El2aZeR

So? Does that mean AA ships are suddenly incapable of doing their jobs? The problem is that there aren't enough AA ships, not that they are incapable. That however has absolutely nothing to do with CVs. DDs can also not be completely overextending when scouting ahead. Also, please explain to me how smoke is not a hard counter to plane spotting. When people like you say that something is apparently possible against inherent design restrictions then there must be several examples adhering to it. I have yet to see one. Fact remains that you cannot make fundamentally different classes have the same potential. Not even have close to the same potential impact. It. Is. Not. Possible. Get it through your head.

A rare occurrence is exactly that, rare. Even if you sustain a penalty, it will not last very long and you will not be penalized further. If you're having serious connection or soft-/hardware problems on the other hand then that's what YOU'RE going to have to deal with before playing the game or you risk sustaining penalties.

It's punishing people for not playing the game. Any kind of automated punishment system should not instantly deliver a penalty if someone goes afk once. If he does several times however then that is obviously wrong and should be a punishable offense.

A, for example, DM has a bubble that spans more than 14km, with which the slightest contact results in heavy plane losses. A Mino provides about 16km of the same thing. Saying that a ship is "alone" when only 3-4km away from their teammates is hilarious. Wow, really? A DD shouldn't play with their team? Jesus, have you even played this game? If there are planes hovering a cap, guess what you can do? Lay down smoke for your teammates to enable them to get closer, thus denying air space above the cap. If they still refuse to push, well, then your team has severely misplayed and thus deserves to be punished. That includes you, as you are part of a team regardless of what you do or what your intentions are. I'm also still waiting for that game that has fundamentally different classes yet are capable of achieving the same potential match impact.

Should've clarified, sorry about that. If it is the goal of balance to have fundamentally different classes achieve the same potential game impact then there must be plenty of games out there that achieve that or at least have it as a goal. Yet I don't see a single one tbh. It isn't exactly viable unless said target is alone, aka has horribly misplayed.

What part of "it is fundamentally impossible" did you fail to understand? I mean, really, if it is truly this easy to achieve or the pinnacle of balance to have fundamentally different classes achieve the same potential game impact there must be dozens of games out there that adhere to it. Name me just one of them. Yeah, let me just attack with each individual squadron and let them get evaporated. That'll surely benefit me as a CV player. To say that this is a common tactic is hilarious at best.

Every action has an opposite reaction. This is perfectly fine. If it isn't practical to smoke, nearby cover can be used to provide AA support. Whether or not such cover is available is a matter of map balancing. (Though tbh this game could've done without radar, having CVs around as a primary DD counter along with torps to deny smoke walls is more than enough. Now it's here and here to stay, sadly). No, it isn't as long as you have a role distribution (and thus individual classes to perform them). More on that below. I have meant to show the restrictions CVs have to deal with due to others believing that CVs have no restrictions whatsoever. Under no circumstances does this equalize the potential influence on a plane with other classes (which is a contradiction in itself anyway since no class has the same potential impact). CVs do indeed inherently have more influence than other classes. This is due to the primary role they are supposed to perform: Scouting. Scouting will always be more valuable than, for example, raw tanking and damage dealing ability, which is why CVs and DDs are a far more valuable class than BBs. BBs inherently simply cannot scout. To suggest a BB to go scouting is ridiculous, if you make them capable of reliably doing so then that will make BBs overpowered, because they suddenly possess the versatility of the other classes with none of the drawbacks. As such, unless you intend to do away with the role distribution, some classes will always have more potential influence than others. This is a design restriction that is fundamentally impossible to overcome, no matter what people believe. A healer will always be more important than a damage dealer. A good and consistent sniper will always be more valuable than a likewise skilled rifler. And scouting will always have more potential influence than other abilities. The lack of AA cruisers and the like however provide CVs with more influence than they are intended to have, namely that they suddenly become the best and most reliable damage dealers as well, as is illustrated in their current statistical performance. This is obviously not as intended but cannot be resolved with nerfs to CVs since they aren't the cause. Then it simply isn't, regardless for whom. After all, game design simply isn't always about fun. In fact, game design is very often more about making the player's life harder. Pick, for example, basketball. You are supposed to pick up a ball and place it into a certain location. Yet that location is suspended several meters in the air and you're supposed to throw it in from above. To make matters worse, you're only allowed to travel an extremely restrictive few steps if you pick up the ball, making it necessary to dribble. There are also restrictions on how to take the ball away from your opponent. Etc. etc. etc. That all does exactly the opposite of creating a fun game experience. It is in fact very much supposed to make your experience more frustrating. So why do it, then? Because the idea of, in the case of WoWs, outplaying an opposing team with your own despite such restrictions in place is fun. Because winning against overwhelming odds is fun. That feeling is so addictive that we are readily willing to play a game despite such frustrating mechanics. That we are willing to go on a losing streak in search for that one good win. This is also why completely steamrolling an enemy gets boring really fast, because it simply doesn't provide nearly the satisfaction an intense match against skilled opponents gives. Thus it is a fundamental game design law that pretty much all successful games adhere to, whether that be in real life or in virtual space. From the simple Minesweeper over the most generic objective based MP shooter you can think of to the glorious Touhou Project. If a game is based purely around gratification it usually doesn't survive very long on a hard drive. Scouting is still a thing. You can also ask your team to remove said AA ships for you. After all CVs aren't supposed to be independent from their team, either.

Untrue. All it takes is one smoked up capital ship to deny airspace. It loses something far worse: scouting, airspace control, literally every role a CV has to perform it needs to perform with planes. Lose them all and the enemy team is left to exploit the openings. And unlike other classes a CV always risks planes when attacking. If the team fails to adapt to the situation then it deserves to lose. You need to blob up? Do, e.g., a concentrated push then. You need cover? Have your DDs lay down smoke. If your team hangs back and lets itself be flanked, it rightfully deserves to be punished, regardless of who is a member or what they're doing. This is a team game, you're part of a team whether you like it or not. Besides, in high tiers especially you only need three capital ships at most to make yourself completely immune to CV damage. Or heck, a single AA cruiser will do. Which the CV pays for by having the restrictions above along with the longest "reload" and damage travel time and it being the most telegraphed attack (added a few, too late I see). If it hadn't such flexibility it'd be worthless. CVs already have serious limitations and only excel in few given situations, limiting their flexibility would be suicide at best. Because obviously you can just ignore what is basically an active protection system. I mean sure, if someone else on the map misplays, you can go for him. The situation isn't always this fluid, however. Fighting is usually concentrated around caps (and the moment it isn't one side is normally losing anyway). There is the strike efficiency factor to consider. Sure, you can kill the scrub camping at the edge of the map to pad stats, but that doesn't exactly better your team's situation when, for example, a cap is contested. And, again, if you don't play with your team, you lose. Let the camping scrub be a camping scrub, as long as the key units are protected it barely matters. Besides, there are plenty of times as a CV when there are literally no targets available to you. Just had several today. Fact remains that an AA cruiser does not need to shoot down planes in order to exceed in its role. In fact, having shot down no planes can mean that such a cruiser has done a splendid job of denying airspace. Nor is that the goal of the overall balancing system WoWs is employing. It is impossible to even remotely have all four classes exert equal influence due to the fact that all classes have fundamentally different roles and playstyles, which in turn are of different importance. If you nerf a certain role of one class, it will automatically strengthen that role in at least one other class, which at best just swaps potential influence around with literally nothing done in regards of overall balance. Alternatively it just worsens the balancing situation severely. There is literally no betterment you can achieve here as long as different classes perform different roles. And unless you decide to remove 3 out of 4 classes it's always going to be that way. I agree, which is why I advocated for the strengthening of AA for all cruisers that need it. That obviously does not mean every cruiser suddenly needs DM levels of AA, there is after all still balance between cruisers themselves to consider, but every cruiser should be considered a serious threat to a strike beyond the "one-button-I-win-mechanic" that is DFAA. Hardly. E.g. there is no guidance offered by the game whatsoever except for one highly basic tutorial which barely explains to you the essentials of playing this game. Heck, even Counter-Strike has a better tutorial nowadays. And don't start with "there is plenty of stuff elsewhere", we all know that the average player will never bother to visit other sites to look at dedicated material. Which is a wrong assumption in the first place. Cruisers are supposed to be the most popular class, even if WG is doing their best to prevent it from happening. Ironically the highlighted parts currently apply to DDs as well. Guess DDs are badly designed then? Besides, the extinction of an entire class can hardly be called a "slight meta change".

According to our buddy avenger here DD stats should not be taken seriously due to the majority of the playerbase being noobs (thus rushing and dying early without anything meaningful done). And quite frankly, I tend to agree. (which is ironic considering he keeps quoting CV stats at face value) - no capping potential - no tanking potential - extremely limited resources - most telegraphed attack in the game - longest "reload" - any influence outside of scouting can be completely denied by enemy action - even scouting is spotty (hahaha, spotty. Get it? :) ) considering the amount of ships that have their air spotting range at least equal their AA range nowadays = a ship which excels in select few situations only. T10 CVs especially are no exceptions in this with the amount of high AA ships they tend to meet. No other class has such harsh restrictions, thus it is completely acceptable that CVs excel in the few roles they have left. If those select few situations are however common by virtue of outside influence then that is not a problem with CVs. An in-depth analysis of the stats of CVs reveals the following question regarding balance: Are the counters to CVs failing? The short answer is no. Both small groups and AA cruisers are extremely potent in their role of denying air space. This is especially true in higher tiers. The long answer is a bit more complicated due to the problems the progression of AA and planes as well as existing captain skills and upgrades present, but I already touched upon that in a different thread, so I won't go any deeper than this. That question is all you need to ask yourself regarding the balancing of CVs themselves. Going further reveals problems that have nothing at all to do with CVs anymore such as: - AA cruisers being among the least played class - cruiser survivability in general is in the gutters due to BB overpopulation - the average player does not understand how to play this game in the slightest Thus the overperformance of CVs in terms of statistics is both expected and has little to do with CVs themselves. When counters to one class are not used or disappear, it proliferates. The entire history of this game alone is littered with such examples, from early CBT CVs over torpedo soup to the BB overpopulation we have today.

Pray tell, how is a DD limited in stopping power despite complete control of caps?

Seen a growing number of players who call using the alt key "exploiting a bug" and the like lately. Doesn't at all surprise me considering they start out without such functions in the first place. I mean, who could've foreseen that, really?

Being afk in general should be punished much harsher. Also the game detecting who's online and whatnot is easily exploitable. Just unplug your router for a sec and you're set. Personally I'd first double the repair costs for afks, then implement a system so that if an account is frequently afk it should be banned from random and ranked matches for 1/3/7 days. Should a penalty be incurred the account is placed on a probation period of at least one week (personally I'd prefer two) after it expires. During the probation period another penalty will be dealt out if the account is afk even just once. If another penalty is dealt out during that timeframe it will jump to the next higher penalty. If no penalty is incurred during the probation period the penalty level will lower by one. 7 day penalties should be cumulative so that if you incur it twice it also double the probation period. If you click that battle button you carry a responsibility to see that battle through until your ship is sunk. You have made it clear with your actions that you have enough time to commit to such a thing. Sure, there may be legitimate reasons as to why someone may go afk, but still selfishly entering battles you know you may have no time for should be a well punishable offense within the realms of the game. There is absolutely no reason to ruin a match for others just so you can indulge in your egoistical tendencies.

Pretty much this. Stealth fire was never such a game breaking problem with CVs around tbh.

1. Because this is the most prevalent teamplay-forcing element in this team game. 2. DDs and BBs also require teamplay to effectively counter.

I agree actually. Balance in general would massively benefit from +/- 1 MM.

I believe she was given out as a temporary gift to those who reached rank one in the first ranked season until the second one started off. Never seen one ingame since CBT, though.

Japanese radar was incredibly unreliable and outdated. For instance, they used A-scopes instead of PPI displays which gives you range but doesn't tell you anything about direction. That's better than having no radar at all, but still technologically vastly inferior to contemporary systems used by the Allies. That IJN cruisers don't have radar in this game has more to do with balance, though.

Detonations can be caused when any damage, be it splash damage from HE, nearby AP hits or from torps/bombs, reaches the magazines. It does not have to be a direct hit. It does not need to penetrate the armor. It does not even need to deal damage. Behold: https://clips.twitch.tv/AntediluvianPowerfulYakinikuFeelsBadMan

So DDs do not have excessive influence on a match when there is no CV to reign them in? That's funny. The game is still playable ofc. Every game, technically speaking, is, no matter how broken. Does it mean it is well balanced, though? Unless ofc you have already accepted that as universally "good balance", which naturally contradicts your position on the whole balancing aspect in the first place. Which ofc then begs the question, why do I never see you on a hate rant whenever a "nerf DD" thread comes up? Why are you opposed to DD nerfs? Or maybe we should take a look at statistics, in which DDs usually come up as the worst class. Why shouldn't DDs be buffed then? But wait, didn't you state before that DD stats do not represent their true abilities? Why should CV stats be representative, then? Or why shouldn't BBs receive cruiser characteristics and consumables? After all that's just equalizing the potential influence of every class, something that, according to you, is the pinnacle of balance. Or perhaps your idea of balance is flawed to the core and would never work on a game such as WoWs? But why pursue such a notion in the first place then? Is it perhaps that you're just a whiny scrub like the rest of them, unable to adapt and calling things out as overpowered and cheap? That everyone standing against you, no matter what skill level, experience and all other apparently irrelevant factors, is just another stupid "CV apologist" that knows nothing about the true game? Regardless of which answer to the questions above is true, it either shows just how much you know about game design, which is absolutely nothing, disqualifying you from any balancing discussion. Or illustrates perfectly the mindset you're in, which in turn has the same consequences. Again. Hint, it's this one: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub Also that you do not believe the removal of CVs warranting a major redesign on the basis of AA alone, which I must apparently remind you is currently a major balancing factor, is a But hey, keep up in your attempts to further your pitiful agenda, or alternatively keep on spreading your ignorance. No matter what it truly is, at least it's amusing. Like this brilliant example right here: which is seriously funny because you keep throwing around out of context statements of others. :) Truly, your hypocrisy knows no limits.

I see your ability to read is as bad as ever as well.

So you're saying DDs do not inherently stand heads and shoulders above the other two remaining classes in terms of game influence? So you're saying teamplay is less important with CVs? You're just exuding credibility, aren't you?

Is it, really? How many of those games were decided by the composition of DDs alone? The history of this game also shows that DDs have been under a massive string of constant nerfs after CVs went extinct. Coincidence? Will you remove DDs next because they are hiding in their magical cloaking field, torping other classes into oblivion with nothing to fear but their own contemporaries? Regardless of what you believe, the removal of CVs would require a fundamental redesign of the game. The game as it stands would not be feasible without CVs. At the very least it would require the following steps: - redesign of all remaining ship classes (since the current balancing system will no longer feasibly work) - rebalancing of all ships T4 and above (since AA is no longer a balancing factor) - designing, testing and implementing a new teamplay-forcing mechanic (I like the idea of bot subs attacking lone ships, really) - complete redesign of the concealment and spotting mechanics (since, you know, the game has just lost its main spotter class), which in turn may affect every other fundamental mechanic considering how important concealment is - compensation/refunds of premium ships And that's not going into the massive hit WG's reputation may take. Or the hilarious money loss they will sustain in the long term.

Enterprise is an expert's CV. Unless you seriously want to delve deep into CV play I recommend leaving her in port. If you do want to learn the finer aspects of CV play, I can thoroughly recommend farazelleth's excellent CV guide here: Use your WASD keys. Vary your speed and course every 30 seconds or so. You will find that a minor speed alteration alone will usually throw a torp spread wide off course.