Verblonde

Many thanks for the confirmation!

May I clarify: does this mean that if we buy any packages before the next patch, we will get the reduced doubloon amount initially, and then the 'missing' amount applied retrospectively after 0.7.6 goes live? i.e. we still have a few days to take advantage of the old methodology, should we wish?

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. As others have said, this means I'll probably spend less on the game; I have pretty much all the premium ships I need (and then some!), so less expensive doubloons was one thing that I opened my wallet for on a regular basis. I'm sure I'll still buy some doubloons, but my overall spend will drop as "f*ck it - it's cheap" no longer applies.

Fine beer in Prague, if my (rather hazy) memory serves me correctly...

Thems is all solid choices (I love the secondary build on my Shinyhorse, although I'm rubbish in it); Loyang will come in very handy in future seasons of ranked (assuming it carries on with T8 ships), especially if you can pick up the magic hydro mod from somewhere...

<chuckle> You're not wrong there! On balance, I prefer Leningrad to Sims, although the former could use some WD40 on the turrets; if you know about pre-aiming, Leningrad's guns are superior (making rainbows excepted), and the torps are more useful, plus the speed is glorious of course. I found Sims and Mahan to be fairly similar (I was running swimming mines on the latter too - 6.4 km range on the other torps is a bit short for my taste), so I sold Mahan fairly quickly - she's a fun ship though, if you don't have the Sims.

That's a bit harsh - apart from the torps (about the most nonchalant in the game - as if they would do something as *vulgar* as hurry towards the enemy - they sashay), she's rather fun. I found her a useful US DD gunnery trainer, as you pretty much have to use the guns; DefAA can occasionally give someone a nasty surprise; plus, you never know - you *might* even hit someone with the torps!

Warspite - well, because she's Warspite, of course. I quite like Gallant too, although she really benefits from a 10 pt captain (to get you CE, which makes a big difference). For the French, Dunk is fun (although opinions on her merits, erm, vary) - she has the advantage of being able to angle, and still keep all her guns on target. De Grasse is quite worthwhile too - decent torps and superior fire starter. Japanese: slightly odd, as a lot of the lower tier ships are hard/time-consuming to get (Shinonome), or almost impossible (Kamikaze). Higher tier, Atago is excellent, and Harekaze is splendid too (especially if you have a 14 point captain). Asashio is a hoot if you're facing lots of BBs, but is a bit hopeless otherwise (and it helps to have a specialised captain for her too)... Not very experienced on the BBs, Mutsu is fun, if a bit eccentric with her torps.

As others have said, I would also suggest avoiding going above whatever level of silver ship you are comfortable playing; if you ignore that view, and do it anyway, I would urge you to play whatever you get in coop mode until your skill/experience levels catch up (for example, my MO almost never sees anything other than coop, because my US BB skills are nowhere near T9 standards for randoms). Suggest identifying what sort of ships you enjoy playing most, and/or are best with, and maybe get a similar premium. For example, Tirpitz is splendid, but if you stink at BBs (especially German ones) it will just cause frustration; Atago is glorious, but only if you know how to use Japanese cruisers, and so on... It's also helpful if you can use your premiums to train the captains from your silver ships (for example, I'm switching my Gneis captain between that ship and the Shinyhorse, to make maximum use of the daily x2 - or whatever it is), especially if they are sympathetic in terms of captain skills. Note that a few premiums benefit from having a specialised captain to get the most out of them - the wiki and LWM's reviews usually highlight this stuff.

My first will probably be the Japanese DD (I currently have the T9), or maybe the lighter Russian DD (I used the rental in the last clan season, and rather liked it); it's just a question of having the time to play enough before the next season starts... This, of course, assumes my clan will need me (I suspect I'm about the worst player we have!).

@Koruption Very nice spreadsheet work, sir - as a keen observer of such things, I salute you! Now, all I need is to get my first T10(s), and the sheer glory of how much I suck will become fully apparent...!

Presumably, it also has to do with a more mature player base i.e. even a year ago, fewer people had completed the grind to Tier 10? I'm somewhere near my first T10, and I don't think I've been playing a year yet; assuming the player base has grown (Steam release etc.), and most people are a bit more diligent than I am, the number of potential T10 players should have increased. Also, with Ranked requiring T10s, and the upcoming clan thing, there is now a stronger motivation to play T10 too (plus, with Ranked finished, a potential sump for T10 ships has gone)...?

I'm rather glad I already have Indianapolis (got her for the Sharkbait memes ages ago) - means I can relax a bit, and ignore the painful grind for the most part. This is good: encourages me to get my tubby posterior out in the fresh air more...

Isn't Z39 a T7? Apropos Cossack release date, we *might* see her for the 'June 8 – 15. Battle of Narvik' thing mentioned in the June overview, I suppose?

<pulls up comfy chair and a nice large cold drink>

Mine's 89.48% at time of writing! I think there are a couple of reasons (besides me sucking, of course): part of it is playing ships of far too high a tier for my skill level; most of it though is that I'm in a damn silly time-zone, so sometimes I'm the only non-bot player around - under such circumstances, a win is rather less certain than when the majority of your team are real people. So, as to the original question, I would leave standard coop roughly as it is, but perhaps add a 'scary' mode where the number of bots is 1.5 or 2 times the number of real people playing - that might be interesting enough for people? It would also have the merit of getting people more used to efficiently engaging multiple targets (I struggle with this sometimes)...?

Speaking as one of the worst BB players under the known sky, I find some of the German ones quite forgiving at this stage in my learning (so far, anyway); they tend to be most dangerous at mid-to-close ranges, and their armour (turtleback) similarly works better as you get closer. Some of them have phenomenal secondaries too, which means you can at least start some fires, even if you can't shoot straight with your main guns! All that stuff that orientates you towards closer ranged play does also mean it's easier to resist the BB malady of heading for the borders and 'sniping' from there...

I suggest the solution may be to add more old folks, prone to senior moments, to the player base. In my case, I can rarely remember which bits of the campaigns I have activated (except the 'be top three in xp, and win'), which makes it harder to deliberately chase whatever the missions are. On the other hand, my mere presence in a team does reduce the likelihood of winning, due to a distressing lack of git gud, which does counter that argument rather... Being a bit more sensible, don't most of the component missions for the campaigns generally require one to contribute something useful to your team to get them (I *think* I have one active at the moment that calls for lots of capping, for example)?

Is there not a case to be made for having radars, from a rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock perspective? Driving things like Harekaze (fully tooled up for being sneaky), you're extremely difficult to spot; isn't the stealth torp window about 4.6 km for those things? That's before you even consider smoke. It does seem sporting that the opponent should have a short-term ability to negate that; several opponents even...?

I must be lucky all the time; I'm not very good against radar, so tend to notice it (a lot) - if anything, I should be moaning a lot about radar, as it often messes me up badly when I encounter it. I suppose it could just be that I've happened to be on the flank where the radar ships didn't go, and they got sunk by my team-mates before they could zap me. I should mention, I've only played a few hours since the US cruisers changes were implemented (well, the initial set); that may well have increased the numbers of radars, and it hasn't bitten me yet...

I must be getting lucky with MM - I rarely have to deal with more than a couple of radar ships (and zero isn't uncommon); that said, I did get a game last night(?) where I was facing a pair of MOs, and a Chappy (I think) - that didn't go terribly well...

Isn't it about two clicks to switch off the anime stuff? I think I found the option by mistake whilst trying to switch something else on, ages ago... That doesn't strike me as excessively arduous.

First, I would echo others' sentiments about not rushing up the tiers - it's generally wiser to go wide, rather than focus on getting high tiers quickly. Play lots of different ships of many different classes; this will help you find the ships/classes that you enjoy most, as well as gaining valuable experience vis-a-vis potential opponents' strengths and weaknesses. Don't forget as well that you get protected MM up to, and including T4 i.e. you will only face opponents one tier higher than you (at worst); T5 and above get +/-2 MM, so your T5s will be sometimes up against T7s, and so on. Apropos premiums: I feel that one (or more) premiums are very useful to have, because they generate a lot more silver than regular ships, and allow you to train captains from your regular ships too. They don't generate any more free xp (as far as I know) than equivalent silver ships though, so they won't help you advance any faster (apart from allowing you to afford more stuff sooner), unless you spend real money, via doubloons, to convert the xp on your premiums to free xp. It's a good idea to only buy premiums that are at roughly the same level as you've already played in silver ships, so don't buy Tirpitz (say) if you're still messing about at T2 in silver ships (if you go and do it anyway, I'd strongly suggest playing unsuitably high tier premiums in coop mode only). One of the nice things about WOWS is that there are plenty of fun ships to be played at almost every tier, and quite a few of the historically significant ships are mid tier, making it actually fun to linger at lower levels for a while. If you are finding a particular silver ship hard work, and want to get to the next one as soon as possible, you probably want a premium account, and to make use of xp bonus camo and flags - this will make the grind go faster. That said, not sucking is even better, as you'll make more silver and xp if you stay in the battle for longer, and make a bigger impression (and, when you learn how - let me know!)...

I don't understand the original question: the collections are *extra* free stuff; you're not losing anything to get the components - why whinge? It also happens that at least some of it has interesting historical information included, and some of the bits you can win are quite worthwhile (Jack Dunkirk from the eponymous collection, cosmetic stuff e.g. extra flag, pretty camo, alternative colour schemes, and so on). So, you're getting something useful/fun, and not paying, or losing, anything for it. Sounds like that's a Good Thing to me...

Glad things are improving; keep at it, and it'll almost certainly get even better with further experience gains. +1 to the don't sell Warspite (or beat yourself up for buying her): you're only at 137 battles, at time of writing; once you get a bit more experience under your belt, you'll start to appreciate her - I don't particularly like BBs in general, but Warspite is rather more fun than many...