Verblonde

Sir, I salute you!

I think that's a bit strong: the PR thing was an absolute rat-scr*w (technical sales term) due to a) the values on the PTS bearing zero resemblance to what went live and b) whoever did the comms being either insane, or rather too keen on absinthe or similar (see my other - more considered - remarks on the other thread re: CC etc.). That said, if you put the hours in and had a reasonable selection of ships the free T7 premium wasn't that hard to get. Not a glorious success though. On the other hand, I feel the Ikea early release thing is pretty decent (marred only by the '2 million free xp - how much?!' thing where WG fired 18" naval artillery into their own feet. Again.) - the directives are pretty straightforward to do and, if you do all of them, you get 22 of the relevant containers. Although the contents are random - which is pi$$ poor IMO - if you average 20 tokens a box (so far, I *think* I'm rather higher after completing the first two sets) that's 440 tokens (absolute worst case, 220). Cross-reference that with the rewards (below) and you'll almost certainly get the T5, assuming you don't get any more boxes from elsewhere (like the ones you get for just logging into the game consistently - x3) and don't luck out with token drops. I agree the bundle that appeared in the shop is poor (if you want the early access ships, you have to pay over the odds for a bunch of bumf of spurious value), but it didn't require a degree in quantum physics to understand, so unless you have more money than you know what to do it, you don't buy it (I haven't). The core event - I believe - is fine (do the - easyish - directives and get *at least* a free early access T5, which opens up the free permaflage mission which is also easy as well as avoiding the horror of the T4 CV spam if you do the regular grind after the full release), and the 'we need to buy a moonbase' monitisation is pretty much par for the course, and easily ignored. WG may well be unable to find their collective bottom with both hands and a map at times, but I don't think this is one of them...

Further evidence - if it were needed - that not everyone reads all the news stories that WG put out! (WG, take note!) In a similar vein, I've had several serious requests for smoke when driving my Ikea DDs...! Have a butchers at this: https://worldofwarships.eu/en/news/public-test/bulletin-093/ I think the chances of something as major as the cruiser split being in this patch without a single mention in the supporting news story are pretty small; when you recall that said split involves Russian ships (and given how insecure the Russians are about their 'glorious' naval record) that probability drops to vanishingly small...

Unlikely - WG generally try and give each 'major' event its own time-slot, and the next patch is the second part of the Ikea DDs - full release in the tech tree and - I think - the unique captain.

I'm doing exactly this (with a bit of side-tracking to get the Ikea permaflages). We've probably got at least seven weeks still to go: roughly three more left of the current patch, then about four for the one after (Ikea, part 2); I'm assuming that the split will be the patch after that.

The xp needed increases for each stage - if you hover your mouse pointer over each segment in the missions tab, it shows the exact amount. Thanks for the code too OP!

Of course; but true objectivity is almost impossible. When you start getting into that stuff though, my brain starts to hurt and it's time to wheel out the philosophers.

You can get a bit of a sense of it by looking at WOT - there are several rather powerful AFVs locked behind various 'best players only' walls of one kind or another. Also, recall the T-22 debacle...

You're technically entirely correct; I was trying to get across "if I remove my personal feelings from the discussion as much as possible", but that takes longer to type!

That's just difference of opinion - I come at this as a pragmatist that understands the need to balance different elements of an event. FWIW I thought the grind - subjectively - wasn't noticeably worse than the previous year's for DoY, but then I was a lot less incompetent than a year earlier, and had more optimal ships for doing the missions. Not on its own, no, but it would be a good starter for ten. What would you prefer: a repeat of the PR event in all its glory, or a repeat of the mechanics, but making it really clear which bits are remotely feasible and which bits are for whales/no lifers? WG are never going to stop trying to extract the maximum amount of money from those willing to spend it (and nor should they, if we want to game to continue); my issues are with how they're doing it, and how they could do it more effectively and without pi$$ing off their customers (or taking advantage of the vulnerable).

Almost everything you talk about is communications. The PR was effectively unobtainable for f2p; that in itself is not a problem, but the comms focusing on it were (so, comms). The thing with the boosters was poor, but if it had been communicated properly then people could have ignored it if they weren't whales (so, comms, again). If you ignored the money-grubbing bits (possible, if not easy, if the information had been properly communicated) you did get decent rewards for playing - gambling boxes and crucially the T7, at which point it was sensible to stop (yet again, comms). Look, I get that you hate the PR event and everything connected with it, but it requires a more analytical approach to fix what was rubbish about it; it's in everyone's interests for a lack of repeat - we, as customers, don't get shafted again/have to wade through lots of obtuse text, and WG make more money as they haven't annoyed a bunch of their whales.

This. Whilst I entirely understand the need for at least some paper in the game, the more real things the better! (FWIW I'd buy the ship the OP is proposing, even though I have both YY and Gearing already)

I think you're being a bit unfair to what, when all's said an done, is a commercial entity; I don't dispute that the comms were awful (the reverse, as I hope I made clear), but I believe that - overall - the mechanics of the event were good, in terms of striking a balance between shameless money-grubbing and looking after the f2p folk. The problem is that the comms *were* so bad that most people entirely missed the good stuff. I have a particular issue with the lack of clarity re: the boosters and the fact that you could spend real money (effectively) on them and still not get the ship (the time critical nature was pi$$-poor especially). However, if you didn't give WG a penny for the event (I didn't - I just bought some gambling containers), it was still acceptably feasible to get the T7 for free, and even occasional players should have been able to get something worthwhile. Of course, it wasn't flawless, but I do think it was pretty good from a pure mechanics standpoint. This is pretty much the point I'm trying to make though: we all remember the PR event as a massive disaster, and that is almost entirely down to the poor comms. IMO, of course.

All kinds of +1 to this! To couch it in terms that might motivate WG: you'd sell a lot more commonwealth premiums if they were also useful as captain trainers; it would also make future higher tier (=more expensive) commonwealth ships a lot more feasible. Think of all the lovely money you could make...

At the risk of being burned at the stake, I do have some sympathy with WG over this - it's natural for a company to want to - at least - influence what gets said about their product, and at what stages. This whole thing is one of the double-edges of running an official forum: on the one hand, 'you' (i.e. the company) pretty much have to do it, if you want any sort of community to build up around what you're doing, but on the other, you risk a lot of negativity on what is an official platform. *However* Much of all this is a problem of WG's own making, largely precipitated by their inadequate communications. To be clear, I don't think the folk we know on here are doing a bad job (generally, the reverse in fact), but rather people higher up the food chain: The root of the problem IMO is a lack of understanding of the EU/NA markets and how they expect to be treated; doesn't matter what you think of such expectations, but if you want to do business in these territories, you have to be mindful of them and conform to them - at least to some degree. Following on from that is the problem of language skills (full disclosure: whilst I generally speak/write very good English, I'm bloody awful at all other languages, so polylinguists have my utmost respect); WG need to have their copy written by people who fully understand the nuances of the language, and more specifically 'marketing-speak' in that language - this is the difference between 'give me a glass of water' and 'may I have a glass of water, please' i.e. same essential content, but very different impression given by each one. There appears to be a lack of understanding (accidental or wilful - I can't tell) of how people behave online, and this sometimes gets WG into trouble. For example, we all remember the Black Friday ships and the doubloons mission; all e-commerce folk know that customers rarely read every last detail of a product entry, so you need to put the really key stuff on the first page; WG buried the small print about the doubloon mission only applying if you had the vanilla version of the ship and we all know what happened. They then repeated the error with the second iteration a year later. IMO it is better to lose a few sales than to risk actively annoying your customers. There doesn't seem to be any more attention being paid to not messing up than usual at the moment, and this is despite a sequence of PR blunders which (as others have mentioned) makes the customer base less tolerant of subsequent mistakes, which leads to increased toxicity and so on. For example, elements of the customer base were already cynical about WG when the PR thing happened; the actual event itself was - objectively - pretty good (you could get decent rewards even if you played a bit; you got a T7 premium if you played a lot, and you got a T10 if you played more than was healthy, which seems fair enough to me) and rewarded you reasonably in proportion to how much you played/paid, but WG's lousy comms turned what should have been a decent success into an utter mess in terms of public relations. On a similar theme, the new Ikea DDs look to be a pretty good addition to the game (interesting, fun for some, and apparently not OP), but - again due to poor comms - all the focus has been on the 2 million free xp price for the freemium. WG should have been a lot clearer, more polite, and more transparent regarding the latter; I suspect the decision is a perfectly sensible one and backed up by decent numbers work, but the customer base won't know that because a) they're already very cynical b) WG didn't manage the comms such that the positive drowns out the negative. This all gets harder and harder with each subsequent muck-up. So, what do WG need to do about it? Better comms, tailored to the target market, written by people who are actually good at it. Play nicer/be more generous to the customer base until they've undone the damage, or at least enough of it. This doesn't mean throwing T10 premiums at everyone who whinges, but rather being less overtly money-grubbing for a few months. Unified sales/monetisation/marketing strategy such that all departments are talking effectively to each other and their activities are complementary, rather than self-sabotaging. Now would be a really good time for WG to sort this stuff out too - with all the virus-related shut downs and social distancing stuff, people will have a lot more time to play their games, and it would be helpful to the company if as many of them as possible came away with a favourable impression.

From timing, and context, I think it was a real request; that view being slightly supported by a fellow pointing out the lack of smoke, and the original requester responding with words to the effect of "Doh!". This. I'm finding the torps to be quite interesting to play with, as they are so different to more regular ones - I've been treating them almost like an intermediate attack form between guns and 'proper' torps. That said, you do a *lot* better with them if you have CE; I don't on my alt and it's been rather a struggle there. I think the main reason I'm enjoying the Ikea DDs is that they seem very 'immediate' i.e. things happen quickly, and require continuous attention to get the most out of them and to avoid the worst attentions of the opposition.

So, WG want us to focus less on future product and more on the present? <contemplates all the d**n submarine marketing all over the place, some of which gives the clear impression they're in the game already> Edit (18th March 2020): (Screen-grab from facebook a moment ago)

I've already had at least one request for smoke whilst out in Ikea DDs...!

What @DFens_666 said, plus you do get the occasional Sprint in between (although Sprints are more likely to be odd formats e.g. I think the last one was 1v1!). If your clan struggles to show up for Clans, perhaps think about switching to a more active one if you can't jolly people along in your existing clan (I think there is a two-day cool-down between leaving one clan, and joining the next).

A small addition: I've been using Visby this morning on my alt account (which lacks things like 10 point Ikea captains) and having CE does make a significant positive difference to Visby. She's still fun, but a lot harder to do well with, if you lack a 10 pointer.

I've mostly played the T5 so far - thought I might as well knock off the permaflage. From the perspective of someone rather tuberous (me), I've been doing okay with the T5 so far, but this is only T5 after all (although I was horribly uptiered a couple of times yesterday, it still wasn't a disaster); the plus points IMO: The turret layout; your lack of smoke means you do a lot of spotting-then-bravely-running-away, so having the majority of your guns facing backwards can be nice against at least some pursuers. Although the reload is a trifle on the long side, they do shoot reasonably straight which makes up for a lot of it. Annoying CVs - the AA isn't disastrous for the tier, and you're nimble enough that the ever helpful 'just dodge' is actually feasible against typical CV players you meet at the tier. As always, it's their spotting that's the real threat. Fast (for the tier) torps - I think my Visby is clocking 68.5 kts, or something like that. A good player can still evade, but they're the minority. I use the torps a bit more selectively though; with the anaemic alpha, one does have to make more effort with floods (including their slowing effect on enemies that may be within gunnery range of your allies). Nimble. You have the ability to play very 'actively' (which is probably just as well, given the lack of smoke); although your speed may leave a bit to be desired, you can make the enemy waste a lot of time and effort trying to shoot you, and failing miserably in a lot of cases. The crucial point that may well counter all that for the rest of the line is - of course - that T5 is not exactly a high threat environment (even for me), and so when you start meeting people that know what they're doing, and ships that are a more serious threat, it may well all go horribly sideways. That said, I'm optimistic that some use can be made of the T7's torps - mine are clocking in at an absurd 80 kts! FWIW my initial approach is to generally focus upgrades on torps, and use captain skills to prop up the dakka... This may all be a skill thing, of course; I suck in almost everything, so the difference between different boats in terms of results may well be less for me than for a competent player.

FWIW I don't often take TA, but I do have it in one or two places: I take it on Fubuki, as I can live with 8 km torps with that ship (although the point made earlier about radar on T8s is extremely well made; that said, it's hard to land torp hits at maximum range against a competent enemy, and I seem to do less badly with faster 8 km torps). I also use the same captain on Yudachi (which gives you 12 km torps with almost acceptable speed), and Asashio. Generally, I tend to agree with the sentiment expressed earlier that you *generally* only take TA on DDs with longer range torps to start with...

They're starting to grow on me, I must say. I'm starting to think about the torps as a bit like wildly flaky stealthy gunfire i.e. easier to hit with than 'regular' torps, but doing a lot less damage (isn't one torp typically similar damage to a handful of shell hits?). I'm starting to try a bit harder to get floods now too, to make up for the poor alpha. I don't think they'll ever be a line that everyone likes, but they are perhaps fun as an occasional alternative to more 'standard' DD lines

Depends on the ships you have available. Things with lots of secondaries (Tirpitz, MA etc.) and epic amounts of dakka (Smol, IJN guns DDs, Colbert etc.) did it for me. Don't forget that shatters count for ribbons too, so you just need shells on target.