EdiJo

Yes! And for South Dakota class (Alabamas) there should be introduced "electric short circuit" making ship totally blind and unresponsive for the 30 seconds after each own salvo

The sequence is quite obvious: WG buffed AA in higher tiers -> quite a lot of experienced CV players moved to tiers where AA is not so potent -> T3-T4 seals started being clubbed a bit too hard -> T4-T5 CV got their teeth pulled out. The problem is, young CV need those teeth to learn how to feed properly, and to defend themselves against T6 CV. WG assumes "real grinders" will just walk through the pain towards T6, just a little slower than they would otherwise - and the nerf will mostly affect those who already have higher tier CV, know "how to feed" and just like clubbing the seals. Also assumption is that grinders will learn the manual things 2 tiers later, already facing AA and T7 CV. Generally this all fits into the whole WG "push everybody to higher tiers" scheme.

"New guys" claim they devoted quite some time to decode the encryption key. So looks like either reverse engineering or some leak from WG, nothing official. Anyway, this brings back the issue of "WG keeping secrets" without any logical reason.

It looks the more stupidly that as far as I understand similar encryption key for WoT replays leaked long ago but is kept constant by WG. Why they are so possessive regarding WoWS?

For me stealthfire change mostly affects the end game - when you for example are 1 vs 1 in a crippled cruiser vs damaged battleship. Being not detected the cruiser still had a chance of wearing down or burning the BB - without cover it usually will be 1-2 random hits and kaboom. So the patch promotes BB surviving as long as possible because their value is greater at the end - yet another promo for camping & sniping and "avoiding being sunk" BBabies. The paradox is that BB "bad dispersion" in this case actually helps to kill the cruiser - the splash area is larger, impossible to predict & avoid, and not many hits are needed.

The problem is, when you have even 2 BB on perpendicular directions from you - you can't angle to both. You always are "a nice target" to someone. And if there is 5-6 BB targeting you? Once again. The problem is not "who can damage who" or "who is meant to fight who" - but that BB damage is instantaneous, and a cruiser has to work on a target for a while. So for BB it is enough to catch a glimpse of a broadside - and kaboom monsieur. Cruiser to survive has to avoid being exposed to more than 1 direction of BB fire, and when you have too many BB in the game it is simply not possible. So playing a cruiser "properly" becomes impossible. Either you camp back (out of range) or hog some islands (rarely can fire from there, WG invented really big volcanic islands...). Can't fight DD from there, can't provide AA from there. Useless or dead. (Or sitting in smoke...) Big problem.

ANYWHERE for 10km slow torps means some 7-8km from any DD. This really requires the DD to be really suddenly starting to go to be torped exactly at the same time I launched, AND it requires the DD to be illiterate or having the chat turned off. First is unprobable, second is DD fault. So I should not launch torps in 99% cases where it was perfectly fine because in 1% there is a deaf suicidal DD "going in the 1st line"? I don't think so... I can only warn the guy that the torps are in the water, and he has PLENTY of time to adjust course. No threats for him, no sudden surprise - just need of communication. (I am not talking exactly about my Mogami-Kagero accident, because I screwed then, and I didn't warn him). Significant part of 10km-cruiser torps are launched in the way that really wanting DD can suicide on them. All those cruisers do wrong? Regarding "tru story" - sorry. A guy deliberately blocking me and exposing me to being killed for nothing, turning back again under my torps AFTER he shot his late tiny short-range things and AFTER I warned him many times I will torpedo... and it is still my fault? Nope. Let's agree to disagree. Let's not mix such things like above with a guy launching torps 1km behind me in my direction... or some sh*thead deliberately unloading on me because he didn't like what I said

Of course statistically players will play a class less if there is a deterrent present. When queue had 200 Nassaus waiting I didn't notice much deterrence though ;) So there is still a lot of room for changes. BB infestation problem is game breaking. For some classes ... You are not proud of your stats, so I can only assume you are one of those who don't suffer = BB player? And "wiggleing" is not a solution of this problem. At all. It is like you were said "don't complain that cars are speeding 200km/h in a city centre - just avoid them". Yes, it would help, but it is not the solution. Regarding "RL card": you started. "Were not meant" where? In the game? They are meant to fight BB in the game. And they fought BB (and won) in RL too. "Inflicting damage" on BB by a cruiser is a bit different from cruiser being straight destroyed by the BB. Main defense of the cruiser is that "wiggleing" - but the problem is that it simply does not work when there are too many battleships targeting you. What is so hard to understand in that?

Any source of this "rebalance" announcement news? This would be just another totally stupid change made by WG, so I am not surprised. Simply can't believe they so promptly nerf the ship which was the prime remedy for "the static smoke meta". I am afraid they will screw the concealment, which is the only defence mechanism for this soft ship ( Yup. Exactly. Totally wrong direction. So sad.

I think 3 should be max. BB should be "heavy core" of the fleet, not the whole fleet. Cruisers should outnumber the BB, and the ship balance should be made to BB actually NEED cruisers for protection. Lone BB should be easy prey. Fleet should consist of 1CV, 2-3BB, 3-4DD and 3-4CA and 3-4CL. Sniping accuracy from 17+ km should be greatly reduced, and effective range should be similar for CA and BB. Yet firepower advantage of BB should be obvious. Currently we have self-dependable battleships which don't need anybody for anything - even against DD they sometimes have hydro or radar and AA is enough on 2-3 BB to easily defend vs a single CV. Outrange anybody, go 30-33kn, and their only weakness is bad concealment (although some can be more stealthy than cruisers...) and bad mobility allowing being flanked (although the turtlebacks don't care about broadsiding so much as well). Nothing was "discussed". People complain, WG ignores. Of course "it is possible" and it would just make BB queues a bit longer. People managed to queue up even when there was "The German BB rush" where you had "200 BB in queue", and they would manage easily with just restricting BB to 2-3 per game now. That's exactly why no class should be "self-sufficient". Of course if "100% of some class" is one player that the skill difference weights the most - but it still shouldn't be possible to totally own a group of good players in other ships. Anyway, some form of "skill matchmaking" is necessary. I thought it was quietly introduced already, but some recent stomped games convinced me I was wrong ;/ If queue times increase, "unsatisfaction" increases - that would mean to people more frequently choose other classes, right? Don't patronize so easily - BB infestation is a real problem, not some newb imagination. You can only "wiggle wiggle" so much - eventually one of those 5-6 BB will get you. Of course cruisers "were not meant" to counter BB - yet they frequently did. Guadalcanal campaign, Bismarck chasing, Mediterranean battles all featured cruisers fighting battleships. Ranked is another issue. There are many causes to people not playing BB in ranked. Yes, BB are more "noobfriendly", but it is not the whole explanation. This is a feedback-loop: BB are powerful -> BB are easy -> more noob play BB -> more people whine when something goes wrong -> threats are nerfed -> BB are more self-dependent and powerful. The limit is obvious: battles with 12 BB vs 12 BB. And I think to unload queue there should be an option to include such battles in the matchmaking (short queues, some people would prefer BB vs BB anyway)....

This is exactly why I couldn't force myself to push to rank 1. Too little depends on me, too much on some random potatos, which are AFK, on bad/stock/unfitted ships, selfish, or just braindead. Also the epicenter mode is just plainly stupid choice for ranked - all depends on DD there. And with CV present it is pointless if enemy CV plays better or simply is stronger (Saipan vs Ranger, for instance). I usually play on weekends, and intend to relax - not to be frustrated by losing "again" because someone "again" screw out. Just frustration from typical weekend random game multiplied by a factor because you lose the bloody star... In theory, uneven matchmaking is ruled out, but in practice, if enemy has 2xFiji + Belfast and you have to compensate it with 2xMyoko + Yorck it is still unacceptable. 3-4 is a bit too low, but I would start from T5 and finish at T7-T8 (allowing mixed 7-8 plays but doing precisely symmetric MM, even at the cost of queue time). Also, more "brackets" is needed, again: even at the cost of queue time. New bracket every 2-3 ranks, not 5. Wake up, and stop spreading FUD. Did you play ranked at all this season? You just repeat "an internet fact". Herds of "<40% win-rate" Belfast players baited by this flame into spending $$$ are just confirming it was wrong from the start.

Confirm. Nagato was a beast even before WG fixed the armor bug. Just a smaller Amagi. I once used a secondaries build, but currently just accuracy-focused. Unfortunately, nowadays Nagato ends up fighting vs Iowas and Friedrichs quite often, as well as against herds (4-5 per team) of Fletchers, Yugumos and other Udalois, sometimes with flocks of T8-T9 planes going for easy prey. WG quite succeeded in pushing a lot of people into T9-T10 ships. And this sucks for T7-T8.

The problem starts somewhere around Tier 6, where cruisers obtain long range torpedoes... And yes, accidents do happen. For example, I am usually trying to be aware of what's happening, but sometimes there are situations like I had in my Mogami or other Myoko/Takao, don't remember. Lone Russian DD was shooting me (1 vs 1, no friendlies around), than smoked up, so I immediately launched 10km torps into that smoke. Anyway, it happened: friendly Kagero, being somewhere 7-8km away from that smoke and from the line of torping, suddenly felt the need to change his position across the map. He ate one, fortunately he didn't sink (probably dmg saturation, only 9k dmg), and he even didn't curse much. Immediately shooting long range torps into smoking-up DD by IJN cruisers is usually quite efficient, and don't tell me that "I shouldn't". Of course assuming, that there are no friendlies around. On the other side, what it means "around"? You can't predict every DD "changing the side" using his 40 knot speed. On the other side, those DD should be aware that "smokes are torpedo magnets" and be aware that someone might have torped that smoke. Especially if you mention it on chat. So - yes, the fault is mostly on the shooting "2nd line" guy, but in certain situations at least part of it is on the "1st line" DD as well. Apart from "max range accidents" there are also "close range f*kups". Some tru story: You charge in your Kamikaze at a battleship (say, a Nagato) and some "friendly" guy in faster Russian gunboat near you decides "he goes first", uses his Stalin boosters and pushes in 50 meters before you, even if he has smaller range for torpedoing, or even if he has no HP to survive. And even despite you write on chat to him. Yet he blocks your line of fire. You wait, wait, are being shot at by secondaries, other enemies, wait, wait. You could have your launchers almost again reloaded already. In the meantime you write on chat you want to torp and wanna survive, try to agree who goes which side... Finally, the blocker goes to the left & launches his pathetic 4-km torpsiez. You write him that you launch torps, you launch, but soon the idiot turns back to the right and eats all your salvo. Idiot's torps of course miss. Battleship wets his pants from laughter as you run away barely alive. Whos fault it all was?

Eee. Nope. The streak starts with the 1st game. You still can win it, and it is only 50% chance to go to the 2nd, next 50% to the 3rd etc. 0.5^6, sorry. And "overall WR" is averaged probability of the win/loss, right? So it specifies exactly the chance of me "playing worse", that's why we have 0.5 factors, right? And what is that 64*6 thing? ;) If you have something with two possible - random - outcomes (coin flips, for instance), probability of 6 times continuously getting one of them is P^6, so with P=0.4 (me playing "good") it is extremely rare, with P=0.5 it is still very rare. So either I'm much worse than my previous ~50 games and it just started showing itself ;) or I was very very unlucky .... or MM is not random ;) Regarding making a break - yup, I would do that, but my feeling was that I did just fine! I finished at the top of the score all the time and my dmg was more than 2x of the server average even in lost games. And in Chapa vs T10 I don't think I could do much more - that's why it is so good measure of the team matching ;) Instead of the Loui I switched to my Bogatyr long ago 18 win streak? With P=0.5 chances of that are 0.02%, but sure, weirder things happen when one is drunk

Uptiered (solo) Chapa is just quite sensitive instrument to measure the randomness of the MM ;) This ship is very dependent on the team - when facing T10's it is remote supporting firepower and (only if protected and used) - radar unit. At least until there are many ships still afloat. I am not good enough to carry T10 game in this boat, sorry So - even if I am not as good as I think and it is just 50% win rate, 0.5^6 gives some mere 1.5% probability of 6-game continuous losing streak. If this was exhausting all my "unluck" limit, can I go already to break the bank in Vegas?

Randomness makes streaks extremely not probable

My point was that MM should be random. 1 won game in Hipper is random, 1 won game in Edin (with my pathetic influence) is random. Next could be equally well a loss. But 6 lost games (good games from me...) in a row in Chapa is too non-random, sorry. Even that single one when I finally was the toptier... so many potatos grouped on one side only. Eh. Assuming some 60% win rate "in my good games", chance of 6 losses in a row would be P=0.4^6 = 0.4%, right?

Well. I understand 1-2, maybe 3 stomped games in a row in the same ship. But 6? Slightly non-random, I think. I really try to use the radar, and hunt DD, I am not "the max range camper". However, using radar implies the teamplay - which is very hard to notice, even in T10 games. I can hunt some T6 DD alone, but T10 is a bit different story, especially when you get 'very popular' as soon as you show up (Priority Target numbers usually at 3-6 instantly...) In T10 game without any support it is really dangerous for a Chapa to be "close enough". The range is not impressive comparing to most of your T9-T10 opponents, plus their accuracy is quite improved at this range, and: no smoke, no torps, no maneuverability, no concealment, huge citadel, and no heal. Too many "no" and "huge", sorry ;) This is not a Kutuzov (I recently noticed that this OP box apart from super range and the smoke has been given 8km torps, which is total pay to win crap ). And T9 carrier in T10 game is very happy too, when he catches you slowed down behind some island. Your winrate in Chapa when driving solo is also only 52% ... I think I had 52% too before yesterday I don't think it is low considering being -2 tiered most of the time, when you can't influence the result much, being a fragile support ship. Regarding dmg - I like those Russian guns, I also still play Shchors quite often because of that. Why other cruisers have higher win rate? Hm. More potential for giving pushing example to team-potatos? Edinburgh can be close because has smoke & torps. Mogami has armor and torps. Hipper has armor, hydro, some torps and luck

Well, I like the Chap, and I don't think I did particularly bad in those games. 86k average damage is more than 200% of the server average for the ship (so not bad considering that your T9-T10 team dies around you like flies), and I think I finished in top3 in all those games (in quite a few top1), even if I usually didn't die as the last. So I let myself think that it was rather matter of "the rest of my team" and "the randomness" of the MM ;) Those "won" games were actually not as good for me, especially T8 (9? don't remember) game in my Gneis, or T10 games in the Edinburgh or Mogami.

Tonight I noticed that there is +214% exp for the 1st win. Yey. Wow. So, stupid me, tried to get a win in ships I am grinding... which mostly happen to be.... T8 cruisers Of course - 90% of games in T8 cruisers at this time of day was against Tier 10. Anyway, I managed to score with some ships, but Chapayev just didn't want to. Whatever I did - always potatos, suiciders, afkers, or plain idiots. The Record Idiot of The Day was a guy which I checked because he was just swimming around in his Shimakaze doing absolutely NOTHING. The lookup revealed that he had ... 2 games total in his Shimakaze, with "average damage" like 3000, of course 0 win rate. And he didn't have any games in T9 IJN DD. At all. Badum-tsss. He just free-exped straaaight to Tier 10, so he could be totally braindead, but The Highest Tier. His achievements in the High Tier Area during his 1700+ played games are summarized as follows: Anyhow, I always scored somewhere at the top of the losing team, did average dmg like 80+k (for me it is quite good...), yet all Chapaev chances were lost: So #$@#n frustrating. In a 6 attempts in T8 cruiser: 4 T10 games, 1 T9 game and 1 T8 game (!!!).Do I have to mention that my Mogami, Hipper and Edinburgh all got T10 matchmaking, too? And that one "top-tier" Chapa game, which I thought was the Holy Gift from RNG God - was spoiled by the matchmaking in another way: my team just got total potatos. I checked after the battle in the WoWSReplay.com stat-digging plugin: my team had 7 total red potatos, enemy team had only 3. We had 2 good players, they had 6. And the cause wasn't divisions... Brutal awakening from my theory about "skill balancing" by the MM. Obviously, when MM sees me, switches that balancing off. Waste of time struggling in hopeless T10 games, no bonus for Chapa for the Pi-Day Thank you, WG, for the Fun & Engaging ™ -2 tier matchmaking making the struggle in a T8 cruiser hopeless. G'night.

Well, I thought so too, but a few tens of games I recently checked had really equally distributed skills of players. Usually 2-4 "very good", 2-4 "good" and rest of "casual potatos"... And I don't remember it to ever be 4 vs 2 - it is only impression ofcoz, I don't record this nor analyze ;)

I still notice many one-sided, totally stomped games. Much more unequal than it would result from the standard "square law"... You fight at your flank, win or struggle or lose - anyway, just after a few minutes you suddenly notice that your other flank made puff and you are down to a few ships left near you. Previously I thought it might be caused by asymmetry in player skill in both teams - but I recently I try to peek at stats using stat-digging WoWSReplay app (included in Aslain modpack), and it looks like almost always skills are distributed equally between teams. Evidently MM peeks into stats too, this is too equal to be random. /Of course, one should exclude relatively rare (at tiers lower than 9...) cases when there is a triple unicum division in one team. MM doesn't understand divisions well./ My current hypothesis is that it is "rock-paper-scissors" balance which is unstable. If, for example, in domination mode one team has better DD players - they obliterate opposite DD and game is practically over. Even if (better) other players in other classes try to contest the score they are in a severe disadvantage. Good CV player placed opposite a noob can eliminate him quickly and also seriously affect the balance, etc. etc. Also, there are other things: - the matchmaking is not symmetric at all. Very loosely applied "+/-1 tier, +/-1 ship" rule causes sometimes to have 2 IJN DD put vs 1 gunboat - or we can have a T9 CV inserted into almost exclusively T7 game. - some ships are "special", and not quite fit their "assigned class" role - like Scharnhorst (much less effective against "real" battleships), Graf (which is closer to a battlecruiser than a cruiser), Russian T6-T8 DD (which are basically light cruisers) etc. For example large number of destroyers in the enemy team can't be countered if there is not enough cruisers and in addition they are slow heavy boats which are not very suitable for DD hunting. For MM just "cruiser is cruiser"... And such 3 Scharnhorsts placed vs 3 "real BB" in a game with 7 cruisers can be much more effective than in a game with 2 cruisers. - quite frequently we have "fail divisions" which drop one or even two undertiered ships into a game. and so on

Not saying a word is the only option now. I also am at such a threshold that a single angry potato can mute me for 24 hours. The whole "reporting system" is one big useless BS but this "chat ban" is actually simply BROKEN. Today in the morning all I did was asking one moron Jap DD to cap the objective, when he ignored me I wrote some general remark about morning potato. Bang, immediately chat ban - nobody else was even involved in the "conversation", nobody was in a division with the potato. He did this just by himself. Of course soon he died somewhere uselessly and I finished quite well, but WG doesn't care about such details. And for the next 24hr... bye bye, winrate ;). Most of "players" in the morning does pay ZERO attention to some "clicking & flashing" - they need written info what to do... so the chat ban actually hurts. We really need some predefined useful macros, like "CAP that objective, you $#@%, what are you waiting for" "Objective is this circle with a letter inside, not that corner of the map you're so interested in" "We agreed on AB/BC/whatever, why you don't give a f%$k?" "DON'T BROADSIDE to those battleships" "Battleships, stop this border hugging" "DD near, stop going in a straight line all the time" and so on.

Of course it is about more discount. Regarding flexibility you already have the max because you can buy 24 hours as many times as you need (edit: well, I would gladly see selling premium per hour, but WG will never go for that )

shiiieeettt. I also did the same expecting free retraining... Well, anyway it should be possible to move him back and forth choosing "50% for 200k" this time. Usual WG practice of "undocumented features" which disappear without notice.