krazypenguin

Realistically, at least in the Pacific war, US Damage Control was vastly superior to Japanese DC (witness multiple IJN capital ships lost due to this, eg Shinano & Taiho, versus US innovations such as pumping CO2 into avgas lines and the huge amounts of damage Yorktown sustained before she finally went under) - in game this seems to be represented by the difference between damage control immunites to additional fires/flooding - 5 secs for IJN, 10 secs for US. That's it. TBH, the US get shafted in game compared to their real life abilities and I say that as an IJN player.

um...was 30th July international bot day or something???

True, but isn't there a stat site somewhere that shows how many of each premium ship have been sold? That might also give a very rough indication of player numbers. Eg lots of Scharnies being sold would indicate the game is doing ok (or people wouldn't have bought them) Pretty sure that WG are raking it in with WoWS though and fair play to them - it's a very good game. Glad to see player numbers increasing after the German BBs were introduced - hopefully WG will learn the lesson and drop more fantasy tech trees for nations nobody wants to play *cough* USSR *cough* and get some REAL ships in the game first (British, Italians, French, Dutch, etc..)

I actually spent so much time trying to find and quote your own excellent "let he who is without sin" post that I was nearly late for work. Sadly, I couldn't find it so let me just say that, whilst my sin might not be *quite* the level you managed in that game, I have still sinned myself, so the screenshots I took of the chat window are safe with me sir ;-)

I saw aboomination in a random battle the other day. I'll leave it at that ;-)

Funny game this. Like all WG titles, it giveth and it taketh away. Had some nice games recently (see screenshots below) but since those it's been miserable and if I don't carry the battle myself, no one else on the team seems to and we lose. Glad I have the RN Captain mission to concentrate on - at least if I can do decent damage towards that, losing isn't quite so painful. But the good stuff :-) ARP Ashigara issued My 2nd ever Kraken and my first ever 6 kill game - in the beautiful Japlanta A big carry in the Hatsuhara - only time running out saved the game for us On the flip side, sometimes no matter how hard you try, you cannot carry a team. At least when you get more XP that the top player on the winning team you know you tried :-( Funny chat: And, lastly...

Where's the option for "You've completely outplayed the enemy DD in your own DD, he's down to 1k HP and you are still on full health. You've massively carried the team and finishing this guy off will ensure a huge win for you and the team. Instead you derp into a spread of torpedoes he fires and dies. Without you the team falls apart completely and you lose. The only consolation is that your own stupidity gave the enemy DD probably the best result he's ever had" I would pick that. Dammit.

This ^^ So many times friends and family ask me to fix their PC because it takes ages to load and is really slow - first place I look is the startup tab of msconfig and there's always dozens of entries for stuff they don't need and complete junk applications. Nice idea of WG, but it should be a bit clearer about exactly what it's doing and what effects that could have.

True story. Last night I had a CV in my team who asked our ships to "search for enemy aircraft" for him. Then, when my DD was down to 1500hp having been repeatedly mercilessly dive bombed by the enemy CV's 3DB squadrons (with no air support from our CV) he demanded I go sail under the 2 enemy fighter squads engaging his 6 remaining fighters to protect them. Just lol. Stupidly, I did (I'm a sucker for helping people when asked even if it's a stupid idea) and his fighters promptly got shot down and because I had stayed spotted, his DBs came straight back and sank me. I asked him if he was SkybuckFlying in disguise and his response is not suitable for repeating here Anyway, no to the OP - this is a stupid idea. But then he knows that already.

I popped smoke 4km from a Bismarck last night and he didn't shoot me with secondaries (that I recall) so I presume it's fixed.

Hmmm... check my signature for my ships (though I actually have a few others, eg Ark Beta, Gremy, Sims and some ARPs). I run a premium account permanently, play my premium ships a lot (Atago, Japlanta & Kami R mostly) but also run a pretty much 100% premium consumable (for credits) setup so I'm sitting at 40 million credits at the moment. I think credit income is probably tough for players on regular accounts and with regular abilities - for example, buying my first regular tier 8 (if I ever do this it will probably be the Mogami) would set me back 14.8 million credits (inc the modules). So 2 tier 8s would prerty much wipe me out. Actually, I just realised that I don't sell my old ships which players might usually do, so I lose some income there, but I still maintain that for regular players on regular accounts without a high tier premium to grind credits, things are probably a bit tough. That said, only WG know everything about player progression rates and ctedit balances and I'm sure that if they thought there was a problem they would address it.

The idea definitely has merit. As another possible effect, note the smokescreen in the first image - in places it is patchy, not very high and even broken. So perhaps an alternate effect of this smoke screen would be that it does not effect visibility, instead it affects accuracy - to represent the difficulty of accurately firing through the smoke. This could be represented in game by a massive dispersion penalty when firing theough this smoke screen (in either direction). Just a thought.

Ahem. Whilst this is good news, we were promised RN Cruisers for testing at Chatham this weekend...don't let me down now MrConway... ;-)

Ok, so it seems to be a bit "early days" but this is an excellent idea - thanks for this! If possible, might I request you add fugetsu's excellent Rising Sun mod? http://forum.worldofwarships.eu/index.php?/topic/48023-japanese-naval-ensign-rising-sun-flag-for-ijn-ships-v2/

I'm only at tier 7 on the IJN DD< CA & BB lines myself at the moment and facing the prospect of the grind at tier 8 and above - so this is a question I've been asking myself a lot recently. As someone who cannot commit to clan or team battles (once we get them) because I don't have availability at the right times and as someone who dislikes meta-gaming (and WG titles at top tiers are all about meta-gaming, sadly) I'm really struggling to see why I should spend huge amounts of credits to buy a tier 8, play it mostly or completely stock (got 30k free XP now but that wouldn't last long if I start buying tier 8s), spend more credits buying hugely expensive modules, and then probably lose credits every game. Oh, and I'll probably get the living daylights kicked out of me every game by tier 10 ship drivers with 15+ point commanders. It just makes no sense to me. Really, the only incentive I can see, is the one I find myself facing now as I start grinding the Hatsuhara in earnest - i.e. learning how to play a new ship and challenging myself to do well in it. (Sadly, that's not actually going very well at the moment). Once I've elited my existing tier 7s, I doubt I'll bother buying any tier 8s. Instead, I'll probably start a new nation (Royal Navy cruisers are coming) and grind those... at least up to tier 7. That or just derp around in my premiums collecting credits and playing for fun.

I agree. However, I suggested a set of expanded radio commands back in June. It got a whole 2 likes, 13 replies, 283 views and is now buried on page 50 of this section of the forum. WG might do it but most of the players couldn't care less, apparently. Seems trying to actually play as part of a team is not interesting to them... Edit - link to my thread: [sUGGESTION] Expanded Radio Commands

Myself and my son (super5sonic) will be there on Sunday. We'll be the ones playing British cruisers on the Wargaming PCs and refusing to let anyone else have a turn!! ;-)

Same here. And, in my opinion, the new armour models, where they seem to go from reasonably simple designs consisting of a few large slabs of armour, to these complicated layouts of dozens of smaller plates, all at weird angles to each other, just give them an excuse to fob off people when RNG says "no" and you bounce a 7 million MM diameter shell off a 1mm thick armour plate because you "hit a weld" or "hit an angle" or some such nonsense. So yeah, point and click FTW.

I fear this is correct. Given the increase in hydro equipped ships (eg German BBs) I really don't see why torpedoes, especially the Long Lance*, shouldn't have their original detection ranges restored. As I understand it, the main point of hydro is to help BBs (and CAs) spot incoming torps - not sail their Bismarcks into smoke, pop hydro to spot hidden DDs then just blow them away with OP 10km ranged secondaries... Exactly how much skill does that require? Tier 8 ranked battles will be infested with zero skill Bismarcks (and my cynical side says that's exactly what WG wanted - make a new ship obviously very strong for ranked battles so people spend real money on buying credits and converting XP to get it) With the addition of a second IJN DD line I really hoped that WG were going to give us an IJN torpedo line and and IJN gunboat line. Instead it seems that we'll just get 2 lines that don't really do anything (worthwhile) better than the other nations, whilst anyone who enjoys playing torpedo boats should probably just quit now :-( My only hope to cling on to seems to be the possibility of the Kami R avoiding any changes, in which case I'll see you all at tier 5 for the rest of our lives... * As an IJN player I'll admit a bias towards the Long Lance here, but every nation is supposed to have its defining\key feature and if IJN DDs don't get torps as theirs then I really don't see the point of them or what WG are even thinking.

Agree about the pricing - that and different specials between the regions are my biggest gripes with WG. Regarding other regions getting anything, be it ships or complete patches before us - I am actually fine with that - better to let another regions test something before we get it so we know what's coming. The issue is there is ZeRO communication from the community team to tell us what's going on and when. WG need more CMs, rather than slightly wooden actors who are clearly passed their prime.. :/

Took the Hatsuhara out for a spin, got a Domination battle on Two Brothers and went A side where I got spotted by a Minekaze who I also spotted. Hit him with a salvo or two from my guns as I popped smoke, then hit an enemy cruiser with another salvo. Sent some torps towards the Minekaze's smoke screen but didn't hit anything. Spotted incoming torps from the Minekaze by way of return and then, in a moment of monumental stupidity, I catastrophically misjudged their speeds and ate not one but two of them which left me on 850hp. The the only reason I survived at all was because of the damage saturation mechanic which meant that the second hit on the same location didn't do anything. With 850hp left I couldn't risk taking even a single hit from the Minekaze, who would spot me before I spotted him, so I retreated back towards the B cap as the enemy were winning D and about to push round. Sent another salvo of torps into the A cap but again without hitting anything. An enemy Konig had been spotted hovering near the South entrance to the middle channel so I sent another 2 spreads of torps down the channel but he obviously had a change of heart and turned towards A so they all missed too. Meanwhile, the fight at D had gone... weirdly. Everyone there had died, except an enemy DD had actually capped D and was now coming to A and a friendly Indianapolis who had managed to sail past the cap and was heading to the SE corner of the map to hunt the enemy CV). Again, unable to challenge the enemy DD, I had to settle for very long range torpedo attacks which were never going to hit - and didn't. Luckily, an allied Ognevoi took care of the enemy and our team capped D. So we now held B & D and they held A & C. The points were neck and neck, see sawing from one team to the other as ships were sunk but, ever so slowly, they started to get the upper hand and held the advantage in numbers of ships and remaining HP. The scores were something like 800 to us and 900 to them. I went back to A to try and help one of our BBs there, hoping he would push into the cap but fearing the Minekaze he retreated and all I could do was cover him with with smoke. The Minekaze instead chose to go after our CV. I thought we might be able to take A with a concerted push but it just didn't happen and our few remaining ships were falling back towards B. Behind on points and ships, with the nearest cap denied and defeat looming I turned and ran for the middle channel, aiming to sail down it to try and capture C. By now our Indianapolis had died and then our CV went too. The enemy were seconds away from winning. But the enemy ships in A had been drawn North, out of the cap, as they fought our few remaining ships and our Ognevoi managed to slip into the cap and take it. With 3 caps to 1 we started to claw our way back into the game but they still held the C cap zone and we weren't going to make it... I burned my last speed boost and burst into the cap - freezing their score at something like 974. I didn't even get a chance to look at ours as shells started bracketing me - their cruiser who had killed our Indy was charging towards me, blind firing as he came. Salvo after salvo came straight towards me, landing in front of, behind and beside me but somehow none of them connected. I popped smoke as the range dropped to 7km and the cruiser disappeared from view. For some reason, he also stopped firing, maybe so I wouldn't be able to work out what direction he was coming from? I backed up and turned enough to get my torpedoes lined up on his probable direction of approach and waited. Any second now, I knew he was going to burst through the smoke at point blank range. Then all he had to do was get one shell on me and that was it. Any second now... Which is when the wife came home and couldn't open the front door. Well f**k my life. Jumped up from my desk, ran to the front door, undid the chain, yanked the door open, said "one minute love" then ran back to my desk and sat down. Nothing had happened. Phew! Then the screen went black and the battle was over. ... *Victory* Battle time expired - we'd won, just, on points. I finished the game with a massive ~2300 damage done, 1 assisted cap and a couple of defender flags, a bottom third finish, but a win.

Sigh, game needs more community managers, instead we get a guy famous for being in a film set on a battleship. WG logic :-(

I'm inclined to agree with you. Though I don't play a lot of tier 5 ships my perception is that I get more tier 7 games and I cannot recall the last time I played a tier 5 game where there were no tier 6 or 7 ships. The idea that moving the pain point of the introduction of +/-2 MM from tier 4 to tier 5 is better for newer players doesn't hold true with me. Although tier 4 is where the grinds start to become a real thing, I still elited the Myogi in 36 battles (including unlocking the CV) and the Kuma in just 8 - and those totals include some battles played after I had elited them. Meanwhile, my Furutaka took around 50 battles to elite and my Kongo 41 - and these numbers don't account for me using free XP to skip some modules. So they moved the problem to a higher tier where players need to play a lot more battles, probably with stock modules. Also, mid tiers, like tier 5, are where we are told to play lots of battles to earn credits - but clearly people aren't doing that. I think premium ship sales show that enough people are buying and playing higher tier premiums (tier 6-8) that not enough people are actually grinding credits on tier 5 to ensure sufficient levels of tier 5 ships - hence they all end up as tier 7 premium ship XP & credit pinatas. Scharnhorst in particular has really impacted this, I feel. I still feel like right now tier 7 is the "sweet spot" for the game, where you'll often be top tier and see a lot of -2 tier ships. Tier 5 feels like somewhere I don't really want to be playing right now - unless I'm using a DD.

Situational Awareness is probably the main one and, IMO, encompasses several of the others. However, one key one that is missing is one that I'm struggling to define correctly is something like "the ability to reason & learn" Others might call this being smart or clever, but I don't think you have to be a genius to play this game well and I'm sure that plenty of smart people are not great at this game. Others might more abstractedly describe it as "getting it", as in understanding it, and I think that's more accurate. I think you have to care too, which is something most of us will take for granted - we want to win, we care about it, we want to do well. But many players might not think like that - they either cannot or just do not care about the same things we care about. So in the example above, which I agree with, the 4-5k+ game player with below 50% WR probably doesn't "get it" or maybe doesn't care. Alternatively, he\she might care but just might not be able to adequately reason or learn from those battles in order to improve. Knowledge & experience need to be adequately processed and applied. Some can do that after 1 battle (did this, got killed, won't do that again) whilst others must be repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Anyway, that's enough mock psychology from me ;-)

Nice work :-) Good luck with the commander - please keep us posted!