Ok, I've got back to the Carriers after a short break with the DDs, and my first impression was - what the f.... happened to those ships?!
Then, after spending 1.5 day of tormenting myself with them, I kind of started to - maybe not "enjoy", but tolerate them. Guess the masochist in me (or Stockholm syndrome?) kicked in...
Allright, to keep it as clean as possible:
- (bug) Fighters seem to be suffering from the "stuck when starting/being attacked/cancelling the move in the middle" of the strafing run ability. Seems like there is a problem when switching from one mode to another.
- (bug) When attacked on the way by a enemy Flating plane (cruiser or battleship launched) - my fighter and dive bomber squadrons seemed to be "stuck in combat". Not sure if the "owner-ship" wasn't sunk in the meantime, but still - the squads managed to:
- land and rearm (replenishment of losses didn't happen, as the fighters launched off with 5, with 2 more fighters left in hangars)
- got blinking as in combat, while all the way up to the next target - no enemies were around
- When they did come to the target, I saw my fighter squad being down to 2.
Oh, Wargaming, ye ol' bugger - why didn't you tell us you've mounted phasers and blaster cannons on the silly float planes?
No? Range of 15-20 km not intended? Hm...a bug then.
- (idea) Maybe instead of throwing us into air groups setups we might be not comfortable with, allow us to decide what exact setup we want to have manually - limited only by the total Air-groups available on said carrier AND some "cap point", to avoid ridiculous 7-torpedo bombers setups? For example - if an US carrier has 3 AG (Bogue), let it choose if he wants 2 fighters, 1 TB - or 1 TB, 1F, 1 DB. Same goes with the Japanese - if someone feels like 2-3 fighter squads are not enought, let him add another one - sacrificing some of his surface attacking power. Would surely make for a much interesting game, as now when you spot the enemy is sporting 2 fighters on a US T5-6 carrier, you know you don't have to worry about any torpedoes comming from him
- (idea) To balance off the differences in numbers - unless you would like it to equalize both sides, of course - maybe go into the differences between each nation's specs? Like - the Japanese had more agile planes, that were much harder to hit, but if someone finally scored a hit - they went down, burning, rather easy.
So, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to split the "survivalability" into:
- "Agility" (decreases the chance to be hit)
- "Endurance" (so the more "sturdy" fighters can still "tank" the fight)
and then - try to play with them to both - differentiate the sides and have it easier to balance them out.
- (idea) Provide different payload to the squadrons - maybe unlockable, or switchable during the battle? By giving the opportunity to switch between "HE" and "AP" bombs, maybe the DB wouldn't be as useless against heavier targets (yeah, yeah - I know about the fires...) as they are seen now by many players. Also, that mechanic would also allow to choose from between "faster, but doing less damage" torpedoes, or those which are slower, but hit hard. Changing it would require to get back to the carrier, so it would open up new tactical situations as well as make the game overall more interesting (and, also - provide another way of setting each nation's CV line appart - the more stats you have, the less likely it'll become a "game of clones".
In terms of WoT - imagine what would happen if there would be only one type of shell, with different amount of damage and firing speed - but no difference in the firing arc, spread, explosion range etc. - would be pretty boring, right?)
