AndyHill

I think that the risk/reward balance is largely pretty good in this game. You have to take a lot of risks to get into good positions and being within effective range of the reds usually puts you into a relatively precarious position yourself. Being effective and safe at the same time is really hard (except for a very special class of ships and maybe some outliers from other classes). Compared to WoT there aren't tanks with impenetrable turrets in dominant locations, which kind of justifies the existence of artillery. I just don't see the need for a silver bullet that could just dig out a bunkered ship, on the contrary. Not that I wouldn't want to just auto-detonate a pesky enemy every now and then, but I don't really think I should be able to. Imagine a Thunderer that can go into WoT arty view, click to spot anything within that range and then dump a 10-20k volleys on it ignoring any kind of obstacles. If WG ever even thought about something like that, people would be up in arms, but aren't carriers exactly like that (well if they had 25km max range)? I don't know if you've ever done the match on plane losses, but for a comparison my Yamato fires on average about 160 shells per game. A T10 carrier can fly what, 80 or 60 planes per match before it starts to seriously run out of planes? With those numbers, getting dumped on by a CV for 20k+ while shooting down 4 planes is about the equivalent of taking a 20k+ volley from a Yamato that loses all of its 9 shells in your citadel and the ocean around you - while spotting you for his team and not being in danger of getting shot at or spotted himself. That kind of doesn't feel like a whole lot of counterplay to me. Of course it's even less than that, unless everyone else on your team kills enough planes to actually make him run out. The map is really useful, so thanks for that. Basically if you look at the 25km circle from that position it kind of looks a lot like I imagined. In general I wouldn't mind limiting the CV's abilities in any imaginable way, but the picture kind of demonstrates pretty well what I fear might happen with this specific limitation. Imagine people figuring out that you're safe from carriers if you stay far enough back. A carrier from that position could create a no ship zone that covers most of the actually useful locations anyone would actually want to be in. All of the area outside the red circle would be left alone. With the current limitless flight distance carriers would look for juicy target especially to the east and to the west and possibly north, since (at least in randoms) people tend to split up on this map, which leaves the middle wide open. If the range was limited, the carrier would have no choice but to focus on targets near the caps - which is basically anyone to go forward and push the tempo of the game. Actually when I'm looking at that map, I kind of see Stalingrads, Venezias, battleships and maybe Hallands. Anything that can spam effectively from outside of the carrier's effective range (or use the unduckmenow-smoke). Hallands spot stuff and everything else shoots at said stuff from long range. I really think that if people can stay out of the carrier's range, they will want to. Note that if the carrier goes for a safer location, it will leave large parts of the map safe from air operations, which of course is good in a way, but it would also mean that if you know where the carrier is, there's a simple way to not get bombed and I believe people would want to use that. That's of course just my own imagination as this is impossible to test right now, but that's at least what happens with Smolensks and the likes at the moment. The difference of course is that Smolensks have so little range that it's usually fairly easy to escape their area of influence. For a 25km carrier it might be more like a Slava that basically just sits there and there's not much to do about it - except that Slavas and Thunderers can usually bring their hulls closer to the action, thus trapping people deep within their range. The idea of a carrier being more vulnerable is of course enticing, but in general the idea of simply rushing down Smolensks and the likes just doesn't work as well as you might want to, since you're usually not rushing down one ship, usually it's most of the red team you need to get through to get to the spammers. Especially one that can basically ignore islands as any kind of obstacles. As far as clan wars and other coordinated play is concerned, the biggest difference between setups with carriers is the amount of information planes give you. The firepower deficiency agains two BBs for example is more than made up for by the ability to predict exactly what's coming, where and when and always being prepared for it. And of course the carrier's own firepower. Do you think the 25km limitation to range would reduce the spotting significantly enough make a real difference?

I haven't played Hurricane battles, I've only seen some of them and some KOTS and the likes. To me it seems that in Hurri as well as the lower leagues I have much more experience in, ships still go into bunkering locations, hug islands etc. - and it's kind of logical, since the carrier is just one ship and it's more important to not get blabbed by the other 6-11. In that kind of a case the carrier is basically just a hitpoint tax that steadily chunks down ships on both teams. Also wouldn't the alternative to useful locations be extremely bland maps where terrain matters little? For me bunkering ships are if anything a challenge or even an opportunity, since they won't get away if your team manages to pull one off. Spammers like Henris and Hindens or basically any mobile thing that can use all of its turrets all the time will simply beat a bunker in a one or one fight, so everything depends on the teams. And I really don't think that there should be a simple solution to every tactical problem, they're supposed to be challenging. More importantly, not every time you point your nose at the reds and press W will you be in a bunkering position. Carriers punish you in bunkers as well as open water if you make the mistake of pointing your nose towards the enemy and press W. Yeah it does sound a bit weird to me, but I admit it is a somewhat complicated issue. The definition of camping is extremely important here. Generally in WoWS, someone sitting in the base far away from everything isn't much of an issue to begin with and in my books someone who is closer to the action and found himself a spot where he is hard to dig out has earned it and that kind of gameplay should be encouraged rather than punished. The question is of course should the less optimal setup win (skills being equal)? If your setup for a given situation is not optimal, you need to play better than the reds to overcome the odds. I really don't see how this is a bad thing. I actually see carriers more as a problem than a solution in a case like this, since every time everyone thinks of pushing they have to calculate that greens have this many this kind of ships and the reds have that many ships plus a carrier - on every flank all the time. Now the answer to this specific problem can be (at least partly) the limited range. At this point it would actually be very interesting to hear your opinion on what the range should actually be. So where do we put the limit for for example T10 carriers? How far can Haku, Manfred, Midway and Audi fly their planes? It would of course be much easier to try to figure out what the effect would be if I have some kind of a number to work with. As a bit of a sidenote and since you wrote about clan battles; as I mentioned I haven't played Hurricane, instead I have for quite a few seasons now been a shot caller for a pretty mixed bunch of players, I think our best season ever ended somewhere just short of Typhoon promotion battles. We don't get a lot of battles usually, so we're not very practiced in any specific tactics and we don't know beforehand who plays what, so we're never going to win slow grinds against much better trained and prepared teams. At some point in the season we're also constantly having to punch above our weight to progress. One thing we were pretty good at was making rapid moves, spotting openings and then punching through and hopefully catching something (actually often a nose-in ship in a bunker position). Of course not a sure win, our players aren't super unicum and our shot caller is useless, but we managed to win some very unlikely battles because we showed something unexpected to a team that was prepared for a different game. With carrier spotting that is just gone. You're very limited in tactical options since the reds will know exactly what's coming minutes in advance and they will be fully prepared for anything you try. Thus, the battles become basically shooting contests where the one who makes fewer small mistakes in angling and positioning wins. Basically the only time we managed to beat the odds was when the opponent was kind enough to bring two BBs. Even then it was a bit depressing, because those matches reminded us rather painfully of the good old times.

This is only a mistake in positioning if you're not getting a gameplay advantage from the situation. A Bow-in Stalingrad next to an island can only disengage by reversing as can a bow in Salem, but both can be powerful tactical assets. A pushing battleship will have trouble disengaging without showing its side or slowly reversing, but pushing might still be exactly what the situation requires. In fact, a lot of good, aggressive plays can put you in basically do or die situations, where you either win or die and this is fine and part of the game. These situations are only ever mistakes if you pushed your nose into something you shouldn't have. And the problem with carriers is that whatever works against ships in such situations invariably makes you a prime target for planes, creating a screwed if you do and screwed if you don't -situation, where you have no real options. Another, perhaps even more damning thing for carriers is that because planes are something like 5x faster than ships and not bound by any obstacles they can be pretty much anywhere anytime so when you're evaluating a situation in your mind thinking if you can push and play aggressive, the answer is much more often "no" - simultaneously for every ship on every flank of the map. Why should either of these exist? Using cover is one of the fundamental skills in the game, terrain is anyways much simpler than in Tanks for example, so the game design should encourage using it as much as possible to create gameplay variety. And if someone is eluding your team's spotting, well played to him, that's another fundamental aspect of the game. Your team just needs to maneuver better to get to the hiding guy or put more effort into finding the unspotted ship, that's how the game works. And if you can't, you lost to better players and that's another key aspect of basically any game. I was basically looking for justification for carriers' existence. If, for all the problems and grief they cause, they don't even bring anything unique to the table other ships can't, you have to question why have them in the first place. The existence of other things that make the game more passive does not give carriers the excuse to do the same. And kiting Thunderers and Conqs are still pretty horrible for the game as are Smolensks and the likes. When a Smol puff pops out somewhere, BBs tend to try to flee rather than push it, because pushing is inherently much harder than defending in this game and you can't just assume you're fighting a single ship. If a carrier's range is reduced significantly from what it is now that must mean there's much more of the map it can't reach at any time, leaving a lot of room for the rest of the ships to maneuver. After all, all it takes is for the little triangle ships to decide they won't go to a certain flank because carrier operates there and nobody else will either.

From what little I know about this kind of legalese, the actual chance of dropping a non-shortlisted ship may make the situation better or worse, but just a small chance won't make WG's actions legal. If the case went into a court the judge or other referees would be looking at intent to mislead the customers and no small print or loophole could save WG there. WG didn't invent scamming, in fact they're not even masters of the trade. The courts have been trying to protect customers (and thus trade itself, which is in fact a huge deal for every country in the world) dealing with scammers and snake oil salespersons for centuries if not millennia. They've seen things you wouldn't believe, they've run into every trick ever imagined, WG's amateurish excessive information bullship wouldn't even begin to impress anyone. The only questionable thing is whether anyone will be bothered to take this thing to court or if courts would be bothered with such a small fish case, but after that point all you need to prove is a deliberate intent to mislead customers and we all know how that would go.

What would you consider a mistake in positioning? Also I'd be interested in further opening up the carrier's role and why it's a "necessary evil". You mentioned them becoming a "strong single target support unit", but isn't every ship in the game just that? The difference being that ships need to take risks, fight for positions to create crossfires etc., whereas carriers can (and still could after your modifications I think) just fly somewhere and dumpster a ship whenever needed. What does the carrier bring to the table that other ships can't? The limited range on carriers is an interesting idea, but what I'm afraid of is that it would promote even more passive play. Imagine a couple of Smolensks at the back with infinite range. The best thing to do is to rush them down before they eventually kill you. This is a bit like carriers, even though they can almost never be rushed down while the game is still going, the best tactic is still to play somewhat aggressively even if it makes you a prime target, since they'll get you anyway anywhere and you're basically on a clock. If, however, those Smolensks have a finite range, people will want to stay out of that range. Especially when the first ship to enter that range would be the only one the carrier could go for and guaranteed to get attention.

It appears that we have been spoiled with excessive information for years. One thing that's kind of unfortunate is that there's supposed to be some kind of a nice charity event coming up and the community is ablaze.

Even minimap-only spotting is still problematic. Just like the clan wars seasons showed, if you know what the other team is doing, you can always counter their tactic and if both know what each other are doing, the only tactic that can be countered only by itself is long range spam. Also even if the player controlled AA-minigame was fun to play and not at all distracting when you're in the frontlines angling and juking every which way at once, it would still be an entirely one sided event where even the best effort of the victim ship only ever results in neither party taking damage. I really don't see any kind of future for carriers in the game. If airpower is really absolutely necessary to have, WG should look into how the anti-sub planes work on the test server. I don't know if an air strike -consumable aimed and fired by an actual ship actually playing the game and earning the opportunity by taking risks and playing well would be better than no airpower at all, but it would certainly be much better than the horrorshow we have now.

None taken. I don't care much about the differences between the old system and the new one, both were/are utterly horrific.

Yep been there seen that nothing new, all of those things are basically admitting defeat without even making the carrier work for it.

Two specific questions: 1) After the community's reaction, do you still feel that the information about shortlists was "excessive" 2) Do you really think that adding a few lines of text to this year's event articles is too much and we need to wait one year to be informed (IF?) of the shortlist next year.

A common definition of counterplay would be for example (Collins dictionary) 1. a positive or aggressive action by the defending side, esp in chess. verb (intransitive) 2. to make an opposing or positive action from a position of defence. For example in WoWS a DD can counterplay a radar cruiser (which is supposed to be a bad matchup for the DD) for example by torping them, spotting them for their team or, depending a lot on the ships and situation in question, outright shooting them with their guns. Even in the worst case you can at least shoot back to hurt the cruiser.

This 230+ page discussion is part two in the series. So far we've had several people come in and state that they've mastered the magical counterplay to carriers, yet nobody ever actually has, so you will probably excuse us for not being overly impressed by that statement. I'm still willing to listen if you're willing to reveal how you counterplay them - after all, who knows if we've finally found someone who can. My bingo sheet: - Stay away from frontlines - Hug friendly ships - Waste every captain skill point, upgrade and consumable on AA - Show broadside to 11 ships to dodge planes - Make him lose a few planes when he kills you - Make him waste time hunting you before he kills you

I checked T6 and carriers have the highest K/D -ratio by far as well as massive lead in spotting. They are near the top in damage and kills as well as godlike in cap defense, pretty similar to T10. This is especially remarkable, since T6 top lists seem to be absolutely dominated by premium ships of all sorts, probably because of the experienced players playing them. The main question is why do I need to kill the Halland or Minotaur? For me to consider one a valuable target they are probably close to the frontlines, in which case my teammates will probably have shots at them while I go for them anyway. Halland can be damaged by German rockets even if they're not the most effective thing against DDs and it's clumsy enough to eat torps. Especially if it's in range of friendlies (=doing something useful and thus a valuable target), the torps will screw him over pretty badly regardless. I don't know about you, but I will not hesitate to attack Hallands and Minotaurs if the situation requires it and chances are I will hurt them badly with not too bad plane losses. Even if I lose some planes, they lose hitpoints and those are far more valuable and they never get the chance to shoot back. In the worst case everyone now knows where they are and whatever plans they had were foiled just because I flew a few expendable planes their way. If you compare that to any other means of spotting and fighting a Halland, the contrast is pretty stark. To spot him outright, you have to be within 6km of him - and then you're within 6km of a Halland and whatever friends he might have nearby. Then it's the question of whether you and your friends can hurt him and his friends more than they hurt you and yours, that's called playing the game. Everyone's skills in positioning and shooting are in play and the stakes are your hitpoints and eventually ships. Not just how much damage one side can do to the other while risking an expendable resource. Radars can of course spot him from further away, but very few ships can radar him further away than they get spotted unless they can use terrain to their advantage. And this is basically what's supposed to be the rock to the Halland's scissors. Any limitations planes have in attacking are absolutely nothing compared to what ships have to work with. Carriers are banned in tournaments and the best clan wars teams revolted because their inclusion in clan battles removed interesting gameplay so yes, that does in fact happen. As for sneaking up on CVs it's true he was likely bad, but I'll just stick with facts instead. Just by judging the top 10 survival rates of T10 ships, it's pretty clear that your scenario is a rare oddity. Guess which of these are the carriers:

I don't think you understand CVs or what they do very well, because what you just wrote is absolutely untrue. A good carrier will maximize his destructive potential by focusing on farming the right targets with utter disregard to anything else. At times this may appear as teamwork, because the best targets are often the ones pushing forward and also engaging your teammates, because it makes them vulnerable and dangerous at the same time. Dropping fighters on friendlies only makes sense if it slows the red carrier down more than it slows you down (not often). The carrier is by FAR the best spotter, does damage with the best of them, dominates cap defense and is as close to immortal as you can get in this game (which makes them factually op). They do not require their team for anything other than not dying too fast and possibly taking caps at some point. They might as well be farming bots, everything is just a target to them. That is the antithesis of teamwork. Anyway, being op is not the main problem with carriers. Their issues in ascending order of importance are 3) They're op 2) They attack anyone anywhere anytime in insanely unfair ways with no counterplay 1) Their spotting abilities remove possibilities for making interesting maneuvers and aggressive positioning (which is the core of the game)