Unintentional_submarine

I do believe it is this one though...

Argh... use 'f'. It's nerf, nerves are something in the body used for sending signals to and from various parts. Yes yes, I know the various German and Dutch languages have this weird notion that 'v' is 'f', but nerf still comes from Every time I see the use of 'v' in nerf I instantly think of nerves... it is getting on my... nerves. Ahhh... that felt better. Had to get it out.

That would be my guess. But aside from Khaba, few DDs actually have any substantial armour. If TAP is right though, then some of the top tier DDs might not be nerfed in the belt area (aside from Khaba which isn't nerfed there at all of course) which atm is 20mm, and TAP only goes up to 19mm. But that's going a very fine line with information that is at best uncertain.

No, they fiddle with the already non-historical plating values. The 32mm plates (which was this thickness for a very specific reason: that it could hold out all non-Yamato shells and at the same time allow 203mm HE to pen). The actual armour, like the German and Japanese bow armour will stay in place. The structural plates will get nerfed. In effect this means that the Germans will function much like how they already did against Yamato. Grosser Kurfürst and Friedrich der Grosse are likely to experience this as a massive buff, since they will be unique in being able to protect the front while being able to overmatch the enemies.

"Talk like a Pirate Day isn't part of the culture of Europe to a great enough degree that we felt it would fit into the game" Paraphrased another event 10 months ago (actually now that I think about it, I wonder if they will pull this one out of storage and use it again when the time comes). The simple matter is, these special days, or holidays or significant dates, are not very likely to get anything. The best we have gotten was the GNB even which ate up the Battle of Jutland. We will not get any 'global' non-mainstream days (like this), and we will not get the more European special days or events as most of them only really apply to a portion of the playerbase. Naturally WG EU could give us things such as St. Martin's Day/Feast of St. Martin, if for no other reason than to give us something, and in the process let people learn a little bit about the diverse cultures in Europe. Just don't bet on it.

Yup. The amount of times there was a caster comment along the lines of "wow that was close on this side. *explanation of what happened*" It was a little stupid. And at Warsaw there was a spectator mode. Not perfected, but it could go to all ships, it required not ship itself, and it could see everything and I do believe it could limit vision to one team at a time if needed. Why isn't that, granted limited, spectator build distributed to the more important events and cups?

There were others indeed (like those that kept harping on the small chances of winning the giveaways). And there were some who were royal pains. I actually felt the triggering action for your people was indeed wrong, but the approach to rectifying it was just not good. I'm glad that you guys are aware of it and that it will thus not likely happen again (from that end at least, can't cover what others do). In general I just felt that the chat was bad. With a lot of people trying too hard to snub the NA crowd, more than actually trying to enjoy the show. The camera work was bad for many reasons, and the face cam... urgh. But to me that only meant that I wanted to focus even more on what I could see, and what I could hear. Kudos to Mejash and Izoz, they were well disciplined and pointed important things out, so the poor camera didn't have a critical impact. I don't know, but it seemed like there were people who took this way too seriously. Like it was a World Cup or something. These were showmatches. Better quality matches than the Warsaw event, but still 'just' a bunch of supposedly good natured matches. And watching them from that perspective I thoroughly enjoyed them, despite the obvious limitations and weaknesses (come on WG, time to give us that observer/spectator mode!).

People spamming the chat, and in a few cases being downright rude and nasty towards Q over the camera handling. Which then sort of fed itself as he then had to handle that, leaving the camera hanging for a while. It was really annoying ans it was clear that there were a bunch of people who took delight in messing up his camera work because they felt things had happened they didn't feel were right. But being d-bags about it and messing with the rest of us is just not very nice. Especially not when the camera work was shaky at best already.

Many thanks. Yeah, there is probably a fair amount of "omg it's new! I'll just default to camp since I don't know what to do". But I honestly think that Tears of the Desert is spectacularly bad for Epicenter as the islands cover the outer circles and the inner circle is fully open and the right size in that you can't hide in it, nor so small that you need to move in to cover it. Any ship bigger than a DD pushing in there is asking for a pummeling, which sort of feeds itself. Ships stay in the outer circles where there is cover, giving them excellent opportunities to shoot at idiots pushing in. It's like World War I entrenched positions.

Heh... yes, they have said nothing of Soviet battleships directly. So there is the possibility that the French battleships have snuck in before them. But who are we trying to convince here? The RN CLs were not exactly a surprise. It has been known for at least half a year that they were coming on the heels of the German BBs (I think initially they were even slated to be ahead of them, some time around the time when the Soviet cruisers came out I think it was). Sure, there weren't any great announcements, but there were plenty pointers and little comments here and there. But even so, there is a long way to go from not saying much to saying "we haven't started working on them". I'm fairly confident the Italians are not going to grace us with their presence... well maybe a premium. In fact I would be surprised if we didn't see one.

Met Dropsiq tonight in my Roon, him in his DM, on Tears of the Desert.... EPICENTER! I was prepared to rip my hair out after that game. Why is it that every time I meet forumites the game ends up either really weird or really lousy? Please stay away from my games guys. Anyway, as noted it was pretty lousy. And Dropsiq landed a nice citadel volley on me. I had foolishly tried to push up to support the DDs in the cap as they detected the enemy DDs. Well with a DM landing accurate shots from good cover supported by at least one battleship I felt it was time skedaddle again. Too bad for me a torpwall was incoming so I had to run firm line... broadside on to Dropsiq. It was certain damage against maybe damage, though that maybe was more like 'rather likely'.

French BBs I'm personally ruling out for the reason of Soviet BBs. They probably don't want that many more BBs in the foreseeable future. I could be wrong of course, but they are after all looking to tone down the BB population a bit. So I think focus off of BBs beyond those that are already finishing up. And the Italians are also unlikely to me as rather recently they denied having even begun working on them. They could potentially do it I would think, but it just seems less likely to me. Personally I would actually really love something Italian... oddly enough not that interested in their battleships beyond the Littorios (damn good looking), but their cruisers and destroyers, oh yes. I didn't think of Royal Navy CVs. Those are obviously a possibility as well, but again I think WG is holding back on more carriers until they have achieved the basic gameplay balance they intend (by balance I don't mean power balance, but how the lines are supposed to interact with the rest of the game). And that one is clearly not yet in place. Maybe Graf Zeppelin will represent yet another testbed? After all they love sending in premium ships as tests for certain things in the future. Still, even if she were to be a test like that, and would be successful, I still think they would prefer to just file it away until such a time as CVs simply work well.

What struck me the most was the... shall we say 'sluggish' approach the NA teams had. There wasn't a single game where they weren't on the back foot in terms of early capping. And in the case of the second OMNI/KNTAI game it was especially glaring. The NA teams constantly had to try and play catch-up, which is not great if the cap you are down is the central one. Was a little sad to see the amount of trolling in chat though. It was not nice trying to piss off the man with the camera so he had to manage the chat. It only hurt all of us in the end. I would kindly ask people to not do this again, as it really did detract from the viewing pleasure. And that was what we were there for right? Entertainment?

Yes, but it's still a direction they are taking the game. Submarines are unfortunately rather binary. I don't see how they can add to the game, in any form. So them just setting up the most basic framework of submarines isn't something I find terribly encouraging. Now, I'm not frothing at the mouth here, plenty time for that later, but I do lament the path they appear to be taking, and I feel it important to make clear that I do not want submarines in the game. If only bots, then their damage won't be much, but then I wonder, are they then worth adding in the first place? I don't see them being terribly great as some 'sink the enemy submarines before they sink yours' mode or something to that extent. Smoking up big ships is bad WG? Well I can see that it is bad from a perspective of engaging and spectacular gameplay, it is indeed rather static and unfun as such. However it is pretty much the only real way ships can reliably force multiply. I mean if we aren't counting basic stuff like focus firing. And what can then replace it? Hm, I'm rather interested in what they intend to do. Maybe big ships 'disperse' the smoke when they shoot from inside? That would be a relatively non-intrusive solution, letting DDs smoke up BBs under heavy fire to let them escape. Still... I won't particularly like them intending to weaken ways of teams working together. Surprised at the Graf Zeppelin making her entrance next year. Could of course be December, but it is rather interesting. And four lines of ships... hmmm... Presuming the German DDs are coming this year and won't be counted as among the four lines for next year if delayed, then there are many possibilities. Ok, Soviet BBs are likely among the first, Royal Navy battleships or destroyers are very likely too, maybe even both. So that leaves one or two lines that are as yet undisclosed. Maybe French DDs? Or even it could be a total curveball and be fully kitted out split lines, like USN CL and CA (finally). Not sure how they count though (as lines or not lines).

Noticed that swap too. Presumably the Minekaze in the other line was dropped. It makes better sense with Mutsuki there after all, due to gun upgrade and torpedo launcher progression.

Nice videos, but they are faulty. Shiratsuyu with 3x2 guns (just look at the ship)? Or Akatsuki with 4x25mm AA guns, when it is clearly visible that it is 4x3 25mm (they are all four visible in the video)... that is four triples, which is sort of different. With such basic mistakes in, how reliable is the other information, which is rather basic.

Pretty much. When I detonate someone there is a fleeting moment of "HAH!" Followed closely by "well that wasn't actually fun". Of course when you detonate someone when you are in a total bind and get out because of that, it does last a little longer, but ultimately I don't feel good about the kill, I feel good about going around doing more stuff elsewhere.

No, we have had fairly accurate estimations, but nothing firm like 2.61. The general scaling isn't unknown, but the specifics I have never seen listed anywhere.

1) Oh? Damage saturation is about to see an end? Well that's a bit of a surprise. Would certainly like to see more on this subject. 2) Official replay system NEXT YEAR?!?! For the love of... Urgh. Well, at least they are now giving more orf a date than 'it will come'. But seriously... next year. 3) Say what? When was there captain skills that affected main battery accuracy? Did I really miss something that big? Oh well. 4) And finally we have firm numbers. Nice information to be sure.

The structural plates are the plates that in real life were probably more like 10-20mm thick in most places, and weren't expected to act as protection. These are the ones that are 32mm on T8+, 25mm on T6-7 and 19mm on T3-5. Simply speaking with the overmatch and HE penetration mechanics, the actual thicknesses were simply not usable, and were probably extremely hard to get firm numbers on (and they would probably vary across the same ship to a great extent). Unsurprisingly Lesta decided to use uniform values to provide certain gameplay options. It is the highest tier of these plates which will not get a nerf, though it is unclear if it all 32mm plates, or only the bow section and stern section plates. Personally I expect the latter, as the former would be an enormous nerf in general that couldn't be positive in any way. Yes, a North Carolina can in the future bow-tank a Tirpitz, like now. But chances are that the player in the NC won't do that, unless the Tirpitz is the only real target left. Even so, it is highly risky as we know. The point is that since they can't really do it against all the other battleships, chances will be limited for situations against the German battleships. And it isn't really a good thing to do anyway, with Tirpitz' torps and Bismarck's secondaries, you want to be able to keep a certain distance to them. I wouldn't worry about these ships.

The loss? Or the other bit? Losing is very much possible when you see the quality of the players there. And the bots aren't incompetent. They are accurate, they evade torps rather well (I would say they are better than most players), and they are hyper aggressive. They lost more ships on the run in, then they focused the weak ships first, leaving us only the potato battleships that utterly failed in their target selection. It wasn't a stomp, but the loss was obvious from the time me and my buddy got focused down.

As am I, since they specified the 32mm plates to be nerfed, rather than all plates. But things are sometimes less than well structured in their communications. Lesta does try to model armour correctly, and generally only fiddle with the structural plates (I can't forget that 2mm buff for Baltimore and DM, which was a specific anti-380mm buff), which lends credence to this. But it has pretty much been the only area (along with ballistics) they have yet to not changed when the need arose.

Indeed. If this goes through, I wouldn't be worried for the Germans that much. Sure, the 380mm guns won't benefit from this change, but neither will they suffer much from the change either. One only needs to look at Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. They have 25mm frontal plating and actual armour lower down. Do those two ships suffer greatly against the other T7 battleships in a bow-in scenario? The answer is, no. They don't. The later German battleships will behave similar to this. The great beneficiaries are as I see it, Montana, Grosser Kurfürst, Colorado and Nagato. The first two because now Yamato will be vulnerable (and Kurfürst because she will now be uniquely protected while being able to overmatch both her competitors) and the latter two because now they can fight higher tier ships on an even ground (the high tier ships will be better through other reasons than just overmatching). The greatest winner is of course Groser Kurfürst as her frontal protection is even more extensive than the previous ships, and she carries guns that can overmatch the enemies after this. So she gets the benefit, and barely anything bad in return. Her stern will be vulnerable though (doesn't have the same protection as the bow).

Got tired of waiting. Gamed the system and loaded up a Co-op with a buddy. Pretty much guaranteed same battle. Shared a compliment and proceeded to lose (YES A LOSS in Co-op... a total wtf moment).

Depends on how they do it. If they universally reduce all armour in front and behind the citadel spaces, then yes it would be a giant nerf. However, if they only reduce the structural plating (the 32mm plates) then the Germans actually come out on top, as they will be the only ones with actual protection from the front (and to a degree the rear) given they are actual armour and not just structural plates. Until we know precisely what happens, I would hold back on calling it a nerf.