Syrchalis

I've abandoned WoWs in January this year, due to the awful state of my most-played class, carriers. While overall they were quite balanced, with some outliers to the bottom (Ranger, Bogue) and some to the top (Midway, Essex) - the issue was fun. Carrier Sniping as most viable tactic AA too weak at 4/5, too strong at 6-8, and mixed at 9/10 There were games in which you killed 8 ships. I'm not even joking, EIGHT. That's 2/3rds of a team. And others were you just died or got AA cockblocked entirely (Independence/Ryujo in a T6-8 game). I know that anyone who plays other classes (especially DDs!) will now argue that their gameplay is the same - pretty hit or miss. I will not argue against that. It's bad. And I hope it changes for other classes as much as I do for carriers. I don't want to go further into detail why carriers were in such a bad shape gameplay wise, because it would take a lot of words. Instead let me focus on something positive instead. The USS Saipan A premium carrier, first of it's kind. Hm - what should I think about that? I watched some videos, read some stats. Looks like it's performing rather well, not exceptionally but not on the bad side. But more interestingly - a US CV with 3 planes per squads? This tiny? And at T7? Do I really want to spend money on that? 35€ even? Wait, did Wargaming randomly try exactly what I was thinking would fix carriers back in january? And yes they did! Wargaming did it. And so they became 35€ richer - I do not regret it. The problem I saw with carriers was CVs tend to do either really well (8 kills, remember?) or really bad (getting instantly sniped) - there is not much between that If one CV snipes the other (which happens a lot) one will have a really bad game, one a really good one, causing this extreme imbalance Note that the above is true just for CVs, if a DD or CA randomly dies to a stray torpedo or detonation it doesn't affect the game nearly as much Players get really frustrated when they die to a good bomber run, because it feels like you just were excluded from the game because the evil carrier guy decided YOU aren't allowed to have fun So I proposed Nerf damage HARD Buff reload Buff speed/durability The Saipan is the living embodiement of this idea Tiny amount of bombers mean low damage per attack run and overall T9 planes on T7 CV mean that your planes are very durable compared to the AA you encounter Their high speed makes them even more durable and allows more attack runs than usual Fast reload time for all aircraft But how can the Saipan compare to Hiryu and Ranger? Both have more than 50% extra planes and twice as big squads (Ranger) or slightly bigger squads with two extra squads (Hiryu)? If we look at the CV Winrates posted earlier in this forum we see that Saipan has 56% Hiryu 54% Ranger 49% What is this magic you may ask? Why does the Saipan fare so well? Is it OP? No, it simply is consistent. When I played the old Essex I had games ranging from 0 damage (instantly sniped) to 330k damage. Even without the extremes, damage would fluctuate wildly from 70k to 250k. I only got the Saipan today, but in the 7 games I played I never went below 72k damage (my first game with a new ship after 3 months break from WoWs) and never over 120k. This is a really tight spread - exactly what you need if you want balanced and fun CVs. I've never seen such a consistent CV. Though, why is it that way? Most importantly, because sniping Saipan is hard. It's small, nimble and even has acceptable AA - this eliminates the very bad games where you die immediately Nearly as important - it has low damage, so it cannot snipe other CVs well - which eliminates games where you have absolute air superiority and can wreck havoc among ships Even if the enemy CV is a 0/1/3 Ranger (meaning you have absolute air superiority), you cannot do that much damage with just 6 torpedo bombers or 8/9 dive bombers To summarize it: I believe the Saipan is an experiment from Wargaming, like the russian cruiser Mikhail Kutuzov was an AA experiment and the russian DD line was an experiment as well. And I dearly hope they intend on making all CVs a bit more like the Saipan, because it's honestly the fairest, least frustrating to play and play against and most importantly - most fun CV - I've seen so far. I also want to thank Wargaming to sell premium ships outside of bundles finally. When I left that wasn't the case. Edit: Made walls of text into nice and neat lists. And god damn it, I had a 160k dmg game just before I was going to bed. Now my wonderful tight spread is ruined.

That might be your experience, I cannot argue against that - as for myself, this is not merely my experience, but that of many CV players I talk with and it's also a more theoretical approach. If there is a game with a lot of cruisers, a few destroyers, just one BB per side and one CV per side - imagine one of the BBs gets immediately detonated. Does the other BB have a field day now? Does he end up with 200k dmg no problem? Not really. If we imagine the same situation with a DD or a CA as the lone representator of it's class it's the same. This is something unique to CVs, because for most of the game (especially the first 10 minutes) the only threat is the other CV, the only thing hindering your bombers - is again the other CV. So if you take the threat out you also take out the hinderance of your bombers, it's two birds with one stone, that's why CV sniping was so effective and common. CV games don't HAVE to go that way, especially not in lower tiers where sniping is less common and less effective. Still the described interaction is unique to the class, making it really hard to balance.

Finally met someone from here ingame too (I'm really surprised noone recognized me >_>) Crysantos <3

I found some interesting info about the Saipan. As suspected it seems to be a very skill-reliant ship. 100% of all players: 50% best players 25% best players 10% best players 5% best players

Yeah, I am just trying to defend them as developers. They could give you something for the XP - especially something they don't need to produce first (like a model or a texture) - and something you can't buy with real money or nearly noone does (like consumables).

Maybe I should start making Youtube Videos...

That is not cynical, simply true. WG is a company and they have to make money. They aren't Riot Games who can afford to be super friendly and give everyone free stuff because they don't have over 70 million players like League of Legends does. A secondary benefit is that it populates low tiers even if players proceeded to T10 on all lines, so new players will always have enough players to play with - on top of that veterans who they can ask questions.

Well eh, it's not invalid for carriers. It's invalid for all ships. You're telling someone who complains about OP <class> to play that class and either they do or don't. The difference with CVs is tiny, but maybe relevant. First, they are a higher tier at the start, so getting to them is not as easy. (You can hopp into a DD anytime, or a BB rather soon, but CV is a ton more xp further away). And then they are kind of very different, so to actually utilize them to even 30% effectiveness takes a while. That's asking for a lot more time invested to understand what you're up against than with other classes.

Yeah I agree, it would make it feel less frustrating. Right now, the first time you play, you're like "oh so the XP is tied to the ship" (if you never played a WG title). And then "so when I get the next ship, what can I do with the leftover xp on the old one?" and the answer is just "pay real money so you can use that xp on other ships" - kinda a point that makes a negative dent in most players idea of the game.

I'm totally with you on that. The problem is that how many know something about how carriers work? 10% of the players? Yeah sure, the "reasonable" thing to expect would be that they learn it, but that's not how games work unfortunately, you can't >make< people do something, you can only trick them into doing it. Either way, the problem I see with Essex/Midway changes is that they did it wrong. If I engage an Iowa I lose 6/12 torpedo bombers (as example). Now I would lose 6/6, because an intelligent Iowa would not focus the dive bombers. The difference is out of scale. 6 Torpedos is infinitely more than 0 Torpedos. If you say you only lose 4 - it's the same story. 4 out of 12 is not much, but 4 out of 6 is nearly everything. That's why the change was so devastating. You didn't lose half your torpedo power, you lost nearly all of it. A better solution would have been to make the torpedo bombers maybe a bit faster and in turn reduce damage by 2-4k. That would have made it impossible to oneshot BBs, but you would still be able to use powerful torpedo strikes.

Yeah the Saipan is incredibly hard to snipe. 33kts speed Under 1000m turning circle Tiny Ship (!) Okay AA Fast, powerful, quick reload fighters So just don't. There isn't even a reason to. You snipe CVs because you take out their fighters and they can't deal any damage anymore and usually a CV is a massive damage threat. The Saipan however is not a massive damage threat. Better focus on other ships.

It's actually really hard to carry in Saipan because you have so limited damage. I've lost a few games today in it, just because of that. If had been in a Hiryu or something with similar/more strike power then I would have hard carried those games quite easily. No matter how good you play, you have only 6 torpedos per attack and since the flooding chance nerfs a few months back you can't count on flooding to maximize your damage.

Die Saipan ist ein tolles Schiff - einfach weil sie umsetzt was ich denke alle Träger für das Spiel gesünder machen würde. Weniger Schaden pro Anflug, aber mehr Anflüge pro Spiel. Wer mehr wissen will wieso ich sie für ein super Beispiel für eine neue Richtung der CVs halte sollte das hier lesen (Englischkenntnisse nötig)

Would definitely make it feel a ton more rewarding to spot those pesky destroyers with my planes.

No, I think you missed the main point of the topic. I do not talk about Saipan <--> Other CVs balance here. This is, because I hope that they become more like the Saipan - if they would, balance would be different anyway, so the real question is, why do I hope other CVs become more like the Saipan? Because the Saipan allows more strikes to be made. Less time spent waiting for planes to fly and to land and reload - instead more time aiming, or using tactics, fun stuff. Waiting is boring. The wonderful side effect is that due to more strikes they have to be weaker and this means there won't be this anymore that frustrates ANY player, except for other CVs. Long-term wise that will make CVs less hated among BBs in particular and allow people to see CVs as more of a supportish ship - but not by doing boring things like scouting - you will still bomb the crap out of people, but more like "finishing someone off" or "softening the big BB up" or "taking out high priority targets" instead of just outright 100-0'ing everything you wish. Remember - you will do the above things more often - 5-7x per battle you will "finish someone off" etc. instead of 3-4x "finger of death" - and I think that makes CVs more fun for CV players as well as for any other class.

You read that wrong, I quit way before that, it only kept me from coming back. I was occassionally reading the patchnotes when I was bored and reading that they replaced a TB with a DB and buffed their damage a little didn't give me much hope, so I stayed away. Of course it's bad to take. I was just saying that they are called T9 mostly for that skill and so you can gouge their speed/durability quickly - not because of anything else. The fine line is pretty clear though. If there is many different viable playstyles it's fun. Carrier sniping was the only really viable one for a long time, which made it boring. Saipan has many viable tactics because it can't snipe well and is relatively safe of getting sniped. Consistency on it is in damage and contribution to victory, not in tactics or playstyle. That's the core difference.

I think people just haven't found suitable ways to exploit the weaknesses of the Saipan. Other than that, I don't really see the problem. The reason Saipan can do what it wants is due to the faster and more durable planes - but if all CVs were like it (or at least a bit more like it) then that would mean all CVs have similar planes. Let me put it in different words. The Saipan actually only has faster and more durable planes. They are only classified as T9 to make the dogfighting skill work against it, so this classification is actually just there to NERF it's planes in a fight. What I am trying to say - this T9 classification would become redundant if other CVs had planes with similar durability and speed on it's tier, because the advantage this classification gives to Saipan's enemies isn't needed any longer.

Ark Royal! Ark Royal! *throws money at the screen repeatedly*

I was gone for 3 months, because I truly hate a few aspects of this game and other (also flawed games) seemed just so much more fun (and they were), though eventually everything becomes a bit dull and you look at things you haven't done or not done for a while. Maybe I'll mess around again in WoWs again. Why would anyone care? No reason, noone should care. What I hope is that someone can catch me up on what happened in the last 3 months. I am mainly a CV player, and all I saw was that they gave Midway/Essex the mercy-headshot, which pushed me away from the game for an extra month or two. The premium US CV seems interesting, somewhat acting on the feedback I gave months back (less damage for CVs, but reliable attacks - not undodgeable, but also not just a joke either), good chance I like it, just sad the price is so high. I finally work at a company as a game designer though, so I guess I can spare half a day of work in $. T4-6 for CVs doesn't really interest me, tell me what happened to Hiryu, Shokaku, Lexi, Ranger balance. What happened to the T9-10 area?

I think he is just lazy and doesn't want to write "have" so he writes "ve". Not a native speaker, I know him, play with him sometimes.

I agree that CVs should feel like CVs. And that in overall the theme of "few, powerful attacks" should be kept. Let me ask you - do you really think the Saipan doesn't follow this theme? Because it does - we are just so used to flabbergasting alpha damage numbers due to Midway's dominance for months. Hear me out - a BB does get 20-40 salvos off easily in a game, which can do a lot of damage. Even the Saipan with it's quick reload and fast planes does only get 5-6 air strikes, which is not even a third of that. However, they are precise and can do massive damage. You won't oneshot a BB with it, but you can easily take 60-70% of it's HP - if he does a mistake. Secondly, I do not wish all CVs to be as extreme as the Saipan. I just want them to be a bit more like it, a bit less alpha damage, a bit less overall damage potential, but in turn, a bit more strikes. See it as compromise. You don't get to ruin someone's fun completely (by sinking him) with just one strike, but in turn you get the opportunity to do more strikes on different targets, which gives you flexibility. You can still focus on one guy though. More strikes = more fun, sounds simple, but it's true. Do you have the Saipan? I was very sceptical before I bought it, but I don't see me using any other CV anytime soon.

It may be historically accurate, but it is not fun. While I can't speak for you (or other CV captains), I can speak for those who are the victims of your attacks. WoWs is not a simulation, it's still a game, so fun > history. And maybe you underestimate the Saipan a bit - especially it's AS deck has a huge DB squad with 1000lb bombs, which gives you that feeling of a massive strike.

Yes, you can look at them like smokers. THEY pay money, so you don't have to pay (or at least not as much).

You can always talk to them. Noobs are more likely to listen to "charge at them, you have good armor!" than mediocre players who are firmly convinced sniping from far is the best tactic. Just be smart about it and you can make use of them. But even if not, enjoy the free XP/credits from enemy noob Tirpitzes. I loved them back when Midway/Essex had 2 torpedo squads. Gave me some nice record numbers.

Why complain? Easy food. Sure, you get them on your team too, but see it this way, 3 BBs per side. 3 chances for a noob Tirpitz. But one slot on your team is always taken - by you - which cannot be a noob Tirpitz. So on average you will have more on the enemy side. Credits and XP piñatas. Just let them soak all the damage - that's not just good thinking, it's actually a proper tactic, because with their powerful citadel armor they can take it, you probably can't.