Unintentional_submarine

A Romulan Warbird uncloaking off the port bow at a range where he can easily get citadels is unnerving to say the least. The most 'scared' I have ever been in a game was when I was in a double Amagi division and we came up against a CE Yamato with no other ships between us. We were locked in, couldn't turn, couldn't maneuver because he was out there prowling, shooting whenever we tried something. We were eventually saved by him needing to get closer to the action elsewhere, so we could get a constant bead on him, but by then we had been truly thrashed hard. That guy played that battle very well, and outplayed us. I'm not afraid to say that. He was patient, he was calculating and he was efficient. I would be sad to see something like that vanish, as it was inspiring to play against, even if it was frustrating. I guess that's the problem. Too many people see frustrating as bad every time. Some times it is simply someone playing better, or playing more efficiently. I agree that some frustrations shouldn't be accepted, but when it is a player doing it, then it should not only be accepted, it should be commended. I fear this is removing that, and telling the players, that if something frustrates them, it will be removed. This was discussed when the skills were leaked, and yes, only BBs really benefit from it. Destroyers lose too much fire chance for some limited penetration scenarios against cruisers, cruisers lose a lot of fire chance for basically no benefit (the 25% more pen doesn't really penetrate any meaningful areas, outside of 150-152mm cruiser penetrating 25mm plating), battleships however will be able to penetrate belts of some cruisers and knock out turrets etc.

Hmm... Well it is something, but something doesn't equate with satisfactory or good, but it is better than adding more reagents to the volatile mix as previously. My concern about this 'solution' is that we get something, which on it's own is ok nice, but not really enough, and then it is expected to be a sort of: "Now that we have heard your complaints and given you what you deserve, you will have to shut up!" Essentially just the old scenario of starting out with an outrageous position, only to relent on it and appear compromising to the outside when in actual fact you have been devious and underhanded. Our situation is of course not something WGEU wanted from the beginning, but giving us something comparably weak, would be such a situation. "Look at how generous we are to you complainers, be happy we didn't alter the campaigns further."

Not just ambush plays, but a lot of positional plays. Say moving a hidden battleship up the enemy flank, for some devastating side shots when he decides to open up. Or a destroyer breaking through an opening in the enemy lines. Basically a player that uses his head to exploit enemy faults, will have that reduced. Instead he is supposed to fight the enemy head on, where a lot of friendlies are visible. Regardless of sector pinging or directional lines, this ruins skillful playing. The amount of work to deny the enemy this skill is incredible. It requires at least two people working in conjunction, where one makes sure he is the closest while the other does his thing elsewhere. That's too much for a single skill, and it is very risky for the guy having to hold the enemy's attention, plus he probably can't be the closest to all the enemies in the area as they probably don't sail in a blob. Also, if if we assume the 'fixer' is successful and keeps the attention of all Potato Finders in the area, he is personally denied. So he gets little to no benefit from doing so. How is that fair, since he has to take big risks and sacrifice his damage? And that's the best case scenario for outplaying the skill... That's honestly very stupid.

I think we are going about this the wrong way... Let me give it a try. *ahem* OMG WG! Why are you nerfing BBs with that reduction to Demolition Expert?!?! How am I supposed to farm Fireproof now?!?!?!? I think it's working.

Got to love that with Potato Finding you don't really need hydro if you are relatively close in a cruiser or so. Imagine noticing a DD smoking up, while Potato Finding says it is him that is closest. Not only do you not really have to worry around a sneaky ship around the next corner, you can accurately use Potato Finding to torp the guy. It is pretty much as good as the lead indicator. Basically, smoke will become a deathtrap to anyone trying to use it for anything other than an escape mechanism. Yes, smoke torping is a thing, but with this you don't have to guess where in a relatively large cloud the enemy is. Or if he is moving around in there (it is limited how much he can move in there, so either he is flushed out or you have a nice bead on him, win/win vs smoke).

They really are... literally... we are spoiling away into nothingness with this treatment. Got to love that doublespeak they are trying out. As if doublespeak didn't go out of fashion a couple decades ago, even in the old Eastern Bloc... well, only somewhat in Putinland and Lukashenkoland. The entire things was "oh no, we didn't intend to do that" and then while they are saying it, they bloody do something that says "well, not really, we totally lied to your faces."

As if there wasn't enough stuff to be disappointed with... At least rename it to "Potato Finding", as it really is the potato skill.

It certainly does make the statement they came out with ring rather hollow.

That new weekly mission... oh boy!

After reading that response, I now understand the decision to take the campaign out. And it has nothing to do with the actual words in the response, it has to do with the perception of the people behind it. It all centers on the fact that they gave us this response, and expected it to help calm the seas, when the actual result is like adding thermite to the reaction. We can see it from a great distance, but they can't. It is quite clear that they are out of touch with what we want, despite all the feedback the last... well since CBT I guess. That shines through in the response. They are truly confused as to why we are unhappy with this, they really do think they did us some favour, and are, yet again, left wondering exactly where it all went wrong. I read the response as saying "we understand you were unhappy with the grindy nature of the ARP missions. OK, we will help you with that." But then fail to actually help because they don't know what said help would actually entail, just that it can't be too grindy and hard at the same time. The logical solution was not one they could fathom. It's a bit like when you see those commercials where the kids are dressed in oddly out of date clothes and say things kids don't really say today. That's the same disconnect, only there it is time being the factor (the time from when the director was a kid). Here it is a disconnect to the players' reality. Those making the decisions don't play the game at all, and likely don't ask anyone for direct feedback "do you like this? Is this fun?", but instead rely on filtered feedback, which naturally come in the form of "the feedback we have received has been generally negative, the players don't like X. Y, Z." That only really tell them that things are wrong, not what to do next. Now, why is it like that when there has been a constant barrage of suggestions to alleviate this very general problem... well, I can't say. I can say this though, that those in charge should count themselves lucky to be employed at WG, as I doubt this continual misinterpretation would have gone over well in other companies (well aside from Gaijin I guess). As a personal note: After reading the response, I laughed. Not an amused laugh, but one of those laughs you do when something is so ugly and embarrassing that it is the only response you can respond with... as the alternative is crying or exploding.

Just before Christmas I played a couple games in my Scharnhorst with Gunship14. I lost both, he only lost one (when we were on the same team obviously). I was cursed that night. However I had great fun with the banter in the first game. I decided that I might be able to draw his attention away from the game with chat, potentially saving my teammates from trouble that way. Well... turned out that sword cuts both ways, I was too focused on chatting and didn't notice I had outpaced my team. Took some torps, some more gunfire and I was dead. Did smoketorp a T-22... Amusingly another DD, on my side also got smoke torped by another Scharnhorst. That is honestly a fairly humiliating way to get killed. Good games man, very entertaining, even if they lived up to my usual 'lose/crapgame when forum'ers meet me'.

Would not be bad. At the ranges involved it would be hard to hit even battleships without the lock-assist.

You can be pretty sure that all the people that are moving to NA does so because they in fact enjoy this game. The pertinent question for you is then, why are they moving? Surely there has been enough feedback here to explain it, but let me help you a little anyway, it isn't because they have all gotten jobs across the Atlantic. The insults obviously shouldn't happen, but aside from a few select posts the worst I have seen in stuff like "disgrace", which I wouldn't put into the insult bin. And yes, you guys don't make the stuff happen as it does, but the question I have is: Could you possibly direct us to the persons in question whom we should in fact ask 'wtf they are doing'? Because it is a little strange to see you wash your hands of this debacle with a classic 'it wasn't me' when you are effectively the only one we can tell when we are unhappy about something. We do know that you CMs aren't the policy controllers, but you delude yourself if you think that means you get off from hearing about dissatisfaction, maybe even heated. You are the representatives of the ones that do control it. It's a crappy position, but when the alternative is saying nothing, I could guess you would understand why we tend to pick the former. Again, insults don't work, and obviously shouldn't be used.

Removal of stealthfire from premiums will only happen if it comes in the form of a general mechanics change, and not something like gunfire bloom. Given that the latter was the path they took for the Germans, I have now taken the position that it wasn't in order to remove stealthfire (technically Z-52 can still stealthfire, though it is highly impractical). It was made in order for the German DDs to be concerned about opening up with their guns. Otherwise why would all the DDs be affected by this, and not just the ones that were realistically capable of stealthfire? Because if this is the path they intend to take regarding that issue, then they will have issues with the Premiums as it is a targeted nerf to individual ships, something they can't do to Premiums. And it isn't a testrun of what will happen if you remove stealthfire, as the greatest impact isn't to stealthfire, but to all the ships that couldn't do it, but are now in a very uncomfortable position every time they are being engaged by other DDs.

Not to the individual person. But there are countries with certain impositions on higher rated games. I believe Germany falls into that? I'm not entirely sure on hte specifics, but I can absolutely see why WG would prefer to stay outside any legal ramifications like that. It's like the Total War games selling blod and gore DLCs to avoid having the core game getting hammered.

The problem as I see it, is one that has been long in coming. What we were initially told was that the intended battles had a few destroyers, a few battleships, maybe a carrier and the largest part being cruisers (maybe not the majority). So with that in mind, the game was likely constructed around that setting. In such a world a battleship would still be able to nuke cruisers, but he would always be at risk from getting ganged up on for a while, which is enough to take him out. So the battleship, while very powerful against cruisers, would have to be careful about how he played, in other words, the battleship was supposed to be a niche ship (they have in fact said it was supposed to be that in the past) that not all would be able to play well. Conversely the DDs would have to be wary of the prowling cruisers. Get spotted for even a few seconds would be multiple salvos incoming, potentially ruining the the battle. In such a world the cruiser wouldn't rule, but they would keep a check on hte others, and be kept in line themselves as battleships would still absolutely nuke the careless. It was a fools hope though. *anecdote incoming* One of the battles that gave me the most enjoyment, and wasn't me clubbing an entire team alone, was a full cruiser battle I had on Trap. It was staggering how differently it played out, and how massively fun it was. It was brutal, it was short, and I had a hoot to a degree I have seldomly experienced since. I have since experienced a few battles that were close to full cruiser (like one BB and one DD each), and they tend to follow the same lines. I'm convinced that those battles are in fact surprisingly balanced, and most important, inherently more fun. Apparently the devs didn't forsee a lot of noobs flocking to the battleships and them not doing well, getting mad and possibly even quitting over it. So what do yo do? You make sure battleships do well, until now the cruiser, the ship the game was supposedly centered around is most often the least common surface combatant in a battle. That can only cause some serious issues regarding class balance. And it will not go away until cruisers become popular enough to have at least 5 in each team again. Is this stance because I prefer cruisers? Not really, I have more games played in cruisers, true, but that has more to do with more cruiser lines than battleship lines.

I'm getting vibes of this

It really is. You can see that they went that extra little length to add a Yamato as either a Star Destroyer or the Death Star itself. And the fighters swooping in with the contrails like X-Wings. And then American DDs squaring off against IJN DDs, like rebels vs stormtroopers. It is really simpe, probably didn't take too long to make, but it is the thought and the idea that is great.

As much as it annoys me, this is just the usual better stuff they get. It might be a little better this time with the Papa-Papa flags, but that is the sort of extra stuff they have been getting for a year and half now? Of course, in the present climate, it's absolutely like someone poking a red-in-the-face angry person and running away giggling. It's the situation that makes it worthy of special attention. Though I guess it is worth putting some attention to it as many people are unaware that the small stuff is continually better over there, we have just gotten so used to it that it isn't mentioned any longer. It's a reference to Rogue One. The page itself has 'filmreference' in it, and the image is of ships duking it out in an area that would fit that flim. They have a dedicated team for WoWs. And are apparently not saddled with as much interference from above, plus they have sort of backed themselves into a corner, they can't really scale back their shower of goods now that the players are used to it. They are stuck having to do it to retain the players they do have, which is well below what was expected from the NA.

See, I'm actually one of those that want to like Bastion, I was even thrilled when they announced it. But ever since I tried it for a few times (first time I was blind to any issues of course), I felt it was certainly not doing as well as it should. And now... well, given the choice, I would rather have no Bastion at all. I say that as someone who wants a mode with forts. If the current Bastion mode is so bad that a proponent for it wants it gone, then it is terrible. Utterly terrible. Remove, rework entirely (scrap the entire 'protected Domination' mode, it will never be good) and come back with a better solution, and then actually listen to the feedback and reports about the issues. Alternatively just drop it entirely, because it isn't good for gameplay as it is.

Thank goodness... maybe it will cut down on the battleships so cruisers can make a return (and perhaps handle the many destroyers a bit better hmmmm).

Indeed, that's my beef with the entire line. The 'fix' to stealthfiring impacted normal DD play a lot more (since only a few could really stealthfire effectively). And it works counter to the hydro. Seems like such a poor way of trying to fix a relatively small problem.

Of course I don't know it... hence why I added "I fear it might in fact be just like that". The point was that I think it is absolutely ridiculous, but as of late things have been taking a path down that route, so I fear it might in fact just be that since it is now a 3 pointer with no 'changes'. Meanwhile Demolition Expert has been nerfed to go with a tier drop, and Basic Firing Training has been buffed with a tier increase. Essentially, why would they retain the present wholly unimpressive skill and make it more expensive? Because it is better now, like the other moves (unless they were nerfed like Basics of Survivability, and nerfed seems even more ridiculous). Generally speaking the changes to the skills have had a distinct flavour to them, favouring a certain tonnage heavy class over the others, so while it might seem completely crazy to make the skill like that, I would no longer be surprised it was.

I guess we will have to see what happens on NA. My guess/fear being that the Christmas stuff has simply been too good, and now they are backpedaling like mad. But on NA they are stuck on having promised the Commander's Presents, so it binds them, like the Murmansk Humble Bundle fiasco. NA probably can't avoid having to dish the presents out. But here they put up the corrected rewards in time... It is pretty clear however that we were supposed to get Presents. Regular containers simply don't mesh with the event, presents do.