xxNihilanxx

This guys somehow manages to make Skybuck Flying look talented. At least with SBF you were never quire sure if he was trolling.

Well, this is awkward.... All I got wrong was the identity of the WG employee giving the platitudes.

Shorthand for covfefe, maybe?

So the ones that don't have smoke either sit behind islands or kite as stated. Wow. In a matter of seconds the worst reading comprehension fail I have ever seen got pushed to second place.

The answer is literally the first line of the post you quoted. I have bolded it for you. No offense but this has to be the worst reading comprehension fail I have ever seen on the internet.

Without smoke the only truly effective way to play most cruisers is either to sit behind islands, which is incredibly passive gameplay, or to kite the enemy and steer to dodge to avoid the return fire. This means cruisers will either stay at the back or be heading towards the back. Without cruisers to support the BBs against the threat of DDs the BBs will stay with the cruisers. This means even more BBs at the back of the map and heading for the back line. This is exactly the situation that people have been complaining about since forever. The impact of this has not been thought through at all.

I think it is safe to say that the Tech Tree British Cruisers will be the most affected by this change. I think it is also interesting that the two players most vocal in support of this change have the Fiji as the highest ship in the line and a grand total of 44 games in same between them. "I'm all right Jack."

Like all previous changes made in an effort to make the game easier for lesser-skilled players versus greater-skilled players it is totally self-defeating. Each change that the "better" players have had to adapt to whilst at the same time allowing the straight-lining, tactically inept muppets to continue herp-a-derping through match after match has forced the "adapting" players to "up their game". Thus the skill gap gets ever wider. Making the game easier doesn't make bad players better, it has exactly the opposite effect.

This is almost word-for-word what I was going to write. The so-called smoke meta is nothing more than a response to the BB meta. Fix the cause, not the effect. Of course, we are all wasting our time. WG have, do and will always balance around profit and nothing else. Countdown to S_O making his usual "put away your pitchforks this is just an idea in testing"* platitude in 10...9....8... *Of course, all those "ideas in testing" made it into the game as we knew they would.

That is kind of the point though, it is a generalisation. Sure there are exceptions that prove every rule and we have all seen lemming trains work from time to time however, I would say that, in my experience, those times where the train was successful account for maybe (and I am being very generous here) 5% of all lemming train attempts. That's a 19/1 bet and those are odds I'm not willing to take.

I have never seen an early attempt at B on Solomon Islands that didn't result in the ships that went there getting instakilled or the cap getting permanently blocked by a DD tucked in the little nook behind the main island. Ignoring A or C will allow the enemy to encircle you whereas if the the enemy attempt to come through B they can get hit from ships near A & C. B is just a slightly wider version of the channel on Two Brothers.

True, with five exceptions that I can think of. A&C is probably the most viable starting tactic on Solomon Islands, Strait and Fault Line as these maps are so small that going for B will lead to an early trip back to port on the majority of occasions. On Estuary and Two Brothers the team needs to split evenly for both A&D with one flank switching to a fighting defense if they encounter a lemming train coming down either flank. In that case the flank that is facing the lemming train should kite the enemy and reposition to the spawn cap as soon as possible as that tends to provide the best cover from which to hold off the push and also allows the friendlies on the other flank to either push around after securing their cap or, better still, join the team at spawn to meet the enemy. Of course, this requires a DD to go each side as torps can help turn back/slow down lemming train pushes easier than anything else. If the team has less than two DDs then it is time to pray that the enemy are terrible. As far as lemming trains as a tactic go these are actually viable in practice so infrequently that it is not really worth trying. They generally, in a group of randoms, have about as much chance of success as sailing up the middle in Two Bros.

No. Quite simply. This has been explained countless times. It's never the same "11 other people" and so the only thing that is consistent in all matches is your own presence. Over time and enough games one's overall influence on the outcome of the game result will show. "The whole WR is down to luck" has consistently been shown to be nonsense. You either understand that or you don't but it doesn't stop it being a fact.

This is correct. This is why Average XP is terrible to use as an indicator. Any metric where you can literally pay for better results is useless.

Come along and join the fun.