Procrastes

You are entirely correct, of course. And I know that many players really like the Radio Location skill, which is no wonder - it is a hugely useful thing to have. But for me, it removes a bit of the element of outguessing and outthinking your opponent, and so it is just something I'd prefer not to have in the game. (I'm not fully consistent here, since Priority Target - which is a skill I like - also gives much the same kind of 'ESP' information.)

What spoils my fun in WoWs? Good question. Here's a short list of what immediately pops into mind: Unkindness in chat. Deliberate game sabotage. Games with two or more carriers on each team. Radio Location. Unkindness in chat - i.e., people being intentionally nasty when they could just as easy have been nice - is such a downer. This holds true outside of WoWs as well, by the way. Deliberate game sabotage, which is not quite the same thing as unkindness but is definitely related to it, comes a close second place. Games with two or more carriers on each team are very different from games with other setups, and not in a good way. With two or more carriers on each team the CV players can easily cover the entire map between them, which makes a mockery of tactical manoeuvres as far as outguessing and outthinking your opponent is concerned, and reduces other ship classes to playing the role of sidekicks. This is often not so very fun for the sidekicks. Radio Location is on a distant fourth place. Compared to those three above, it almost doesn't qualify to be on the list at all. But the little text in the middle of the screen which informs you that you've just been 'located', is a minor but recurring source of un-fun. I see it and I immediately think, "oh no, not this again." (And then I play on and forget about it.)

You mean, a "what if she were actually any good?" kind of refit? That one? Yeah, I guess she could use one of those. ... Sorry, couldn't resist. A Viribus Unitis refit, you say? I don't see why not - but then I'd suggest that they make the existing one the "refit" and put the "unfit" one at tier IV, where she should have been to begin with (albeit probably with somewhat weaker guns). I bought the Viribus Unitis straight away, mainly because I've read up quite a lot on the old Austro-Hungarian Empire these past few years and I felt I had to have their number one dreadnought in my port. She's a stately old lady at that, and she packs a mean punch. I played a quite successful first battle in her, as I had an overbold Kongo cornered against the ropes map border and just kept beating at it until it gave up and stayed down. It was brutal, nasty and prolonged. Then I spent what remained of the battle trying but failing to get within firing distance of anything else to shoot at, because she's so goddamn slow and the others kept their distance after seeing what happened to their Kongo buddy. "You a friend of that Kongo? Well you saw what she got - you want some of that? No? Then you better keep running, you sorry excuse for a dreadnought-class fin-de-siècle belle époque battleship, or I 'll show you something else those overdecorated smoke stacks can be used for...!" Not a bad show, all told.

First off: I like this Operation. I enjoy the feel of being on the offensive, of conducting a daring naval raid in the good old "hit and run" buccaneering tradition (although the likes of Drake and Henry Morgan would have taken a dim view of the lack of plunder and pillage). So well done to Wargaming, for this! Secondly, a disclaimer: As should hopefully be obvious from the following text, I am one of the "tactically challenged" ones to whom the title refers. Even after more than five years of playing this game, I seem to remain, at heart, something of a well-meaning noob. With this out of the way, on to the main subject. As anyone would know who has spent time fighting through operation Killer Whale in the past, it has certain built-in obstacles. These have mostly to do with the requirement that as soon at the first phase of the operation is complete - the raid on the harbour area and the destruction of those enemy forces found within - the players are expected to make an exit through one of two possible areas, one located to the west and the other to the north. This second phase, which is set on a timer, includes a number of secondary objectives in the form of options to sink certain incoming enemy ships. There is no bonus (other than xp and personal satisfaction) for sinking ships other than those specially designated, and there is indeed no option to win by sinking all incoming ships - enemies will continue to appear in wave after wave until either all players are sunk, or the countdown timer runs out. In order to complete the operation, at least half of the remaining player ships must reach the exit area. Which exit area it is - the one in the west or the one in the north - is not determined until the second phase of the operation is triggered. In this phase, there are a number of things that can, and all too often will, go wrong. Players may not realize that they are required to make an exit at all. These players will instead happily engage the wave after wave of incoming enemies, until they are all sunk or the exit timer runs out (which, unless enough players make it to the exit, fails the operation). Players who are aware of the exit requirement, may still not realize that the exit area is subject to change. These players will hare off towards the exit they went through last time, and will typically resist any and all efforts by their despairing team mates to get them to head in the proper direction (which, unless enough players go the right way, again fails the operation). Players who do realize when and where they are supposed to exit, may still be tempted to stay and engage the continuous waves of incoming enemies, some of which are - quite nefariously, to make a personal observation - designated as juicy secondary objectives. One fairly efficient but somewhat counter-intuitive tactic for dealing with these secondary objectives and still keep the time limit - namely for a player to ram the designated target and thus complete the objective while at the same time facilitating the task of getting half of the remaining ships to the exit - has yet to occur to the majority of players. (It didn't occur to me until Jingles pointed it out in a video.) During my last Killer Whale excursion, I set forth in the Admiral Graf Spee. I regard her (him?) as a good choice for this operation, since her battleship-caliber guns are excellent for wiping out the land forts, and her torpedoes come in handy for dealing with those enemy ships that for some reason won't oblige you by accepting any hits to their citadel. I had a number of battleships and cruisers in my team as well, one Ark Royal and - thankfully - no destroyers. So I figured that we were off to a good start. Halfway through the harbour area, two of our cruisers had already died to fire from those ships found inside. This left me and our two battleships to deal with the remaining enemy ships, while our carrier kept himself busy by firing rockets (not bombs or torpedoes - rockets) at the moored battleship. I went in pretty close for my torpedo runs - those bot ships seem to have a knack for knowing exactly where and when you drop your torpedoes - and by the time we were finished with all this, I was at less than a quarter health and with only one heal remaining. The second phase saw most of us starting to go for a somewhat belated journey to the west (the correct exit area, as it were). However, when we neared the entrance to the harbour area and some enemy destroyers and cruisers turned up, everyone but me and one battleship decided to turn back inside. The carrier started dropping torpedoes (not bombs or rockets - torpedoes) on the destroyers, and then proceeded to go for the north side of the map (maybe he had some relatives over there; your guess is as good as mine). My accompanying battleship was sunk by torpedoes from the enemy destroyers, and after having dealt with what remained of them I had nowhere near enough health left to make any headway out of the harbour area (not that it would have made any difference at that point). I managed to sink an incoming Ishizuchi with a lucky torpedo spread that hit home right after I had been sunk by the last salvo from said ship, and about fifteen seconds later the timer ran out and we lost (yes, I was late in starting the retreat as well; no one did much good in this battle). So that, as they say, was that. Please note that this is not a rant. I was having fun the whole time, from the intrepid charge at the beginning to the ignominious defeat at the end. I regard this whole sorry episode as a learning experience, and part of what I learned was that those operations that run the most smoothly, are not necessarily the most memorable.* When I get home tonight, I shall have to try this operation out again with my newly acquired British heavy cruiser, the Devonshire. I expect her to sink like a stone, which will make a fitting statement on this, the last day of England as a member of the European Union. There are many of us who will be sad to see her go. Cheers! * Just look at the "One Bridge Too Far" movie from 1977, or any of the films of Quentin Tarantino for that matter.** ** When they make a movie out this particular Operation Killer Whale, I want my character to be played by Sir Michael Caine.*** *** With the same complete lack of anything remotely resembling a German accent, as when he portrayed Oberst Kurt Steiner in "The Eagle Has Landed" from 1976.**** **** The new movie shall be called, "The Eagle Has Stranded."

I have much the same thoughts. One thing to bear in mind, however, is that destroyers will probably also be the ship class that is generally best equipped to fight against submarines - not counting CV Master Class Apex Predator, obviously - so it might turn out to be something like a "lose some/gain some" situation. Losing the spotting advantage will be hard for us DD mains, though, I will make no bones about that. I sincerely hope that WG won't toss a half-formed, initially overpowered super-stealth ninja class with seeking torpedoes into general random battles... there was a note on the homepage news about "extensive testing on separate battle modes", or something like that, which sounds a bit heartening in this regard. So let's hope for the best!

But you will fight in the shade.

Destroyers are my most played class. As such, I am far from thrilled with how carriers work in the current game meta - I believe, for starters, that there should be a hard cap of max one carrier per team - and I also take a dim view of the upcoming Torpedo Protection System and the effect it will very likely have on my beloved USS Black as well as the whole Pan-Asian destroyer line from tier 6 and up. Rather than dismissing the developers as "completely clueless" - which, if true, would make further debate on the forum altogether pointless - I try to understand both sides of the case, and then present my own thoughts and opinions.

I'd rather be generous and think of it as a handicap, like the one they supposedly have in golf to even the odds when a skilled player meets a player of lesser skill. If the NA players need that 5% flag boost to be on the same level as us Europeans, we really shouldn't be too parsimonious about it, right?

A most vexing sequence of events, I agree. Although to be fair, suiciding for the benefit of the team is a bit counter-intuitive, and hitting the repair/heal buttons can become something of a reflex action after having played this game for a few years. I remember that time not so long ago, when I only just barely dodged a torpedo in operation Newport, and it passed right underneath my stern... ...and sank the Raptor... ...and I didn't even have time to write an apology in the chat before the game ended in defeat. Not my proudest moment. What I am trying to say here, is that my guess would be that the battleship player in your game didn't act out of a deliberate intent to sabotage of the mission requirements and throw the match. He may have done this, of course, but I generally try to assume the best where there is room for doubt. There isn't always room for doubt. There was a Killer Whale game about two years ago, where the primary and all secondary objectives had been completed, the clock was ticking down the last 30 seconds, and a Bayern that was sort of loitering about just outside the exit area but still going in the right direction, was asked in chat - politely, mind you - to please go to the exit? He stopped, and then started backing away. The clock ticked down and the operation failed. The lengths to which some people are prepared to go in order to demonstrate their own special brand of independence. Or maybe that Bayern player was just a bitter and spiteful little basement troll. I don't know and I don't care. If we let these things get to us, we probably shouldn't play online PvP games to begin with. Swapping stories like these, however, counts as entertainment therapy, and that is surely a good thing...?

Question: How does the Exeter stand in relation to the Hawkins?

"The Tirpitz. The very name could not be spoken without evoking a feeling of awe and dread... She was moving out at last, an armoured Colossus, sister ship of that other Steel Titan that had destroyed the Hood with a single, savage blow. Mighty Hood, darling of the Royal Navy and the most powerful warship in the world - or so men had thought. What chance had their little cockle-shell cruiser?"

I'd say that the quality of team work in operations is wildly inconsistent. Sometimes you can work your behind off like a rat on speed and still get it handed back to you on toast for a total loss, because your trusty allies couldn't be bothered to compensate for your inadequacies put two sticks together - and then the next match rolls through like clockwork with a 5-star win after a team performance that could have been scripted by Alistair Maclean. Newport and Killer Whale are probably a bit more dependent on good team work than many of the others, though, which makes its absence equally more painful. I tried out the Devonshire in Killer Whale yesterday night, by the way, just as I said I would. She works really well in that operation, or at least she did for me. Her guns will absolutely smash those land forts, and they work equally well against enemy ships (although battleships are best burned down at range). Her single-shot torpedo launchers let you make short work of the moored battleship, and in a pinch they can deal with free-ranging huns as well. Your heal and your hydro give you some much-needed staying power in the torpedo-laden and high explosive-rich environment of the later phase. All in all a nice little ship!

It is obviously true that Wargaming's main driving goal is to make money. They are a private business venture, not a public charity, so it could hardly be otherwise. But I would like to think that there is also, at some level, an ambition to create something of artistic value, and to provide good entertainment. I'm sure this sounds naïve, but I can't look at something as gorgeous as the designs of, say, the German premiums, and not believe that the people who created those are not only blessed with artistic talent and ambition, but also at least as interested in 20th century naval history as I am. I also like to think that many of those at Wargaming enjoy playing their own game. Furthermore, I got the impression that Wargaming learned enough of the CV rework circus to work towards something a bit more, well, smooth in the landing, when they introduce the new submarines. At least I hope so. They have been talking of starting subs off on selected battle modes only, and not in random battles, and they also seem inclined to take their time a bit more when trying out new ideas (I hope the scrap the latest one about not giving submarines the ability to travel on the surface, by the way). So there is that. I'm not saying there haven't been danger signs. The recent Puerto Rico debacle, where Wargaming used marketing strategies that came across as nothing less than unethical, comes to mind. But it is important to realize that Wargaming is not one single person. Someone made a bad call, and the player community reacted. Let us hope that there are others with Wargaming who make better calls in the future. It is up to us, as the customers, to give feed-back on the way. We can always get off the boat if it starts sinking - but for now, I remain on board.

I have not heard anything said about Wargaming's reasons for introducing this new TPS module, but then again I haven' been following their recent communiqués as diligently as perhaps I should have. Have they said anything explicit about this? If they haven't, and if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that the aim is probably to introduce more variables into the gameplay. One way to make a game more dynamic and thus more enduring, is to allow for a range of personal choices to affect the gameplay mechanics. The module system in WoWs is a typical example of this. In the current meta, however, the Concealment module is such a given choice as to make that module slot into a credit sink rather than a mechanism for personal choice. Basically, if you don't pick the Concealment module, you are just stupid at a disadvantage in relation to anyone who has picked it. This is not an ideal situation. That said, adding a new module and changing how the old ones work, can't help but to affect the gameplay and the balance between ship classes in a huge number of ways. These effects should be carefully evaluated and compensated for, or there is a risk that a lot of players will be disaffected by having their ships suddenly performing much differently from before. But Wargaming obviously knows this, and it would be polite to assume that they have conducted a reasonable amount of tests and made full allowances for this, when deciding on these projected changes. At least I sincerely hope they have.

All you say is true. But one effect of this new Torpedo Protection System will be that ships carrying this module will be spotted from a greater range, which means that the potential for spotting damage for destroyers will increase. So have faith in your team members, live long and prosper!* Not much of a compensation, or even consolation, for a gimped torpedo armament, I agree. As a DD main myself, I am not too happy about this new TPS module.** * Sorry, couldn't resist. I share your concerns. If you imagine me laughing, know that only my tears are real...! ** In fact, if someone decides to stake it, bury it and salt the earth above it, they would hear no harsh words from me.

And I seem to remember that the camo on those Dragon ships now gives the usual bonuses to concealment and dispersion? It didn't to begin with, which was why I never bought one of those ships even though I think they are quite nice-looking - it was hard to motivate spending money to get a worse ship than the silver line counterpart.

One point that has been brought up many times before, but which I think deserves further consideration, is to maybe buff the AA power of the Yubari? I get that Wargaming wants tier 4 carrier players to get a somewhat cushy start, but I can't see why they should be coddled more than newbies in other ship types. Give Yubari a seriously extended range on her AA bubble, and maybe a bit of a buff to her AA damage numbers as well, and see what happens? They could even have a trial period before they commit to a such a change - in fact, they should absolutely have a trial period before buffing a premium - but I can hardly see how having one or two AA-capable ships around, would cripple such an inherently powerful class as CV:s, even at tier 4. But maybe there is something I don't see, in this picture?

A great idea! Carriers - and I could speculate that the same might prove true with submarines - generally fit in better in specially designed scenarios, than they do in random battles.

I am inclined to agree. As long as there is at most one carrier on each team, there is only so much space that those planes can cover - but as soon as there are two or more carriers on a team, they can easily cover the entire map between them. A hard cap with a maximum of one carrier per team would solve almost all problems with carriers in their current form, or so I believe. I don't question Wargaming when they say that a hard cap will severely affect carrier queuing times, but that must be weighed against the impact of carriers on the overall gameplay, for all ship classes. (Which is no doubt what Wargaming has done, so that is that for the moment, obviously! )

Playing the Ark Royal in operations is a lot of fun! And for me personally, it also means that I can play a CV in non-coop mode without inflicting my horribly lacking CV skills on either friends or enemies in random battles. It is, in short, a great way to learn how to master the art of CV battles. So I would welcome more tier 6 premium CV:s into the game. I doubt that it would add much to the numbers of CV:s present in random battles,* and as stated, it would add more options for how to conduct operations. The best contender for a tier 6 CV, in my opinion, would be the Graf Zeppelin with those iconic Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers and some almost as iconic Heinkel HE-111 torpedo bombers, instead of them watchammacallits that currently serve her in those roles. Those two plane types would fit in well at tier 6, and the Messerschmitt rocket planes would be right at home too. I actually bought the Graf Zeppelin two minutes after seeing the promo pictures of the ship with a couple of cool-looking Stukas flying across the bows in a stylish formation, and what did I get? Not Stukas, that's what. Bummer me for being a plane geek, I guess. But I digress. The Graf Zeppelin was dropped into tier 8, and that's not going to change. So my suggestion to Wargaming, here, is this: Let us have a "Li'l Graf", or "Baron Zeppelin", at tier 6 instead? With Stukas and Heinkels? That would be one worthwhile fantasy ship that I, for one, would buy in a jiffy! * If this happens, I might revoke my previous welcome.

Which begs the question if this new Torpedo Protection System is part of a marketing strategy for the benefit of the Swedish - sorry, Pan-European - destroyer line. I am not quite so cynical as to really believe that, and in any case I think it would be superfluous - those new destroyers will dash off the shelves at full speed and with speed boost active! One aspect of this and indeed any other online PvP game, is that it will always be subject to change. If change stops happening, the game will stagnate and die. I just hope that the overall feel and flavour of the game will remain intact for as long as possible, since I'm still having a blast playing it!

I agree! Seeing a bunch of ambitious scallywags sailing off into the sunset in search for Lost Valusia adds a certain something to the mood of the battle, or wouldn't you say? "Will they realize that their quest is vain and turn back, or will they die on a far shore and leave their comrades in a numerical position to declare victory? Don't miss the next episode of "Captain Clueless", coming soon to a theatre near you!" Narai doesn't vary at all, as far as I know. But there may of course be some minor randomness, such as to which bot ships appear from which positions, that I simply have failed to notice. But on that note, I think there has been one fairly recent change to general bot behaviour, at least in operations: A bot ship that suffers heavy damage, does sometimes slow down or turn back from an on-going attack. I noticed it first in Newport, and then later in the current Killer Whale. This is the first I have seen of something like this, and I think it's a nifty bit of AI programming - it adds to the illusion of fighting "real" enemies. It was of course an embarrassing moment for humanity - or at least the part of humanity that forms the WoWs player base* - when Wargaming found themselves compelled to lessen the effectiveness of bot ships in coop mode, "because with bots of the same level of skill displayed by bots in operations, battles in coop became too hard and wins became much rarer". * Again with the disclaimer: This, too, is intended as self-irony.

This. So as a happy owner of the USS Black, I am a bit of a sad panda about this whole projected change. And I am quite attached to my Gadjah Mada as well, although - as has been pointed out - she will probably be considerably less affected. In an effort to think positive, I am sort of hoping for Wargaming to make some balancing buffs to the Black as well as to those Pan-Asians that lie within the target area. So I was an even sadder panda when I read... ...this. The Black is, in my opinion, one of those uniquely-flavoured premium ships that work out well without being overpowered. Her radar is useful but seldom an outright game-changer, and her torpedoes are in a class all of their own - much too slow to be used for ambush tactics, but uniquely suited for long-range area denial. They can work surprisingly well, but - again - they are no game-changers. I would be sad to see this lovely little ship lose what I consider to be a big part of her special charms. It should be said, of course, that there is as of yet no way to determine how many skippers will actually choose to mount the new Torpedo Detection System instead of the hitherto unchallenged Concealment Expert. Stealth is such a large part of this game, that I expect that many captains will be loath to let go of an edge in that area even for a hugely useful boost to their torpedo defence. Another thing to consider: One problem with buffing the affected ships to compensate for the effect of the new Torpedo Protection System, is that this would be an outright general buff to those ships in relation to any opponent that does not have the new module (either by choice, or because they can't mount it to begin with). And neither the Black nor any of the Pan-Asians are in need of a general buff to their torpedoes. So I can see why any such buffs would be marginal at best. Oh, well - I guess we shall just have to wait and see what happens!

Yeah, that never gets old. I stuck around in my T-61 on the far side of a Bayern, once, just outside secondary range, and kept switching between guns and torpedoes while he kept trying to second-guess me. It was like watching a hippopotamus dancing the nutcracker suite. And now I keep trying to picture that Bayern in a tutu.

While I would be happy to add my two cents worth of advice, there is really nothing I can add on top of all those good words already put in by players far more knowledgeable than I. So I will settle for simply complimenting you for your great attitude, Captain @Xhabalanque - admitting one's own ignorance is the first step towards real wisdom, or at least that's what Socrates is supposed to have said! Looking forward to meeting you on the High Seas!