Verblonde

I do wonder if WG have been messing with at least some of the probabilities across the game; whilst I haven't noticed much change in how often I get things incapacitated, I do agree with those who have reported that the number of floods seems to be more sensible lately (i.e. you do get some)...

From memory, in WOT, you did get the new version of the tank, but only if you had it in your garage at the time of the change. I don't recall what was done with regards to the replacement tech tree vehicles and/or if it was consistent. Cammo works slightly differently in WOT, of course, in that it can - more or less - be applied to anything, so people who bought it for the replaced tank don't lose it, and can stick it on something else instead when/if* the new version gets permaflage as standard. A variation on WOT's cammo approach might work in the present case (given that WG are pathologically opposed to money refunds): give anyone who has a Mosvka permaflage some sort of token for any T10 permaflage, so such players don't lose anything, and make this work for space cammo (or any other 'special' cammo like that); in the case of the specials, players can then decide if they want to keep it on Moskva, or move it somewhere else. Such tokens would behave as per things like the Xmas cammo - once it's placed, it's permaflage. *Edit: most premiums tanks in WOT don't get cammo as standard, like the equivalents in WOWS do, further reducing the impact of the cammo issue for AFV changes.

Incidentally, unless I'm misremembering, this line split (as we understand it currently) is entirely unprecedented - at least during my time in the game - in that people who haven't spent money/silver on the game are better off than those who have (i.e. those who supported it, if you wish to think in those terms). I can't help wondering if this is another comms muck-up from WG, as if it isn't: it's a strong message to not spend money on equivalent things in the future, which even WG must know has to impact on their P&L...?

So, to be absolutely clear: If you bought Moskva (like I did) and have her in port, you just wasted several million silver. If you researched Moskva but didn't buy her or sold her, you get the new coal version for no cost. If you previously paid - effectively - real money for a permaflage, you wasted your money/doubloons? Is that correct? If it is, the decision-makers need a real kick; the last part in particular is wholly unacceptable (even though it doesn't impact me personally).

As things stand, it looks like no refund for people who paid for permaflage on Moskva. As I said on the other thread, this is very poor form from WG; as a recent purchaser of Moskva (without permaflage, unusually for me), I get a free permaflage that existing owners had to pay doubloons for, and not a trivial amount either - T10 permaflage isn't cheap. Perhaps WG feel they haven't massively shot themselves in the foot lately (it's been several weeks, after all) and need to rectify matters? As with many of WG's spheroids-ups, this fix is relatively easy: give previous permaflage owners free permaflage for the new T10, and people like me who haven't bought it yet just get the permaflage for the new semi-premium Moskva. Simple.

I recently bought Moskva (more fool me, if I would have got it anyway if I had it researched but not bought yet; that's just a silver loss though, which is just a mild Richard move by WG); I very deliberately didn't buy permaflage as I assumed we would get one for free anyway, with the shift to semi-premium status. Although it doesn't impact me personally, not refunding people who did buy the permaflage is a monumental Richard move by WG; I would hope they'd rethink this as a matter of urgency.

I'm afraid you're stuck with those, as far as I know. I feel your pain, incidentally; that particular cammo looks to me rather as though someone had some particularly distressing gastrointestinal condition in the ship's vicinity...

You probably want filters as a starting point - bottom right of the port screen. At the very least, it'll allow you to get rid of the *really* weird stuff, such as Halloween, Sci-Fi etc.

Rare premium ships have - so far - been Xmas boxes only (and a low probability to boot, if you don't have most/all less rare premiums), apart from a few very unlikely things here and there. If you're after premium ships more generally, they've tended to show up a bit more frequently; I wouldn't try and plan buying decisions around what's happened in the past though - as long as COVID-19 is disrupting things, this year is likely to differ from what's gone before even more than usual (and probably in unpredictable ways).

I've ticked 'no' for a couple of reasons, but it's not because I want directives gone. We've had a lot of them over the last several months, so a break makes a nice change. I like the campaign mechanic, and would like a few more of these. Directives have their place, but I would suggest it shouldn't be every single patch. My suspicion is that they allow them because it makes life easier for WG: They only need one set of missions, to avoid annoying the Coop mains (random only missions would exclude them). They don't have to be as clever with mission design to avoid repetition; there are only so many mission types that are practical/not frustrating in randoms for the bulk of players (e.g. WOT - PvP only - went through a phase of requiring a win in conjunction with some other requirement, which drove people mad for the obvious reason that a random team can lose the battle even if you put in a decent individual performance), so allowing Coop gives WG more options. My suspicion is that it's largely the first reason, though.

Agree 100%. The main reason I've been tending to differentiate between good CV players and the less so - in particular - is that it does have a tangible impact on how one plays and equips one's ship: if every CV was of the standard that our experts on here reach then, besides the game being broken, there really would be zero point in even thinking about any equipment/skills that impact AA. However, because these experts are rare, you can make a case for running at least some AA skills/modules (especially when they gel with surface-to-surface), as they do make some difference against the CV players that you usually meet. That's not to say one should universally load up on AA on absolutely everything, but rather to suggest that there is scope - on some ships (DDs in this case) - for not ignoring AA altogether. It is, from my tuberous perspective!

This forum is usually pretty good, when people ask sensible questions. If you want to see examples of, erm, less charitable responses, wait for the next silly herbert who posts words to the effect of "I demand the game be changed because I got sunk due to something I didn't bother to take the time to understand" - it happens with depressing regularity...!

Latest on the RU cruiser split (from facebook):

These will apparently be back shortly, via the Research Bureau. Your views on this will depend a bit on whether you want to regrind a line that you've already got to T10 with (also, unless it changes, you have to have got T10 in a minimum number of trees - five? - before you have the option of regrinding). I'm rubbish at cruisers though, so I'm afraid I won't be much help with the earlier part of your question...

Quite frequently, expectations can be summarised as 'unrealistic'; the best thing you can do is focus on your own play, study your evolving statistics, and try and reinforce what works well, and fix whatever doesn't. Don't worry about karma - it does nothing (although you can get a chat ban if enough people report you for misbehaviour in chat, regardless of whether you did actually misbehave); especially don't worry in Coop - it's essentially a sandbox mode. Probably take Ops a bit more seriously, but Coop is pretty much a free-for-all. Tier 5 often presents a bit of a wall for newer players: this is the point where you lose the protective MM, and start facing +2 MM opponents; whilst it's a lot easier in Coop than randoms, it's still not idiot-proof and you do face the same problems that a random player would e.g. play style needs to change when uptiered, mistakes are more severely punished, and having a not good enough captain puts you at a disadvantage. Key advice is to not rush up the tiers; at time of writing, you are showing 551 battles only - this is very few (especially when they're in Coop). That's not to say that it makes you unworthy (quite the reverse, since you're on here asking for advice), but rather it makes you vulnerable simply because you don't yet have a full grasp of all of the game's intricacies and mechanics. Take your time, and play as many different ship types as possible (on that subject, most of your games are in cruisers, and most of those in RN cruisers, which makes your life even harder as the RN cruisers are most certainly not easy mode); besides making the game more varied, it's easier to counter a given ship type if you know what the buggers can/can't do and what they're trying to do. Most of the best/fun ships in the game are Tier 5 and above, so the fun doesn't end with the transition to T5 and beyond, but rather the skill requirement increases (and it's even harder to get away with only having fast reflexes). You're already in a clan - see if there are people available to division with; they'll be able to provide real time feedback on what you're doing and help you improve. Also, keep asking questions on here - there are usually plenty of people about who'll be happy to help.

My view on visible stats is that they do have a couple of useful functions (besides allowing self-analysis, but I assume you can still do that with hidden stats): It allows an assessment of someone's point of view and the context it comes from e.g. I have lots of views/opinions and I leave my stats open so that anyone who cares can easily see that I'm a sub-par player (48% overall WR the last I looked); they are not the views of a unicum and should be read as such. If one has a mind to help others, you can give more intelligent advice to someone if you know the basics of their metrics e.g. there isn't much point in giving advice that revolves around Gearing, say, if the person has only reached T6. That said, I don't blame anyone for keeping their stats hidden; after multiple years across both WOWS and WOT, I've seen repeatedly how stats can be used as a basis for abuse.

This doesn't really work in the simplest sense when dealing with the 12 km Russian radars on things like Chapy (unless your target is kind enough to open fire on someone). That said, it shouldn't be beyond the wit of man to work round the problem; plenty of less incompetent players do so. For the avoidance of doubt, I ticked the 'leave it as it is' option; I'm a DD main and view radar as WG kindly providing me with a motive to endeavour to suck less...

I would still stick around - at the very least, I might learn something useful from the specific manner in which I end up the watery equivalent of smoking boots...

Xvm sniping certainly used to be a thing in WOT; one of the plus points of being rubbish - you get left alone by such people. I really hope we don't get widespread use of equivalent mods in WOWS - the effect had on WOT used to be distinctly poisonous.

For a good CV player (such as yourself) that's entirely true; against the average CV player in randoms, the games I've had so far (admittedly not a massive data-set yet) suggest that T8+ at least are about as good as anything else in the way of DDs for standing against CVs. Of course, there is a lot more to it than just sitting there with your AA on, you have to make full use of every trick in the DD book, but the higher tier Ikeas are on a very short list of DDs that I don't excessively fear CVs in (unless the latter are driven by someone good).

I think quite a few people might take issue with at least some of that! My view FWIW: Comfortable: yes, ish, as much as a smoke-free DD can be; I did have a lot of DD games under my belt beforehand though - a typical newbie will probably have a nightmare. User friendly: in general, no (weak torps, slow turning turrets, no smoke etc.). Balanced: probably, but too soon to tell definitively. Fun: all kinds of yes, if you like that sort of thing, which I do. A lot. Carrier of teams: not a chance for me, but that's true of almost every ship I have...! Definitely not a tree for newbies.

It would certainly be different, but I genuinely don't know if it would be better. Belfast players would be very upset (I have Belfast fwiw, but suck in her, so she'd be a poor choice for me in Ranked). It might not be such a bad thing to force people, who haven't already, to learn how to play around radar (in DDs/sneaky cruisers) in a relatively benign environment - most T7 radar is short ranged (exception being Sharkbait, but she's not a very good pick IMO as she gives up too much to have it; if you could division in Ranked it might be a different story though). This might be useful to some with the launch of the over-compensating-for-something RU cruisers... Life would be a lot easier for sneakier ships, but hydro (especially longer ranged for the tier hydro) would be more important. BB players would likely have kittens, as they might be rather easier to close with and torp if there is no radar to light up the DDs. Personally, I would leave it in, as the only really strong ship with radar is Belfast, and most of those will probably rank out fairly quickly, or be driven by muppets (so are less of a threat), and without any radar, we DD players would probably have it too easy...? My suspicion though is that the radar ships we see most of will be Atlanta (and obviously Belfast, but her availability is more limited) and she's not really game-breaking.

This! I would mention though that we're still currently in the "what the h*ll is that?" phase of new ship introduction; specifically, I don't think people have got used to the rocket-propelled torps yet or the AA. Once people know how to counter Ikeas effectively (and some already do, in my experience), I suspect their effectiveness may drop somewhat. That said, in the current meta, even then, I suspect there will certainly be a place for DDs with good AA and a heal...

My intention is to play both (plus other things if the mood takes me); although I like Haida a lot, Z-39 is very worthwhile too - more torps and longer-ranged hydro, for a start.

Other people are better at analysing numbers, but my suggestion would be to join a clan, preferably one that a) uses voice comms and b) has people willing to teach. If you go out in division with more experienced players, they can provide you with useful pointers in real time... (Plus, you get useful economic bonuses too, if they have a developed base.)