Meneleus

To be honest the stats you have provided surprise me. They are a lot lower then I would have expected them to be. Of course my perception of the ship is hravily influenced by my own experience with it, and that experience has been very positive, hence my surprise. Perchance most players are using the ship poorly. I say this not to imply any superiority on my part, I consider myself to be an average player, I mean to say that every ship has it's own qualities and drawbacks and succes with a vessel depends on players using its strengths. If they try to operate it in any other way the result would be suboptimal. The Minekaze and the Mutsuki are very similar ships, main differences being the torpedoes and higher tiered opponents. Those differences do mean that the risk of exposing yourself in a Mutsuki is higher then doing the same in a Minekaze and ultimately unwarranted in most situations considering your torpedo range. As I said, I am an average player and even I can be succesful in this ship. If they would improve the vessel I assume I would be more succesful then I am now. Imagine what a good player could do with a Mutsuki if it were to be buffed... Cheers, M

1. AA of the Mutsuki is excellent for a DD, and very useful against torpedo planes if you have the opportunity to manoeuvre. I sometimes gun down a whole squadron in late game while they try to get into position. Your two remaining turrets have a much improved RoF and traverse, more then making up for the loss of two guns. 2. The torpedoes work well. The range of 10km gives you a very wide safe zone to fire your torpedo volleys. 3. All destroyers are fragile, it is not a defining trait of the Mutsuki. Having said that, a Mutsuki has a very good concealment rating, getting spotted it is usually the fault of the player. Combine this with the 10km torpedoes and you can have games where the enemy literally never sees you. At the moment my survival rate in the Mutsuki is over 50%. 4. Of course, if it were any faster the ship would be grossly overpowered. Cheers, M

I reckon you mean to say: "The current implementation (of AA) is not satisfying to all players". I am sure it is not. As a matter of fact I think there is not one single topic in this game all people of this forum could agree on. Personally I don't think the AA mechanics in it's current form are as poor as some people portray them to be. Air power is pretty deadly in this game but there are pretty good counters to it, even as these counters usually require cooperation between players. A vessel's AA power can also be customized and improved effectively with upgrades and captain skills at the expense of upgrading other aspects of the ship. Cheers, M

I wonder if they will at one point include the French Lyon-class battleship design with her 16 barrels of 340mm doom. Yup, that is a design with four quad turrets... Cheers, M

Two people of the community have taken the trouble creating a video about the problems. I think they paint a pretty good picture. Aerroon's Mogami video regarding ineffectiveness of HE shells: Flamu's Gearing video regarding ineffectiveness of HE shells: Cheers, M

Please, do not presume to speak for me, or anyone else whom you don't know. Concerning the topic at hand, I think buffing battleship accuracy is not a good idea. It will break the game as surely as the current patch apparently has if high-calibre guns would be as accurate as you'd apparently like them to be. Cheers, M

It does invalidate your suggestions. If a problem is one that only happens very rarely, and certainly is not always the fault of the "teamkiller", it makes no sense to spend time and resources to implement the changes you suggest. Cheers, M

Well, I have played every class in every tech tree up to T5-7, so while I have played a lot of different ships I have not played top tier. I reckon that the higher tier you play the more skill-demanding the game becomes regardless of class. With that said these are my thoughts about things: Destroyers are very skill dependent I would say. Since your ship is very vulnerable and easily destroyed you have only a small margin for error, have to think ahead and make constant risk assesments. Staying alive while spotted can be a nightmare and DD vs DD combat is often a furious fast-paced adrenaline rush. I am quite familiar with IJN destroyers up to the Mutsuki for example and am able to be succesful in them. I have also played USN destroyers up to the Farragut and I struggle badly, the Nicholas especially was a nightmare for me. Cruisers are generally very player-friendly due to their all-round nature. To use a cruiser effectively however is another thing entirely. Cruisers can differ a lot from one another and have many tasks and responsibilities, like AA support, BB screening, DD hunting, DD support, covering collapsing flanks... They also share some of the vulnerabilities of destroyers while being less maneuverable. Battleships are pretty straightforward. I do think that people put too much emphasis on the random element of battleship play. Sure, it affects BB gunnery more then the gunnery of other classes and thus plays a larger role, but you still have to aim. Since you have about 30 seconds reload time you better aim well (with the occasional prayer to RNJesus I admit). The trouble with battleships is positional planning, target selection and being able to push and take punishment while remaining afloat and fighting. That leaves me with carriers... I admit I am not a fan of carriers. I have played up to the Bogue and the Ryujo. I did not like the USN line and tired of the Bogue especially. The IJN line was more to my liking and I managed to be reasonably succesful in them. I tried a strike setup whenever I could (even on the Bogue) and found that, especially on the Ryujo (where I started out with a AS setup), a lot depends on the opposing team (and the setup of the enemy carrier). Ships larger then a DD without AA consumable ready was generally easy prey. Those who had you stayed away from. Learn manual drops and go. Situational awareness is less of a thing (note that I did not say it is not a thing). Finally, the effort/reward ratio was, at least in my mind, way off. Cheers, M

The guns are replaced by additional AA armament, giving the ship respectable AA capability for a destroyer. The C hull also allows a gun upgrade featuring over twice the rate of fire of the old guns as well as improved turret traverse. Cheers, M

I have played the Mutsuki for a dozen games now and am left with the impression it is a fine ship. It loses about 2 knots on the Minikaze and a longer torpedo reload time in exchange for 10km torpedo range and has a 2x3 launcher setup instead of 3x2. I think that, after having played the Minekaze, most people have trouble adjusting to the longer torpedo reload time. Personally I do not think it is much of an issue, it makes stealth launching a much more relaxed affair. In DD vs DD combats I would retreat if feasible or force the issue and closing for a torpedo strike if not, and thus far I can hold my own generally. The AA improvement is handy to have. It does little against dive bombers but is effective when an enemy carrier has trouble bringing his torpedo planes into position for a manual drop while you are maneuvering. If the Mutsuki has to be adjusted I think the best way to go about it is to give it the Minekaze torpedoes in her stock configuration. This would give players the option to play the Mutsuki like the Minekaze. Cheers, M

I believe the RNN had 4 cruisers and 8 destroyers at the eve of WW2, together with a large number of gunboats, minelayers and sweepers, patrol boats and motor torpedo boats. There were 3 battlecruisers in advanced planning stage and a further 3 cruisers, 4 destroyers and 3 gunboats under construction. Of those under construction, one cruiser and one destroyer were launched and evacuated to the UK and fitted there with British armaments. For the carriers I believe one allied-supplied escort carrier was operated by the RNN during the war. The Dutch government purchased a Colossus-class light carrier from the British in I believe 1948 which served as the HNLMS Karel Doorman. Of course there were two older cruisers and some armoured coastal defence ships also available, these only played a minor role though if any at all. All in all I think there is enough for a small tree. Cheers, M

If I am not mistaken the Radetzky-class is a pre-dreadnought battleship right? Perhaps they could introduce it in the same way as the Mikasa but I don't think you should get your hopes up. If an Austro-Hungarian ship is to be introduced I think it will be the Tegetthoff-class battleship. Cheers, M

Excellent, ideas along those lines would make sense. I reckon we will see what happens down the line. Thank you for providing some feedback! Cheers, M

Hello everyone, Since WG apparently plans to introduce the Chinese navy it made me thinking. China had practically no navy to speak of during WW1, WW2 or the interbellum. How would they create a viable tree that actually makes sense? I am sure that everyone has their own opinion about what kind of ships should be introduced in the game, and being a curious bugger, I made a poll. Please enter your preference, I genuinely wonder what people would like to see. Note: Don't panic. The British, German and Russian trees seem to have priority and no-one has made any indication when China will be introduced in the game. Cheers, M

I have not played WoT in a while, and if memory serves I played up to T5 in Chinese tanks. From what I remember you paint an accurate picture. I fearyou will be right with regards to the Chinese navy of the period being included. I believe China ordered a few ships designed and built by European naval yards, though not nearly enough for even a semi-decent tree. To supplement the tree I think they will have to include IJN ships granted to China as war reparations (mostly destroyers I believe), and foreign ships gifted or sold to China after WW2. There is also the question of... Which China? The Chinese navy was operated by the nationalists who were austed by the communists in 1949. Since there are objections against the use of the IJN naval flag and swastikas I could imagine chinese folks objecting against the use of Nationalist/Taiwanese flags and operated hardware. If not well, I assume they will just use different flags for different ships and hulls like they did with the Russian destroyers. Cheers, M

Personally I am a proponent of variety and would not mind unfinished projects or remarkable designs being used in this game. What I would not like to see is a jungle of obscure vessels of whom almost nobody has heard of. I think it adds to the enjoyment of the game if people can trace the origins of the ship and read up on it. It is immersive and might spark interest in the history of naval warfare in this period. Or it might just be a cool story adding an extra layer of awesome on your favourite ship. I agree that tech trees need not to be complete, as in having a T10 pinnacle. I think that, since apparently ranked play features T6 and T7 ships those are the tiers that might validate a tech tree. Of course, if one would make a good case that certain short trees would simply be awesome to include, well, that is a good reason too I suppose. Cheers, M

The RNN (Royal Netherlands Navy) was simply too small to make an impression on the IJN. A whole tech tree would not be possible I think, certainly not if you want to preserve the character of the RNN and only include ships built in domestic yards (meaning not including US and RN ships the RNN operated during WW2). Still, I think ships from T1-T7 are certainly possible, as well as a few characterful premium ships. On topic though: Ik zie het nut niet van een nederlandstalig forum. Zoals reeds geopperd zou dit enkel een versplintering van het Europeese forum inhouden. Bovendien spreekt (bijna) elke Nederlander wel een woordje engels. Cheers, M

The compact carrousel option is a godsend. All the sorting options seem to work as they are supposed to. The only thing that got me confused was that my open port slot used the normal format instead of the compact one, since I have an uneven number of ships I did not see this at first. Silly me I suppose, I really like consistency. Cheers, M

Hello Monsieur Conway, My experience matches that of EvilOnion. My account level was bumped to level 11 in-game and I was awarded one day premium (thank you!). I did not receive 3.000.000 silver associated with gaining account level 10 however and my profile one worldofwarhips.eu still displays account level 9. The mission was pretty nice, the difficulty vs reward ratio was amazing. I have not received any other missions though, nor can I perform any challenges. This is a pity, challenges seem like a fun thing to do. Cheers, M

Started the grind myself, using xp flags I collected ingame. My experience thus far is very positive, really like the ship. Dispersion can be rough but I prefer to close in anyways. They could have given her a bit more hit points but it's not the end of the world. Cheers, M

I would recommend familiarizing yourself with the different ships to get a good idea of their maximum speed. When you know that you can gouge the speed by checking the smoke plume(s) emitted from your target's smokestack(s). It is no miracle cure but provides a decent indication of their speed. The rest is practice. Cheers, M

Awesome! Perhaps I will not be alone most of the time when I push for medium and close ranges in my battleship Cheers, M

I think the problem is that, if you queue for a battle with a carrier, you know for certain there will be one or two carriers in the opposing team. A lot of people desire to play safe and prefer to take the carrier counter, partly in the case the opponent will choose a similar loadout. Before carriers were matched against each other strike loadouts seemed a lot more common because facing enemy carriers was not guaranteed. Now it is and it seems fear has won out, most opponents use AA loadouts. The only remedy seems to be to lift the carrier vs carrier matchup restrictions. Unfortunately unopposed carriers often play havoc on opposing teams. Perhaps in WG manages to find a good balance for carriers the situation will be remedied. Cheers, M

I tend to agree with you at this one yet sometimes catch myself wondering if an opponent uses the mod or not. I think the problem is not knowing what a highly skilled player is capable of. For instance, getting twoshotted in a Cleveland at 20km range by a battleship on hotspot. Or the occasional Cleveland captain who seems to be rediculously accurate at ranges of about 15 km, unerringly hitting or straddling you while you are manoeuvring. I really dislike the paranoia associated with the mod, especially when I sense it rising in myself, which fortunately rarely happens. Cheers, M