El2aZeR

Ranking out is a grind, it has nothing to do with balance.

Or perhaps you refuse to do so as it would actually defeat your point? Let me ask you something, if someone wins a direct gun duel in a Shimakaze against a full health Kleber because the Kleber cannot aim, has never heard of WASD and is generally incompetent or alternatively detonates, does that mean that Shimakaze will normally win gun duels against Klebers now? If your method relies on the incompetence of your enemy or complete RNG, it is not counterplay. It is praying that the enemy is incompetent. In my experience HVARs spray all over the place in an extremely unreliable fashion. Likewise TiTs deal the same or more damage in most situations, can far more easily attack even from inside DD concealment thanks to a shorter attack prep time, do not care about angle due to the vertical dispersion and on bigger DDs can easily cut down over 10k HP in a single pass. This is in addition to their superior utility against other classes which makes them the superior option. Precisely. A skill based contest can only happen if both sides actually have active input in it. They didn't, actually. 0.8.0.2 nerfed the highest amount of AA for a minuscule bit (like ~50 DPS or something equally insignificant) while BUFFING weaker AA fairly significantly, which basically means both 0.8.0.1 and 0.8.0.2 were AA buffs. There was no "backing off" whatsoever. AA also didn't change much at all up until 0.8.5. Practically speaking that means 0.8.0.2 and 0.8.4 had the same AA. To label one as "too strong" and the other as "fine" is a contradiction in itself. Testing has revealed that sector reinforcement in general will lead to a grand total of 1 extra plane shot down for ships with good AA while denying no amount of strikes that wouldn't have been previously denied. DFAA has likewise proven equally worthless even in combination unless the enemy CV catches flak. Grouping with others needs to be done to such an extreme extend to have any impact on amount of strikes flown that it practically forfeits the match. Not to mention you need to do it out in the open where no cover is available for the CV. And finally plane losses are just overall negligible. Please, what impact is there? This https://www.youtube.com/user/TheChivGaming/videos is your channel, right? I see a single video about the rework there. It is a simple breakdown of the preview that WG showed to reveal the CV rework. I don't see any gameplay from testing. Perhaps point me towards a specific video? Though I guess I could just spare you the effort and disprove you instead: See how the HP of the bombers doesn't deplete? See how there is no fighter consumable for the CV? Oh, and if you look in the comments you'll see that one of your new buddies even labeled this as balanced. Ahh, nevermind. Misread that. My bad. Well, that's too bad then, because during testing it was incredibly easy to snipe CVs. What WG says and what they do are two entirely different things. I mean, if someone's reasoning to dislike me is because I pointed out that it is stupid to take secondary skills over plane skills in a CV on the basis that rushing a DD to kill him with secondaries is more efficient than using planes for it, then by all means I don't mind.

Again, you're welcome to demonstrate supposedly working counterplay options which do not rely on the enemy CV being terrible or on praying to RNGesus. So far I have seen none. Try actually attacking and letting the reticle reach maximum accuracy. I also recommend changing your perspective a bit to minimize distortion. Then report back. Which you can surely judge after having played a single match on EU? Though since you seem so insistent on single sources, yo @Bear_Necessities, is blobbing somehow more effective or common on NA than it is over here? RPS is a fixed system in which one type inevitably loses out to one and wins over the other regardless of skill as you have already explained. A counterplay based system provides a player with viable alternatives to turn any given negative situation into a positive one. Basic example: If there is an enemy torp DD in the area, you can preemptively WASD to make their torps miss. Or to counterplay radar as a DD you have to maintain minimap awareness. Because WoWs is a team game that employs asymmetric classes, what options you have available is also dependent on what class you play. This means sometimes your only viable counterplay option is to let your teammate in another class deal with the issue. If said teammate then isn't skilled enough to employ counterplay options that are available to him to deal with said issue you're simply out of luck, making skill the primary deciding factor in the outcome of a match. There is no "potato BB will inevitably win over unicum cruiser because potato is using a BB" as an RPS system would imply. And as it stands reworked CV players have no counterplay options regardless of skill of the surface ship player. The only thing that can shut them down is themselves. Given that 1. AA DPS wasn't a thing 2. CV CAP wasn't a thing 3. fighters took so long to aggro you could cross the entire circle safely 4. CVs had old fire and flooding durations which was incredibly easy to exploit due to auto DCP 5. CV aircraft were generally more powerful, faster and far more sturdy in every way yeah, somehow I seriously doubt that. Unless ofc you flew into flak all the time at which point it was your own fault for not being able to pull it off, really. First you tell us that devs made sure that CV sniping would never become a thing again. Now you're telling us that devs actively promoted CV sniping during testing. So what is it now? Oh yeah, I can probably guess who they are. To say that none of them enjoy a credible reputation here on the forums would be an understatement but that's ofc entirely off topic.

The skill of the surface ship doesn't matter. Do try to read, please. You do realize Midway HVAR reticle is completely circular and as such angling doesn't matter to begin with? Although I am rather shocked anyone would still use Midway HVARs to begin with. Neither of which has any impact on your play since your reserves over time vastly exceed both numbers. You're mistaking a counterplay based system, something widely employed in a multitude of games, for RPS which has indeed never held any value in WoWs. And ofc in your focus on RPS which was never a topic to begin with you have failed to invalidate any of my points. First of all, I've never seen anyone defend CV sniping. Second, CV sniping was back full force during rework testing. It wasn't until later adjustments that it was no longer deemed viable. To say that WG made absolutely sure this wasn't possible in the rework anymore is laughable at best. You seem to assume that we have insufficient knowledge of previous iterations as can be seen by you telling us that RTS CVs had over 120 reserve slots. Your assumption is wrong. Just stop. I fail to see how what I want or what WG wants matters to an objective balancing discussion?

Nothing prevents the enemy CV to simply cancel out your own fighter, meaning it is completely wasted.

You should know the answer, really. I mean, there are players who have <10k avg damage in ships like Belfast despite hundreds of battles played. Sounds unbelievable, I know. Something being overpowered does not necessarily mean it is easy to use. That's the skill floor, not potential power.

Even if you manage to replicate it, why does that matter? Because clearly all that will have happened is that the enemy CV was too incompetent to dodge flak. That is not you outplaying the CV or anything similar, it is the enemy CV outplaying himself. Nothing is balanced under the assumption that the player is incompetent, which is also why averages are largely meaningless. What is the 2/3rd method? Do you mean always shortening your squad at the start despite not knowing the situation? That's actually terrible play. Slingshot with Midway is often unnecessary at this point. AA strength is so laughable and reserves so vast that it simply isn't needed in most situations. I rarely use it on Midway nowadays. It has far more value on Haku as she doesn't have nearly as much HP on her planes. Given current AA strength reserves are practically unlimited. You really have to try pretty hard to not have any kind of viable squad available at any moment. Who cares? You'll be back within 30-60 seconds, equal to one or two reload cycles of a BB depending on how close you are. Unless you catch flak, at which point it's your own fault, planes you lost will have regenerated. The DD has no impact on you whatsoever while you have potentially denied any further effective impact on the match on his part. Which in itself is a fallacy as balance inherently ignores skill, as skill is what is largely supposed to decide the confrontation. Now the way this works in an asymmetric class based system is that generally in a direct confrontation one side will win out assuming basic competence. E.g. a BB will lose to a DD. This is fine because this is (supposed to be) a team based game, deficiencies one class has will be made up for by others, enabling and promoting both skill and teamplay. E.g. a cruiser using island cover or smoke while a DD teammate is spotting will win out against a BB. And here comes the CV. Any other class that goes into a direct confrontation with a CV loses out, no exception. Even small groups that go into a confrontation against a CV lose. The moment a group becomes large enough so that it doesn't lose to a CV is also the moment it becomes ineffective against the majority of other tactics other classes employ, thus the CV wins regardless. Tactics and good positioning for certain classes is outright denied by a CV. Tactics and strategies that have previously worked are now either worthless (AA skills, AA in general, DFAA, grouping), can be countered by the CV itself (slingshot, accel bailout, island cover, fighter cheese) or have even become misplays (using island cover, staying near or inside long range AA). And perhaps worst of all, a CV is actively discouraged from interacting with its own class, meaning it exists solely to destroy the other classes which is practically griefing. This is the fundamental concept of the CV rework. And because the rework simply does not work without CVs being able to do these things it is irrecoverably broken.

No, because balance based on averages is a terrible concept prone to hilarious failure as this game has proven time and time again. I mean, it's honestly kinda cute how you try to present max plane kills as a representative statistic. You do realize every time I would cancel out an Atago fighter I'm gifting said Atago up to 10 plane kills? Which have no impact on my reserves whatsoever? Given that fighters and flak exist, the former inflating plane kills while the latter shuts down the average CV player, plane kills is an absolutely worthless stat. Flambass just streamed today, for some reason he constantly spawns fighters over enemy ships. Does that suddenly mean because e.g. an Akatsuki once managed to shoot down 30 flimsy fighters which were placed to spot above him that Akatsuki AA has somehow been buffed to be really strong? Likewise I could post a screenshot in which an afk Yugumo managed to wipe out the entire strike of my potato teammate. Does that mean Yugumo AA is strong now? Have you even remotely thought your words through?

No it doesn't. It speaks volumes about how terrible the average CV player is.

Don't worry, Midway is gonna get buffed in a couple hours so your experience becomes even more fun. (I'm not joking btw.)

Says the guy trying to patronize others about things you clearly have no clue about.

Again, I have already proven you wrong. Again, how about you deliver some proof? Attack some group with similar AA, don't catch flak, have them all use SR and the Myoko DFAA. Show me how you do not get two attacks off with TBs and pretty much murder the Myoko while returning faster than you ever could in the RTS iteration. If you cannot, then that means you're simply wrong, no?

Remember when WG once told us they didn't want to give us the Graf Spee missions because they want us to spend time with our families on Christmas? Yeah... Maybe we shouldn't have whined that hard back then.

Except it isn't when comparing current iteration to latest RTS iteration, aka what is relevant. Trying to subvert the narrative is laughable at best. I have delivered proof, I have yet to see you do the same.

Yes it can. No they cannot. No it does not. I have already proven multiple times that weak AA is even weaker than before. How about you show us some proof? Hint: Your feelings on the matter are irrelevant.

Pretty sure nothing would have changed the match outcome but there are a couple of things you can improve.

Base concealment is calculated by height, not by length/width/whatever. Compared to BBs and even some cruisers CVs are actually pretty small as they don't have need for a huge tower with rangefinders on them, therefore they get the concealment that they have.

WG also once told us that we were just too stupid to use GZ and should just git gud. Or that invis flak is working as intended. That statement only came after it murdered the playerbase. Ofc they would say it was a mistake given that they've practically already admitted they are going to buff CVs if they become unpopular even if it is not in the interest of balance. Skilled CV players generally acknowledged that 0.8.5 made CV play more balanced. Alright, now you're just lying. Almost all RTS CVs had below 100 aircraft total capacity. The only CV to exceed that was Midway at 136, later nerfed down to 116. But that is only total capacity. A large portion of reserves was filled by fighters which have no utility whatsoever against surface ships. This means a Midway at 136 planes reserves "only" had 90 slots filled with TBs and DBs. This is about the same amount of reserves a reworked Shokaku can realistically get in a match nowadays. If you want proof, I'm more than happy to deliver you screenshots from the CN client. Thank god it still exists so that people like you can't pull numbers out of nowhere, eh? Ahahahahahaha, no. Unless you die to flak ofc, but then you're just bad. Otherwise there are pretty easy ways to limit losses and still get an effective strike in against which surface ships can literally do nothing about. You see, the CV actually has counterplay options to what surface ships can do funnily enough. The surface ships meanwhile have no options left at that point whatsoever. This inherently skews any confrontation in favor of the CV. A bad CV player dies pretty much instantly the moment he enters any AA due to flak. He will not scare anything away, he will not provide intel for more than a couple of seconds, he will not deal damage. This means he actually performs worse than he would have during RTS. Except there is no one better than me, at least on this server. I know everything there needs to be known about reworked CV play. Most of what the other CV players here know is because of me. I HAVE adapted and do focus on winning. You meanwhile refuse to adapt, clinging to some weird notion that attempting to "teamplay" does not shaft your team in reworked CV play. This is not me bragging, it's a simple fact according to maplesyrup. So because Enterprise is a premium ship it does not fall under how WG balances the game OVERALL? Clearly you have no idea about how balancing her went down and why she received severe buffs despite being extremely strong in the first place, which in the end reflects how utterly stupid any system that balances around averages actually is. Saipan, Kaga and Ark are plenty strong. GZ is only terrible in comparison, as a standalone ship she is still viable. You're basically saying that the only premium ship worth buying is the overpowered T10 one in disguise. Are you actually for real? As for your video, all I see is some extremely incompetent CV failing to kill you while your more competent CV murders the opposition. You're literally proving my point about bad CV players. You make it sound like it is you dodging when in reality it is just the enemy CV failing horrendously. It's terrible. It takes RTS Enterprise TBs at 133kn speed about 3 seconds to cross 1km ingame. It took GZ planes at ~250kn boost about 1 1/2 seconds to cross 1km ingame. 250kn is almost double 133kn. The math checks out. I'm well aware that GZ planes traveled at mach 2. I was the one who calculated that. What you're talking about is not a limitation, it is one of the biggest advantages CVs hold over surface ships. Frankly if it were in my own interest I would actually argue for retaining the status quo. I play pretty much only CVs nowadays because it is fun taking a dump all over everyone without anything they can do about it.

Why would he need to look for you? He will see you once he moves to strike whatever you're clinging to, then know where you are the entire time. Only if it is the last attack wing. Which given some basic foresight of how many escorting planes you sacrifice will never come into play. Except the concept itself is flawed. This can easily be seen by patch 0.8.5 which has been the most balanced reworked CVs have ever been, yet it completely murdered their playerbase because the average playerbase could no longer succeed with anything. With any workable concept playability and balance are not contradictory. Which is no longer a given considering post 0.8.7 AA effectiveness and overall reserves. Reworked CVs vastly exceed RTS ones in the strike reserves they field already, that AA is overall weaker as well just adds the icing on the cake. This "drawback" inconsequential as you're practically never in danger of running out of planes. A bad CV player is for all intents and purposes afk. To be fair this applies to pretty much every class but it is particularly painful with CVs as they are the most influential one by far. The amount of AA needed to deny CV strikes is so high that the team which attempts to do it automatically cripples itself by giving up map control, which means a skilled CV player actually has to do nothing but exist to create a gigantic advantage for their team. This is not counterplay, it is throwing the match. They don't. Trying to provide fighter cover is actively trying to lose the match. They were useless if you knew how to deal with them. Didn't make them well designed either way tho. Enterprise was balanced around averages. 'nuff said. Do tell. So far nothing has worked against me. Planes and ships (still) move at the same time compression. Reworked CV planes were and still are just plain faster. I'm well aware of what reworked CVs were capable of in testing as I was part of it.

Isn't that what I've written? CVs are supposed to be asymmetrically balanced. They're not supposed to combine all their inherent advantages AND most of the advantages of surface ship play. There are several aspects you bring up here. Yes, CVs were "op" in reality, however the RTS iteration did combine both realism and playability into a workable concept. They had huge advantages but they also had (in theory) huge drawbacks. In the rework meanwhile no tangible drawbacks are present aside from being unable to directly take caps in most situations, a limitation that is rather insignificant as they excel at everything else and was already present in the RTS iteration as well. Battles in which one side has a unicum CV while the other has a terrible CV are as onesided as ever. No improvement has been made here. The unicum CV will proceed to murder most of their opposition, now without anything the surface ships can do against it, while the terrible CV will die to even the most terrible AA as long as it spawns flak. If he doesn't die, he will miss. Whether a terrible CV player dies to fighters or to flak is meaningless in this regard. That there no longer is effective fighter play can actually be considered a huge buff to CVs and is to the complete detriment of surface ships. It isolates the CV from the team and makes the class become toxic in nature. It exists solely to grief surface ships and offers nothing in return. As a CV player sure, it may be a positive change, however it is overwhelmingly negative for everyone else. Fighter setups were useless and could easily be outplayed. I do however agree that both fighter and strike heavy setups were poor design choices at best. The rework goes even further as it is basically the equivalence of every CV running around in a pure strike setup. People actually don't overlook this. It is in fact one of the most common complaints about the rework. Isn't this contradictory? Why is the average CV player relevant when all he has to do is adapt and get better at playing CVs to utterly nullify all counterplay options a surface ship may take? Why is it always the surface ships that have to adapt and git gud? Why shouldn't the CV player have to adapt and play around more harsh limitations that make the class more balanced? Such a burden is always on the player, however there is no evolving tactics and play when no options to do such are given in the first place. And when giving such options is inherently prevented as it breaks the mechanic in question, that means sending the whole concept to the scrap heap is the only viable option. Excuse me, but what? CV planes are far faster than before, aka AA exposure has actually decreased harshly. Shorter AA ranges just exacerbate the issue even further, not to mention long range AA has been neutered in its potency.

While it is certainly not wrong to be proud of your own work, if it generates major backlash from the community then perhaps it isn't necessarily something to be proud of? Game development is not only about the developer. If devs actually want appreciation then they should work with the community, not against. There are plenty of positive and negative examples for that both inside and outside of WoWs.

When did we ever say that this is fine? Heck, you have just recently proven yourself wrong on this matter. Are you really sure you want to continue spouting this laughable lie?

Which again is largely irrelevant as you still do not disregard differences in playerbase over the years. Though to add another nail to your coffin: The first page in which players with 120k+ avg damage no longer appear on a regular basis for RTS Midway is page 9. For reworked Midway it is page 5. Just more proof that reworked CV players are generally more incompetent. It has nothing to do with balance unlike what you're preaching. Smoke does not waste time for the CV. It wastes the time of the DD.

Why would he only get hit by 3-5k initially given that almost all DDs cannot deny a 2nd strike from the first squad?

Because clearly none of these players continue to play and fail. Oh wait.