invicta2012

Given that RN DDs accelerate like a ferret leaving a sack I still don't see the problem.

And with those WG saw the need to throw CV play on its head completely. These people are at least partially responsible, don't you dare try to wiggle out of it now. WG has changed the gameplay to be more like WoWP. I don't remember that being asked for a lot. It'll be fun, though, as I like WoWP (although I liked it more before they revamped it and confused everyone with odd objectives and stuff). The thing that everyone actually complained about was AA. At lower Tiers it was horribly ineffective, at higher Tiers too strong. And they're reworking that as they go. So it's no surprise that the community isn't happy with the revamp: WG have spent all their time and effort on fixing the bit that already worked, and now they're making a thorough bodge of the bit which was broken and has now been made worse.

Well, no, just stop firing for a bit longer than before, hit smoke, commence firing again. RN DDs are nippy enough to be able to cope with being a bit more visible. I suspect this may be a gentle nerf to them.

That's a problem with the way lower Tier CVs and AA work. Or rather, the way that lower Tier AA doesn't work. Use the DFAA consumable on a Tier VI cruiser and the effect won't be that dramatic. At that Tier, you've got CVs capable of anvil torp bomber attacks and ships with AA ratings in single digits. Of course people were going to complain, and they were going to complain when it affected them, not be mollified by "oh, it's all OK when you reach Tier X". It will be interesting to see how the balance at mid-Tiers has changed - not seeing so much testing of those levels. It looks fun. It also looks like a completely different game to the rest of World of Warships.

Warspite is a brilliant ship. Looks fantastic, her AP hits very hard (and her HE isn't bad). Great concealment (mine is 11.5k), good secondaries, she murders Cruisers and destroyers and you can cause serious damage to Tier VII and VIII BBs. But I keep losing in her, too. It's speed, really. Unless you're playing in a division with clan members, people won't wait to build around you. Same thing as happens with US BBs. So I prefer the French BBS, with their speed, flexibility and four gun turrets which enable you to deliver shotgun broadsides.

Can't say I like the manual AA system. Why is it so big on-screen? Why do I have to click an extra button? Something like the shield management system in Star Trek Online would be better. That just gives you four areas around the model of the ship in the UI which displays damage, HP, etc - if you want to improve your shields, you just click on the area you want to enhance. Two clicks, done.

Happy New Year, you lot.

Yes to both. For balancing purposes using your main battery as AA should suspend your ability to use it against surface ships (or at least significantly increase your reload). You should also have to fire whatever it is you have loaded, which could result in a massive dip in main gun AA efficacy if that happens to be AP. I think it's fair that CVs get a chance to surprise ships and that their first attack should be a powerful one, as it is now. It's being able to come back again and again against an opponent who is becoming weaker which is the problem. Target ships will lose AA mounts and use consumables, whereas as persistent CV players can come back with few issues. Planes should have to return to the CV to refuel/reload, removing the possibility of permaspotting and constant attacks, and plane crew should become less skilled as they respawn: resulting in wider drop dispersion and more of a tendency to scatter. A CV main could invest captain skill points to reduce the rate at which this happens. I would also add an AA fire control module and Anti AA radar consumable. These would increase the accuracy of AA guns, with a bonus to AA damage which increases over time from initial activation, and a reduction to the effect of plane skills such as dodging.... It would mean that a CV which came back to a ship within 60-90 seconds of a previous attack would find itself facing much stronger AA than on the first run. I would also add a special ammo type - Proximity HE - to allow AA cruisers to be very bad news to planes while suffering a major debuff against surface ships (such shells would cause very little damage to them). This would give everyone the tools for a balanced game, where player choices and actions matter, and not the derp fest of 8.0.

The problem with CVs is that, when they are dominant, it turns the game into a different one... that most of the players don't really want to play (especially not in Europe, where carriers were bit part players in naval conflict. People want the Bismarck, not the Bearn. ) Long term the game needs to shift from Tier I-X and random games to Wows Eras, to widen the number of playable ships and maps into more of an Operation styled game. CVs should be the best ship in two of those eras: the early Pacific theatre and post war. The rest of the time they would only be OK... To get there WG needs CV play to reflect reality. Squadrons need to be flight time limited by fuel and ammunition, AA needs to be a proper threat with dedicated AA ships and gameplay , losing planes should be punished (longer respawn, lower skill replacement crews, who are less accurate and more likely to panic and scatter). The end result is a ship with the sudden striking power of a destroyer, the durability of a BB, but which can be pushed into irrelevance or made irrelevant by bad play.

Something of an over reaction?

Guess what, I might even help you guys a bit, after all if my BBs get unusable, it is the only thing a dumbo like me can do eh... Well, not really. I would hope WG would have the sense to make sure Atlanta and Kidd are in the Premium Shop when the CVs go live. They could even rush-release an AA ship or two for lower Tiers (original Cleveland rebadged as Columbia) and make a few quid out of that, as I'm sure it would make a popular division mate. Definitely best to give people a counter-play rather than try and balance in abnormal circumstances.

Hilarity. I see they buffed the torp reload, too. Looks more fun than I can handle.

There should be an extra skill based element to dropping AP bombs. In order to generate enough velocity to penetrate armour they need to be dropped from an ideal altitude. Too low, and they could fail to penetrate, too high, and their accuracy would be decreased. The planes delivering them would also have to fly at a set altitude, making their path more predictable and more vulnerable to flak. It wouldn't be hard to model this in game, with a simple click and hold LMB mechanism, locking the planes on course until the correct time to release (shown on an indicator) is reached. It's simple gameplay but is skill, rather than RNG based. As for AA... someone needs to tell WG about proximity fused HE and anti air radar. Around 1943 the combination of these things suddenly made life very difficult for the IJN navy... Their planes stopped coming back when they hit the range of the US Navy's main guns, and if they got inside the AA bubble they probably weren't getting back out again (a major reason for the adoption of Kamikaze tactics). Proper AA cruisers should have that.

The thing about NDAs is that you have to sign them, so presumably he would know if he was under an NDA. HTH.

I might give that a punt. Is that BFT/Manual AA with Catapult Fighter?

Can I also say that Huang He and Perth are monsters in this Ranked Season? all the tools to cause mayhem...

They have to find something good about it. It's ludicrous that a 1914 BC design should have anything like the AA values of that boat, given that the French didn't think AA was necessary when designing Dunkerque- the best part of 20 years later, when planes were an actual thing rather than old rags held together with string. That's the fun of paper ships, I suppose.

I hope so. The name sounds silly in English, is all I meant (childish, me?) but the ships are interesting and I'm all for the variations they bring in the gameplay.

I'm still wondering what happened to the Smeliy. Did someone tell them?

I did have some of those ARP ships at some point but to be honest I don't really like all that Japanese animation stuff. I'd have preferred a Wallace captain. By eck, Torpedoes to port, Gromit! Failing that a Tom Hardy voiceover would be great, some Steven Seagal gruffness, although there would be a problem with his pauses. "Torpedoes to...............................................................................................................................................................port" <was sunk five minutes ago>

Ho ho ho. Can't see myself having time for the first season of Ranked Sprint, the second might be possible, but I could do with a little downtime from these things, they are quite intense (especially if you have to play lots of games to rank out, what with being rubbish and all....)

I refer the Honourable Gentleman to my previous comments....

Hence the people responding to it. All we need is Boris and we've got a full house. (joke).

Will it make it into the game like that? I don't think so. Many of WG's recent premiums like Charleston and Dreadnought have all started off looking OP in terms of stealth and RoF and have been nerfed just prior to release. Those which started looking useless (like Vanguard) have all been buffed. I have confidence in WG's balans, for anything else other than CVs...

Not sure, matey. That's between you and your psychoanalyst. There is, and it's "not quite as pompous as you lot". I will cheerfully admit to being rubbish (although I've lots of fun in my Atlanta, recently, since I restored it), and I was trying to sympathise with someone having a bad day at the office. My bad for not joining in with the mockery, I suppose, but I prefer to be a bit more positive.