Update 0.3.1

[Skywalkre]

So speaking of FCO's gradual changes can everyone agree that we've seen enough of the current fire mechanics and their probability and dmg should both be reduced by about 2/3? To add to the small-changes-to-do-in-a-hotfix give back the old USN flights as well as the shorter repair CD.

 

I'm seeing next to zero positive feedback about this last patch (which I second). Not sure what could be hurt by making some small changes.

[RETAC21]

Agreed, just had a game on Lady Lex and despite my best effort it was a waste and a drag on the team.

[Skywalkre]

My one real game last night summed up what's wrong with the current loadouts.

 

Ran the fighter loadout on the Ranger and got two enemy carriers that went bomber/torp loadout. Parked one fighter outside each enemy carrier and completely shut down their torp planes all game. I think they got in... 3 runs total between the two? (Basically when I was on reload.)

 

Did it matter? Nope. We lost. Shutting down other carriers when they can't do anything even when ignored isn't helping.

 

As for bombers did my best to put them to good use but even mouthbreathers dodge better than the PvE bots I was practicing on earlier (DBs are maybe hurt even more than torp bombers from the every-ship-now-turns-on-a-dime-buff this last patch). Over the course of that match I landed all of like 5 hits for just a few fires and none of the latter were close enough to burn while someone had repair on CD. Had one fairly good run on one of the carriers after it had used repair where half the oval was still on the ship yet nothing landed (manual drop, too, so smaller target).

[Harold Jones]

Glad to have my decision to stop playing carriers in Alpha validated.

[Paul G.]

If im not mistaken...torpedo bombers were historically much eaiser to shoot down than dive bombers? Had to do with the attack profile IIRC. Does WG restrict the number of carriers in a match like arty in WoT?

 

What is the tier spread in WoW? Is it three as in Wot? Would a 2 tier spread make more sense?

[Skywalkre]

The tier spread in WoWs is unfortunately larger than in WoT. It appears to be influenced by server pop, though, so when high you see what you see in WoT though when low it's 4-5 tiers? FWIW ship balance currently is pretty bad so it's not as big a deal as it was in WoT when that game launched.

 

As for carriers they're restricted to just 2 per team. Teams are smaller, though, in WoWs. Limit is 12 instead of 15 and you'll often get games where one side has 12 and the other 8-10 (this latter team usually has more high tiers to supposedly balance). In the last iteration of the game 2 carriers was plenty. In the hands of a good player they could influence matches. In the current version... not so much.

Edited May 20, 2015 by Skywalkre

[zaarin7]

The main issue with early CV's IMHO is the bomb loads are so weak that dive bombers can not do the damage torpedoe bombers do.

[RETAC21]

Thevsame happwns at tier VIII

[Skywalkre]

The main issue is they don't hit. How is it I have 90%+ of the target oval on an enemey ship and only get a 50% hit rate? Something is broke there.

Edited May 20, 2015 by Skywalkre

[Skywalkre]

Tried the Ranger 8 times in real games the last two days for a record of 4-2-2 (did get 1 100k+ dmg game... in a draw...).

 

So much... wrong. Carriers are off the shelf til next major patch.

[Edmund]

Can't really speak much for carriers before 3.1, but now they need help. I had Langley and Independence before 3.1 and I struggled with them. But the torp planes did damage.

 

Right now in 3.1 AA and fighters tear them apart. Mostly fighters. It is worse playing Japenese carriers. They have so few fighters they are completely overwelmed especially since they only have 4 planes vs the US 6. I ran both my T4 and T5 Japanese carriers and most of the time my team had two Jap carriers vs two US carriers. The US fighters just chewed my planes to shreds. Then their attack planes were free to roam at will.

 

The gun sounds for the smaller guns (6 in. and below) seems weak.

[Harold Jones]

Mini patch this morning haven't found any patch notes for it yet.

 

Here they are. http://worldofwarships.com/en/cbt/news/update0311-downtime/

Edited May 21, 2015 by Harold Jones

[Skywalkre]

Yeah, just bug fixes.

[FlyingCanOpener]

Tried the Ranger 8 times in real games the last two days for a record of 4-2-2 (did get 1 100k+ dmg game... in a draw...).

 

So much... wrong. Carriers are off the shelf til next major patch.

So they asked on the Facebook page for questions and I asked when Carriers will be relevant. Some gems:

 

Or, you know. You could be....yaknow....a little more clever / patient with your squadrons and not sending them off to die were you know heavy AA will be.... Just saying =|

 

I'm not sure what you are saying here. My average carrier game ends with me killing 2.5 ships. I'm not sure I've ever lost a squadron to aa fire.

 

Obviously these people haven't worked their way up the tree or played a lot at higher tiers after 0.3.1 hit. Because it's obviously my problem and my problem only that carriers are not well balanced at this point in mind. Just need to pad stats and cherry pick and not try to win the game.

[Colin]

So my torp bombers when given a target decide to turn around and fly off screen and refuse to obey any commands....

[Skywalkre]

 

Tried the Ranger 8 times in real games the last two days for a record of 4-2-2 (did get 1 100k+ dmg game... in a draw...).

 

So much... wrong. Carriers are off the shelf til next major patch.

So they asked on the Facebook page for questions and I asked when Carriers will be relevant.

I've heard the higher tier IJN CVs can do some damage but it's little more than spamming all your planes on one target. No setting up for shots, just bum rush the enemy before too many of your planes get shot down. Rinse. Repeat. Sound like fun? Not really. Not all that much skill involved, either.

 

One of the better suggestions I read was that planes should basically be the same for most of the tiers. As the poster pointed out whether it was an escort carrier or one of the massive fleet carriers they all carried the same types of planes and for most of the war it was just a handful of planes in each country doing all the work. Doing this you then eliminate the current issue of tier higher automatically winning in a fighter engagement. What would differentiate tiers would be replacement pool and the individual ship characteristics.

 

I've heard some complain that there won't be enough to differentiate the different nations and classes but... so what? Look at WoT. How many M4, T-34, and T-54 clones are out there in all the trees? Not everything needs to be a unique and special snowflake to make the game work. I'd much rather have more homogeneity and better overall gameplay than what we have now.

[Edmund]

Mine did the same thing. This is related to Collins post. can't quote.

Edited May 23, 2015 by Edmund

[FlyingCanOpener]

 

 

Tried the Ranger 8 times in real games the last two days for a record of 4-2-2 (did get 1 100k+ dmg game... in a draw...).

 

So much... wrong. Carriers are off the shelf til next major patch.

So they asked on the Facebook page for questions and I asked when Carriers will be relevant.

I've heard the higher tier IJN CVs can do some damage but it's little more than spamming all your planes on one target. No setting up for shots, just bum rush the enemy before too many of your planes get shot down. Rinse. Repeat. Sound like fun? Not really. Not all that much skill involved, either.

 

One of the better suggestions I read was that planes should basically be the same for most of the tiers. As the poster pointed out whether it was an escort carrier or one of the massive fleet carriers they all carried the same types of planes and for most of the war it was just a handful of planes in each country doing all the work. Doing this you then eliminate the current issue of tier higher automatically winning in a fighter engagement. What would differentiate tiers would be replacement pool and the individual ship characteristics.

 

I've heard some complain that there won't be enough to differentiate the different nations and classes but... so what? Look at WoT. How many M4, T-34, and T-54 clones are out there in all the trees? Not everything needs to be a unique and special snowflake to make the game work. I'd much rather have more homogeneity and better overall gameplay than what we have now.

 

 

I had come up with a similar idea, with either researching for AP bombs/torpedo technology, or even a CAG commander in addition to your captain where you get crew XP to research air grou-specific skills to differentiate and customize your ship.

 

I also think there shouldn't be escort carriers in the game, as you could have Fleet carriers all the way up for the US (Langley--Ranger--Wasp--Yorktown--Lexington--Essex--Midway). If you wanted escort carriers, make them a mini tree where they can have CAGs that can be focused to give them either all CAP or all bomber loadouts at the cost of planes.

 

I think the issue is that players saying everything is OK with carriers look solely at what a carrier is capable of instead of what they actually do in game--in other words they ignore the meta at the expense of the possibility of what might happen in the game.

[Skywalkre]

Here's iChase's take on carriers in 3.1 (he's a good player who's been in the game for a while and has a lot of nice instructional and gameplay vids on his channel).

 

"Things as they are now, pretty much a total mess... First personal thoughts about this patch: I don't like it. For me after patch 3.1 has come out my enjoyment of carriers, which had existed since the alpha test, is pretty much gone."

 

That's in the first minute of a 33m vid.

Edited May 23, 2015 by Skywalkre

[sunday]

Thanks for that reference to iChase vids. Could not find them before.

[FlyingCanOpener]

Here's iChase's take on carriers in 3.1 (he's a good player who's been in the game for a while and has a lot of nice instructional and gameplay vids on his channel).

 

"Things as they are now, pretty much a total mess... First personal thoughts about this patch: I don't like it. For me after patch 3.1 has come out my enjoyment of carriers, which had existed since the alpha test, is pretty much gone."

 

That's in the first minute of a 33m vid.

 

Played a couple of games in my Essex. Got 70k torpedo damage in both, but lost about 30 planes in the process. It's not very good game design where success in the game depends on taking advantage of the ineptitude of the opponent. Got 50k in one strike on a New Mexico when I got 8 torpedoes in on him (Lost the other 4 planes going in on him)

[Colin]

My fully kitted Aoba rocks, survives more battles than my Cleveland and does great damage as well.

[RETAC21]

shitty game design - torp planes drop their torpedoes on islands because they waste too much time mooching around

[Skywalkre]

 

I had come up with a similar idea, with either researching for AP bombs/torpedo technology, or even a CAG commander in addition to your captain where you get crew XP to research air grou-specific skills to differentiate and customize your ship.

 

I also think there shouldn't be escort carriers in the game, as you could have Fleet carriers all the way up for the US (Langley--Ranger--Wasp--Yorktown--Lexington--Essex--Midway). If you wanted escort carriers, make them a mini tree where they can have CAGs that can be focused to give them either all CAP or all bomber loadouts at the cost of planes.

 

I think the issue is that players saying everything is OK with carriers look solely at what a carrier is capable of instead of what they actually do in game--in other words they ignore the meta at the expense of the possibility of what might happen in the game.

 

Here's more thoughts on how to fix carrier play.

 

Aim for top tiers having at most about 24 planes in the air at once (4 flights for the USN, 6 for the IJN, and when the Brits show up we can give them 5 per flight... NOW EVERYONE IS A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE). Players are given a choice of how to configure which flights they have but with limitations. So for the USN and IJN it'd be max 50% of flights can be one type and the Brits would be 60% (at 25 planes instead of the 24... each one can be ever so slightly inferior).

 

At tier 4, though, both sides start out with just 2-3 and progress up to the 4-6 max at tier 7 (given different flight sizes this could lead to one side clearly being better at one tier... so what... we get that all the time in WoT). This entire time the same planes are on every carrier. Tier 8 is where you see the first plane upgrade but it's minor so we don't get the lopsided results we get now at every tier. The next and final upgrade is tier 10. The point in all of this is that there's some feeling of progression for the player. Along the way you'd also get every carrier having more and more replacements like we have now along with their own unique characteristics (which I think is fine enough for progression, frankly).

 

Throw into this something to make fighters more interesting. One example is simply give them a front and rear 180 deg facing. If one side jumps the other from the rear they get a bonus. This way if a player is on his toes when facing one of those few times there's a plane difference they could in theory get the jump and win the fight. Throw in the strafing option you've mentioned as well so they can help in attacks on ships in games where a carrier may be alone and he's running a fighter-heavy loadout.

Edited May 25, 2015 by Skywalkre

[Skywalkre]

And... I'm done with the USN line. Halfway through the Colorado and despite knowing how good the tier 8+ ships are I just can't take this PoS anymore coupled to the HE-spam/firefest that is gameplay now.

 

Will stick it out with the DD and IJN CV line and just pour on the brokenness until shit gets fixed.