Pukovnik7

Yep. It is my favourite ship, period. I mean, what is not to like? Fast, agile, accurate guns, excellent AP, torpedoes, good secondaries, turtleback armour... perfect in every way.

I had the same problem. Since it started with the update I thought it might be problem with that, so I uninstalled the game. I'll see whether it persists after I reinstall it today, and if it does, I'll try Leo_Apollo11s solution. EDIT: It seems that it worked. I hope it will stay that way.

Scharnhorst is actually excellent DD hunter, it has high-velocity guns with very tight dispersion and very fast reload. And then there is also the fact that DDs are very dangerous to a brawling battleship, so you want to get rid of them quickly. Lastly, half of my games are in DDs; I am well aware of what a well-played DD can achieve, so I try to get rid of them as quickly as possible. So when you put all these factors together - I try to destroy DDs first, leave everything else for later. I can torpedo a battleship while waiting for my main battery to reload, but a DD will not wait nor will it easily eat torpedoes.

I know I'm probably spamming the topic, but... I had what was probably one of my most fun games, ever:

Yep. That was one of ideas I had, I think. It would force the DDs to stick to BBs, which in turn would allow BBs to push because they would have DDs for protection while a CV spots.

Huh. Must have had something to do with how I insisted on playing all tech trees. Yeah, that is another thing I have noticed as well. Even at Tier I and II, I was often playing against people who were simply too good for the average at that level.

These ships were all tech tree though (I don't think there are any premium battleships in Tier IV MM range), so they don't exactly have that excuse.

That was the time it took me to complete the capture, actually. They lost the game without ever seriously trying to dislodge me. And less said about their performance... they had me surrounded on two sides and I was basically just circling inside the cap. I don't think any of them tried shooting an AP salvo, even despite me constantly showing them full broadside. The heck...? How many times does it take for people to realize "OK, two circles, one green, one red, we win when red turns green we lose when green turns red"? It is definitely not a good sign... that is behaviour I would be expecting at Tier I, not at Tier IV. I mean, by the time you get to Tier IV you probably have a couple hundred games under your belt at the very least. I'd expect people to realize at least what cap circles are by that time. OK... that is some special kind of special. Yeah, that might be it. I mean, I am a brawling addict and even I get nervous when I'm pushing in a battleship. But in this particular case, I was alone in the cap... no destroyers, nothing, nobody with me.

That only works until you reach the map edge, but yeah... And I agree that the most important thing this game needs is teamplay, though a few mechanics have to be changed as well. I mean, battleships wouldn't be so scared of destroyer torpedoes if CVs, CLs and DDs helped protect them, and if battleships had effective AA and destroyers stayed with them, carriers wouldn't be such a cancer... But that is precisely what I'm talking about. Islands can allow you to approach unspotted, but they are too low to let you shape the engagement and pick targets, or to protect you from crossifre. Which, as you point out, is one of reasons why games at low tiers are lot more fun. Problem is when a team loses good (or even average) player when he is trying to push... and if it loses most of better players then it is left with potatoes and a guaranteed loss. In just my last Kaiser game, I simply sailed within the enemy cap and then circled there while three enemy battleships tried to kill me. They failed to do so for two minutes, and then I got joined by my team, and then... yeah. Generally, biggest potatoes die either first (because they suicide) or last (because they camp). And that is another thing which may be helping to promote passive play: dying quickly is an obvious misplay, but when you wait in the back for your team to lose the game then you can always shift the blame onto others ("My teeem sucked, nothing I could have done"). So when low-effort players die, then instead of learning to play, they learn to camp... Thanks.

I suck [edited]at playing a CV, but... at least I got a Close Quarters Expert, courtesy of a Tier IV German carrier, Rhein. I nearly killed an enemy battleship with aircraft, but he got saved by the bell.

This is just retarded - now you will have people shooting allies for fun (they do it anyway, and now it doesn't do anything...). I think a better solution would be to implement permanent teamkill mechanics - if you damage an ally, you receive equal proportion of damage in turn. The end.

I have played all the ships in Japanese, US, German, UK, French and Italian lines up to and including tier IV, and I have played UK and German battleships up to and including Tier V. So while I have no tech line ships above tier V, I have not technically skipped any tiers (Konig is Tier V German tech line ship, Dunkerque is Tier VI French premium, Scharnhorst is Tier VII German premium, and Vanguard is Tier VIII British premium). And premiums were extremely important because they allowed me to figure out with certainty what playstyle and which tech tree I want to focus on (basically: do not waste time on anything not German. I want to also get Nelson for her historical value - same reason why I got any premiums in the first place tbh - but I don't think I will bother playing her outside COOP).

FINALLY GOT TO USE MY TORPEDOES AGAIN! YAY! Oh, and I also got a Close Quarters Expert. Could this game have been any better?

In theory, yes. In reality, I have noticed that ships often change flanks, so either a weak flank will get even weaker because a ship or two has left for the center, or the enemy will concentrate the entire fleet on one flank - and God help you if it is a weak flank and you are on it. And with many maps being so open, you will get focused by half the enemy fleet and die very quickly, and meanwhile the fact that the game is so passive means that you cannot count on your teammates pushing their caps / positions even if they do notice that you are being attacked by 7-8 ships. So it all comes down to RNG, even with how your team will behave. And this is another situation where open maps with flat islands or no islands are a problem. Defender cannot defend a cap that is being properly attacked because controlling and cutting off enemy lines of fire is impossible if there are no proper islands, or if only one group has them. Attacker may not attack because they fear being focused if they do, especially if it is without support; but if they concentrate and attack properly, they will simply roll over any opposition. And this might be another reason for why games tend to be so one-sided and also so passive and boring: one mistake, one ship that dies too early, and then the Lanchester's laws kick in, specifically the Lanchester's square law: a ship with 3 equal teammates at a cap versus two has more than twice the combat power (3^2 / 2^2 = 9 / 4 = 2,25): they have advantage in firepower, advantage in HP pool, and add in the fact that one of two enemy ships is likely to die than any of their own, it means that advantage of a team with three ships is even greater. So they win the cap, crush the opposition there, and then can outflank the defenders at another cap and so a victory at one cap snowballs into a victory in the game - unless their own team has suffered so much at the other caps that the enemy can, in fact, spare ships to hold them off or even destroy them. If there are proper islands, then the weaker group has options: harass the enemy, try to isolate lines of fire so that they never fight more than their own number of ships even if the enemy has numerical advantage, using islands as cover, or in worst care retreat and the focus-fire the enemies that push out of the passes - but of course, with proper islands the enemy has the option of bypassing the defences and attempting to flank, or having most of their ships hold the defenders' attention while one or two attempt to outflank them. And the fact that there are islands means that you cannot be certain where the enemies are (remember how I mentioned stumbling upon half the enemy fleet twiddling thumbs behind an island?), which then means scouting, probing and pushing, especially as players of both sides become more and more bored. So the game becomes highly tactical. Without islands, there are no tactics, just mathematics and the aiming skill - which itself comes down to mathematics and RNG (especially if you are in a French battleship... le bleurgh).

There is difference between "facing obstacles that are not fun" and "having to suffer boring gameplay". And FYI, I am a DD player, a cruiser player and a BB player, and I occasionally play CVs as well (though I suck in them), and while I have played only BBs at higher tiers (I have three for my ship collection - Dunkerque, Scharnhorst, Vanguard, and these three ships allowed me to figure out what I want out of the game), many of the things I mention come from lower tiers and I see no reason to believe things are different higher up. In fact, they are in many ways worse thanks to massively increased effective engagement ranges (no more missing another battleship from half a mile away...). And yes, each class has its upsides and downsides, and things that are frustrating... but there are two things which are frustrating in all classes: Open maps CVs Doesn't matter whether you are in a destroyer, cruiser or a battleship, both of these things often result in a static, boring game. Especially so when they get combined. In a destroyer, you face the possibility of being constantly perma-spotted and harrassed by a carrier, and then devstruck by a bunch of invisible cruisers and battleships from 10 - 30 kilometers away once a carrier (or two, often) have you sufficiently distracted. In a cruiser, you face the near-certainty of being devstruck by a battleship from beyond your engagement range the moment you show any flank, and since maps are open you can't even scoot from cover to cover - which then leads to the "sit behind an island and spam HE" static howitzer gameplay I have been complaining about. And in a battleship, you face the possibility of sniping and counter-sniping and doing acquire-shoot-scoot-reacquire dance, often in the same spot, for half or two-thirds of the game, because if you push you will get focused by cruisers and battleships and then you will burn to death. And mutual interaction of these elements helps reinforce passive play. Battleships cannot push because if they do, they get taken apart by HE spam from entrenched battleships and cruisers, or destroyer torpedoes. Cruisers can't push because they have the same problem as battleships, except they also face the possibility of being devstruck by AP as well. And destroyers cannot push because of the previous factors, plus they kinda need heavier ships' AA to survive. And all of this leads to frequent matches that look more like sessions of a parliament than something you should have in the game. Sure, it might be "realistic"... but it is also extremely boring. And considering the game is chock-full of unrealistic mechanics (bow tanking, plane respawn, ship reprint...), I don't exactly give a fig for "realism" unless it can be used to make the game more fun. Again, problem is the impression... unless enemy team (or both teams) had been substantially depleted, to the point you can ensure a one-on-one, or else you are playing against people who don't have a clue (well, even more than usual), then pushing requires at least some support from the team. And when such support is not forthcoming because all the "geniuses" believe that their long-range flaming is effective... I remember several games where both teams huddled behind the farthest islands on the map, with the result that almost entirety of both teams was alive by the end. One such time I tried pushing... and then died when I stumbled across seven ships from the enemy team hugging each other behind a single smallish island just outside their own cap circle. A Japanese DD would have had a field day there, torpedoing ships in a barrel, but there wasn't one... and even then it took me quite some time to die because all the geniuses kept shooting HE. At the point-blank range. It allows you to keep track of a ship - especially if it is pushing - and provide firing solution for your teammates. And on a map which does not provide hard cover, that is a massive disincentive to anyone even thinking of pushing. Flammable stuff tends to be behind armour. Both ammunition and fuel will be protected by armour, tons of sea outside, or both. As long as fires are outside the citadel, they rarely present an existential threat to the ship. The exception to this are CVs (see Midway), and perhaps predreadnoughts and early dreadnoughts which had no citadel.

Which is quite a problem from the "fun gameplay" perspective...

I have finally found a perfect ship...

Impression matters because impression largely determines gameplay. If everyone is under impression that long-range HE spam is effective, then that impression will determine the nature of the game - irrespective of what the reality is. Because the impression of HE effectiveness means that everybody will stay at long range and nobody will push, which means that anybody who pushes will get focused by HE spammers, which means that you have to hang back, which means that HE spam becomes the most effective approach for most of the game... It is. Whenever I am forced to sit back and snipe I find myself wondering whether I am having any impact at all on the game. But the problem is not so much the facts (facts never really matter anyway), problem is the impression. People have the impression that HE spam allows them to do damage no matter the distance and the angle (and are correct insomuch as HE shells really don't get disadvantaged by distance and angle that much), and also have the impression that doing damage means they are contributing to the team - or they simply don't care and are chasing stars and score. So they sit back and snipe. They can. But aiming usually takes time, spotting does not. So darting from cover to cover is a valid tactic for keeping track of enemies for the team. And what you wrote BTW is the main problem with low-lying islands: it allows any ship to be focused by half a dozen invisible enemies. And that then results in the passive play, because if you get spotted you die, and a destroyer will always outspot a battleship. If there is no cover against artillery, and no opporunities for disengaging if necessary, nobody will try to push. I know. X Fires spread, but usually only on ships that are either a) filled with flammable / explosive stuff (e.g. CVs) or b) already rendered combat-ineffective and thus unable to fight fires.

When up against a battleship player, I am. I am not, however, happy with it apparently creating an impression that battleships are equally effective at any range, up to and including their maximum range. Problem is that HE is too powerful, significantly reducing the impact of angling and maneuvering. And it is nowhere as range-dependant as AP in terms of performance, thus increasing viability of back-line sniping (though, as we have already covered quite a few times, it is far from the only thing which promotes backline sniping). I said cover, not concealment. You can still use cover to mitigate much of damage and firing opporunities for the enemy even without spotting, you just need to keep track of where the enemies are. It caused fires, yes, but I do not think many if any ships were actually lost to HE alone. Where fires got caused matters. I know. It is not just armour thickness. It is also a question of fuze delay and sensitivity. An AP shell striking structural plating would often not even arm, but one striking armour would, and with enough delay to actually penetrate and explode near something sensitive. An HE shell would typically get armed by any contact, including structural plating, and typically had instant fuze. As a result, if it struck armour it would not penetrate, or really do much important damage, no matter how thin armour was. Even fires that got started by HE shells would rarely be close to something really sensitive. What it could do was wreck sensitive equipment that could not be armoured (rangefinders, radars, etc.).

I shoot AP at broadside targets, and even targets that are not broadside if they are far enough that I can expect deck penetration. I merely explained you what I experienced. 1. AP is better against broadside targets, yes. HE is better in every other circumstance, unless target is far enough that you can count on plunging fire. 2. And I have also explained that it is far from impossible even against a competent player. You merely have to be careful and keep cover in mind. 3. I was complaining about HE mechanics. Most fires historically were actually caused by the AP shells and AP bombs penetrating where they shouldn't. 4. If a fire has enough time to do that on a steel warship, then it means ship is already screwed anyway, fire or no fire. 5. HE shells can be stopped by the structural steel plating... it is not just a question of shell, but also of fuze.

Before telling me to pay attention to what I am complaining about, you should pay attention to what you are reading. I am not complaining about being sunk by six ships (and it was four ships IIRC). I did what I did fully aware that I will sink in the end - in fact, the idea (and it worked) was to be a damage sponge so that my team has time to do their work at the other two caps. And I got a kill out of it, too (a battleship which showed too much broadside). I am complaining about the fact that HE mechanics mean that positioning - both in terms of map positioning and angling - does absolutely nothing in mitigating damage from the ships that are shooting at you. I am complaining about the fact that it provides easy way for causing damage to people who simply want to shoot from maximum range without understanding ship design, mechanics etc. I am not even sure anyone of them bothered shooting AP for the first half a minute or so. I have sunk ships by simply keeping them aflame. I have sunk battleships in a CL with nothing but guns when I had nothing better to do. It is dangerous against a semi-competent player, and I usually have to hunt destroyers anyway so I only do it rarely, but it is far from impossible. And also extremely boring, unless the enemy player is actually competent and so you have to scoot from island to island. I would actually like that. Actually, no. Yorktown would have been saved if it hadn't gotten torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Hornet only sunk after receiving four Japanese Long Lance torpedoes. Bismarck likely sunk due to being scuttled, or else due to torpedo damage, or both. Generally, the only way for bombs or shells to actually sink a ship was to explode in an ammunition magazine. And that again is something that could have been caused by an accident or AP ammunition. But never by HE projectiles, as they get stopped by even very thin armour. Other BB players also tend not to utilize their secondary batteries, I think...

Stop lying. I never said anything about ships being invulnerable. All I ever said was that positioning should matter. Yes, you can get sunk by fire. Not solely by fire, but if you get set aflame while your repair party is on cooldown... good luck. Fires are too strong, and HE shells are too strong. At the same time, both are basically tools for idiots. Which promotes long range plays. Bretagne's ammunition was burning... due to AP shell hits. No armoured warship in history was sunk by HE shell fire. And Bretagne sunk due to magazine fire. You know, "detonation" in game. Carriers tended to stay afloat unless they were finished off with torpedoes (well, US carriers anyway - Yorktown was only sunk by torpedoes. But even far more flammable Japanese carriers had to be scuttled by torpedoes). Bismarck was sunk either by torpedoes, underwater hits, or both. Any fires she had suffered had nothing to do with it. And again, fires were caused by AP. If you don't park your ship, you get focused because on most maps there is not enough cover to go shoot-and-scoot. Which means that you have to stay at range, which means that you don't have much game impact while at the same time you are dying of boredom. Yeah, fun times.

And none of these were solely to fire: Bretagne was lost after AP shells caused explosion, which caused flooding and cut off power to the ship. Projectiles were set ablaze (by AP shells, again) and exploded after that. But for a ship under combat conditions (that is, which had not lost power and was moving), loss to fire was unlikely because magazines could be flooded precisely in order to prevent such a situation. Assuming, of course, the system was functional... Bismarck was aflame, but it was not fires which sunk her. In fact, she was only set aflame well after her main and secondary armament had been disabled and fire control systems destroyed, so it is unlikely that fires had had any effect on loss of her fighting capability. HMS Indefatigable was lost to direct AP hits. I am unsure whether it was fire or explosion of a shell within the magazine. HMS Hood was actually lost to a fire, but that fire was caused by a direct AP shell hit to a 4-inch magazine (start at 36:00 mark, if you don't want to watch the video from the beginning): And one of main problems with HE, as I have noted, is that it makes battleships less able to perform their tanking function, and overall reduces the tactical element in surface ships' game. I remember a time when I placed myself near an island, with half the enemy team shooting at me. If they had been using AP, they'd be forced to think (I didn't expect to hold them off for more than a few minutes in any case); but with HE mechanics, all it resulted was in a brain-dead shell spam. No tactics, just bumrush. Where is fun in that?

Yeah, that is basically what I'd like too.

Yes, I know. Still, battleships at high tiers have good enough armour that you can still tank many shots if you angle properly. But to survive, you need to exploit the terrain. And open maps which allow focus-fire make that difficult.