invicta2012

If there isn't a CV, you're king of the seas. If there's a CV, you're toast. Just had a DD game in Ernst Gaede. Two DD kills (players trying to be too positive and capping), one sub kill (easy to find with hydro). No CV to bother me, so it's easy street. Observations so far: Good things: Subs threatening CVs - you can't camp anymore in a CV, they will come for you. CVs now have to be more aware of the minimap and keep moving, which makes them more vulnerable Possible new roles for off-meta ships. Bung a hydro and some extra special DCs on them and you have a bespoke sub killer. Bad Things: The game not offering me a submarine token Watching submarine game play and thinking it looks a bit vague DD/Sub interaction not exciting because of random Depth Charge mechanics Depth Charges setting submerged submarines on fire (??) Inaudible sonar pings Rearward only Depth Charges allow for Submarine baiting tactics (set up ambush around caps, float sub into cap, await noob DD rushing sub) Sub effect on Battleships too strong, this certainly won't make them come forwards and help Subs threatening CVs - may need some tweaks to CV detection ranges. CE becoming important for CVs would increase player skill gap and make high point captains a must have CV sub indications don't show depth or whether sub can be damaged CV attacks not balanced around defence against subs CA defence against subs? Overall wonky game balance MM issues - three subs and a CV = not enough surface ships Testing Mode - Not enough surface ships = too many OP divisions and ship combinations Testing Mode - it's a terrible co-op/random hybrid Testing Mode - why so few CLs with ASW? All these Leanders and Perths are not providing a realistic environment, it's World of Smokescreens

Well, there's that kind of team, or there's the one who have come to play Sub Battles and who float around in the middle of map going pew pew pew while everyone else sails around the outside.

Yes, is the answer to that. An imbalance in surface ships really hurts in this game mode, so stay alive, don't worry about the subs too much, and come back to them when you have the upper hand.

The problem is the same with Aircraft Carriers (which I am playing, badly). Your spotting of subs is poor, your ability to control the ship is poor, and your weapons are configured to be almost impossible to hit subs with due to the short distance of spotting and (recently extended) set up and attack time. I suspect, however, that this is mainly a problem for CVs with fast planes, and that the British CVs with their Swordfish will have little problem on that score.

Play a normal game and try and eliminate as many surface ships as you can. That will give you the space to attack subs. All DDs should have the hydrophone feature enabling them to detect subs at close range, they all have depth charges. The biggest problem you will have is a light cruiser sailing about nuking people who are looking for subs instead.

The opening title to the game mentions AutoDesk AutoCAD.

Hedgehog and Limbo... combined with a Priority sector system. And something to help CVs work out where subs are....

All CLs should have depth charges, for sure. I think they also need to look at forward-facing ASW weapons. Having to drive over an SB to sink it doesn't work in a crowded game environment.

Apart from the one which requires one kill.

Indeed. WG have also goofed by giving Depth Charges to light cruisers with smokescreens, which makes them obviously better in this mode. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Shinano The Shinano was the largest aircraft carrier of World War II. Her total commissioned lifetime: 10 days. Sunk by a Submarine. Fancy playing Shinano Simulator? Of course not. Getting immediately sunk outside of port could be realistic, but it's not fun. And that's what the players want. An entertaining contest. And the current implementations of CVs and Subs aren't very fun.

If.... you're in a Tirpitz.

It's called Agile development, old chap. And it is quite good, as players generally provide better feedback than developers. And the feedback on this mode, is that it's not ready yet. And I doubt it will ever be ready for the current random mode. As Flamu says, you either need to expand the number of players to accommodate subs, or - and I favour this - going with a smaller map and an 8 v 8 mode, perhaps without CVs?

He doesn't talk about playing submarines in the video. These are observations about how the presence of submarines changes the game. And he's right. WG is already having to bribe people to play Battleships in this mode. Heavy cruisers have no ASW role. And game play in the sub matches has become like high tiers - cruisers camp around caps, shoot as many destroyers as possible, because whoever kills the destroyers will win the game. And the end games.... ye gods. Hopelessly empty, one-sided and boring. Most of them end up as sub vs cv, which is nonsense, because that is essentially CV vs CV. Subs can't even catch a CV to get into torpedo range. So after playing about 30 sub battles, I can honestly say I don't really want to play this mode of game, because the ship balance is completely up the spout. Destroyers are over-taxed. Good CV players will become even more powerful than they were before. Battleships will camp even harder. Heavy cruisers can't go to the front because they are acutely vulnerable to subs. And light cruisers - which have been packed with survivability gimmicks to combat the BB menace - have suddenly become the go-to ship class (check out how many Leander and Perths there are in the sub battles).

I'm more worried about it being Albemarle, to be honest. The performance of the 8 inch guns, which set lots of fires and do decent damage, makes it a good hit and run ship. But I can't see that working with fewer guns. Needs a better hull to be a six gun ship.

Is Cheshire just Albemarle with slightly bigger guns?

You may well be right. I thought it had Soviet AP shells. This is clearly an illusion from the time I played Nurmberg and it appeared to be made of Explodium. It is still a ship I can't bring myself to play, so Makarov will do nicely. I also have a surfeit of Soviet Cruiser captains, so it serves that purpose and tickles my collector bone, while not being Nurnberg.

It's not quite a copy of Nurnberg. Makarov is Nurnberg in the way that Huang He is an Arethusa. It has Soviet cruiser guns that hit very very hard, and you can sail about in operations whacking things very hard if that floats your boat.

I can see a lot of people getting salty. Yesterday these battles were fun, today it's all gone to hell. Five defeats on the bounce...

It does have one. The message popped up when I was playing it.

Just bought it. A jolly little co-op game brings 4 kills and 100,000 damage. She has the 360 turrets, and a nice combination of Soviet AP and German HE. Armour is light - it's pretty much the same as a Kirov - but there's some trolololo torpedo protection on there which may make her more durable.

The niche of being able to reliably pen BBs and Cruisers with HE shells, with no loss of fire chance. Of course, it wouldn't be a good idea to start a brawl with a full health opponent, but as a weapon of opportunity? Great news, much better than most DD HE which just goes pingpingping off anything apart from the superstructure, these days....

Yes, but this will enable 150 mm Zerstorers to do reliable HE damage all classes of opponent. You can pen the casemate of a Musashi with HE, the deck of a Jean Bart or North Carolina, without worrying about angling, and no problem with cruisers, too. Other Destroyers are much more heavily restricted. Not sure it will do so much for the 128mm ships, which have poor RoF, poor Alpha, which pen won't fix, as you say. With the development of so many fast, multi gun DDs I would like to see WG take the KM down a more realistic Spahkreuzer DD role and add the 150mm guns to the IX and X, as that would give them a definite niche. Possibly even a counter to radar cruisers.....

This is quite good. It's a significant buff to the KM DDs with larger calibre guns - you've got HE pen as good as an RN CA and the 150s have a proper whack at 2200 damage. Might be nice to offer this calibre of gun - ahistoric or not - to the Tier IX and X.

At the moment I have got nowhere near a submarine in a ship capable of hitting one. It seems better to play a normal game and regard the subs as an occasional hazard.

The ASW stats are a bit random. It seems the poor old German DDs are getting shafted - I was thinking Ernst Gaede might be good (has hydro, can stand a torpedo hit) and then it turns out her Depth Charges are weedy and half as good as T61...