World of Warships

[Covenant]

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 must be satisfying. Was this like a T8 carrier? I'd be surprised if even a T10 Battleship could blow through a carrier from beyond detection range, when they are similar tiers. Not going to debate it, just curious, as I enjoy battleships even if their historical value in these scenarios was minimal.

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.

Drop time and range adjustments would be good fixes. Aerial torpedoes for the USN in game have a range of 3.7 kilometers, but in reality a high and fast drop of torpedoes could go around 6 kilometers or so. The game balance problem created by short-range aerial torpedoes is obvious. If you make them short range, but want them to be dangerous, then the effective range on AA has to be low as well. This would be fine, sorta, but the player on the receiving end has so little time to dodge--which is their burden of skill in this player v player test--that it just feels (and is) pretty unfair most of the time... at least when compared to the amount of investment each combatant is making in the exchange.

If you extend AA range without extending torpedo drop distance you just make the torpedo bombers useless. Unlike real historical battles it is very hard to suppress an AA battery with fighters and such, since you cannot order a strafing run, so the torpedo bombers would have no recourse but to be blown away and die.

If you extend both of them then you push the "burden of skill" out a bit in the carrier's direction so they have to work harder to hit a single target with a huge spread of torpedoes. This is what IJN Destroyers do with their long range torpedo maneuvers. It makes it more fair for everyone.

One of the best things to do, along with this, is de-limiting a carrier from X number of squads of Y type at a time, and just making it X number of squads, or potentially just X squads per Z unit of deployment time. In that manner you might only be able to get a squadron of bombers out for 3 minutes or so at a time (unlike the 6 they can now, I think) but you can get out as many in that time as you want. So the early game becomes a scramble for air dominance as air wings are rapidly depleted and then at the end the winner of the air war gets rough dominance over the battlefield to deploy large numbers of torpedo bombers which they fire from around 5k towards whatever is left.

[Elheru Aran]

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

I was actually in a basic Omaha hull. Seems your range sucks balls until you upgrade a bit. I may bump that Captain back to the Phoenix for a while.

[Covenant]

Speaking of Captains, what are the preferred ability layouts for the different kinds of ships? I've got a basic understanding of what is better than what, but I'm not sure what the consensus is. Some of the abilities seem notably weaker with low end ships, and with ships that lack a lot of special abilities and consumables. Some seem mandatory. What say you all?

[Elheru Aran]

Firefighting abilities are a serious must since that's a major killer. I also like abilities that enhance my DPS and AA. I haven't actually studied it in depth though...

[Anacronian]

Well, I don't think there is such a big consensus of skills yet, Probably because most of what the skills actually do is still shrouded in darkness.

But I can give you the skills I have found working great - Though keep in mind this is for BB's only.

1.Basics of Survivability
2.Expert Marksman
2.Fire Prevention (still a whole lot of debate on this skill but my own experience states that it prevents 10-15% of fires so for 2 skill points you bet I'm gonna take it)
3.Superintendent (I prefer this over "High Alert" because I later take "Jack of All Trades" which doesn't seem to stack with "High Alert" .. unless WAG has changed that recently)
4.Advanced Firing Training
5.Jack of All Trades

That is my 17 skill points.

[Thanas]

Fire prevention doesn't do much really. My layout for a captain is:

1.Basics of Survivability
1. Situation awareness - when you get detected by a ship and there is noone in sight, you bet your ass there is a DD sneaking up. Plenty of times that has ended in a nasty surprise for the DD.
2.Expert Marksman
3.Superintendent
4.Advanced Firing Training

Haven't gotten any 5 pointer yet, but when I get there I will pick Concealment expert. I don't really have an issue with slow reloads on the DC and a whopping -17% (or is it 15%?) of detectability range. I already got the detection avoidance upgrade and it saves me a lot of shells and torps as often I am not detected by the carrier until he has selected another target. Plus, I always like to imagine the face of cruiser captains when I sneak up on them with my Iowa within 17k (perfect citadel range) and open up.

[Vendetta]

Tier 1:

Basic Firing Training (Cruisers)
Situational Awareness (Cruisers and Destroyers)
Basics of Survivability (Cruisers and Battleships)

Tier 2

Expert Marksman (Cruisers and Battleships)
Torpedo Armament Expertise (Japanese Cruisers and Destroyers)

Tier 3

High Alert (Battleships and Cruisers)
Superintendent (Battleships, Destroyers, and Tier 9+ Cruisers)

Tier 4

Advanced Firing Training (Everyone)
Demolition Expert (Atlanta, maybe US Destroyers)
Last Stand (Destroyers)

Tier 5

Concealment Expert (Destroyers)
Jack of All Trades (Everything else)


Carriers should choose the ones with the little plane on plus Torpedo Armament Expertise.


Also:



Team of utter geniuses followed our Wyoming down the centre on Two Brothers. Guess how well that worked?

Two thousand XP, no 1.5x, no premium, no flags. Straight up two thousand XP for me perenially rushing back and resetting our cap as almost all of our team died like utter donkeys.

And I didn't even get the highest score.

[Elheru Aran]

Oh, battleship buffs. Ahem.

--Give some manual control and increase range of secondaries. They're kinda made of suck right now, and frankly, only having ~4-8 guns to play with kinda sucks compared to cruisers and DD's given their vastly greater ROF and turret turn rate. They only come into use when other ships come into range, and in the slow suck-ass early tier battleships, the other ships won't come into range all that much and if they have, you're probably fucked. Something like, I don't know, 8km range versus the sad 3km they have now. Game-breaking? Maybe. But with a short range, it's not going to break the game *that* much.

--Along those lines: AAA. Perhaps make some of the secondaries dual-mode guns or something. As is, battleships are big fat targets for planes. Granted this is historical, but still, it's kinda ridiculous.

--They're supposed to have armour. Use it. Especially against torpedoes. Granted torpedoes are nasty, but don't BBs have torpedo bulges and all that kind of thing? At least there's the repair team mechanism.

Really though BB's are not terrible... but there's a lot that could be done to improve them.

[AniThyng]

I like the idea of a consumable that buffs the surface secondary battery similar to the cruiser aa one.

Dual purpose guns being both aa and as is already modeled.

[Covenant]

I think the easiest solution to this entire problem is to remake the tech tree. Splitting cruisers into fast and heavy cruisers is a good start, as is treating the Dreadnaught as more of a "parallel" development that allows one an alternative to the same-tier of cruiser but not an entirely separate line. This would allow Battleships to behave more like a big and expensive version of a cruiser, which works much better for how they play when you consider the Battleship as really just an Anti-Aircraft carrier escort anyway. North Carolina is a good example of this in history.

The only real dreadnaughts you would have seen in World War II would have been Wyoming and New York classes, used as off shore artillery and training ships but really nothing else.

The rest of the fleet basically amounts to upscaling of cruisers and downscaling of battleships. Creating a historically accurate timeline of ship development really should take a backseat to making a fun and balanced spread of ships. Something like an Alaska class armored cruiser could be mistaken for a battleship, though it was still a cruiser, and something like the Iowa looks much more like a heavy super cruiser than Yamato does.

Really, I think the need to force BB's into a separate category is not only confusing at the lower tiers, but it is just about meaningless when you consider their application. Pocket Battleships and "battlecruisers" and such just make it all the more confusing, and without surface targets to destroy there's nothing for battleships to do outside of inventing a role for them and wringing mechanics to make it fit.

Really though BB's are not terrible... but there's a lot that could be done to improve them.

They're actually very good, compared to the state of Destroyers. They are highly popular though, so they tend to be one of the more common viewpoints from which a bad player sees the world. That makes "surprise! torpedoes!" a huge hot-button issue, and it comes from CV's and DD's which are annoying to fight, and it makes HE Firestarter Spam really annoying too. Combine that with bad accuracy, high health, forgiving low-intelligence consumable maintenance and drunken secondary gunners and the BB life is not only frustrating (at times) but also overly rewarding to others. They have a lower skill floor than some of the ships, in my experience.

Problem is that battleships are both the coolest, generally the most satisfying, and most historically obsolete weapon systems in the game. So everyone loves them and they stink, but making them appear in huge masses throws everything off.

I totally think they need a rework, but I think a lot of that is the way they're handed out and the way the game forces them to function. Quality of life and some purpose of existing is really needed.

[Elheru Aran]

One option I've thought of is including a shore bombardment game type. Have bunkers which are heavily armoured against most cruiser guns, but BB's can crack them, for extra points-- but not a game-winning amount (unless you wipe all of them out or something), and of course the other ships are trying to end you as well. Knock off the English Channel or something; red side and red ships versus green side and green ships.

Another possible game: players either try to support or foil a landing force which is supported by other ships. If a certain number of landers hit the shore, the opposing force can fire upon the shore, but after a certain point their base on the shore is capped and they lose.

But in general, yeah, the tech tree is kinda broken. It especially doesn't help that new players have to deal with the really suck-ass ships as an incentive to spend real money on the game. You just jump right up through the cruiser lines, and then the South Carolina or the Kawachi are... lousy in comparison.

[Thanas]

I actually think BBs are largely fine as they are right now, they just need a bit of a buff for AA. If there is any split in their lines, it should be into BB and BC tiers. Some BBs are already playing like BCs anyway (Myogi and Ishikuchi). Then you can merge the branches after Tier VIII into one fast BB tree.

*********************
In unrelated news, here are my three best Iowa games of today:





I am especially proud of the last one. It started out with an enemy Taiho getting me in a torpedo crossfire, then me managing to dodge 8 enemy ships shooting at me. After healing up, I got back into it and the match ended with me killing the enemy Taiho.

[Vendetta]

Battleships have just received an indirect buff in 0.5.0.0 as they've had their MM spread reduced (+2 for most, +1 for the tiers 3 and 4).

[Thanas]

Isn't that for everyone?

[Vendetta]

The general +2 MM is for everything, but tier 3 cruisers and tier 4 cruisers and destroyers don't get the preferential +1 MM whereas Battleships do. That means that your South Carolina and Wyoming will no longer be getting infinite firehosed by Clevelands.

Also, time for everyone to grind for their Nagato and Myoko for meta dominance in ranked battles

[Thanas]

What I've been up to in the last couple of weeks:

...having a couple of decent Iowa games...

and finally reaching the Montana. Too bad I probably won't play her much considering the economy sucks and the Montana

[atg]

In game as an Omaha. Have gotten 6 kills. Get the last enemy ship, a carrier, down to <100HP and its on fire.

Timer runs out. Game drawn.

Rest of my team were derping around half a map away.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

[Elheru Aran]

5K points a game? You people fucking suck.

[Thanas]

5K points a game? You people fucking suck.

Elaborate.

[Elheru Aran]

5K points a game? You people fucking suck.

Elaborate.

Just plain jealousy, that's all. The best I get (with the first-game 1.5x bonus) is ~1+K. (Granted I haven't played in a few weeks but still)

[Skywalker_T-65]

My best matches get up into 2k I think. Granted, I haven't gotten past T5 yet, and won't be able to until I go home and can update on wifi that doesn't inexplicably shut off when updating WG games. For whatever reason.

[Vendetta]

Just plain jealousy, that's all. The best I get (with the first-game 1.5x bonus) is ~1+K. (Granted I haven't played in a few weeks but still)

You get points for damage (and total damage done by team), higher tiers = more hitpoints = more damage available to do. So a tier 9 ship can inherently get bigger numbers than lower tier ones.

Also, you get a 50% XP /money bonus from being premium, multiplicative with the first victory bonus.

(My highest single battle XP is just over 2000 in the Furutaka, resetting cap points is worth hell of XP as well)

If you want to make big XP, keep your guns in the fight and make damage. If you want to do that whilst winning, do the right damage (roughly, kill the small ships first as they have the most map power, BBs should shoot cruisers first then other BBs, Cruisers should shoot Destroyers first then other Cruisers then BBs)

[Thanas]

So just for the fun of it I started playing a Clemson. I have now joined the rank of seal clubbers.







I get why people play lower tier DDs now. Post Tier VI they suck, but below that....good god, you can terrorize an entire enemy fleet if you know when to engage and to disengage.

[Covenant]

I like the low tier DD's and was really sad when people say the higher tier ones are bad, but since I'm still in just a Clemson as well it still feels like a lot of fun. People say the US torpedoes are terrible but they're wrong--they're shorter range, but they're fast and they can fight around corners and do severe damage to enemy fleet groupings AND enemy destroyers. They're not ideal at popping individual targets the way a long-distance IJN destroyer can, but honestly and torpedo you fire beyond 5k or so is not a sure hit anyway. Being able to throw more fish in the water has a certain charm as well, even if you're stuck in to do it.

[Nephtys]

The key advantage of USN DDs is that your guns are able to beat up any IJN destroyer for it's lunch money if you encounter them in a skirmish. They meanwhile must rely on a lucky torp hit that you can predict.

I find even with a Minekaze, your biggest successes (sinking BBs or multihits on cruisers) still are 4km launches where there's no real margin for evasion.