xxNihilanxx

The problem with the Roma is the same as the problem with most T8 premiums. It is a lot of money to spend to be nothing more than fodder for T10 ships.

Oh, I don't doubt for a second that if WG followed my suggestion then the majority of people who did buy them would be posting on the forum complaining that the (insert name of removed premium here) that they had bought was a "dud" as it wasn't performing anywhere near as well as expected...

You're bang right, @Bayla450, it's a little-known Illuminati plot, orchestrated by the British Royal family (who are really lizard-people from Zeta-Reticuli) in order to give the Elders of Zion control of your credit earning potential but don't say too much or the Men in Black will be round to put chemtrails over your house. Stay safe, brother!

Unfortunately not every ship in the game has heavy AA. So, because one class exists everyone else should limit themselves to the handful of ships that have good AA and just ignore all of the other ships in game? How does one even get a heavy AA cruiser without going through the ships that aren't. But why am I bothering? It is impossible to argue with vested interests.

First off - I don't know why somebody said you "magically appeared at T4 " when it is obvious from your profile that you didn't. My advice would be initially to grind all Battleships and Cruisers to tier 4. Fully upgrade them and earn enough XP to buy the tier 5 but hold off on buying it at first. When you have "unlocked" every T5 BB and CA/CL in the game only then should you consider jumping into a T5 ship. The reason is that up to and including tier 4 you will get favourable matchmaking which will mean that, at most, you will only see ships 1 tier higher than your own. When you hit tier 5, however, the MM jumps to +2 so you could face T7 ships. These will (generally) be captained by more experienced players and can potentially outgun you considerably. While you are in the lower tiers, and still in BBs and cruisers, there are a couple of combat "tricks" that you will need to perfect. In BBs (and cruisers) there is the art of "not showing your broadside" to the enemy. It will be tempting to try to have all guns on target all the time but this makes you very vulnerable to taking huge damage. Instead, with BBs, get used to keeping your bow towards the enemy and only swinging your stern out enough to use your back guns when it is safe to do so and then immediately straighten up again so the return fire does not do massive damage. Also don't sail in a straight line at constant speed as it makes you very easy to target with torpedoes. Vary your speed and your direction at all times. It should eventually become second nature to do this. In cruisers (as well as not showing broadside) a key skill to learn is the art of kiting your enemy. First off ensure you have the Priority Target skill as your first captain skill (this is essential for all cruisers in my opinion). Secondly use the "cog" at the top of your minimap to ensure that you have your "detectability by sea" range shown on the minimap. Keep your eye on whether or not you are detected (don't turn if you are) and assuming you are undetected pick a target vessel that is in range of your guns, turn around so you are sailing away from your target and angled such that you can bring most/all of your guns on target and only then open fire. You will get used to aiming with experience but you won't get time to gain experience if you die early. To help your survival watch the incoming shells and attempt to move your stern into a gap between them. Keep your eye on the priority target indicator. If the number of ships aiming at you gets too high don't be afraid to stop firing so that your detection resets to its base range and try to go undetected - move further away from the nearest enemy than your detection range. Don't get too close to the enemy. You'll get killed. Don't get too far from the enemy. You'll be useless. Try to fight around the caps - the map edge is a terrible place to be, if only becasue it effectively halves the amount of the map you can shoot at (no point being able to shoot everything in a circle with a radius of 10km from your ship if half that circle is off the map.) I would advise against trying DDs at first until you are happy with your performance in the other surface vessels. DD play can be tricky for a new player. Don't worry too much about your performance. You are new and you are not doing anywhere near as badly as you think. Have fun.

So you ARE comparing WoWS to an RTS, thought as much.

I disagree, and here is why... Requires a 2v1 scenario. Atago concealment is far lower than the (iirc) 15.8km range of it's guns so without the second ship the Atago is invisible until he can fire on the BB and at ranges of around 15km dodging BB shells in an Atago is easy as pie. Remember I said that being able to avoid damge from something you couldn't engage back was part of the balance? Again we are looking at a 2v1 scenario. I never suggested that one ship fighting two ships was a balanced situation. Unless your spotter is another Kagero it is unlikely he is gonna get within the 5.4km required to spot without getting blapped or..... avoided. Yet again you are relying on a 2 v 1 situation (I'm starting to see a trend here). Without a second ship spotting, the CA behind the island is merely firing blind. Most of the ships that do this have such terrible gun arcs that dodging their shells is simplicity itself beyond around 10km. Again I said that being able to avoid damage from something that you yourself cannot damage is part of the balance. With the BB guns at that tier it is possible to dodge their shells effectively (and pretty much indefinitely) until inside gun range and that is made easier by the fact that you outspot them in cruisers at that tier. Is there perchance a DD between me and said BB spotting? So yet again it requires a 2 v 1 scenario. Bullying BBs on Strait in a low tier cruiser is simplicity itself. A radar ship behind an island can't shoot me, there is an island in the way. So in all cases I am facing either a 2v1 situation or can avoid the damage from ships I cannot damage myself. This is why I said that naval duels were essentially balanced. There is ONE class, however, that breaks this balance. ONE class that does not require a second spotter, ONE class that does not have to launch its ordnance from ranges that can be dodged, ONE class that can hide with impunity behind an island and still strike targets that cannot return fire. "One of these things is not like the others, One of these things is not the same" I am going to take this as a not-so-subtle attempt, since you rule out both cruisers and destroyers, to imply that I am just a "crying BBaby" which is impressive when you consider the fact that BBs are, by far, my least played surface vessel. I am not arguing from the point of view of having a vested in interest in protecting "my particular favourite toy" but rather am arguing from an unbiased position of seeking true balance in game. I am not confident that all the people making their case on this forum can truthfully state the same. I did, thanks. I also "got gut" at thinking things through - dedicated most of my life to it - which is why I can perceive and undertsand issues that many others are incapable of seeing and or understanding. Some BB players hate DDs. Some DD players hate Cruisers. Some Cruiser players hate BBs. MOST surface vessel players hate CVs. It came as no surprise to me that as soon as the reworked CVs were introduced into the game they were nerfed into the ground like their previous iteration. WG is, after all, a business and they really don't want to pi$$ off 96% of their playerbase in order to please 4%

Quite frankly I am positively amazed that you could read what I wrote and think that "muh realism" is in any way related to the point I was trying to make, even if you did do so by taking one single sentence completely out of context. If you read again what I was saying you will see that my point was actually - if all the greatest military minds (yes, I am aware of the irony of this statement) of the 20th century, people who had dedicated their entire careers to the perfection of the art of war, could not find a way to "balance" aircraft against surface vessels then what hope a small development team for some (no offence WG) two-bit, niche game? Given that the issue is, as I described, one of immediacy of attack coupled with the inability to end the exchange by the destruction of the antagonist vessel (the CV) it is a problem that cannot be solved to the satisfaction of both parties. Aircraft either travel faster than and manoeuvre more readily than the surface ship or they do not. If they do then there is no realistic way that the target vessel can hope to avoid significant damage (even if that be damage over time from standard DoT effects or from repeated strike waves). If they do not then there is little realistic chance of the CV player ever being able to land a significant hit. The same situation occurs when we factor in AA. Either the AA does not stop the attack or it does. Either way one party is left dissatisfied. The fact that the system is fully automated only adds to the dissatisfaction. In "that other game" aircraft are universally despised in both tank and naval battles but at least there the target player has the chance to use his skill to manually aim and shoot down the attacking aircraft, making it a battle of skill between aircraft and AA. Even then the mis-match in abilities between aircraft and surface vessels leads to huge amounts of dissatisfaction. This does not even take into consideration the second part of the issue, the ability of only one party to end the engagement by sinking the enemy ship. Even if I kill all your planes I can't stop you sending more against me or someone else. So how do we address this aspect? Well one way would be to reduce the HP of the CV by a percentage for each aircraft destroyed- so if you lose, say, 20 planes you die. I don't imagine this would be fun for the CV player and would not lead to them being particularly popular. Another way would be to have the CV's aircraft circle the CV at a set distance and auto attack ships that stray within that circle but in order to balance things the CV would need to be visible out to the edge of that circle in order to match the gun-bloom effects that all other vessels suffer. Again, I don't think that CV players would go for that. Maybe, then, you "fire" your planes as others would fire their guns - so you set target the area where you think the ships will be when your planes arrive and that is where they will drop their ordnance and the CV player hopes, like the surface ship players have to do, that the target doesn't move out of the impact zone before the "shots" (air delivered ordnance) land. Again - doesn't seem fun. I can understand the appeal of sitting impervious to counter attack at the back of the map farming damage against targets that you yourself get to spot without danger to your vessel but that is not fun for the players of the other ship types. To truly balance the game all players must have equal satisfaction and this is primarily achieved through having equal chance to damage and kill each other, this includes the ability to avoid all damage from vessels that you yourself cannot damage (smoked up or, in any other way, stealthed ships). If you can damage me I have to be able to damage you in return or there is no semblance of balance. And no, the myth you keep spouting about the plane HP being equivalent to the ship HP of other vessels does not stand up. The HP of the CV is the HP of the CV, the HP of the planes equates only to the HP of the armaments of the surface vessels. Talking of myths you like to spout I am genuinely curious - what is this marvelous game of which you speak whereby I can take a WMD into battle against your infantry. You mention strategy games but as far as I am aware in all of those both players get access (eventually) to WMDs. I do not know of a single one where I can take a nuke and play against somebody who can only take a tank. Comparing WoWS to RTS games, as you seem to be doing, is the ultimate in false equivalences. There seems to be some kind of dream held by both the developers and some players that perfect balance can somehow be achieved by "tweaking the numbers" until a perfect harmony is found, until some utopian system that creates satisfaction for all players appears out of the figures but this is no more than a pipe dream and those of us who fully understand the issues involved know this competely. The devs have been trying for over three years and they can try for three more and it won't happen. The alchemists would have greater success trying to turn lead into gold. The fundamentals prohibit it.

This is a strange and somewhat "needy" sounding response but, OK I'll run with it. I really enjoy naval duels between surface vessels that have a relatively equal chance of damaging/killing their opponent and that is why I play(ed) WoWS. I enjoy air duels which is why I play (any number of existing games that handle that a lot better than WoWS ever could). I do not enjoy the fact that you have attempted to mix the two as the inclusion of the aircraft carrier breaks the first point I mentioned. Attempting to include aircraft in a ship game was, in my opinion, a mistake as there is no way the two can be balanced to the enjoyment of all parties concerned. All the military masterminds in all the navies of the world could not prevent aircraft from rendering naval duels between surface vessels obsolete. For the most part your development team have demonstrated that they are capable of creating a particularly enjoyable game, so they obviously have a degree of competence, and yet their conviction that they can somehow manage something that all of the military masterminds could not is (how can I put this politely?) extremely ambitious, to say the least. They have been trying for upwards of three years and have consistently failed and, not only that, they have failed spectacularly. So why is it that aircraft cannot be balanced in a ship game to the enjoyment of all parties concerned? The answer is down to the immediacy of attacks by aircraft. Aircraft can achieve speeds that are far in excess of anything that surface vessels can achieve and can manoeuvre far more readily than any surface vessel could ever do. These two factors combine to allow aircraft to deliver their ordnance at, to all intents and purposes, point blank range in such a way that the target vessel has no realistic way to avoid taking damage. The best they can hope to do is mitigate a small amount of damage by, hopefully, shooting down some of the attacking aircraft whilst waiting for the next wave to arrive. To better understand this imagine, if you will, a destroyer being put in game that can zip around the map at speeds in excess of 140kts, can turn with the tightest of turning circles and cannot be shot at by main armaments but instead can only be hit by fully automated secondaries. When those secondaries do hit the destroyer it takes no damage whatsoever to its health pool but rather will, at most, receive temporary damage to its guns or torpedo tubes. This damage will then auto-repair in a matter of minutes leaving the destroyer fully combat operational in time to attack its next target. Such a ship would, I am sure you will agree, not be the greatest addition in terms of game balance and yet this is exactly the experience of fighting against an aircraft carrier in WoWS. Given the way that the ship/aircraft interaction has been handled, ie. fully automated to the point that player skill counts for nothing, this only increases the frustration felt by the target player. (I know that due to the particular F2P model that you guys have chosen to adopt you feel that a certain degree of frustrating your customers is profitable but it really isn't the best move, particularly in today's gaming climate.) If that were not bad enough, the target player is given no way whatsoever to end the engagement by killing the source of these aircraft leading to a feeling of total helplessness on the part of the target. I don't know where you guys got the idea that helplessness was an enjoyable experience for a gamer but it is anything but. Nobody enjoys being targeted by an enemy who has impunity to the point of effective invulnerability . It was despised as arty in WoT and is despised as CVs in WoWS. Why are you guys so enamoured of the despicable? I am of the opinion that, in part, it is this sensation that you impose upon your customers that leads to you guys having player retention issues. We could argue the toss about whether player numbers are up or down compared to this point in time or that point in time but I think it would be a hard point to argue that they are where you would like them to be. We all know (well those of us who actually understand this stuff) that the F2P model is very heavily a "numbers game". It is understood that, within the F2P model, only a certain percentage will ever spend money on the game and so it is of utmost importance that the total player count be as high as possible as, for example, 10% of 1000 players paying you money will not generate the same revenues as 10% of 100,000 players. I know that you guys have your own ideas about what will guarantee player retention but is it not possible that those ideas are wrong? If the player numbers are not where you would like them to be then is it not possible that your strategies are not the correct ones? I would argue that, while not entirely fixing the problem, moving away from the notion that frustrating your customers is a good thing could very well be a step in the right direction. Is it such a crazy idea that the players themselves may have some insight into why they choose to play or not to play your game? You had me and my wallet hooked for years and yet, with the constant drip - drip - drip of poor design decisions, you have successfully driven me away with this development-water-torture. I am not alone. What point trying to get new players into the game (with greater or lesser success) if in the process you are driving an almost equivalent number away? I really could write an entire essay about what is wrong with the inclusion of aircraft into a ship game but a) I have company due round shortly so need to go prepare food and b) experience has taught me that it would be a monumental waste of my time. What I will say is this - try it. Remove aircraft from the game for 12 months and see what impact it has on your player numbers. I am convinced you guys would be pleasantly surprised. More customers will stick around if you stop pi$$ing them off.

I don't see what your personal definition has to do with anything (your book) when the actual definition is literally contained within the thing we are describing. Pay to win (abbreviated to P2W) means exactly that. You pay to win. Nowhere can I see in P2W the concept of P2WIYGE (Pay to win if you're good enough). A P2W vessel should be extremely strong in all hands, by definition. Let's face it, in the hands of good players all ships are extremely strong. Let's look, for example, at the Belfast (Payfast) in all of its P2W glory...

No such ship exists in game, hence my answer of "None". If such a ship were to be introduced into the game then I would change my answer to "One".

The key to learning in this game is experience. In order to do well one needs to know exactly what to do in each situation and to do this one needs to have encountered every possible situation multiple times. This includes knowing the capabilities, the strengths and weaknesses, of both the ship you are in as well as the ship(s) you are facing. This cannot be achieved by rushing to T10 in under 1000 battles and one look at your performance shows this quite well. Don't get me wrong, I am not "bashing your stats" it's just the way it is. Now, if you just want to sail big ships and make big guns go boom then fine, do whatever you like. If, however, you do actually want to become competent at this game then you are going about it in totally the wrong way. As has been said already, there is no endgame - T10 is not the be all and end all of WoWS, not even close. My suggestion to you would be to return to the start, grind all ship lines and ship types simultaneously (that way you learn the capabilities of all ships at each tier) and take your time getting to T10. It isn't a race and, believe me, the journey is far more fun than the destination. For comparison, I have a little over 10K battles now but didn't get my first T10 until I was a little over 5.5K battles (iirc). As a consequence I don't think my win rate ever got lower than 49% (which at the time, with draws being more frequent at the game's beginning, matched a 49% loss rate). This was after 1600 battles. Since then my win rate has climbed pretty constantly and, more importantly, I know how to deal with any ship I may encounter in any ship I may be sailing. Of course, it's not all a bed of roses. The flip side to all of this is that now (well, before I stopped playing) I do not fear the red team at all but the green team, however, fills me with dread.

None. A ship is only ever as good as the player controlling it.

WG's definition of love is, indeed, a strange thing. It somehow reminds me of the following: "Jesus loves you" is a fantastic thing to hear.... ... unless you're in a Mexican prison!

Not even beginning to weigh in on the debate at hand, just wanted to point out a minor (but in no way semantic) error on your part. No biggie. *Now you're just doing it on purpose ;)

Sorry mate, I think you might have got the wrong end of the stick somewhere. An analogy and a "strawman argument" are two distinctly different things entirely. An analogy is a linguistic device used as an attempt to clarify a particular concept by relating it to known concepts. A strawman arguement is a logical fallacy, an attempt to gain the upper hand in a debate by representing your "opponent's" words in such a way as to artificially "create" a point that your "opponent" is not actually making in order to then defeat this artificial point so as to appear to counter their actual arguement. These are entirely different. In recent years people have heard of these logical fallacies without actually understanding them and have started bandying them around in completely inaccurate ways and this habit has been picked up by many. It is one thing to look up something on wikipedia it is something entirely different to actually undertsand what you are reading. I am not particularly accusing you of this but rather I feel you may have picked up the term contextually from somebody else who has previously used it in a totally incorrect way.

No, it doesn't imply that at all. Your comment does, however, imply that you understand as little about maths as you do about this game.

Given that the rework essentially introduced a whole new class into the game, the reworked CVs, and that this class now plays out in a wholly new way to anything previously seen in the game it is reasonable to expect that there should have been a significant spike in player numbers at the point of release as a good proportion of, shall we say, ex-players returned to the game to try out the new class at the same time that a load of new players joined to "see what all the fuss was about". This has been seen countless times in countless games when something new like this was introduced. We aren't seeing this if player numbers have remained relatively consistent. This means one of two things, either: 1. WoWS is one of the few games in history to not attract players back to the game or attract new players upon releasing something entirely new into it. (Personally I find this highly unlikely as curiosity alone should have caused the aforementioned spike). 2. The spike happened but is invisible in the stats due to an equally high number of players leaving the game/stopping playing for a while. (This seems the more likely of the two as it ties in with both my personal experience as well as anecdotal evidence). Whichever is the case it is bad news for the game. If the introduction of a whole new class was not sufficient to attract new players or entice ex-players to return then this suggests that the playerbase is now as high as it is ever going to be and so demonstrates a lack of growth that is far from healthy in terms of the longevity of a game based on the F2P model. If the rework did entice back ex-players but, in turn, drove away existing longer-term players then this is also bad as the players that returned have already demonstrated that they had a limited commitment to the game and as such are likely to leave again for fresher pastures once the novelty wears off. The longer term players that were driven away, however, are largely unlikely to return if the game remains in anything like its current state as their commitment to the game has been chipped away at progressively over a long string of dubious design decisions to the point that the rework became the last straw. (This latter is certainly true for me and others I have spoken to.) For a man who supposedly works with stats all day I am surprised to hear Zoup missing this entirely but, then again, it is a deluded individual who thinks they can understand human behaviour exclusively from within an excel spreadsheet - something the developers may well need to learn yet.

This from the guy who, apart from a handful of games just after the rework went live, has barely touched DDs since and, when he has, has not done anywhere near as well (bordering on terrible) as he would usually have done.

Why does it matter if the item is physical or virtual? In terms of "fairness" I see no difference except the fact that there is no wear and tear on a virtual item and so the length of time it has been owned is even less relevant than on a physical item. I am sure that if I had paid for a copy of, say, Shpongle's Tales of the Inexpressible and after a period of time the online supplier made a change that turned it into a Backstreet Boys album I would be right royally pi$$ed. By constantly defending appalling behaviour by companies you do realise that you are encouraging them to push the boundaries further and further? If you are happy with the changes then you would not be obliged to trade in the GC for a cash refund so why speak out against those who would like a cash refund in the event that they are not happy? It's not like it adversely affects you in any way.

While it is true that, over time, WoW changed almost beyond recognition the changes themselves generally occured from one expansion to the next. All of the proposed changes were outlined prior to the the release of the next expansion so you knew what you would be buying into before purchasing each new expansion. If you weren't happy with the changes nobody forced you to buy the next expansion pack. This is in direct contrast to premium ships sold in the shop for cash. These were sold with a particular specification and, presumably, bought due to that specification. To change things like this after purchase is very shady practice. This is why most F2P games do not sell items directly but rather insulate themselves against future issues by selling in-game currency that you can then buy in-game items with. If the items are found to be in need of change the company is free to refund you the in-game currency as that, ultimately, is what you paid for. By selling items directly for cash instead of relying wholly on using doubloons WG have left themselves open for refund claims. By selling items directly instead of just for doubloons they were able to "bundle" the ships with other items (including doubloons) - something that would have less viable if the bundles were only purchasable for doubloons - and, consequently, generate a greater revenue. This is before we even go into their appalling behaviour of promoting them heavily in gambling boxes over Xmas knowing full well that they intended to nerf them after the gambling box sale ended. There has developed some special kind of "Stockholm Syndrome" amongst consumers these days whereby they seem not only happy to but actually eager to defend the companies who behave attrociously towards them. I guess the quote attributed to P. T. Barnum is correct, there really is a sucker born every minute.

^^ So much this. It is such a damning sign of the times that you/we even need to explain this in the first place, it is the epitome of obvious. Nerf all the premiums you like, however you like but you must refund players in cash if they purchased the ship with cash. If the product is not what I paid for then I should be offered a refund, not a store credit.

He probably already knows this and agrees with you but is contractually obliged to keep putting out this kind of PR fluff. I bet he has a script blu-tacked to the side of his monitor of things he has to say. I know it's PR fluff, you know it's PR fluff, he knows it's PR fluff - but it's his job. Let's face it, even people with zero integrity have to earn a crust.

Damn forum glitches.