Procrastes

Oh, I agree! I didn't mean to make myself a spokesperson for everyone in the WoWs community; sorry if I came across that way! What I meant was rather, that the general aim of the game in a given battle, is to win that battle. If the participants don't play with that in mind, and considering that World of Warships is a team playing game, the game will suffer. But winning in and of itself doesn't have to be the main personal goal; far from it! I, personally, feel that having a good time, and playing the game with some nice fellow-gamers across the world, is much more important than winning the battle. Edited: I have amended my original post, no 66.

It would probably just encourage bad manners and bad gameplay. There would inevitably be some players who would see it as a challenge, and do their best - or rather, their worst - in order to farm negative karma.

The Problem with Passive Gameplay The tendency for many players to at all times do their utmost to avoid getting shot at, is a continuous source of bafflement to me. While eminently understandable (and even advisable) in real life, it is a somewhat mystifying strategy in a computer game that simulates naval battles. If being targeted by virtual gunfire in a virtual environment is felt to be so stressful, then why seek it out to begin with? There are numerous online games, such as 'Animal Farm', for example, that provide strategic gameplay without confrontation. The heart of the problem lies, I think, in how players perceive the goal of the game. For me, I play the game first and foremost in order to have fun (without ruining the game for anyone else). And so, my first point of advice for new captains is, "Don't hug the border! Active gameplay is always better than passive gameplay, and it's a lot more fun!" However, having fun without ruining the game for others also involves doing your best to win the battle. While everyone is basically free to try and do this in whatever way fits them best, there seem to be a few tactical misapprehensions floating around. For one thing, a lot of players seem to think that the goal of the game, in battle, is to avoid getting their ships damaged. This is a very natural instinct, again with a foundation in real life, but it's just plain wrong. The general aim of the game, in battle, is to win the battle. If doing this involves getting your ship damaged, or even sunk, then so be it - you receive more in-game rewards (mainly xp and credits) for winning than you do for losing, and - it should be stressed - damage to your ship does not carry over into the real world. If there existed a code for virtual naval engagements,* its Rule for Ship Preservation would probably read something like this: "Avoid getting your ship damaged or sunk, unless doing so would benefit your team." There are a lot of situations where getting you ship damaged can benefit your team. Indeed, for battleships, it could be said that one of their main roles in battle is to take damage instead of their lesser-armoured team mates. They can take a beating, after all, and with the Repair Party consumable they can even come back from it. If a battleship takes (and survives) damage that would otherwise have sunk a team mate, it takes no tactical genius to see how this has improved the chances to win the battle: The team retains the firepower of two ships, instead of just one. And in general, being fired upon is usually the very reasonable price you have to pay for getting the opportunity to sink an enemy ship. To put it simply, it is the net result that counts: As long as you deal more damage than you receive, you can go to bed (or possibly to the bottom) with a game well played. If everyone else in your team does the same, you will probably win the battle.*** There are even situations where getting into an engagement you know you can't win, can be the right decision. One in-game example I saw was where the enemy team held on to a capture point, with several battleships in defence. A battleship captain in the friendly team saw what was needed, and sailed her ship into the midst of the enemy fleet, drawing their fire for a crucial minute before sinking under a massive hail of virtual ordinance. By doing so, she enabled the allied cruisers to focus their fire on the enemy battleships, sinking one of them and eventually driving off the rest. The battle was duly won, with a lot of battle-honours - as well as xp and credits - going to the heroic battleship captain who, with her noble sacrifice, made it all possible. Nothing of what I have written here, should be revelatory for experienced World of Warships players. And yet I see far more passive gameplay in the higher tiers, than in the lower ones.**** I wonder why that is? Captain Loquacious * I am thinking of making a draft of such a code, and see where it leads. It would probably be too long-winded and un-focused for anyone to read it through.** ** Unlike this very laconic and admirably condensed post. *** There are, of course, many situations where this over-simplified formula does not apply straight off. But I feel that it's a good rule of thumb. **** Only last night I was in a tier 10 battle, where everyone made a lemming train to the west. Doing this can work out well - but only if the push is carried through until the end. This did not happen; once the push had come to the middle of the map and ships started to receive incoming fire, nearly the whole fleet stopped, and decided to wait... for what? I don't know; they didn't tell me. After dithering around for a couple of minutes, I and a few other intrepid souls decided to die by the blade rather than by boredom, and we pushed ahead. We were sunk almost at once, of course; I have never quite mastered the Art of Knowing When to Push. But floating around waiting for the enemy to win by capping was still the worse option in my mind, and that is what the rest of the team did.

I have so far been unable to find my Karma score. Maybe I should assume the Lo Yang position, and contemplate my navel strategy? I'll get my coat.

Thanks for the quick information, Tuccy! This might be a noob question, but how will we know when the bug is fixed? Will it be announced somewhere?

To be fair, giving any of the German battleships higher accuracy would most likely make them overpowered as hell. Having said that: A couple of weeks ago, I fired a full salvo from my König Albert at the side of an enemy Mikasa, at a range of less than 10 km. The shells landed in a perfectly Mikasa-shaped pattern around her; not a single hit. Watching the shells in flight was like tossing a handful of marbles into the sea. The gunnery sergeant made a formal apology in the mess that same evening, stating that he had been drunk as a skunk. I said I damned well hoped that he had been, and the matter was quietly dropped.

You still get a good amount of XP for each successful operation, even after having previously completed it with five stars. I think that is enough incentive. It is for me at least. And I agree with Jethro Grey above, that it's fun to try out operations in different ships.

And having Zeiss optics, and Krupp gun barrels, should guarantee the Bismarck very good accuracy with her main guns - which I do believe she had, historically. But I doubt that this will be "corrected" in the game anytime soon!

As I said, you make a good case. I guess we will see if the First Baguette gets a speed boost in some coming update. Say, maybe that's a thought - to give the Dunkerque access to the special French speed boost consumable? How do you think that might work out?

And that just goes to show that ship performance is really very much dependent on personal skill and playstyle. For example, I know that the Kutuzov is widely considered to be one of the best cruisers of her tier, but I keep struggling to do anything other than badly in her. I just don't seem to be able to play her to her strengths. As for the Dunkerque, and while I am yet to have any kind of spectacular game in her, she's always fun to drive. Having those eight 330 mm rifles always lined up in the right direction is just so thrilling... ...until they are all lined up in the wrong direction, of course. Retreat is not an option. Could she perhaps be given an extra knot or two of speed in reverse, instead...?

It's funny you should say that, since I was just about to add this to my post above: "Edited: In this individual case, it might of course be argued that Dunkerque could be given her historical speed, and still be well balanced. I don't really have an opinion on that, other than to say that statistics so far - from what I've heard, at least - show the little Dunk off as one of the best battleships battlecruisers of her tier." In other words, Captain Affeks, you have a good point!

The bottom line in this and all other similar discussions, is that game balance must always trump historical accuracy. The alternative would very quickly ruin the game.

You have a point. On the other hand, and based on my own experiences, I would say that the introduction of the IFHE skill gave 150-155 mm cruisers a well deserved balancing buff in relation to battleships. Cruisers are just as fragile as before, but at least they can now put up a fight, even with an average player at the helm. A huge decrease to fire chance with IFHE, would put us back on square 1,4 (square 1 being where we were before we had the IFHE skill).

Hmm... a commander with a special buff to the matchmaking of any ship he's on?

I really like customization option in my games, so kudos for the idea, OP. But I fear that the risk for power creep in the captain skills would be too great in this case. Essentially, I agree with jss78 in post 8 above. Now, how about other customization options, that don't have an actual impact on the game mechanics? A friend of mine suggested that we should be able to build our own little custom-designed ports, and decorate them with those cute little collectibles we get when completing missions. I got a number of different army trucks from the Dunkirk Operation, and one or two German artillery pieces that would fit in rather nicely as well. This kind of feature would make it more worthwhile to get those collections, other than for the purpose just completing the individual mission. (I suggested that my friend should post his idea on the forum, but I doubt he ever did, so here it is.) What do you think?

A special, low-accuracy German dive bomber load out? That's somewhat funny, considering that the Luftwaffe Ju-87 Stuka was hilariously good at high-accuracy precision dive bombing, and hilariously bad at anything else.* * Except shooting up civilian refugees on the dirt roads of Poland in 1939, but that's not a feature in the game.

I was just beginning to do somewhat well in cruisers, again. And so of course they get the nerfbat, again. Oh well, c'est la guerre... Couldn't they just set up a separate game mode, for battleships only? It would be PvE all the way, and no ship other than a battleship would be able to do damage to a battleship, and there should perhaps be an option to play without any battleships on the opposite team? And those battleship players who actually like a challenge could stick to the regular game... ...ok, too salty. I admit it. I slept badly last night.

While I completely respect your decision, I long ago decided not to base my in-game ship choices on my personal regard for actual IRL military forces. The De Grasse has proved to be an excellent ship, especially in Operations. The Duca D'Aosta, though... not so much. When I'm sailing in her, I struggle to even do damage to other ships before I'm sunk!

When I played the 'Operation Killer Whale' some time ago, I found myself - to my surprise - sailing in a team with one Anthony and two Cyclones. Needless to say, they didn't do very well - they sank in the first two minutes of the battle. Being to all practical purposes three ships short of a full task force, the rest of us didn't do too well either. I don't really know what to make of this. To begin with, I hadn't realized that the Anthony and the Cyclone could be used in any operation other than 'Dunkirk'. And even considering that this seems to be possible, why would anyone choose to do so? I would regard them to be eminently underqualified for any other task than 'Operation Dunkirk', for which they were - as far as I understand it - specially designed. The lure of getting a bunch of free Commander Xp from those two 19-point captains might be a reason, I guess, but since this means that you get those xp at the expense of crippling the game for the rest of the players on the team, it would not be reason enough to make me sail them. Or am I missing something, here? Confused in Killer Whale

The Anthony and the Cyclone are gone from the ports? I hadn't noticed, but it was a while ago that I played that operation. I guess that's solved the problem, then!

The Duca D'Aosta kind of struggles to do any kind of damage, whether she's shooting HE or AP. I haven't even got to my tenth skill point on her captain, but when I do, I'll probably choose 'Demolition Expert' and just pray to Agni, the Vedic God of Fire. If I interpret the projected change correctly, the aim would be for destroyers to be able to choose both higher alpha damage potential and high fire chance, while most cruisers will have to choose between the two. I can't really predict what effect - if any - this would have on the overall game balance. But a reduction of 8 percent seems to be a bit on the heavy side...?

You make a good case for trying this out! But this would mean that I would first have to push Jack up to eighteen skill points, if I have the numbers correctly. He would need to have 'Last Stand', 'Expert Marksman' and 'Smoke Screen Expert' on level 2, as well as Concealment Expert and IFHE on level 4. He would "only" need twelve point to be fully effective on the Belfast, although I will of course eventually train him in the 'Concealment Expert' skill on her, as well.

I didn't know that; thanks! A question: Is 'IFHE' actually more useful, than having the higher fire chance that comes without it? In my experience, it's a rare thing that I manage to do any substantial amount of non-fire damage in any of my destroyers* (except the Gremyaschy). *Although me not using the IFHE skill on them might be a contributing factor here, along with my sadly lacking skills at gunnery.

If I get hold of Captain Jack Dunkirk, I believe I am going to post him on the Belfast. That way, he will be able to use all those three super-skills to the fullest. I don't think I will be switching him between the Belfast and the Gallant, however. The Gallant, like all destroyers, needs a captain with the 'Last Stand' skill, which is not so useful on the Belfast. The 'IFHE' skill on the other hand, while practically mandatory on the Belfast, is not so useful on the Gallant. While I could probably stomach one level 2 skill that is really useful only on one of the two ships, having an oddball level 4 skill as well would be too much of a waste of skill points.

Nah, punishment by automatic damage would be uncalled for in this case, I think. Border huggers are best dealt with by capping their bases, while they huddle in their little corner of the world.