Verblonde

This is very pertinent. In my own line of work (not video games!), we're having fun trying to work out which bits of the last several years' trends are down to covid, and which bits are down to something else entirely. While I despise the current implementation of submarines (and generally avoid modes that have them in), I am still playing. Regardless, I'm only one person, and the only people with access to entirely accurate data are WG themselves, and they're hardly likely to broadcast it. So, the apparent dip in player numbers might be real, or it might not be; it might also be because WG - were they an ice-cream flavour - would be Pralines & Richard (for forcing submarines on us), or it could just be because WOWS is an old title, and all old titles eventually decline anyway...

Thanks for this discussion, everyone: since T10s have become less desirable (SC nerf), I've been wondering about filling in some T9 gaps in my collection, and Hector caught my eye...

The 'ignore' button is your friend...

I don't know if this is 'shark attacks and ice-cream consumption' (or even accurate), but still: https://twitter.com/flamuchz/status/1660695502311047170?s=20

I thought WG had fixed this for cammo obtained after the split? Why they couldn't be 4rsed to do it for the existing ones is a mystery...

Thanks for this - I hadn't really registered that CVs can't effectively pull the same trick as regular ships...

Do you play any 'normal' classes (BB, cruisers, or DD)? You know when a submarine is at periscope depth and you can still shoot it with main guns/secondaries - do the same thing only with your air-dropped weaponry.

What can I say? Despite all my better instincts, I still have a shred of delusional optimism left...!

The problem with hybrids - from a DD's perspective - isn't (IMO) the direct damage from the planes, but rather the spotting. Luckily, from what I've seen, the bulk of the player base don't really comprehend this, so any spotting is often by accident - they're too busy trying to do damage with the planes. Sucks when such a player is on your side, but there it is...

To be honest, when I saw this sort of thing first appearing on the forum, I thought it must be a wind-up: surely nobody's that dumb...? I haven't played Randoms since submarines were forced on us, but last week (I think) - in Ranked - I saw a Kearsage doing precisely that! I'm a sensitive soul - I really didn't need the tattered remnants of my faith in humanity crushed quite that mercilessly...

What are your conclusions so far? I was lazy: I think I just plonked standard US BB modules on mine, and forgot about them (although, it probably matters less for me, as I generally don't play BBs much against real people)...

I thought the conventional wisdom was to build Kearsage as a standard BB, and view the planes as a minor bonus? Or are you doing experiments with the Battle Pass free dismounts?

I would urge not selling anything from about Tier 5 upwards, and certainly not T8+: when you sell a ship, you only get half its value back in silver. That's very wasteful, especially at higher tiers; besides that, in the medium term, you periodically get events that are often referred to as 'snowflakes' (after the relevant icons from the original iteration) and these involve getting rewards for each - usually - T5+ ship that you have in port. The imminent super container nerf devalues these a bit (for T10, or whatever gets them), but they still provide an argument in favour of keeping your ships. If you find silver is giving you trouble, it's worth reviewing how you actually earn silver; sensible target selection (which often coincides with what you should be doing to win) can have a dramatic effect on earnings. Start here: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Economy The short version though is that you're interested in proportional damage, not absolute numbers i.e. doing - say - 1,000 hp of damage to something small (a DD, say) will be better rewarded than doing an identical amount of damage to something tubbier like a BB. Luckily, the way to win is usually to blast the opposing small ships first (DDs first, then cruisers, especially if they have radar, and so on)... The other thing to do is join a clan, especially if they have people happy to teach. Besides all the learning and social benefits, if a clan has a reasonably well developed base, you'll get a bunch of valuable economic bonuses too.

I'd rather wave my Joy Department around in front of a hungry monkfish: (That's a 'no', for the avoidance of doubt...)

Perhaps think in terms of a testimonial - in a similar manner to the sort of thing done at some sports clubs, to celebrate a distinguished member?

Smaland is great (she's one of my favourite ships), but 2 million absolutely was a rip-off. Not that it stopped me getting her! The increase in prices for free xp ships (and now the switch to RB ships) has always been about trying to remove as much free xp from the economy as possible. Now, someone remind me (memory not what it was, etc.): who put the extra free xp in the system in the first place...?

I'm not a CV aficionado, but isn't this rather like asking which STD is superior...?

FWIW, my two-penneth: Hayate is *not* worth 2 million (Smaland wasn't either, but she was less not worth it, if you get what I mean). Her value - as any T10 - has also dropped slightly recently, with the nerfing of super containers (although this is a marginal consideration IMO). You can perhaps make a case for Azuma being worth 1 million, although - of course - she does suffer from T9 MM now that superships are so prevalent. This assumes you can generate coal relatively painlessly; if you struggle in this regard, that maybe increases the sense of getting free xp ships before they go. The value of RB ships will depend on how good a fit they are for you; several of the options are 'interesting' rather than 'optimal'. You could, of course, do a mixture of both. The Haragumo line (the cheapest) end-to end comes in at 676,390 xp (ref: https://wowsft.com/research), so you've got more than nine complete re-sets there. It's generally a good idea to maximise x2 reset bonuses (personally, unless you have zero patience, I'd suggest never doing a reset without a x2 in place), so there's a good chance that you could get at least one of the free xp ships without doing serious damage to your rate of RB ship acquisition. Final note: WG never do anything that's in the players' interests (at least, not deliberately); it's worth bearing in mind that any change - like removing free xp ships - will be being done for WG's benefit. I haven't done the maths, but I assume that RB ships will be more expensive, in terms of pure free xp, than equivalent free xp ones - can anyone else confirm/deny this supposition?

She's a historical ship, so I went and had a look at the bundles (I'm often a shameless whale, to my embarrassment): as far as I can tell, the contents of the things you get when you don't get lucky and don't get the ship (or pretty cammo, if you like that) are pretty pants. If there was a simple 'ship only' option, I'd probably be persuaded, but as things are - I'll wait until she falls out of a Satan Box at Christmas...

Rather splendidly, thank you - made the 'do I return to the UK?' question infinitely easier to answer. ("Hells, no!" being the answer, for the avoidance of doubt.)

Well, clearly - doesn't everyone have a butler to interact with the internet for them...?

Apparently, this is indeed the case. A while ago, I saw some distraught posts on social media from younger folk who were in some distress, having had to explain what the word meant to their (generally) old and respectable parents/grandparents after a particular hashtag got attached to the Prince of Wales, and said hashtag drew the interest of said old and respectable folk...

Giving the recent shuffling of jobs, there might be some trouble here humour-wise too: HMS Prince of P3gging (whatever that may be) would almost certainly be the immediate nickname...

*Please* WG - make this happen! Thinking about it, would it not be a fine idea to make such a captain dual nation too: UK and Germany...?

True, but can you imagine the sport to be had if WG did do something to honour Chas 3 - the republican brouhaha from the various Commonwealth countries that he's also been made king of might well be glorious...!