World of Warships

[Covenant]

ThirtyTonsOfDerp here.

The grind is annoying when it means you get stuck between decent ships and have to grind up an admitted garbage ship just for the privilege of not playing it anymore. If you are in a "downgrade" vessel during an opposed "upgrade" tier it can feel like scratching your way up a wall. The South Carolina is one of the worst offenders in this case, as is the very early Phoenix in the wake of being a St. Louis death wagon, at least from what I have played.

Battleships seem the most afflicted by this problem. I think their deficiencies add up so fast that they have a very narrow range of acceptability. It's very easy for a sluggish, easily torpedoed, slow reloading battleship platform to feel unusable if the main cannon battery turns too slow, spreads too far, or punches too weak. Or if you get blown up by torpedo bombers before you even get to the fight. One nice thing would be if the historic "AA suppression" strategy needed to be used--fighters strafing the BB to suppress light guns, dive bombers taking out lighter emplacements and setting fires to distract the crews, and only then a successful torpedo bomber strike. That would require more coordination and a bit more time to pull off.

Cruisers are faster and still carry guns heavy enough to inconvenience carriers, take out destroyers, and fight equally with other cruisers. They don't enjoy fighting battleships, to be certain, but they do decently well despite being the class of ship that battleships are designed to easily counter. Cruisers are also really good at hampering enemy aircraft, so they have that in their favor too. I think there's a bit too much oomph in the Cruiser chassis right now, but a nerf seems cruel. Battleships probably need some quality of life improvements more than they need easier prey.

I'm not sure what could be done about it, though expanding the cruiser category might help absorb some of that dead weight.

[Elheru Aran]

It does definitely strike me (granted, limited experience) that BB's are nearly useless in games with carriers unless the carrier players just don't take notice of you. Managed to have that happen in the last PvP I played with the South Carolina. Frankly, once the torpedo bombers line up on you, you're fucked. That's why carriers are OP.

BB's should be balanced to be middle of the road speed, powerful but few main guns, and heavy armour. They shouldn't be wallowing around the sea, taking pot-shots when stuff comes into range, and taking five minutes (OK, probably less) for the guns to do a 180... And they should have some serious AA abilities given they've got the room for the extra guns.

But unfortunately in this game, cruisers are the power boat from what I'm seeing. Lighter guns that reload and traverse far faster than a battleship, torpedoes for close-range punch, decent speed that can close with opponents quickly... the only drawback they have is lighter armour. From what I'm seeing, you can progress far faster with a cruiser than you can with nearly anything else.

Destroyers are a pretty unbalanced mix of abilities. They're fast and they can shoot a lot of torpedoes (depending on the type you get)... but a few solid hits and they go down quick. I can live with that, though, even if they feel like small boats.

Carriers... well I have to say these are the units that need nerfing the most. Not the ships themselves, but most definitely their air wing. Boost dive bombers a little to have a bit more punch (but don't improve accuracy by much, just give a little more incentive to use DB's). Depower torpedo bombers, perhaps by making aiming a little more haphazard or allowing ships to suddenly improve AAA accuracy by 75% once torpedo bombers are within a certain range (1km, perhaps). If carriers got hurt more by getting their planes shot down more often, it'd give ships a breather when the carrier players caught on and started being a little more careful.

So, nerf carriers; buff BB's; keep CA's and DD's more or less the way they are, and the game would be measurably improved.

[Borgholio]

Borgholio on NA

[Skywalker_T-65]

Skywalker_T65 on NA for me.

[Covenant]

Playing a Carrier at the moment, and boy is the low level carrier play confusing. I do not understand is the mechanics of air to air combat. My pilots usually get wiped out whenever they come into contact with the enemy fighters, despite being upgraded with appropriate captain skills and even the 125k credit fighter cannon upgrade. Since I only have 2 fighter squadrons, losing one each fight is unacceptable, on top of the ridiculousness of being repeatedly wiped by what should be an equal opponent.

Is there something I'm missing here? I'd be able to torp more effectively if my torpedo bombers could actually get there without taking half losses from enemy fighters.

[Borgholio]

Your fighters need to take out theirs first. Gain air superiority before you send in your bombers.

[atg]

Playing a Carrier at the moment, and boy is the low level carrier play confusing. I do not understand is the mechanics of air to air combat. My pilots usually get wiped out whenever they come into contact with the enemy fighters, despite being upgraded with appropriate captain skills and even the 125k credit fighter cannon upgrade. Since I only have 2 fighter squadrons, losing one each fight is unacceptable, on top of the ridiculousness of being repeatedly wiped by what should be an equal opponent.

Is there something I'm missing here? I'd be able to torp more effectively if my torpedo bombers could actually get there without taking half losses from enemy fighters.

All AA in the game is RNG based so it can be a bit pot luck at times. However there are a few things to consider:
- If the enemy has ships in AA range then it helps their fighters.
- American squadrons have more fighters (6 v 4) and will beat Japanese fighters 1v1 probably 80% of the time from my experience.
- Higher tier carriers can access higher tier fighters than you. Even a single tier higher can be OP.

[White Haven]

Carrier tiers are...substantial, with regards to their aircraft. Fighters, in particular, from a higher-tier carrier will often just mulch low-tier fighters. This is especially, painfully true when you're stuck with biplanes on the really early carriers.

[Borgholio]

Even having 2 Langleys vs a single Tier 5 carrier will be brutal for the Langleys.

[Skywalker_T-65]

This is why I'm not playing carriers anytime soon. Sure, upper tier carriers are murder-machines...but I feel like it's less down to chance in a cruiser or BB. I can still influence things even when my enemy counterparts outtier me. If you have a higher tier carrier with a fighter loadout though...you're screwed in a carrier.

That's just me though.

[Borgholio]

No that's actually accurate. Even in a lower-tier ship I can still chip away at hitpoints or score citadels or torpedo hits if I'm lucky. If your torpedo bombers from the Langley get intercepted by mono-wing fighters, they're just completely screwed.

[Jub]

Carrier players are taking their nerfs about as well as WoTs arty players did. Lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

[Imperial528]

What did they nerf, exactly?

[Jub]

It sounds like they made ship aa better, nerfed torpedo spreads and drop distances, and tweaked some loadouts. I haven't played a CV since the closed beta so I'm not 100% sure if these nerfs are as bad as is being claimed.

[White Haven]

I sail battleships, just for context. I sail, to be more precise, the natural prey of the carrier. And you know what? Any 'carrier nerfs' need to be incredibly carefully targeted, because they're miserable to sail at low tiers. A nerf that includes low-tier carriers will position them quite well for a subterranean assault on Beijing.

[Nephtys]

Honestly, BBs just suffer because their long range guns aren't good enough at non-citadel pen DPM or even just being long enough range most of the time to make up for being deficient in other areas. Perhaps the key is the secondary battery? If there was a consumable that slaved secondary battery fire to the primaries (or just allowed manual control of secondaries for a short period) then you could actually put enough firepower down range when you need it to not feel like an awkward lump, waiting to get munched on by everything except poorly positioned cruisers.

[Covenant]

Update on the Carrier State as I seem to be the only carrier player ATM.

I think it was just bad RNG, as I've wiped the enemy repeatedly upon further tests in CoOp and validated this in my normal matches vs human pilots as well. The big key for this is needing to change targets to dogfight, as fighters get "locked" in combat but don't respond unless you tell them. I can understand the logic there but it's undocumented. With a captain upgrade and that knowledge I've been able to get Clear Sky awards even in the stupid Langley.

Furthermore, whatever nerf they made is basically invisible, as the carrier torpedo spread on a manual drop is still super tight and the drop range (while not point blank anymore) is still very short. Most of what you do is merely restricted by the number of air wings you can have out at a time, which are relatively few early in the game, and which prevents US CV units from deploying pincer maneuvers with their torpedo wings. You need to hit, I think, T6 before you get a chance to field 2 Torpedo Bombers at once? At least stock.

I can also hilariously report my recent victory vs a destroyer. I had a BB escort and a Minekaze bee-lines for me across open water. The battleship takes my spotting in good stride, misses every shot, and dies spectacularly to the destroyer's torpedo barrage. He eats a tremendous amount of abuse on the channel but more importantly I'm open for the kill, not moving in the water yet, and with nothing besides my one restocking TB to defend myself.

I floored the Langley and steered right at the destroyer, launching my bomber and sending it around as it normally does. The destroyer seemed shocked by the discovery that my secondary battery was blowing chunks out of him and did not really know what to do besides head in for his attack up close, which required wheeling around to avoid missing me. My bombers also gave him a shock when I laid them down right in front of me. He was forced to grind right up alongside me, taking several hits, and almost getting me but being forced right into one torpedo to sink the Minekaze dead.

Balanced.

[Vendetta]

I sail battleships, just for context. I sail, to be more precise, the natural prey of the carrier. And you know what? Any 'carrier nerfs' need to be incredibly carefully targeted, because they're miserable to sail at low tiers. A nerf that includes low-tier carriers will position them quite well for a subterranean assault on Beijing.

I think the biggest thing they need to do is put reasonable turning circles on planes and minimum straight runs on torpedo launches (with appropriate UI feedback).

At the moment, the nature of planes as inertialess objects is most troubling for their balance because they can perform attacks that basically shouldn't be possible.

[Covenant]

At the moment, the nature of planes as inertialess objects is most troubling for their balance because they can perform attacks that basically shouldn't be possible.

I can say from experience that the slow moving torpedoes (34 knots on US) make the inertialess "moth-like" turning radius essential to being able to hit basically anything. I've seen slow moving South Carolina tubs wheel out of the way of oncoming torpedo spreads, much to my annoyance, so I do understand some of what carrier players gripe about, and where the disconnect happens.

It is very easy to whiff with an entire torpedo spread and have to spend a good amount of time reloading and waiting for another chance at maybe hitting with a few (even on manual) torpedoes, and individually the torpedoes are not exceptionally damaging for their tiers. But when it works, it works well, and you can kill a cruiser outright. So we are at somewhat of an impasse. Less everything and they'll become functionally useless compared to other craft. Keep them as they are, however, and two carriers with strike wing configurations can basically delete something slow from the match.

Right now the ranges on torpedoes are actually much lower than they should be. This might be a good place to help fix this problem, as would increasing the chance of dive bombers to cause havoc on the decks, while also increasing the chance that TB's will flub their run if under AA fire. I would much prefer using my torpedoes cleverly, but you have no room for tricks when you only have one.

[White Haven]

Yes, two well-coordinated carriers can fuck up one guy's day every few minutes. You know what else can do that? Two well-coordinated anythings. I'm not trying to say that carriers are perfect in their present state, but that argument drives me nuts. 'If two players do everything precisely right and aren't countered, they can fucking end someone.'

...Yes, and?

[Covenant]

If it was only an issue with two coordinated players then yeah, it'd be a stupid criticism. But it doesn't even take any serious degree of precision, and it doesn't require a great deal of forethought. I would certainly contend that firing torpedoes from a dancing torpedo bomber squadron is infinitely easier than firing them from a waterbound destroyer, and even that is pretty darn easy to do effectively. They both require similar techniques, except one can be done from a flying weapon platform with near zero inertia and the possibility of secondary launch locations. There's a little bit of fussing around but when it comes down to it the actual ship-killing torpedo nonsense that drives players nuts is substantially easier to do from the air.

Sure, there are counters. Your bombers take attrition from anti-aircraft and enemy fighter groups can easily deplete a low tier bomber squadron, but that's basically about it. Anti-aircraft is everywhere above a certain tier, so no matter what your target is you are bound to get hit with quite a bit. You cannot fly with impunity into a cluster of ships, this is true, but that rule applies to more than just aircraft.

I certainly don't think any other unit can so easily, and so dramatically, obliterate hard targets without real risk of reprisal, and do so with such repeatability. Worst case on a bad torpedo run is you losing the squadron. Compared to other bonehead maneuvers that is a remarkably light punishment.

[Thanas]

To prove Covenant's point:

[Anacronian]

To be fair, I have on numerous occasions one-shot a carrier from a huge distance in my tier 10 BB, A carrier who never saw me or had any chance of recourse.

That said I do think a tweaking on the drop time of torpedoes (like the planes actually have to go low and spend some time aiming the torpedoes instead of just zipping down and drop -maybe 7-10 seconds) would be in order.

[Elheru Aran]

Ran into a new (to me) map today-- 'Hot Spot'. Seems to be a long range gunnery map. I had shellfire coming in on me from 15km or so away. Fun times in a ship that only has ~11.3km range...

[Vendetta]

Yeah, Hot Spot starts appearing at Tier 6+, which you'll rarely see in a tier 3 battleship.