at all.

 

9. Maps - Specifically, Straights. It's an absolutely awful map and every-time I play on it it's a one-sided slaughter, one team to the other. And potato players just yolo in to a group of enemies more on this map than any other.

 

10. High tier Gunboats - Specifically, Udaloi, Khab, Fletcher and Gearing. First off, yes, I do think Udaloi and Khab are very good ships, BUT I think the way to fix them is to BUFF the Gearing and possibly the Fletcher with slightly flatter arcs (nothing extraordinary but a 5-8% shell speed increase seems appropriate) and 1% increase in fire chance. Along with giving both US ships the 10.5km torpedoes with few thousand less damage. Which gives the IJN back their long-range torpedo dominance. Additionally, Nerf both Tashkent, Udaloi and Khab (maybe even Kiev) by 1-1.5kt. I'm also considering that the IJN ships should have a slight buff to either their rate of fire, or gun traverse time (one second rof increase, or 2-3 deg/sec respectively.)

 

11. HE shell damage, and Fires, and Flooding. Personally, I think HE shell damage, and Fires are in a good place - more or less. The problem is fire stacking a target so that they burn to the ground irregardless of angling. In a similar line of thought, Floods need to last for a maximum of ~70-80 seconds, and be a fixed damage ratio across all tiers. the Wiki lists "0.66-0.12% of total HP per second". Personally, I think 0.12, or even 0.10 should be the case. 0.66 is just ridiculous, by the way. Further more it is far to easy for mid and high tier carriers to stack DOT on big ships, and on DD's, module damage.

 

12. Detonations are bad. - I've said this before, and I'm saying it again, Detonations belong in a historically accurate (or trying to be,) game that isn't semi-competitive. Detonations do not belong in an a-historical semi-competitive arcade game.

 

13. Permanent turret and torpedo tube destruction. - Self explanatory - and was far worse a few patches ago. But it occasionally rears its ugly head in current patches. Last week I had all my guns knocked out in my Udaloi, along with 2 torpedo launchers. Leaving me only my portside torpedo launcher in which to influence the rest of a battle that lasted for another 10 minutes. (Yes, I did just cap a lot that round....) Remove permanent TURRET destruction, and replace it with a longer non-damage control party fixable repair time (30-60 seconds for cruisers and destroyers, and 60-80 seconds for battleships.) Torpedoes should take a similar amount of time to be repaired, depending on tier.

 

14. Detection Bug. - No, I'm not talking about the SA Visibility Bug. I'm talking about a problem that has existed before, and still exists. Sometimes, you will be spotted in the game but the SA icon will not pop up - but it will in the replay. That is infuriating. I was in my Udaloi last night, in smoke and getting accurately shot at with no SA icon showing up. However, after watching the replay - suddenly it shows the SA Icon (/w radar.) This is not the first time this has happened. I've seen it several times over the year. It happens most often with airplanes however. Especially if there is a large island interacting with the plane(s) in ... "strange," ways. I'm now debating if I have to record all my matches as they happen in order to show proof of this bug existing. 

 

15. High Tier Concealment and Bow-On Meta. - One of the reasons I play high tier gunboats, is because I don't have to play the bow-on meta, and I can mostly disregard the Concealment issues of whatever boat I'm playing, and just pew-pew my enemy to death. I've not advanced up either of the BB trees, nor have I gone beyond the Cleveland and Admiral Hipper in those two trees because the top-tier play-style is boring. It is stagnant, and it rewards players who snipe from the back - and brutally murders players who try to push up before the first 10 minutes of the game are over. Plus, there's the whole "LOLPEN" issue from #8 which is further compounded by that bloody Yamato tub. And torpedo soup still exists. And potatoes and worse rutabagas still make the worst choices in their high tier ships.

 

16. Warpsite vs tier 8 BBs, and any tier 8 BBs vs tier 6s. At least the Fuso has volume of fire and range to go with it, and the New Mexico has tankiness and volume of fire. But the Warspite more or less gets completely rofflestompped by even the below average Tier 8 BB player. This is mostly due to the Warspite's awful and A-Historical armor modeling - which gets further worse and worse with the increase in gunboats, as well as basically any cruiser tier 6-8 being able to demolish it's massive superstructure with its pathetic 25mm of armor, and its god-awful deck armor, and high-in-the-water hull. And the extra front citadel space, the deck armor under the catapult, top belt (barbette) along the sides,) and it's eight barrels of slow-as-[edited]shells with paltry range unless you use the spotter plane. Basically, the Warspite is a mess, and tier 6's get absolutely stompped by tier 8s. And its not just limited to BB's. The tier 6 destroyers pretty much suck. The cruisers have it slightly better due to good ROF and reasonable maneuverability. Cleveland, Nurnberg, Aoba, and Buddy are all in pretty good places. But the Molotov's fire chance is a bit OP....

 

17. I don't actually have a 17th point I could think of, but just throwing it out there that I really, REALLY hate carriers in their current implementation, but I can't really see a way of fixing them that doesn't completely change their roll (as carriers) or completely screwing over American cruisers (by taking their only selling point, AA, and making it absolutely worthless.)

 

 

Edit...

 

18. RNG AA. So, I do have a 17th point, I just forgot about it. But RNG AA is one of the worst mechanics in this game. Sometimes you shoot down a plane, sometimes you don't. The whole AA DPS thing is a joke and a lie. Either tell us in game the specific chance per a second to shoot down A plane; or rework the AA so that the DPS is actually relevant against a squadron/plane's hitpoint pool. I'd like to at least see my AA doing...something, instead of sometimes doing nothing and sometimes doing a little bit more than nothing.

 

 

[RogueFlameHaze]

I agree with most of your points on carriers and IJN destroyers. Honestly I don't think carriers need nerfing... but they need to find a balance that suits them better than what it currently is.

[aether_tech]

I agree with most of your points on carriers and IJN destroyers. Honestly I don't think carriers need nerfing... but they need to find a balance that suits them better than what it currently is.

 

One idea I had, a while ago, was to actually give carriers a rate of drop limit (rate of fire,) because cross drops are bloody unfair to pretty much everyone, as are hammer drops on battleships.

 

However, there's still the issue of DOT stacking when forcing a ROD (rate of drop) on carriers. Since most good CV players do that already.

[thegamefilmguruman]

Some interesting insights.  Now, I don't agree with all of them, but still, pretty darn interesting an thought provoking.

[aether_tech]

Some interesting insights.  Now, I don't agree with all of them, but still, pretty darn interesting an thought provoking.

 

Thank you.

[Herr_Reitz]

#10. I'm good with the gun buff... and speed... because you can't get away or gun down (normally) RU ships at that tier... they are blindingly fast and potent. Which why I'm currently working (again) on the RU DD line. 

 

#14. I have also experienced (since the last patch) cruisers winking in and out of visual when there is no reason for it. I "should" have a clear LOS to them. Open waters, no smoke, no islands. They are usually withing a km of their concealment range - if they have a 14km concealment, they are currently at 13km from me) - and they just wink in and out. Maybe two times max. 

 

All other points are good. Carriers - I feel for those guys - they wanna play but they can limit a game so quickly - or lose it. 

[iChase]

8 months ago I made a state of the game video...8 months later 90%+ of what I talked about still applies >.<

[Crucis]

Aether, you completely lost me the moment you attacked detonations.  Were negs still a thing, I'd have given you a -1 for that single thing.  Detonations belong in the game.  Period!!!  If you can't deal with it, too bad.  Go play something else.  A naval combat game without detonations is like a D&D like game without magic.

 

 

 

 

[RogueFlameHaze]

8 months ago I made a state of the game video...8 months later 90%+ of what I talked about still applies >.<

 

Minus the beloved flavor of the month ships changing?

[ryuukei8569]

 

One idea I had, a while ago, was to actually give carriers a rate of drop limit (rate of fire,) because cross drops are bloody unfair to pretty much everyone, as are hammer drops on battleships.

 

However, there's still the issue of DOT stacking when forcing a ROD (rate of drop) on carriers. Since most good CV players do that already.

 

Um no, Crossdrops are not unfair, because one, they are hard as hell to pull off, and two, that is the only way for an IJN CV to reliably deal with a DD, as their divebombers are far too weak to do anything to a DD. USN of course has no choice but to rely on DB's, seeing as they only have one TB squadron.

 

Otherwise the biggest problem with CV's is the awful inter CV balance where IJN CV's utterly dominate USN ones. That is number one priority that needs to be fixed about the type, as this can actively rig a match almost as bad as a fail division.

[ryuukei8569]

Aether, you completely lost me the moment you attacked detonations.  Were negs still a thing, I'd have given you a -1 for that single thing.  Detonations belong in the game.  Period!!!  If you can't deal with it, too bad.  Go play something else.  A naval combat game without detonations is like a D&D like game without magic.

 

 

Dude, really. OK so even if detonations belong in the game, the mechanic seriously needs to be looked at, because I have detonated hindenburgs using Moskva's HE. That tells me right there something is deeply wrong with the mechanic, meaning first off, a shell should actually have to reach the magazine to cause a det in the first place, not happen because RNG says so despite the shell hitting the flagpole or something like that.

 

Second off, having a Det happen right at the beginning of a high tier game landing you a 300k repair bill because RNG says so, without any compensation is also total [edited].

[SubTender_Taigei]

I agree with some of these points, but to really balance and "fix" all these mechanics would mean that a total re-do of everything we know would have to take place. 

 

-Models would have to be re-visited to adjust their armor and AP+HE shells would have to be reworked in order for the RNG damage rolls to start being consistent. 

-AA and carrier play would need to receive a total re-haul, and new mechanics would need to be introduced to balance CVs without making gameplay stagnant, nor underwhelming.

-Buffing/nerfing ships won't fix problems with some particular ships dominating others in it's same tier+class. For all ships to be equally playable yet different at the same time is just something that isn't possible. The only way this would work is for specific ships to counter other ships, something like rock/paper/scissors. However, with 4 different classes, this heavily complicates this matter, and I don't believe it can be achieved.

 

[aether_tech]

 

Um no, Crossdrops are not unfair, because one, they are hard as hell to pull off, and two, that is the only way for an IJN CV to reliably deal with a DD, as their divebombers are far too weak to do anything to a DD. USN of course has no choice but to rely on DB's, seeing as they only have one TB squadron.

 

Otherwise the biggest problem with CV's is the awful inter CV balance where IJN CV's utterly dominate USN ones. That is number one priority that needs to be fixed about the type, as this can actively rig a match almost as bad as a fail division.

 

People should be punished for poor positioning and reaction to enemies around them. Being punished because you can't outmanvuer two turn-on-a-dime torpedo squadrons is not all fair. I accept having to take 1 or 2 torpedoes in a BB - but I'm always going to be turning into/away from the squadron enough to make it appear as if I'm not a complete potato. But being cross dropped negates the whole point of part of the game, which is "punished for doing something stupid." Carriers completely negate something that the other three classes of the game adhere to the most out of all the mechanics in the game. 

 

Carriers punish both poor players, and good players because of the plane's ability to turn on a dime and very quickly reposition their drops.

[DingBat]

 

I've got < 1000 games in but I've also realized that pushing beyond tier 7 in cruisers is pointless. I LOATHE what I have seen of high tier play so far. I hadn't actually thought it possible to create a less balanced high tier play meta than WoT but they did it with WoWs. I've pretty much recognized that if I want any enjoyment out of higher tier play it's going to be as a gunboat captain. So, pretty much 1 or 2 lines worth playing beyond tier 7. Not good. Now, I'm not saying the game should cater to me specifically, but I don't seem to be the only person that feels this way.

 

[ryuukei8569]

 

People should be punished for poor positioning and reaction to enemies around them. Being punished because you can't outmanvuer two turn-on-a-dime torpedo squadrons is not all fair. I accept having to take 1 or 2 torpedoes in a BB - but I'm always going to be turning into/away from the squadron enough to make it appear as if I'm not a complete potato. But being cross dropped negates the whole point of part of the game, which is "punished for doing something stupid." Carriers completely negate something that the other three classes of the game adhere to the most out of all the mechanics in the game. 

 

Carriers punish both poor players, and good players because of the plane's ability to turn on a dime and very quickly reposition their drops.

 

There are a lot of things certain ships cant do to counter others. IJN DD's are practically helpless if they get run down by one of those hyper fast VMF DD's. high tier BB's are too clumsy to avoid Yamato shell fire or Zao/Moskva HE spam, cruisers often take random cits because RNG. Simply put even good players cannot dodge everything, there will always be some damage you cannot avoid, and Crossdrop's are hard as hell to pull off. But I wouldn't expect you to know that since the only Cv you have played is langly, and therefore your clueless as to how insanely difficult it is. I have made it all the way to hakuryu and and I'm a 55% WR player and I still cannot pull it off. Part of the problem is that the only CV players you see at high tiers are the super unicum players, where as more average CV players like myself are rarer than unicorns at T9-10. And unfortunately the goddam unicums just by dominating the high tiers tend to drive out the average player and push them away from the type, leaving only the super unicums. But either way, crossdrops are the only counter an IJN CV has to DD's, so unless you want to massively buff their DB's to counter DD's, then crossdrops should stay. Plus game mechanics would never support it and by limiting the amount of drops a CV can make a minute would force them to send their squadrons out piecemeal and allow even the AA poor ships to casually rip their planes to pieces. That is not a nerf CV's need.

[WhimsicalPacifist]

 

People should be punished for poor positioning and reaction to enemies around them. Being punished because you can't outmanvuer two turn-on-a-dime torpedo squadrons is not all fair. I accept having to take 1 or 2 torpedoes in a BB - but I'm always going to be turning into/away from the squadron enough to make it appear as if I'm not a complete potato. But being cross dropped negates the whole point of part of the game, which is "punished for doing something stupid." Carriers completely negate something that the other three classes of the game adhere to the most out of all the mechanics in the game. 

 

Carriers punish both poor players, and good players because of the plane's ability to turn on a dime and very quickly reposition their drops.

 

This is a step in the wrong direction.  When CV's were exceptionally strong, there was the mentality that you grouped up.  Or your team died horribly one by one.  The game needs strong CV's as a stick to push those YOLO's into playing for the fleet's benefit.

 

What is predominately lacking is the ability of Cruisers to act as hunter-killers of destroyers, and a severe lack of incentives/impact on the battle for AAA escorting.  HE damage and rework of bow-on mechanic are also needed.  The DD's citadel immunity to cruiser caliber guns needs to go and the IJN DD's guns need to be reworked to be usable.  CV's provide the stick, but there's a distinct lack of carrots (progression, sustenance) for teamwork outside of capping, killing and damage.

[Francois424]

The only thing I do not agree with (and never did) is the Fire mechanics.  It makes armor useless (just spawn fires), and even HE is too powerful in some cases.  I've tested something this week; every time I took my Arizona out, I loaded HE and stayed with the shell type thru all the matches.  I was expecting bad results... not only did that NOT prove to be right, it easily DOUBLED my damage output (and I can do 70-100k damage easy with AP).  Arizona did not pen reliably even using same tactics I was using with other BBs, and I was having a hard time getting 50k damage reliably.  Now with HE ?  Given that the match actually last and that it's not overcrowded by DDs, I can reach 80-100k pretty regularly (112k record atm).   To note that it's not usual in a game to do 30-60k damage from fire alone... Even Tirpitz are no problem against my HE-throwing Arizona (AP would struggle, especially since they angle bow on to be often).  Now I always called HE-slinging BB player noobs... heh not anymore, that's for sure.

 

My solution to extensive fires ?  Rework the Fire prevention skill/modules.  Keep them as they are now, a percent of a percent, but then raise it all the way to 50% reduction of the fire chance for captains that have both the module (would prevent less because it's a low tier module, say 15%) and the skill which may add another 35% to the number.  So BB that decides to take all of that will still get set on fire, but might be more manageable. Testing required.

- - - -

Secondaries still need revising, mostly their range (which WG is actually starting to fix on new premium ships and for the German BB line).  Easily achieved by making both module and skill add a flat 2km instead of %-based bonus.

This fixes ridiculous range of low-tier secondaries (most low-tier have 3 to 4km range... which isn't suicide range, it's ramming range), and changes almost nothing for t10's (which may gain 0.3km range or something).

 

I would keep their current drunken accuracy, just increase the range.  At 7.2km (5km base + module + skill) I feel it works really well.  Both WarSpite and Nagato do the job fine with that range.  Maybe something to rework on all BBs, and even Heavy Cruisers.

 

Rest of the game is pretty good !

[IronWolfV]

You may, or may not agree with what I am saying. But do try to keep it civil and refrain from using over-used tropes.

 

1. Low tier CV Seal Clubs - /snip I somewhat agree with this post, especially when there are very few dedicated AA boats at that tier and no cruiser save Yubari has DF.

 

2. Over-abundance on Isokazes and Minikazes in low tier games. - If you're a BB main I got two sayings "STOP SAILING IN A STRAIGHT LINE!" And don't sail alone.  Personally I love rolling out a Gremlin or a Nicholas and going to town on these jackholes.

 

3. Mid-High tier DD play is 80% gunboat HE and AP spam, with a lot of seals spamming torpedoes at other seals. - Reason the Mid to high tier IJN DDs are so bad is because most people whined and complained about "torpedo soup".  The result is the rise of gunboats.

 

4. High tier CV's make it VERY unfun to play any class in the game. - This is the dichotomy of ships. People rant and rail about wanting to work in groups, then wail at the top of their lungs about vehicles that do not allow them to run lone wolf as they please. I find this quite hilarious.

 

5. Potatoes and Rutabagas - Welcome to Online gaming.

 

6. Mid-Tier is a bloody mess. - COMPLETE AND UTTER CRAP. All i gotta say on the subject.

 

7. Ridiculous RNG of BBs. - Sorry this one is not going to change.  And there isn't much you can do about it.

 

8. Overall Armor Angling Mechanics - Because shell size, velocity and penetration is all different, hence why you can angle some things and others just give the big FU.

 

9. Maps - Sorry I like MORE maps not less. I get sick of the same 2-3 maps on repeat.

 

10. High tier Gunboats - Specifically, Udaloi, Khab, Fletcher and Gearing. First off, yes, I do think Udaloi and Khab are very good ships, BUT I think the way to fix them is to BUFF the Gearing and possibly the Fletcher with slightly flatter arcs (nothing extraordinary but a 5-8% shell speed increase seems appropriate) and 1% increase in fire chance. Along with giving both US ships the 10.5km torpedoes with few thousand less damage. Which gives the IJN back their long-range torpedo dominance. Additionally, Nerf both Tashkent, Udaloi and Khab (maybe even Kiev) by 1-1.5kt. I'm also considering that the IJN ships should have a slight buff to either their rate of fire, or gun traverse time (one second rof increase, or 2-3 deg/sec respectively.)  Not many arguments here except buffing Fletcher which is right now the best tier 9 DD in the game. Doesn't really need the help.  Remember RU DDs are stand off shooters, USN DDs are the rapid fire short range UZIs of DDs.

 

11. HE shell damage, and Fires, and Flooding. Personally, I think HE shell damage, and Fires are in a good place - more or less. The problem is fire stacking a target so that they burn to the ground irregardless of angling. In a similar line of thought, Floods need to last for a maximum of ~70-80 seconds, and be a fixed damage ratio across all tiers. the Wiki lists "0.66-0.12% of total HP per second". Personally, I think 0.12, or even 0.10 should be the case. 0.66 is just ridiculous, by the way. Further more it is far to easy for mid and high tier carriers to stack DOT on big ships, and on DD's, module damage.  Not bad ideas at all.

 

12. Detonations are bad. - I've said this before, and I'm saying it again, Detonations belong in a historically accurate (or trying to be,) game that isn't semi-competitive. Detonations do not belong in an a-historical semi-competitive arcade game. I disagree.  Sometimes ships get hit with the golden BB and explode. Way it works.

 

13. Permanent turret and torpedo tube destruction. - Self explanatory - and was far worse a few patches ago. But it occasionally rears its ugly head in current patches. Last week I had all my guns knocked out in my Udaloi, along with 2 torpedo launchers. Leaving me only my portside torpedo launcher in which to influence the rest of a battle that lasted for another 10 minutes. (Yes, I did just cap a lot that round....) Remove permanent TURRET destruction, and replace it with a longer non-damage control party fixable repair time (30-60 seconds for cruisers and destroyers, and 60-80 seconds for battleships.) Torpedoes should take a similar amount of time to be repaired, depending on tier.

I can go either way on this. I think severe damage should make guns shoot worse, damage torps so they do worse or cause duds.

 

14. Detection Bug. - No, I'm not talking about the SA Visibility Bug. I'm talking about a problem that has existed before, and still exists. Sometimes, you will be spotted in the game but the SA icon will not pop up - but it will in the replay. That is infuriating. I was in my Udaloi last night, in smoke and getting accurately shot at with no SA icon showing up. However, after watching the replay - suddenly it shows the SA Icon (/w radar.) This is not the first time this has happened. I've seen it several times over the year. It happens most often with airplanes however. Especially if there is a large island interacting with the plane(s) in ... "strange," ways. I'm now debating if I have to record all my matches as they happen in order to show proof of this bug existing.  Bugs be bugs. Yeah like it fixed too but is what is.

 

15. High Tier Concealment and Bow-On Meta. - One of the reasons I play high tier gunboats, is because I don't have to play the bow-on meta, and I can mostly disregard the Concealment issues of whatever boat I'm playing, and just pew-pew my enemy to death. I've not advanced up either of the BB trees, nor have I gone beyond the Cleveland and Admiral Hipper in those two trees because the top-tier play-style is boring. It is stagnant, and it rewards players who snipe from the back - and brutally murders players who try to push up before the first 10 minutes of the game are over. Plus, there's the whole "LOLPEN" issue from #8 which is further compounded by that bloody Yamato tub. And torpedo soup still exists. And potatoes and worse rutabagas still make the worst choices in their high tier ships. Welcome to ships becoming so accurate at higher tiers that they can sit back with most of their armor to the front at 20KM and reliably hit a target. And guess what was 2 of the things you've whined about that STOPS THAT CRAP.  Carriers and that Torpedo soup, both of which are now pretty ineffective. Welcome to what you wish for!

 

16. Warpsite vs tier 8 BBs, and any tier 8 BBs vs tier 6s. At least the Fuso has volume of fire and range to go with it, and the New Mexico has tankiness and volume of fire. But the Warspite more or less gets completely rofflestompped by even the below average Tier 8 BB player. This is mostly due to the Warspite's awful and A-Historical armor modeling - which gets further worse and worse with the increase in gunboats, as well as basically any cruiser tier 6-8 being able to demolish it's massive superstructure with its pathetic 25mm of armor, and its god-awful deck armor, and high-in-the-water hull. And the extra front citadel space, the deck armor under the catapult, top belt (barbette) along the sides,) and it's eight barrels of slow-as-[edited]shells with paltry range unless you use the spotter plane. Basically, the Warspite is a mess, and tier 6's get absolutely stompped by tier 8s. And its not just limited to BB's. The tier 6 destroyers pretty much suck. The cruisers have it slightly better due to good ROF and reasonable maneuverability. Cleveland, Nurnberg, Aoba, and Buddy are all in pretty good places. But the Molotov's fire chance is a bit OP....

From what I understand they've mostly fixed that by putting most of the citadel under water now. Should help a bunch.

 

17. I don't actually have a 17th point I could think of, but just throwing it out there that I really, REALLY hate carriers in their current implementation, but I can't really see a way of fixing them that doesn't completely change their roll (as carriers) or completely screwing over American cruisers (by taking their only selling point, AA, and making it absolutely worthless.)

 

 

Edit...

 

18. RNG AA. So, I do have a 17th point, I just forgot about it. But RNG AA is one of the worst mechanics in this game. Sometimes you shoot down a plane, sometimes you don't. The whole AA DPS thing is a joke and a lie. Either tell us in game the specific chance per a second to shoot down A plane; or rework the AA so that the DPS is actually relevant against a squadron/plane's hitpoint pool. I'd like to at least see my AA doing...something, instead of sometimes doing nothing and sometimes doing a little bit more than nothing. That's not RNG. It's more the fact of squadrons have a hit pool vs your DPS. If your DPS isn't enough to swat the planes they fly away, and then once out of combat REGENERATE THEIR HP!  But if you have enough DPS you swat planes from the sky with abandon.

 

 

Replies in bold.

[IronWolfV]

The only thing I do not agree with (and never did) is the Fire mechanics.  It makes armor useless (just spawn fires), and even HE is too powerful in some cases.  I've tested something this week; every time I took my Arizona out, I loaded HE and stayed with the shell type thru all the matches.  I was expecting bad results... not only did that NOT prove to be right, it easily DOUBLED my damage output (and I can do 70-100k damage easy with AP).  Arizona did not pen reliably even using same tactics I was using with other BBs, and I was having a hard time getting 50k damage reliably.  Now with HE ?  Given that the match actually last and that it's not overcrowded by DDs, I can reach 80-100k pretty regularly (112k record atm).   To note that it's not usual in a game to do 30-60k damage from fire alone... Even Tirpitz are no problem against my HE-throwing Arizona (AP would struggle, especially since they angle bow on to be often).  Now I always called HE-slinging BB player noobs... heh not anymore, that's for sure.

 

 

My solution to extensive fires ?  Rework the Fire prevention skill/modules.  Keep them as they are now, a percent of a percent, but then raise it all the way to 50% reduction of the fire chance for captains that have both the module (would prevent less because it's a low tier module, say 15%) and the skill which may add another 35% to the number.  So BB that decides to take all of that will still get set on fire, but might be more manageable. Testing required.

- - - -

Secondaries still need revising, mostly their range (which WG is actually starting to fix on new premium ships and for the German BB line).  Easily achieved by making both module and skill add a flat 2km instead of %-based bonus.

This fixes ridiculous range of low-tier secondaries (most low-tier have 3 to 4km range... which isn't suicide range, it's ramming range), and changes almost nothing for t10's (which may gain 0.3km range or something).

 

 

I would keep their current drunken accuracy, just increase the range.  At 7.2km (5km base + module + skill) I feel it works really well.  Both WarSpite and Nagato do the job fine with that range.  Maybe something to rework on all BBs, and even Heavy Cruisers.

 

 

Rest of the game is pretty good !

 

Actually they simply need rework fires in general. A 5 inch shell should not start the same size fire as a 14 inch shell.  And there should be internal and external fires both doing different things.

 

Example. External fire, removes your concealment(pretty much does in game if you look at it), foul up your range finder if struck amid ships, should degrade your AA since hey decks's on fire, AA teams are going to either fight the fire or run like hell!  It should do light damage but generally should cause chaos on your ability to fight the ship and have a chance to become an INTERNAL fire depending if you hit amid shis.

 

Now Internal fires, these should cause pretty intense damage and have a good chance of setting off ammo storage or fuel storage if left alone long enough causing your ship to explode.  Basically fire gets inside a ship that's a pretty BFD and needs to be dealt with INSTANTLY.

 

That my friends is how you fix fires.

[Dapper1]

Hmmmmm, I don't agree with this post because you didn't once mention how Torpedoes are OP. :3

[CylonRed]

They need to fix the higher tier IJN DDs to get people to play them but the current reality is, the Minekaze is as far as one should go as it is the only truly competitive IJN DD. 

 

I have played everything but CVs - I have no issues with detonations. I have deleted ships in one salvo from my Kongo but that was from multiple citadel hits, don't believe that is officially a 'detonation'.  For the amount of games and players - it is rare for a detonation to happen in more than 2 times in a game - though I am not playing tier 8-10 games in general.

 

About the only map I really dislike is Ocean - all of the other ones I have had games that were lopsided and plenty of others that were not.  Fire is probably my second least fav.  There is another one - NO idea of the name but it is a tier 8 or 9 map that I have played a couple times that I dislike as well.

 

While I dislike RNG - it does seem to be fickle in time blocks.  I can do average or a bit more than average damage in my Kongo during the week but then those that hit before suddenly don't and I can't do 10K average damage.

[thepointofluck]

most of this I can agree with but #10 I disagree with.  Sure a buff to IJN DD's is need and yours is reasonable but buffing the ballistics and neffing the torpedoes on USN DD's basically would in my opinion ruin them. First off the ballistics are a much complained about but they are a part of how the DD's are balance. USN DD's will win in a knifefight with a ROF advantage against most other but if they get in a long range duel with a RU DD or even a skilled IJN DD they will lose the fight. If you buff the ballistics large enough to be noticed, it will up set this balance and the USN will become dominate for a while until they are nerfed and they take away something else to balance them. And the if you nerfed the torps they way you propose would would essentially be giving the gearing sightly faster and .5km longer Khab damage torps. If you wanted to change the torps give the Fletcher Gearing's torp damage and nerf the range on the Gearing's torps to like 12.5km. As for the RU DD's they need a heavy nerf at tier 10 and less so a tier 9. I'd remove the better reload on the on the upgraded Udaloi turret and stock Khab turrets and then decrease to the HP of the Khab to like 20K and decrease its speed to by 3 knots and reduce its torp range to 8km. 

 

[Stauffenberg44]

 

There are a lot of things certain ships cant do to counter others. IJN DD's are practically helpless if they get run down by one of those hyper fast VMF DD's. high tier BB's are too clumsy to avoid Yamato shell fire or Zao/Moskva HE spam, cruisers often take random cits because RNG. Simply put even good players cannot dodge everything, there will always be some damage you cannot avoid, and Crossdrop's are hard as hell to pull off. But I wouldn't expect you to know that since the only Cv you have played is langly, and therefore your clueless as to how insanely difficult it is. I have made it all the way to hakuryu and and I'm a 55% WR player and I still cannot pull it off. Part of the problem is that the only CV players you see at high tiers are the super unicum players, where as more average CV players like myself are rarer than unicorns at T9-10. And unfortunately the goddam unicums just by dominating the high tiers tend to drive out the average player and push them away from the type, leaving only the super unicums. But either way, crossdrops are the only counter an IJN CV has to DD's, so unless you want to massively buff their DB's to counter DD's, then crossdrops should stay. Plus game mechanics would never support it and by limiting the amount of drops a CV can make a minute would force them to send their squadrons out piecemeal and allow even the AA poor ships to casually rip their planes to pieces. That is not a nerf CV's need.

 

I have to agree, and I know the feeling of being simply over-powered by excellent CV play. In a battle yesterday I spent the entire match dodging torps, twice crossdrops, and Warspite is the best BB for dodging, period. But the dual CVs had clearly agreed to take me out and they managed it although I dodged at least 20 torps before sunk. Very frustrating but the reason I agree with that ability is that I have played CVs at least enough to know the level of insane micro management that goes into that level of skill, and thankfully most CVs you run up against don't have it--perhaps 1 out of 5 at a rough guess.

 

As to aether's other points I'll have to mull on them. I appreciate the effort put into that post.

[TreeBurst82]

AA and shooting down aircraft has always bugged me.  Our ships have HP and our shells shave off HP when they hit (usually).  One would think AA would be the same.  Nope!

 

DBs on my Bogue have 1070 HP.  We can assume this is for the entire 6 plane squadron, so each plane has 178 1/3 HP.  If someone has the t5 CV skill and can corroborate this, that would be appreciated.

 

AA on my Murmansk (with AA module and BFT capt) has the following: 18 dps @ 4.2km (76.2mm), 37 dps @ 4.2km(40mm Bofors) and 66 dps @ 2.4km(20mm Oerlikon).

 

My understanding of AA mechanic is this:

 

My DBs fly into the first AA bubble (4.2km).  Their 1070HP is divided by each cloud DPS for a % chance to knock down 1 aircraft. 

 

76mm bubble: 18/1070 = 1.68% chance to knock down an aircraft/round.  No idea how long a round is.

40mm bubble: 37/1070 = 3.45% chance to knock down an aircraft/round.

20mm bubble: 66/1070 = 6.16% chance to knock down an aircraft/round. (when closing to 2.4km)

 

Ctrl clicking an air group adds...x2?  x4 dps?  I can't remember.  I also have no idea how dps interacts with multiple air squads in multiple bubbles.  I think the math is recalculated when one bomber is lost such as:

 

(1 aircraft lost)

18/891.66 = 2.01 %

37/891.66 = 4.14 %

66/891.66 = 7.4 %

 

We've all seen aircraft squads get completely obliterated and then no damage when flying in the same ship's AA bubble - just from observational evidence I think we can safely assume AA DPS is not being mathematically subtracted from a squadron's life pool every round.  Maybe, hard to tell.

 

[iEaTDaGrudge]

They need to fix the higher tier IJN DDs to get people to play them but the current reality is, the Minekaze is as far as one should go as it is the only truly competitive IJN DD. 

 

I have played everything but CVs - I have no issues with detonations. I have deleted ships in one salvo from my Kongo but that was from multiple citadel hits, don't believe that is officially a 'detonation'.  For the amount of games and players - it is rare for a detonation to happen in more than 2 times in a game - though I am not playing tier 8-10 games in general.

 

About the only map I really dislike is Ocean - all of the other ones I have had games that were lopsided and plenty of others that were not.  Fire is probably my second least fav.  There is another one - NO idea of the name but it is a tier 8 or 9 map that I have played a couple times that I dislike as well.

 

While I dislike RNG - it does seem to be fickle in time blocks.  I can do average or a bit more than average damage in my Kongo during the week but then those that hit before suddenly don't and I can't do 10K average damage.

 

what you dont like the map Ocean? That is the Most realistic naval battle map ever..Good having 2 Cv's on botch side..