World of Warships

[Skywalker_T-65]

Case in point, even on a lower-tier...the Kongo's hull upgrade just cost 750k credits. That's a good five or so matches in the Premium Murmansk to recoup the money.

Granted, at T5 the Kongo herself will make decent money. But the point is...that's only halfway up the tiers, and is already getting expensive just for module upgrades.

[Covenant]

I'm actually pretty happy that Battleships aren't ahistorical kingmakers of the match, even though they are exceptionally good at dictating some of the pace. The extreme range shots were not very accurate in reality, as far as I can tell, so it's not like they need to be long range snipers in the game. I do think that the shell dispersion at around 8km or so should be tighter, as it is already painful to wheel myself in to face the target with all my slow turrets, I don't see why I need the triple nerf of having my shells careen off in odd directions even close up. It is not as if my secondary batteries are worth much.

Economy buffs would be nice, but from an in-game point of view I think one major benefit could be made from having that main battery accuracy higher up close (which, though I may be wrong, I believe it was) as a way to give battleships an excellent carrier escort role that they currently cede to the cruisers (due to the fancy cruiser AA boost ability) and make them more valuable in a tighter range fight. Such would make them more valuable as escorts, and to escort, rather than having them compete with carriers for the "long range bombardment" role that they currently have. Being extremely durable is excellent, but given how vulnerable they are to torpedo hits, I am not sure that a brick of health is really a terribly useful team asset.

[Sea Skimmer]

It'd help if they'd eliminate the parallax problem that seems to exist for all guns in the game, in that your turrets fire at different aim points based on the location of the ships. Real life fire control systems corrected for this as much was possible within the adjustment limits of the gun turrets and elevation, provisions existed to do so even before actual tracking computers replaced the simple range clocks of WW1. For fast firing guns it doesn't really matter, but for battleships it seems to make the salvo spreads far wider then they should be, and really throw off your pattern if you can't fire a full salvo. I think that's part of why people have so many accuracy problems. They aren't that accurate, and the mean point of impact per turret isn't centered.

I think a lot of battleship captains also just screw themselves firing full salvos against cruisers, and by handling the ships very poorly, which not much is going to help, but its an issue and certainly a reason why battleships often fail to decide rounds. They just don't produce enough volume of fire from lack of planning. It seems like at least half the guys I watch even with fairly high level ships just make utterly illogical turns vs target vs turret orientation, and not nearly enough players of any sort exploit the ability to lock the guns on one beam or another when reversing course. It'd also be nice if they'd just add a button to return your turrets to a fore-aft rest position. I know the lock guns button wasn't in the closed beta at first so this might happen.

Cruisers seem to be the real way to make money in the game. 100k profits no problem from an ocean of flaming battleships.

[Nephtys]

That's actually my biggest gripe in battleships: I often am approaching or doing a maneuver where only my forward guns are usable. I plan on tacking at some point, but that means the aft turrets are pointed in the wrong direction (instead of in the neutral aft-facing position). With their huge traversal times, it's very hard to often get full shots on target without dropping speed to avoid hitting dangerous island-filled areas or travelling too straight and becoming torpedo bait.

[Covenant]

There's a turret lock button? That would be incredible. I like to steam towards cruisers, either facing or bladed to present an oblique at best target which minimizes the chance of their penetration--let alone citadel hit of any sort from errant battleship shell. This allows me to bully them, especially if they attempt to go past me, but being unable to track turrets individually (which would be very nice) makes it really hard to manage a chaotic engagement. I've been quite successful up close using AP and firing at the water line to hit cruisers below the belt and deal tens of thousands of damage per hit, but it takes SO LONG for me to get there, and get close enough, that it feels like I'm mostly just amusing myself with the Battleship tag rather than picking a ship because it's role is helpful.

Battleships are fun, but they're not quite fun enough to make up for the quality of life problems they present by their very nature. Obviously the upside to being a finicky, labor intensive vessel should be a big payoff when it comes together, but they're not even what you call a big payoff ship. As noted the Cruisers or even the Destroyers have better cash rewards, and Cruisers are also extremely flexible, so they are tons of fun to play. Not being great, and also not being much fun, is bad for the battleship. It's kinda like a prestige class. Frankly they might as well turn BB's into the end of cruiser lines, and make them better but use the aforementioned economy problems of high end vessels as their mitigating factor.

No shame there. It's just a big goofy as is, though. I love the cruisers so I'm not really mad, but it feels... I don't know, it feels odd to ignore the prestige and the fame and the coolness of the battleships entirely and play cruisers without remorse.

[Skywalker_T-65]

I imagine, despite being high-tiers, that the last three American BBs are rather fun. Big guns, fast speed, decent armor, flat-out amazing AA for BBs...

Yeah, I can see them being quite good. Personally, I'm loving the Kongo for those reasons, now that she's got the upgraded hull which means at least decent AA.

[darthkommandant]

I love upgraded Kongo as well. My performance jumped up when I got it too and I love the float plane especially.

[Borgholio]

I don't know, it feels odd to ignore the prestige and the fame and the coolness of the battleships entirely and play cruisers without remorse.

I know what you mean. I mean I love battleships. The idea of steaming around in my own dreadnought is just...makes me do the happy dance in my seat. But the fact is, I tend to do better in my Phoenix than in my New York. The higher speed, greater maneuverability, faster reload, and faster traverse just make it so much easier to get in, score a few dozen hits, then scoot out of there before they can shoot back. I get more kills in my cruiser than my battleship typically.

[Thanas]

I think a lot of battleship captains also just screw themselves firing full salvos against cruisers, and by handling the ships very poorly, which not much is going to help, but its an issue and certainly a reason why battleships often fail to decide rounds.

Yeah no, you really do not want to stagger fire against cruisers at anything below 15km. Not when it takes you thirty seconds to reload and the Cruiser gets a nice little warning that incoming fire is on its way. Far better to just pull the trigger and aim properly. I usually manage to one-shot at least three cruisers per playing every day and I am not an amazing player by any stretch of the imagination.

I imagine, despite being high-tiers, that the last three American BBs are rather fun. Big guns, fast speed, decent armor, flat-out amazing AA for BBs...

Yeah, I can see them being quite good. Personally, I'm loving the Kongo for those reasons, now that she's got the upgraded hull which means at least decent AA.

You'll be disappointed. Any carrier at Tier IX and above will wreck you without cruiser escort. They are rather good because they pack a punch, but you annoyingly lose a turret quite often (had it happen two times yesterday).

The Iowa is supposed to be godly though and the Montana just tanks a lot, but the NC probably only looks so great because of the massive relief not having to play the LOLORADO anymore.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Well, I'm still on the New York myself so I can't say anything from experience on the NC and up. It's not hard to believe that there is still a need for cruiser escort though.

Meanwhile, I'm mostly focusing on the IJN side of things right now.

EDIT: I will admit to really looking forward to the German tree too.

[Thanas]

I love the Tirpitz. Cruisers go splat. If you play her like a battlecruiser instead of being a noob and trying to use your greatly overrated torpedoes she is awesome. She is like a sturdy battlecruisers. You almost never get Citadelled. On top of that, she plays so very smoothly....much smoother than my NC.

On the other hand, don't engage anything in the American line beyond Tier VIII and nothing in the Japanese line that is called Yamato.

[Elheru Aran]

OK, so there is one advantage to the Two Brothers map... it's set up so you can totally get into a pretty hairy knife-fight if both sides decide to come around the islands That was fun. Goddamn torpedo bombers got me, though.

[Dominus Atheos]

There's a turret lock button? That would be incredible.

The right mouse button. If you're steaming towards something and you know that you are going to be turning left before you fire, so you want you turrets pointed right, move the mouse to the right of the ship, then hold down the left mouse button and you will still be able to look around without your turrets moving away from the right side of the ship.

[Thanas]

hold down the right side button.
left means fire.

[Covenant]

Oh, I thought it was one that let me lock turrets in a position (like straight rear) while turning the other ones.

IN OTHER NEWS, the Wyoming threw me a bone in the form of a good match where I was at the top of my team's technology class. There was one of me on the enemy team along with some South Carolinas and a Myogi, but nothing crazy. Ended up putting out nearly 60 hits and sending the enemy Wyoming running while doing a feint of my own, getting the enemy big BB stuck behind an island while I ran out the clock some, then turned into the enemy to take out a destroyer and cripple a Myogi to win the match. Survived with 70 HP and got my three kill credit, won by points, and earned a Solo Warrior gold laurel. Huzzah!

Battleships are a pain in the ass but they really do have a few small perks.

[Thanas]

Anyway, here is another case why the economy sucks.


I put 55 shells on target and sunk 3 enemy ships - 1 Tirpitz, 1 North Carolina (same ship as me) and 1 Cleveland. Low number of Citadels but ok that is to be expected against a Tirpitz team.

On top of XP as well. Hmmm...I wonder if I might have made a tidy profit from this?

Nope. If I didn't have premium, I would have gained just 80k profit from it. If I had been sunk, I would have had 23k profit as the repair costs would have gone up by 50k. And even with premium, the profit is less than one good game in a Tier IV premium ship.

So even if you have a strong game you won't make money without premium. 20k profit is laughable when you are grinding for ships where the next tier costs 16mil.

[Elheru Aran]

So it's looking that as far as an in-game financial perspective goes, I may actually be in a 'sweet spot' right now at roughly a Tier IV-C Phoenix, in that I'll consistently turn a decent profit per game and resupply costs won't hurt too much? Hmmm. I guess there are perks to staying at this level, although it still annoys me that it's taking so long for me to pick up an Omaha...

[Vendetta]

Tier 5 is still super cheap for repair costs, and you can probably make consistent profits at tier 6 if you don't donk out horribly. (though I have yet to master actually winning much beyond tier 5, I can still do the damage and get the money).

If you don't want to go premium and get a Murmansk, then keep your Omaha when you get it, it farms damage like a champ and that means hard cash money.

[Thanas]

So it's looking that as far as an in-game financial perspective goes, I may actually be in a 'sweet spot' right now at roughly a Tier IV-C Phoenix, in that I'll consistently turn a decent profit per game and resupply costs won't hurt too much? Hmmm. I guess there are perks to staying at this level, although it still annoys me that it's taking so long for me to pick up an Omaha...

So long? Dude.

It takes around 120-160 games to get from Tier VII to Tier VIII.

[LaCroix]

It mostly depends on your win ratio, though. My brother plays a lot, and at ~60% he never really has to worry about cash.

[Borgholio]

My games are hit and miss. Sometimes I murder everything in sight with multiple ships destroyed and consistent citadels, and sometimes I eat a half dozen torpedoes 5 minutes into the match. So my win ratio is...variable.

[darthkommandant]

I have the same experience with my Kongo. Sometimes I do really well sometimes i die really fast.

[Thanas]

It mostly depends on your win ratio, though. My brother plays a lot, and at ~60% he never really has to worry about cash.

What is his tier?

[Elheru Aran]

Just a heads up... large update this morning. Been maybe 30min and it's still not quite done (though almost).

[LaCroix]

It mostly depends on your win ratio, though. My brother plays a lot, and at ~60% he never really has to worry about cash.

What is his tier?

Dunno what you mean... He's been playing ever since the closed Beta started, this is his profile. He's pretty much specialized in destroyer and cruiser warfare, and is currently trying to collect all ships.
http://worldofwarships.eu/en/community/ ... dy_McDuff/