Verblonde

Not just you, from what I read over the year - this is the key issue with the gambling crates; for every silly bugger like me that gets lucky (in this case - I didn't do well at all with the recent RN cruisers thing, but did fine over Xmas), there will be someone that doesn't. The main problem with all this stuff is that WG don't publish the odds, or give any solid indication if different ships have different chances of being dropped (I would be amazed if the chance of getting Roma, say, was the same as for Krispy Kreme) beyond that 'rare' ships are much more unlikely...

I'm not a weeb, but I'm pretty sure I could be persuaded to buy at least one or two, if it is true (and if the offer isn't entirely idiotic, of course)...

No idea what the real probability is, but FWIW I (being whale/idiot) I bought the 20 crate bundle, and got all three. I'm fairly sure I was very 'lucky' (depending on your view of the new ships) though... I assume the freebies have the traditional laughably low chances that we know and love (?).

Apart from two of the current ones, I don't think they're *that* bad: Loyang is Benson, of course, although her characteristics make her play differently. Huanghe is unique. Silly is unique (technically, although she's a lot like Ognovoi). Irian is a clone of MK, but I'm not too upset about that since MK was removed from sale (and it is a real ship). Wukong and Baiji are daft, but I categorise them similarly to the dragon ships etc. That said, I don't really mind clones, as long as each new one brings something new to the game (variety is good) e.g. Black, Feltcher, and the PA one are all basically the same ship, but all have different play styles.

There are a couple of common possibilities: Long shell flight times: something at range can fire at you while you're spotted and the shells not arrive until after you went dark again. Blind fire: sometimes players will lob shells into an area where they think you are (especially just after you went dark); sometimes they get lucky/guess correctly. Shooting at tracers: similar to blind fire, only you're aiming at the source of gunfire when a target is firing (most often if someone is in smoke). Also, don't forget dispersion etc. a BB, say, can fire into an area blind and the sheer random nature of at least some of their rounds may well hit you square on the head!

Same reason as the other pan-whatever nations - an easy way to get some interesting ships in the game without having to produce 90% made-up trees...

Silly would have been interesting (even if I'm pretty sure Loyang is rather better) as it's a real ship, plus I'm a sucker for DDs generally. However, I'm not keen to open my wallet for something that may well get effectively heavily nerfed in about a fortnight (depending on what happens with the new anti-torp upgrade); 29 UKP (versus 23 and change for Loyang) for two weeks of 'fully leaded' gameplay sounds like a poor spend to me... Edit: because I'm a colossal idiot, I bought some of the gamble crates. Predictably, I got all three...! Oh well, better a) learn to play them and b) hope like hell not too many people take the new upgrade...!

There's been at least one 75 doubloons promo since I've been playing FWIW...

+1 It's a damned nuisance. I would be (relatively) mellow about it if, after the first view of the port, it changed to something that didn't indicate 'newness'. Look WG, my IQ is (barely) above that of a concussed garden snail - permanently having an 'ooo, look new and shiny' icon isn't going to make even me waste money on PR...

No luck over here still - think I'll go and do something else instead...

Yes, please! It ought to be two though - apparently it's unkind to keep guinea pigs on their own...

Thus my personal cunning plan is summarised nicely...

Broke over here (Canada) too...

Playing my currently cursed Yugumo and running into a forumite (@illy in his Buffalo) was always going to be a recipe for disaster - needless to say, the team I was on got a spanking. Right, if anyone needs me, I'll be at the nearest volcano chucking virgins into the caldera to appease the - clearly angry - gods...

This. I don't believe I've heard a single whinge about any of the others...?

Or just gone with a percentage increase to the distance that torps are spotted with the module - I suspect they didn't because multiplying by 1.1 (or whatever) takes more brain cells than the target audience for the module may have...?

Not a chance - a fart would have a greater chance of surviving a hurricane...! You never know though: WG *might* have learned something from the PR debacle vis-a-vis honest communications (although it's most likely "we can be as sketchy as we like and *still* the money rolls in", based on the number of PRs I've seen in game)...!

I trust there will be an enormous warning in the text trying to persuade people to pay money for aforementioned new DWT ships (launching tomorrow), to the effect of 'you have two weeks or so before a potential nerf hits these things'...? Surely, to do otherwise would be misleading/dishonourable, even by WG's recent standards?

Dunno yet - I was slightly surprised to find I have the old one on Kii the other day (probably a male-chicken-up on my part, partly informed by my almost never using her in Randoms). That said, as has been observed several times already, forum denizens are not the typical player base. My feeling is that the module will have a disproportionate impact because a lot of players may not understand the vision mechanics (and/or ranges - witness how many hydros get triggered way before there is the slightest possibility of something to detect), so will pick it over concealment. If that happens, anything with DWT (Asashio especially) is a lot more boned than might be expected from reading the forum. I find it bleakly ironic that WG are launching two shiny new ships with DWT (for money) a mere couple of weeks before this module goes live too...

Karma is indeed utter b*llocks; mine goes up and down more or less entirely independently of how badly I'm playing...!

I would be a lot more tempted if a module wasn't about to be released that *may* be an unpleasant nerf... That one has the merit of being actually real, for a start.

Well, that sucks. YY was already an uphill struggle; this may well make it ridiculous - depending on uptake rates for the new module. I'm trying to be philosophical about this: when the early parts of the reework made IJN torp boats unplayable, I just dropped them and switched to something else; at worst, this'll be similar, just for the PA ships. I suppose this provides another good reason to avoid the new premium DD that they'll be trying to sell us tomorrow or Friday...

I like Coop too, in small doses. There are several reasons that I still play the mode (in no particular order): Warm-up battles first thing (along with Ops). Trying out new ships. Playing ships that I'm simply not good enough in to not be a liability against real people. Missions (which is probably the single biggest contributor to my number of Coop games these days). I don't play Coop exclusively though...

To be fair, the DD is real, albeit (to my eyes) not worth having over Loyang...

That's not enough to have much of a chance at T7, alas; WOWS is unlike a lot of games in that you can't simply go at it with fast reactions and expect to get away with it, regardless of tier. At higher tiers, you have a more powerful ship for sure, but then so do the enemy, and said enemy probably have better captains than you do at the moment, not to mention a lot more experience. If you've already paid money for ships, then clearly you like the basic smell of the game; to get the most out of it though, I suggest it would be sensible to step back a few paces. Some pointers: Have a butchers at the wiki (https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships) if you haven't found it yet - it's got a lot of invaluable information of varying degrees of accuracy (usually pretty high). iChase's Captains Academy (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoRQa0D7yVpc05KETkgPsyZHIRZd980cO) series is well worth a look. Be mindful that CVs/AA changed out of all recognition about a year ago, so older films on that subject may be redundant. Play as many ship types/nations as you can; there are a couple of reasons for this - for a start, it makes it easier to learn what they can/cannot do, and what they're trying to do to you. Also, there are skills that work across multiple classes, that are easier to master in one class over another. With a couple of caveats, don't rush up the tiers; WOWS is quite good at introducing various new elements in semi-logical stages as you go up the tiers, and you'll do better if you don't jump stages. If you do jump straight to - say - T7, then you have to learn to deal with hydro, radar, and other stuff all at the same time, which will suck. As to the caveats, you usually need T5+ to do missions, plus there are a lot of T4 CVs around at the moment, and T3 (particularly) AA is largely nonexistent. Learn about captains (https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Commander); they make a very significant difference, when suitably skilled (and your opponents will usually have good ones at higher tiers). With a bit of +/- you generally want at least a 10 point captain from T5 onwards (i.e. when you're into the +2 MM bracket), most usually because that's the soonest you can get the CE skill. Learn how to maximise your income/rewards (https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Economy) and how the economy works in general - you'll have a more comfortable time of it. Short version: do as much damage as possible (so, surviving as long as possible is good), and ideally high proportions of ship's hp i.e. 10K damage to a DD is better than the same damage to a BB, say. Join a clan, ideally one that's happy to teach. Besides accelerating your rate of learning, most established clans have a reasonably developed base, and that grants you bonuses to things like xp/silver/coal etc. There's plenty of other stuff, but that's a starter for ten...