Update 0.3.1

[Skywalkre]

Essex got dropped down a tier, but the CAGs are stupid now. They took away the 2 fighters, 2 torpedo bombers, and 1 dive bomber group for 3 fighters/2 dive bombers or 3 dive bombers/2 torpedo bombers. Why on earth would I want either of those?

I've read that's the case for many carriers. I hope I'm misinformed.

 

If true that just screams either 1) the devs don't know their own game or 2) they do but can't figure out a way to make DBs not suck. Both options are unacceptable.

 

What should have happened was that you simply choose your plane loadout (and reserves for each) before battle like you do ammo in WoT. The best solution, hands down.

[Skywalkre]

No training rooms. Also, damage dealt screen breaks out gun damage into AP, HE, Fire. The damage received just breaks it into AP and HE so both can contain damage from any fires started by the type. Oh and so far the range advantage for the Japanese BBs doesn't seem to be as overwhelming as the forum drama about it made it out to be. Although since I mostly played DDs and Cruisers before this patch it could just used to being out ranged for part of the game.

So what's the feel, then, of cruisers taking on battleships? Are 155s still tearing things up or is 203 a must if you want to damage with AP? (All initial impressions... really a shame we don't have training rooms to get more useful answers.)

[Harold Jones]

My feeling is that armor works better. I took on a Cleveland in my Wyoming and while he did some damage it wasn't terrible. I think I was able to heal all of it with the repair party or whatever it's called. Hard to say for sure about the changes because right now there are so many BBs in the matches that taking on a cruiser one on one is kind of rare. I did run one match in my New Orleans and managed 3 kills, a Nagato, Mahan and a Tenyru. I got the DD kill with an AP salvo, some folks are saying that HE is the only way to go because of fires, but so far it hasn't really been a factor for any of my ships.

[Skywalkre]

FCO, it's even worse than you wrote about for USN carriers.

 

Only the tier 9 has the 2 torp bombers in the torp bomber + bomber setup. The rest of the line has one in that setup. This basically leaves the default setup, with even fewer active flight potential, as the only real viable setup for USN CVs.

 

I also ran one game in my Ranger to test out how 'buffed' bombers were. If they were it's hard to tell. Torps were still doing 3x the dmg in that one game and fires were again accounting for negligible damage.

 

Also, in that one game I got the map where your forces start split on opposite sides of the map with enemy on both sides of you. I asked my team to pick one side and swarm and was met with "fuck off, carrier".

 

Yeah... I've lost all interest in playing CVs* with this one patch. Good job, WG! /facepalm

 

*USN ones, at least. IJN CVs get a 2 fighter/2 torp bomber/2 bomber upgrade for most of their line. With their reduced planes per flight, though, I'm not sure if it's worth it.

[Skywalkre]

Another early indication is that that 1 point Captain skill for increased repair speed is an absolute must now. In that one game I played I sunk a BB several minutes after I engaged him (I want to say it was at least 5 minutes... it felt like an eternity and I didn't believe it when it happened). If a CV player is patient and just disperses attacks over 20s (and I believe it's less for other nations, that's just USN) then they'll be able to deliver unrepairable dmg via flooding or fire (though this one still seems minimal) for a very long time.

[Skywalkre]

Low tier IJN carrier planes are so brittle even the nonexistent AA from tiers 3 and 4 BBs are killing them. Langley also completely trumps Hosho. No interest after a few games in it to keep going up that line...

 

Dispersion feels really bad in the tier 3 BBs. We're talking about shots hitting the water 1/3 of the way to the target when you're fairly close. Feels too RNG-influenced right now. I'd actually like shots to go where I aim.

 

Edit: Regarding that last point I went back and checked the notes and saw nothing about any dispersion changes for main guns across the board. The only thing I can think of is that before when I was at those low tiers I was too distracted by everything else in the game that I do without thinking now that I wasn't aware how horrible dispersion is. It's so bad it's reminiscent of WoT arty and just leaves you with this feeling like you have no real control.

Edited May 14, 2015 by Skywalkre

[Harold Jones]

Just got to experience the team kill reimbursement. A genius in his 4th ever WOWs game and second driving a Sims torpedoed me. He launched a full spread from behind me and he didn't even know enough to lead the guy he was shooting at. I stuck out the next 10 minutes of the game just to see what the reimbursement would be. Plus it was kind of interesting to shoulder surf the guy who sunk me, he launched about 32 torps and didn't manage any hits or even near misses since he consistently aimed behind the ships he was shooting at and had no idea that the Sims torps are only 5.5km. Once the game ended I saw that I got compensation equal to my repair bill so that was not terrible, plus it takes premium into effect so I got something like 52k instead of the 39k I would have got as non-premium. I have no idea if that amount was deducted from the guy that killed me or not.

[Skywalkre]

For the hell of it I thought I'd try my Ranger (highest tier carrier I have) with the fighter + bomber loadout. Maybe if I timed my bomber runs on the same target and dispersed them enough so that repair wouldn't put out multiple fires I could do some damage. Sounds great in theory... right? Unfortunately we don't play theory, we play the actual game. Bombers are still worthless.

 

Got North on Domination. Sent my planes east and found a mid-tier IJN cruiser*. Sent in the first bomber group and he turns on his AA god-mode. No biggie, just turn around and wait 30s. Send them back in. Two hits, 2 fires. Not a bad start. Then I notice he seems to stop in the water. I don't remember seeing a critical message so after the time goes by I send in the second group. This target is now stationary in the water. I have a perfect run set up and... nothing hits. He comes back a moment later and says he d/c'ed. My planes can't even hit a stationary player that's not in the game...

 

So I targeted this one guy over the course of the entire game. Multiple perfect runs never landed. By the time it was over I had all of 5 bomb hits for 8k dmg and 4 fires for 8k dmg. What a joke.

 

Tuccy... talk to someone and get carriers pulled. They were borderline not that fun/enjoyable before and they shifted to a worse place with this patch. They need a massive overhaul.

 

*Before anyone goes "but you shouldn't attack cruisers because of the AA they have" I didn't lose a single plane to this guy over the course of the battle. Mid-tier IJN AA, even on cruisers, isn't that scary (to USN planes at least).

Edited May 14, 2015 by Skywalkre

[Skywalkre]

After playing all morning the game felt like it shifted from World of Cruisers to World of Battleships.

 

- USN CV players are pissed and it's too early so I'm not seeing a whole lot of IJN CVs. Even then IJN groups are supposedly more fragile so more susceptible to AA.

- Firing AP from anything below 8" now seems futile so the Cleveland lost some of its luster. I've heard folks talk about spamming HE as the way to go but the Clevelands I've seen in game are just getting owned by BBs (maybe there was an armor bug before with it, making it harder to kill?).

- Given the fire dmg increase secondaries from BBs firing HE are especially nasty. If CV players go on strike due to this patch (which they should, CV play is in need of an overhaul... this patch didn't help with anything) IJN BBs might have the slight edge given their secondary gun advantage (slight, but it's there).

- With fewer carriers, and given the nasty nature of fires, DD play seems less appealing.

[Colin]

my few games with a Cleveland showed a minor drop in DPM, but on the plus side I seem to have less total losses of my turrets. Prior to the patch it was not uncommon to lose both aft turrets

[Skywalkre]

I finally sold my Cleveland. Time to see how the repair function at tiers 9 and 10 works for cruisers.

[Colin]

I am mixing my salvos now with a mix of AP and HE, once I get fires going switch to AP, the fires are eating away at their HP pool and once they extinguish them, I switch back to HE, start the fires and then switch to AP again.

[Skywalkre]

Smoke is still a work in progress. An Atlanta, firing full broadsides at me, less than 4 km away in a smoke screen remains hidden while I'm in my Pensacola. Meanwhile, in my DD, while laying smoke and turning back into it without firing I'm spotted by surface ships near my max detection range...

 

Edited May 15, 2015 by Skywalkre

[FlyingCanOpener]

Just had 52 planes shot down because I had the nerve to send my planes within 5km of a Baltimore. Is there even a statement that the Devs made as to why they rendered carriers utterly useless now?

[Skywalkre]

I am mixing my salvos now with a mix of AP and HE, once I get fires going switch to AP, the fires are eating away at their HP pool and once they extinguish them, I switch back to HE, start the fires and then switch to AP again.

In my last game in the New Orleans, which has the 203s, I noticed I had no issue using AP at range when it was plunging fire against anything but up close against either the tier 5 or 6 USN BB my AP shells were doing zero. Had to switch to HE to do anything.

 

Something else I just discovered the other day was that apparently there's audio feedback based on what your shells do. Pen is one sound, overpen another, and so on. Apparently 3-4 different sounds depending on what you do. Wasn't aware til I saw someone post a vid over on the WoWs subreddit explaining it.

[Edmund]

Finally downloaded 3.1 last night. They took my Independence and gave me some little carrier. Can't remember the name so I will call it Lil C. Most irritating is that all my research for Independence was done except getting whatever was next but Lil C had none done. Not sure if they gave me back my xp's or not. Played Lil C any way after upgrading hull and planes up to 2 bombers and 1 torp groups.

 

Long and the short of it Lil C did fine. Or should I say the planes did fine. Both teams were very heavy on BB's. So that maybe helped.

 

Then I played Chester (Yes I got it again because of the American BB line). Did terrible because I played bad.

 

After that I played tanks with my brother.

[Harold Jones]

Well the good news is you only need 2500 for the first bb so it shouldn't take long. Also for those without carriers they branch off the t3 bb now.

[Skywalkre]

Unfortunately the first two tiers of USN BBs are garbage, just like their IJN counterparts. This patch has been such a disappointment I'm taking a week off to do the On Track in WoT.

[bojan]

IDK, US tier 4 BB has really nice broadside. Only a few battles, but so far nothing horribly wrong about it, other then being tier 4 and getting sucked in tier 7 battles.

[Skywalkre]

The issue was two-fold. First was the lack of punch with AP shells. I found the tiers 3 and 4 couldn't scratch their counterparts on the IJN line. Second was accuracy. If we ever get Acc numbers for these ships the low tier USN BBs would appear to rival the KV-2 in that dept. Why in the world am I hitting water halfway between me and my target when I'm 5km away?! Playing those ships felt like playing WoT arty and that's not a good thing.

[RETAC21]

Carriers are pretty useless now, but I guess that's already known.

[FlyingCanOpener]

Carriers are pretty useless now, but I guess that's already known.

 

I've never understood Wargaming's process of thinking when it comes to gameplay balance. They have zero concept of gradual changes, so their buffs/nerfs change so much there's little way to understand how it changes the metagame from the data they receive.

 

How are they going to see how carriers can be balanced if they introduce the IJN's carriers while simultaneously obliterating the USN carriers' antiship torpedo striking abilities while buffing dive bombers (To be fair, doubling nothing gets... nothing still) along with introducing battleships that have even more AAA than existing ships... which comes right after they arbitrarily buffed AAA across the board by 20%? That's way too many changes to get a feel for what changes are affecting what and how it all affects the metagame for literally 25% of the ship classes in the game.

 

Maybe I'm a drooling idiot who just happens to teach Video Game Design I/II to high schoolers, but wouldn't the better option be to hotfix changes every couple of weeks focusing on smaller adjustments to one aspect of the metagame?

[RETAC21]

You are ertainly right. We have gone from entertaining if flawed carrier play to it being a worthless addition to the game in which they are more usefyl for their secondaries and AAA than for their air groups. I even hunted down an Essex with a Lex using the 5 inch guns. How much more ridiculous can it get?

[Skywalkre]

Carriers are pretty useless now, but I guess that's already known.

IMNSHO the best way to see balance is to look at what the best players are doing. I remember when I was new to WoT and curious at just how bad the German line really was I spent an afternoon going through the top 100 players on the NA server. To WG's credit this info has always been easy to find and look at on the WoT website (yes, I'm giving them a compliment because this is something they do right in WoT). Most didn't even play German vehicles and of those who did their stats in them were lower than their overall numbers. Pretty clear evidence there's a problem (you should always balance based on what the best do, not on what the average do).

 

Sadly WoWs is still in beta and apparently player stats are harder to come by (as far as I'm aware I can only look up player stats on the NA server and I have to be logged into their portal to do that). There is one player that stuck out as someone who's played a lot (800+ games in the CB), who's good, and who loves carrier play: iChase. Assuming his CV stats on USN ships were before 3.1 he was pulling a 67% w/r in carriers. In the new IJN ones? 56%... That kind of drop speaks for itself.

 

I'm going to track him and some other players (though the few others I've found seem to already have soured on the CB or haven't played since the patch) to see how their CV win rates change. I'm expecting more of what I saw above (assuming they're still playing).

[Skywalkre]

There has to be something bugged with bombers.

 

I jumped into the PvE battles to hone my manual aiming with them (I hate feeling like a liability in a normal match). There's six markers on the USN bomber groups so that means six potential hits... right? On several almost perfect runs (oval over middle of ship, matching ship direction, only the slightest edge of it on water) the most hits I ever got was... 3. Some were just 2!

 

I find it hard to believe upwards of 2/3 of my bombs being dropped are all going to the edge of the oval. Either the visual depiction is wrong (intentional or bug) or they're just bugged, period.

 

Also, the best match I had against bots that like to beach and go in straight lines was 18 hits and 10 fires for a net dmg total of all of 50k. That's well below what I was pulling before 3.1 with 99% dmg coming from torp bomber runs.