AndyHill

The answer: possibly or not. The fact that they are testing subs initially in a separate game mode on the live server (after the special test server) is potentially a fantastic thing. Of course it limits the impact on the playerbase if the (initial implementation of) submarines goes completely horribly wrong, but it also gives a new option for special ships such as carriers and subs. A separate game mode for both (or both combined) would take these ships out of the randoms queue and if done right, offer a lot of new interesting possibilities for fun and engaging gameplay.

Submarines in game: Don't shoot the messenger, please.

Well I can't give you a workable design or even something that would have a good chance of working, but I think an entirely new game mode has a better chance of working properly than anything WG can do to fit the CVs into existing game modes.

I don't know if a consumable-style air strike would actually be any kind of fun, but I'm pretty sure I'd vastly prefer it over the current implementation of carriers. More interestingly, though, I think the Convoy mode (or something conceptually similar) might be workable with carriers and maybe even submarines if it was designed with them in mind from the ground up. Giving for example respawns for the surface ships and making AAA cover for the convoy a tactical consideration just might work and make the plane / ship interaction more bearable. Carriers would have a little bit more historical environment and they wouldn't spoil the other game modes for those who don't want to have them in game.

No, the sheer amount of carrier games made my eyes bleed. I would recommend all kinds of medications for advanced carrieritis, but I think a few thousand Ave Marias would be more suitable at this point.

Out of curiosity I took a look at your stats and I think this is a difference in the feel of the game more than anything else. That 164k on a Yamato isn't actually that easy to get, it's only 20k off your all time record and about 50% extra on top of your average, whereas on a Haku that 150k is just 21k above average and a far cry off your record (252k). Midway has a bit lower average, but its record is actually even more impressive (270k). You have very few matches in high tier cruisers and practically none in DDs and so far neither of those are even in the same ballpark as the results you get with CVs and Yama. Unless you stopped playing CVs after their most colossally OP stage right after the rework hit live, your subjective evaluation of how difficult the game feels is actually not supported by the numbers. Even if playing carriers feels harder, you are actually getting much better results in them than in any other class - and only BBs (Yama) are anywhere close when it comes to in-game performance.

It's not like we finally got a team together for clan wars and now everything's just screwed up again.

We got a few people thrown out of a game at a very bad time and probably missed ~3000 steel because of it, but I'm sure we will be duly compensated in no time.

A fast enough a ship is almost impossible to hit for a good while while it's hugging the border. Eventually they will slow down, but at first they can change direction almost instantaneously. It would be much better if you could turn around on the spot so that you can get out of the situation fairly quickly and you're not instantly screwed if you scrape the border a bit (and no way to get stuck like in an island), but you'd stop instantly and wouldn't stop moving until you point your nose away from the border and accelerate.

By this I actually meant "CV is..."

misclicked

While I don't disagree with your assessment of the average player's thinkin (or lack of), I again see a slight bias in your thinking. Looking at TX, the strongest DD torps at that tier do 23767 damage, which means that even without saturation and torp belt reduction, 4 torps aren't enough to kill a Yamato for example - and with reduction, not even close. A Z-52 won't be able to kill a full health Yamato even if it hits every torp. Sure, it will hurt a lot, but you won't be hitting that many that often. After all, torp DDs are typically the lowest damage ships in the game. In my view concealment is the thing that allows people to be aggressive while not being silly, and that applies to basically every class. And if you like aggressive plays, carriers are pretty much the worst thing for the game. When I'm the Sky-God I specifically target any ship trying to make a play, regardless of the class. Quite often these will be DDs due to the somewhat layered design of the classes, which puts them in the vanguard of the fleet. However, it's difficult to imagine that the BBs I crabbed on when they tried to push or kept spotted when they were trying to disengage thought carriers were ok. At worst, red DDs turn back, at which point the red cruisers, spotted by green DDs and me, also turn back and the situation ends up with 3-0 caps for greens, all reds in a blob with torps coming in from 3 directions. I would estimate that currently DDs do have the second highest impact on the game after carriers. However, that's not because they are powerful and easy to play, rather the opposite. DDs are very difficult to play with a relatively high skill floor so it's very easy to fail badly in them and they have a very specific task they're good at - taking objectives - which also happens to be crucial for the end result. The flipside of having great concealment is having to utilize their great concealment or die very quickly. I've played all ship types pretty evenly and besides carriers I don't think there's a single ship that is completely out of whack compared to the others. In total, BBs are probably the most powerful class, but even they will be in trouble if they have to force push in to caps if green DDs sucked out. There are situations where one ship has the advantage over another, which is fine, because the whole game is based on trying to get into such advantageous engagements. The important thing here is that even at a disadvantage I have the best possible chance to come out on top, because I've played ever class extensively and I know exactly what the opponent at least should be doing and what he is thinking.

Depends on the level of patience. In any game, DDs still have to push and to be aggressive to be useful. You might get your butt handed to you or you might not, depending entirely on what the red CV does, but being passive is very likely to lose the game regardless, if the enemy DD manages to do more.

And that's exactly why you should play DD. The threat is probably nowhere near as serious and not as difficult to play around as you might think. Also for some reason the gunboats (khaba, haru) do way more damage than hybrids and torp boats (except for Yummy Yammy, which can hit hydroless cruisers very effectively). Torpedo slingers also have the lowest win rate (except for Yummy Yammy) with the high gunpower / utility DDs taking the top spots.

You seem like a reasonable person to discuss with, so I'll bite. Looking at your stats and your comments on DD play, I think you would do yourself a service if you played more DDs. Much more. If you think torp soup is a big problem, you need to get into the DD's head and learn where it's probably coming from and what the DD player is thinking. On average, DDs do the least amount of damage per match, so that soup really isn't that effective most of the time. No, DDs can not huddle behind teammates early in the game. Because that simply makes them useless - all they achieve is a few more moments of useless life, since they will eventuall get slaughtered after there's no more team to hide behind. In reality DDs still have to be aggressive and push or be useless. When I'm in a carrier, I always first go for the spots where aggressive enemies should be to be useful. If I find them, I kill them and I win. If I don't find them they're not useful and I win. Game features that punish you for playing correctly are usually not very good design. The major difference between radar and CV is that radars (when they're mostly even on both teams) make the environment more dangerous and challenging for everyone and thus provide opportunities for good players to outplay their opponents by better spotting, radar baiting and kiting around danger zones to find good shots. Radar is an equalizing factor nobody can really do anything to play around while still being useful. You're aither screwed or you're not depending on what the carrier does, not because of your own actions. And that's not really just a DD thing either.

I was almost certain WG just forgot that torp plane heal existed when they changed the AAA in the latest patch. Nothing almost about it anymore.

Way back when, decades ago when I was decades younger, there was a rule of thumb about tuning mopeds: if you lost less than 10% of your horsepower during the tuning process, it could be considered a success. Perhaps WG might still be able to claim success with the carrier rework after all.

Live now: the carrier specialist has been publicly seen in a target practice ship with strong AAA. Can there be a more certain sign of carriers having been overnerfed? Will he survive the shame of getting caught in public in a surface ship?

TL;DR: It's good to have extensive activities to keep the supergrinders entertained - and these activities can be very grindy and I personally think regrinding ship lines is kind of a fun idea. However, if you get competitive advantage from doing the regrinding, it becomes a mandatory activity for everyone who wants a level playing field to challenge the most dedicated players fair and square, and all the fun goes out the window straight away.

To the best of my knowledge it's not possible to add this poll to the original discussion thread here: Please keep discussion related to the changes in the above thread as I guess that's the proper place for it. However, I'm very interested in seeing some numbers on how the forumites feel about the feature as is and / or with some changes (and I didn't find a poll anywhere, please point me to the right direction if I missed one). Questions 1-3 are the Naval Training Center -related portion whereas 4 and 5 are intended to calibrate for people's general interest in providing end-end-game level content for hypergrinders in general.

Maybe it would be possible to pin the poll and close it for discussion if things get out of hand instead of just closing the thread? I think we're actually getting interesting (and perhaps important) results, so I wouldn't like to see the thread just disappear into the void of page n.

I'm ok with the idea of re-grinding ship lines to get economic / cosmetic bonuses. For me suitable rewards might include permanent camoflages (perhaps with increasing bonuses from consecutive rounds of re-grind) and steel (I do understand if people want to keep steel as a competitive mode reward, though).

This is the only way this is ever going to work. I agree with that guy.

The system looks fine otherwise, but the rewards absolutely have to be economic (think for example perma camos, steel, etc.), NOT PERFORMANCE BOOSTERS.

The current carrier emblem has a very important role in differentiating boys from men and invincible god-tier playmakers from the scrubs. If the requirements were lowered, how would we then know who is the superior human being with all measurable and meaningful standards?