Gudgeon

No, they have not totally killed DD's.......or even cruisers quite, but they are in intensive care after a constant battering. Quite a few ships are heading to the scrap yard thanks to this patch.

Yes, with when CV's are in a match, concealment skill is basically pointless. I have been playing DD's and done OK in them, but is the game fun with CV's in the match? No. Cruisers suffer from constant air spotting too.

Played the Haru..OK game, but very campy. The Aircraft combined with radar could make DD play a very unenjoyable experience. Luckily, in this game they were tier 8 CV's, so my AA munched them. Playing against tier 10 CV's would have been very different/or playing a DD with inferior AA could have been a different story. Basically, it looks like tier 8 CV's cannot hack tier 10 AA. I suspect that you cannot buff tier 8 CV's because that will allow them to annihilate tier 6 ships if they meet them. Having CV's at every other tier looks like a fail. I think the CV rework in general looks like a fail for balance reasons and I cannot see how you can balance them against a certain something, without making them OP against a lower tier target. At the end of the day, my team folded due to being too passive and hiding and only myself and one other player got over 1000 base XP. The rest were 600 XP max and below. But that is a whole different issue in the game.

The Knronstadt is a 'free ship' technically. You can earn it for just playing the game. On the other hand, the Atlanta has a real world money cost. There appears to be a lot of Silver and Premium ships that have now become obsolete with the patch changes to be honest. Not good. So many balance changes in one patch is a worry. They cannot change more things without breaking the game completely. The saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" springs to mind. I hope warships recovers from this debacle.

Playing DD's to see how things are now. This is the ship class that gave me the most fun pre 0.8 patch. Is it fun now? Not played enough games yet to truly judge and things need to stabilize. I have already drawn the conclusion that the level of fun this game will provide will be inversely proportional to the number of CV's in a given match. Was the CV game play fun? I played for an hour, and then recouped all the free XP and doubloon values of my premium CV's. I did not really play them in the old system, and could not see me playing them for any real amount of time in the new system. I also do not want to contribute to annoying other players by playing CV's. Used doubloons from premium CV's to buy premium time in tanks. I will use the rest to gamble on the loot boxes. I cannot see any other way to spend the doubloons and there is no point stockpiling doubloons in this game.

It has been in the pipeline for so long, plus all the streamers seem to be playing it constantly, but yet there is no release date of a 'finished' ship. A carrot on a very long stick springs to mind. To be honest, I am actually bored about the ship now and could not care less about the release date. It is just another ship. Depending on how the new CV rework changes the game, the Alaska may be an irrelevance in any case if CV's become the equivalent of world of tanks arty. It is time the game was made fun to play, not grind a line for 200hr's to keep people logged on and potentially paying money . There are so many options to make the game fun and make money as well, WG. That is how to keep your player base, offer a fun game people don't mind putting money into for their leisure time.

Buyers choice. Do you think it is worth it? If not, then don't buy it. Simple. Stop being fixated with steel and OP tier 10's that will kill the game if too many drop into the queue. You are in a good clan, so you can earn the steel for free though playing clan battles (plus the snowflakes).

Nailed the problem spot on. Tier 9 = make very little money/lose credits playing tech tree ships, so why play them unless grinding. Tier 10's can slap a premium camo on and make money regardless of battle result and the player does at least something. Tier 8 gets to suffer as a result of this meta. For this reason the majority of my tier 8's only come out for ranked or scenario's.

OK, last battle of the day......OCEAN map (not seen that one in ages)..... A boring campfest that ended in a loss for my team, where no-one wants to over commit and get nuked due to the lack of cover. My team had no caps for most of the battle. One tier 8 per side. My test is over. I have seen enough. Back to playing DD's at any tier, BB's at tier 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, cruisers at tier 4, 7 and 10. In all seriousness, thank you WG for the patch changes and any work you do on the game in general, as it is a good online multiplayer game, but I am not buying the MM change, if I am honest. Buffing IJN cruisers is more that welcome, but I will only be playing the Myoko and Zao, due to the MM. I think the problem with tier 8 ships is a little more complicated than just balancing the tier's (although I have seen no evidence of improvement of this in any case tonight). Enjoyment of a bottom tier battle is also dependent on the ability of the players in top tier ships and how they can perform, which helps the bottom tier players perform also. BTW, I do understand that shooting higher tier ships gets more XP/money, but there has to be an element of fun in the process at the same time.

Four battles. bottom tier three times, mid tier once, top tier never. Four defeats. Bottom tier matches gave me 5-6 tier 10 ships per side. There were 2-3 tier ships per side in the bottom tier matches. I have played one BB game (Monarch), two cruisers (Prinz Eugen and Cleveland) and one DD game (Kiev). The Kiev was the mid tier game. All were solo games. I will play further to get a better sample. If it still does not show a fairer MM balance, then my tier 8 premiums/tech tree cruisers will go back to rusting in port. I like playing tier 8 cruisers, but I refuse to be an tier 8 XP pinata for for tier 9 and 10 BB's/Kronstadt's and Stalingrad's. I hope things balance out. I want to play my tier 8 cruisers, but with tier 10 ships now with enhanced modules/premium camo's, it seems very one sided if you are unlucky.

Points two and three are a contradictory. You want to "farm potato's and not struggle against other good players" but you hate yolo'ing, selfish players. The players you are farming are the ones 'playing for fun' and yolo'ing, but yet you hate them also and wish they were not in the game. The whole business model is to encourage people to spend money and ascend the tiers, regardless of skill level. It is what it is I'm afraid. I think solo win rate (but excluding cv play stats, which can skew overall stats) are the best arbiter of potential player skill. But yes, I agree, that does not indicate if the player is a 'team player'. It might just be that the whole fixation with stats in this game is actually fueling selfish, stupid play, in the quest of just getting kills, doing damage, or what ever the motivation is for that individual. I lock my stats so it is more awkward for me to check them, as I became obsessed with checking 'PR' and KD and god knows what else after every battle and I realized it was actually spoiling my enjoyment of the game. I subconsciously played for stats and got disappointed over a bad battle performance or a loss. I know when I have played well and if a mistake is made, quickly analyse what I did and what I should have done. Ultimately now, If I play OK and win, I am happy. I have 12K battles and 58% win rate overall, so I know I can help team win, if I don't make silly mistakes and gift my ship to the enemy. The only problem in this game are the 40-46% overall win raters in tier 10 ships. That spoils battles for the bottom tier players of that battle. They have to work really hard for any chance of a win.

The hamster is on strike....the next stop is Siberia.

Watch the Poseidon cup instead, its an amazing watch.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Bless Flamu, he is trying his best to make it interesting.

Yep, game is bust. Time to play something else. Crappy up/down progress in ranked and now kicked on a peak time has just confirmed it is time to find fun doing something else. Poseidon cup is still running OK it seems, so I could grab some sleep watching that. Wall to wall Stalingrad's on the competitive teams. Hilarious.

A difference in radar numbers per team is a straight up advantage to the team with more. DD's win games. Radar is anti DD/cap denial. Simple as that. How many ranked games do you win if your team losses all their DD's? Not many. Same for randoms.

yep, locked up while loading a ranked battle, got back in into port.....ship is battle. Cheers WG, there is another star lost. I think the game is trying to tell me something. This weekend is too much.

Too many battles with 0-1 let alone 1-2 or even 0-2 radars when a YueyY is on the enemy team. That is my point. And yes I play YY with radar so at least I know their will be at least one radar on our team, as balance cannot be guaranteed. They manage to match ship numbers per classes on each team easily enough and sometimes the MM even manages to mirror the exact ships across the teams mostly, when the code feels like it. This radar number thing is obviously another MM team win/lose chance multiplier and working as intended. There are more than enough radar ships waiting in the queue to balance numbers.

FAO of @MrConway. Please can you ask that the game coders implement a check to put equal numbers of radar cruisers on each team. Or is there a shortage of radar cruisers in the player queue, that is leading to a difference in radar ship numbers between opposing teams? At least in theory, equal numbers of radar ships means that the best use of said tool will win out. I like a challenge, but this is ridiculous. I would expect that the in game enjoyment is plummeting for a lot of players who wish to play DD's. This is the worst of the Ranked battles seasons by far. Not fun at all on many levels, not just on radar imbalance.

It will be D Day for the game when this rework is implemented in the full game. Done badly, it will be a devastating strike on what is already a sinking ship with the current meta of radar, AP bombs, OP ships which only the good clans can earn, among other things. The only class left will be BB's, if the developers are not careful. I am worried that what we have at the moment is very good CV players roaming unopposed in battles at the moment and getting 5, 6, 7 kills at will is one thing. The new class might just become a monster and suck the rest of the fun out of the game. Just like arty in tanks. At least at the minute, 70% of the player base cannot manual strafe, manual drop with any consistency. It might be a case of 'careful what you wish for'.

Exactly this. Potential to be a great game, but now ruined by 43% win raters at tiers 8, 9 and especially 10. Bad win rates at low/mid tiers is not a problem. I have played ranked this season.....and I am now looking to play games I have neglected in the pursuit of this game. It is really in a bad place at the moment. I cannot see how things can improve. You watch all the streamers and they are all spontaneously combusting when playing this game. The more chilled ones play all tiers........not just T10.....I think that tells you something. As a developer, I would be worried, as angry streamers give out a message that the game itself has problems......

I think, to an extent, the radar problem is exacerbated by the way the team positions to support the DD, to be honest. Bad games are generally down to a combination of bad support and poor team players. A radar cruiser should be in a very precarious position if he can radar a cap.....but most teams position so poorly, that if the cruiser is spotted, he cannot be wrecked anyway. This whole nerf this, nerf that mentality just generates another problem that will be called out to be nerfed in the future. This is written by someone whole prefers to play DD's at all tiers, so I know what it is like to push caps with F^&* all support at the start of the battle. By some miracle, we need to up skill at least 60% of the player base in this game before more balance adjustments are made, as real judgments as to what adjustment is needed is based on bad data and losing outcomes from poor playstyles from probably 40-50% of a given team. Support to and from team mates wins games. I do agree with using unique symbols for radar and hydro would be a start.

Dear WG, Please can you tweak your matchmaker code to balance the number of radar ships per side. This will make the battles potentially more fair. To me, it seems quite a simple little code tweak to put equal numbers of radar ships on each team during 'matchmaking'. Thanks. Looking forward to it in the next update. You seem to manage it with CV's with no problems, so it should be quite quick to adapt that code module.

Tier 8 is Tier 10 fodder regardless of ship type. Tier 8 is one of my least played tiers for this reason. Although it has to be said that good XP can be gained in Tier 8 DD against Tier 10 BB players with what appear to be broken 'a' and/or 'd' keys. This is not my experience. I must keep a record and check if I am right, because I would say that I am bottom tier 60% of the time, mid tier 30% of the time and top tier 10% of the time, when playing tier 8.

I'm afraid this is why the game mode is called 'random'. Random teams comprised of players of varying skill with a random chance of winning (certainly at high tier). It all depends on how your 45% players position themselves. Every battle is like this, so lock your stats to stop people running the Aslain match maker monitor from singling out the better players first, then have your fun with the 5-6 forty percent win raters on the enemy team.

I have just read this gem in the latest patch notes.... "As part of our efforts to eliminate cases of the AFK/Inactive status being erroneously assigned to players in Tier IX and X battles, we reduced the required minimum distance (in-game kilometres) to be covered in battle by 2 times." You should have left the parameter as it was, or even doubled the distance that determines if the game thinks you are AFK. Then send the players to co-op for 10 battles if determined as AFK. This is exactly why tier 9 and 10 suck, BB's camping bow on until sunk. This idea just encourages static play. Design maps that encourage more fluid play. Sort the in-game economy out so players are not hemorrhaging credits, hence encouraging better play which you are not punished for, as can occur at the moment. Reward brave decisions taken by players who attempt to win games. But not the above game change please. It is a sad fact, but tiers 1-4 offer the most entertaining play on a more regular basis, as the higher the tier, the more static the game play becomes, in general. Static play is not just due to the game being 'more serious and tactical', it occurs for a number of reasons which you should consider, before making changes like this.