Procrastes

This is certainly a viable way forward, and one that I hope Wargaming will follow at least until subs are well enough balanced in relation to other ship classes so as not to disrupt the general gameplay. But having a permanent separate game mode also runs the risk of depleting the numbers of players that make themselves available in said game mode. More specifically, I predict that over time, fewer and fewer players of surface ships would queue up for submarine battles, which in turn would lead to longer and longer queues for submarine players. Because, let's face it: If we had no CV:s in random battles, but only in a special CV game mode, then how many of the non-CV players would regularly sign up for CV battles? With this in mind, I am far from certain that submarines can be kept alive in the game, as a ship class, if they stay in their own separate game mode for ever. Also, and on a more positive note, having CV:s and submarines around adds new parameters and tactical options for everyone, and thus it has the potential of making the game more dynamic and more fun for all. So, hoping that the game can be maintained in a fun and balanced state for all ship classes, I will move forward in the belief - or at least in the hope - that submarines will end up being good for all of us. Cheers!

Your points of concern are all valid ones. Of all tasks that follow the introduction of a new ship class, maintaining game balance is surely the most challenging. WoWs is a game of play and counterplay, and if one class gets an advantage over another, there will be a chain reaction where the effects will be felt by all. Getting the DD vs. Sub play/counterplay right will probably be the most demanding task for Wargaming - but also the most vital one, since a lot of the gameplay is focused around spotting and counter-spotting. If destroyers are outspotted and gunned down with too much ease, then their allied cruisers and battleships will be left in the dark and thus more inclined to stay back and camp the borders. CV:s probably won't suffer from being counterspotted by subs, but giving CV:s an even more influential role than they already have seems a bit questionable in my opinion. As a DD main I don't mind a challenge, but I like to have a fighting chance. I have not yet played either against a submarine or in one, so this not a whine post - I am merely ruminating on your observations. Personally I believe it should be perfectly possible to make submarines fit well into the game, but judging from what you just wrote, I guess we may have some way to go in order to get there?

It's a psychology thing. People, as a group, tend to be resistant to change. We know what we have, and we fear the unknown. No doubt about 300 000 years ago, when one monkey said, "hey, guys, let's get down from off these trees and go out on the savannah and look for food?", most of the older monkeys were all like, "nah, that's not gonna work, back in my day we stuck to the trees and that was that, and besides there are sure to be lions and all sortsa bad stuff out there", and they stayed on their safe little branches. Luckily for humanity to come, enough monkeys* followed the one with bright new ideas, and here we all are, with access to fire and running water and internet and all kinds of neat stuff. Change is a vital and necessary element of multiplayer online PvP games like World of Warships. If the game stops evolving and offering new stuff, it risks stagnation as players start moving elsewhere. Of course, players may also leave if they decide that a game has changed for the worse, and it's probably safe to say that keeping everyone happy is quite an impossible task. It doesn't hurt to try, though, and if I were Wargaming, I'd maybe focus less on making a new ship class such as submarines fun to play, and more on making it fun to play against - at least initially.** Ideally, of course, it should be both - but making that happen will probably take a lot of tinkering, balancing and fine-tuning. * Some of which were then eaten by lions. Such is the price of progress. ** The opposite of what they did with the CV rework, in other words.

Yes, that would have been my take as well. Which is why the narrow window of a mere month is a bit surprising.

I did not expect submarines to enter the game as rental vehicĺes rather than as a researchable ship class. Nor did I expect the availability of submarines - rental or otherwise - to be made dependent on a random token drop. So this is me being mildly surprised. What I did expect, was for this special submarine battle mode to be in place until further notice, or at least until such time as submarines were determined to be well balanced in relation to other ship classes. The implication being that they wouldn't be allowed in random battles unless and until this could be done without disrupting the gameplay for existing ship classes (because no one wants another CV rework circus, right?). But now it seems that the special submarine battle mode will only be running for a month or so, until the end of June. This begs the question what will happen thereafter. Will submarines then be immediately entered into random battles no matter what, or will they be subjected to further testing? Will there be an ongoing evaluation of the current special submarine mode? More to the point, what is the purpose of this special submarine battle mode? (I should mention that I haven't had time to try out the new submarine mode myself, so these are nothing but honest questions!)

I just played Operation Newport, and felt a bit disheartened from the start upon seeing three destroyers on the team. When I got sunk, due to overextending during the the second attack wave, our destroyers were all sunk. I'm not given to defeatism, , but I'd suggest for the citizens of Newport to start packing their bags. I freely admit that I messed up, but at least I did so in the Leander, which I think is a pretty solid choice for most scenarios. I also freely admit that I have played destroyers myself in this and other scenarios, but I have been considering whether there should be a cap of max one DD per team in scenario battles? Or at least in this one? Played well they can kick some serious arse, but my impression is that destroyers typically bring too little firepower to the table, to be ideal for scenario battles...?

As a DD main, I share your fears. But I believe it should be well within the bounds of what is doable, to balance submarines properly against other ship classes - even destroyers. The trick would be to focus on making submarines fun to play against, even at the cost of making them very challenging to play. Wargaming went the other way with CVs, and as we all know, they ended up as being the most spoiled - and consequently most reviled - ship class in the history of World of Warships. Submarines, to my mind, deserve better.

I really hope that this separate submarine mode is not just a smoke screen, and that Wargaming have learned at least that much from the CV rework shambles. Submarines should not be put into random battles unless and until they are properly balanced against existing ship classes - IF this can be done at all, that is.

That sucks. Totally against the idea of the game and in clear violation of the common rules of fair play. Why, If I happened to see my clanmate on the opposite team, I'd make it a point of honour to sink him - and he'd do the same for me!* * In fact, he did do the same for me the first time we ever played WoWs together, when we were in the same team and all. It was a stray torpedo from second line, and the very first he ever launched, so I blamed it on his complete disregard for safety measures youth and inexperience.

This may well have been broached before, and I'm sorry if I ask old questions - but are there any plans for introducing special submarine-related captain skills? Or are WG planning to let the current skills work for submarines as well? I am not really looking forward to another skill point shuffle, like the one we had with the CV rework.

Played three ranked battles so far, two of them in my Haida, one of them in my newly acquired Sinop (bought especially for the occasion, although I suspect she makes me look fat), and all of them lost. It's just the way it is... I will make another effort by and by!

I've always hypothesized that the dispersion effect of the Candy Cane Camo is due to the fact that the gun crews on the enemy ships can't bring themselves to look directly at it. Whether it has the same effect on the actual players is of course open to debate. The LSD Atago camo above is indeed very LSD:ish, but - as such - 'hippy' and somewhat restful, in my opinion. I also happen to recall someone describing the navy blue camouflage on the Missouri - rendered below - as "the only camouflage in WoWs which actually works the way it's supposed to". That is, it actually makes it harder to aim at the ship since it's harder to see where the ship ends and the sea begins...

Which one? There's a bunch of them...

I got me the Cleveland Candy Cane Camo a few years back, and it's sort of given me an immunity. Nothing can really top it for sheer lack of taste.

You're absolutely right of course. Good heavens, what was I thinking? I hope I haven't given WG any ideas...!

He's the Cap The Cap with the Midas touch A Gamer's touch Such a cold (crew)member Beckons you to enter his ship of sin But don't go in [Chorus] Golden shells he will put in the air Golden torps he will shoot - but beware! For an enemy captain knows when he sinks her It's with shells of gold from Captain Goldmember [Verse 2] Pretty girl, beware of his ship of gold This ship is sold [Chorus] Golden shells he will put in the air Golden torps he will shoot - but beware! For an enemy captain knows when he sinks her It's with shells of gold from Captain Goldmember He loves only gold Only gold And some coal He loves oil as well And also steel (To get premium ships) He loves gold

It goes without saying that you shouldn't have to endure any abuse for simply asking a question about a new ship. But I don't think you need to interpret the replies to your opening post as being abusive; personally I'd rather go with "incredulous". I suspect that there may have been some suspicion of you having opened a troll thread, a least partly in view of Flamu's recent Tallinn review where he deems the ship to be quite strong. But as someone else has also stated on this thread, Flamu is not the Pope,* and individual experiences will vary. Also, that damn bastard incredibly skilled player could carry his team to victory in the Kon Tiki, and one should be careful to take his performance in any given ship as a measurement of its general potential. Don't worry about spending tokens and doubloons to get early access, that's what they are for. And don't fret over your personal statistics, either - while there is definitely an argument to be made for trying to improve one's personal gaming skills, one mustn't lose out on the fun on the way to get there. And on that note, my guess is that your recent troubles in the Tallinn have more to do with your unfamiliarity with a new ship, than with any weaknesses due to the ship itself. So my advice is to just keep playing, and see how this Baltic beauty works out for you in the long run! Best of luck! * Assuming the Pope plays World of Warships. I'd like to think that he does - but according to current dogma, his opinions on the game would of course only be regarded as infallible if he plays it from the Holy See.

I dunno.... a ram, perhaps? I shall have to hoist the Hotel Yankee, flag, and try it out!

The Riviéra-style camo pattern is certainly très chic, and most fashionable indeed - perfect for a garden party in le Jardin des Tuileries. It would probably be less congenial in the docklands of Hamburg, where my little ship collection is currently moored, but then again, so would I - so I won't hold that against it.

Just a personal observation, but is there anyone besides me who finds the special camo pattern on these new Russian cruisers to be a bit, well, garish? In the same vein as those special camos they released for Lenin, and maybe one or two other Russian battleships, a couple of moths ago? Not to put too fine a point on it, but to me they all look like they've been built out of Lego...! I should mention that there are other camo patterns out there that are equally over the top. That French Riviera-style paint job, for instance, with the guilded angel figurehead blowing the trumpet, is completely hilarious.

Just dodge!

You can do a lot of damage to just about anything, in the Smolensk. And if HE won't do the job and you've got a broadside to shoot at, switch to AP and aim for the superstructure. It can yield surprising results. And you're right in that a Smolensk that knows what's good for her, will take some care around a supercruiser. Not because she can't harm the supercruiser, but because the supercruiser can absolutely wreck her in return. Then again, so can any battleship that bothers to switch to HE ammunition. It's really a puzzle to me that so many BB drivers keep whining about invulnerable Smolensks, while still keeping up the AP overpen barrage; what do they think will happen? Switch to HE and land a few shots, and that will be one sorry Smolensk trying to limp away into cover. And yes, there are worse ways to spend a million free xp than to get an Alaska. She's an amazing ship, in my opinion - strong, versatile and a beauty to boot!

[EDITED: This thread is based on a video that was more than a month old when I first saw it. There has evidently been a debate about this before, and reply-posts so far suggest that things are not at all so alarming as I feared. Which is what I hoped to hear, of course, so the value of an open community has been proved right away. I shall let my opening post stand unchanged for now (see below), and hope that I do not contribute to any misinformation. Best regards to all!] - - - - - I just watched Flamu's video on the Pyotr Bagration, from April 11th 2020 (see link down below). Twelve minutes into the video, where he expresses his opinion on how well the ship is balanced (he doesn't think it is very well balanced at all), he also states the following: "...this is one of the few ships that us CC:s are allowed to say what we really think, like in the future we are not really gonna be allowed to talk about the balance of ships." It took a few moments for those words to sink in, and then my mind reeled. Had Flamu really said what I just heard him say? I had to do more than a few playbacks before I was sure I got it right. But those words rendered above, are what he said. If what Flamu says is true - and I have no reason to doubt him - then this is huge. Huge, and potentially very bad. I have no personal knowledge of the legal relationship between Wargaming and their community contributors, so I am not going to commit an error of my own by going into a debate about freedom of speech. If there is, or will be, any legally stipulated restraints on what the community contributors are allowed to say in public, I presume that they will also be able to free themselves from these restraints by resigning as community contributors. (Whether they will choose to do so is, of course, their own business.) So I don't believe that this is going to be a question of basic human rights. But it might be a question about the credibility of the community contributor system. Because if those persons affiliated with Wargaming are not going to be able to say what they think when they talk to us, then how shall we, as customers and community members, be able to trust the information we get? I do not want this thread to turn into a slugfest. I don't want any rants, hate or toxicity. I am only looking for an open and objective debate. Maybe I have misinterpreted the content of the video in question. Maybe - hopefully - I am overreacting here. But I can't deny that Flamu's words, about what he and other CC:s will or will not be allowed to say in the future, has me somewhat worried. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTlVRnAXd4o

I still feel that I owe Wargaming an apology, here. Sorry, Wargaming!

Very much so. I am usually careful to take any word as truth, especially on the internet. It seems I ought to be even more careful in the future.