dasCKD

My suggestion won't really make the line good per se, but it would address the issue I've been having with the game for a long time. Speaking of which, where's this week's podcast?

Exactly. Add that to the fact that speed is a support rather than a direct bonus (can make a good ship better, can't make a bad ship good) and it's not a great mystery why the French ships are poor.

It would have been nice. :/ WG seems opposed to fun though, at least when said ship isn't a battleship.

Flamu, in my opinion, is an extremely unreliable source in terms of ship performance. In his games with the French cruisers, the mostly employs competitive tactics such as having destroyers smoke up his ship to allow him to push in closer which often disguises a lot of the problems with a ship. Considering that even with that he still performs rather poorly even with the games that he has chosen to show, I am extremely worried about those cruisers. If he gets routinely severely damaged and is unable to do good damage with defensive competitive techniques, then I could only imagine how bad the ship would be when driven by a player sologrinding up the tree. It's why I would prefer speed boost if it worked in the way I outlined. It would be far better if the speed boost actually allowed you to recover from a bad position extremely quickly instead of being something that has very little utility in the actual performance of the ship. Signal flags are balanced so they won't be overpowered and even with that the speed flag conveys nearly the same benefits as the speed boost whilst not running out.

That's the thing though. We don't need a better Zao. We probably don't even want a better Zao. If we wanted a better Zao, then they should have just have the Zao buffed. When I first saw the Henri and heard about her armor, I thought she could be fun. A slower firing but faster moving Moskva with insane guns and really bad armor. A ship that could work well with an exciting and chaotic playstyle of rushing in close, delivering killing blows to cruisers or multiple citadels to broadside battleships when she decloacks, then runs away cackling whilst turning every once in a while to fire HE at the angry enemy ships chasing her. As things are, she just seems like a toned down version of the current cruisers with no real strengths to speak of.

Really? Because I think the community is far too complacent. A poor ship line comes out, and they don't protest it or see grim prospects coming in the future. The very concept of the French cruisers are broken. They are fundamentally grounded on poor foundations. Like all of my other prophesies, this one shall come true as well

Out of all those 3 problems, I find that one to be the largest. I am fine with a squishy ship. I am fine with a unmanuverable ship. I am NOT fine with a gun that does not only fire slowly, but also has awful shell arcs for a gun of that caliber and the shell performance that is beaten by not only the magical Russian AP but also the AP of both the Zao and the Des Moines. Her guns might be fine for another ship, but a gun that large on a ship as big as her being as bad as it is is unforgivable in my opinion. The tier 9 is boring, but functional. Could do with improvements to her guns, but I won't complain too much until I've played her. The tier 10 is fundamentally broken.

They look like dull copies of existing lines.

Well yeah. Can't it be all 3? The simple fact is that RNG is annoying and trolls you one way or another and I think the game would only improve if we reduce it when we can. I also punctuate these long articles with my drawings. I might want to experiment with removing it though. They might be having a negative effect on audience engagement. I'm fine with randomness when it comes to things like shell dispersion or torpedo noise because that's the kind of thing with visible effects that you can play around with. When it comes to fires and flooding however, everything just seems completely random and disorganized. There appears to be no rules to it. There's no clear way to play around it. I think RNG is fine at times, but when it comes to something fundamental to certain ships like fires and flooding then it should be reduced when and where possible.

Keep the Yuugumo. The Shima is awful.

Quick note, if I used the full editor then the edited timestamp doesn't appear on the post. Makes you wonder why the time stamp is necessary at all.

That's the problem though. Ichase faces soft and squishy targets and even with that still comes out barely on top. If I had that kind of lineup, I can sail my Hindenburg all day doing 10k a salvo at battleships 15 km away. The simple fact is that the Henrietta doesn't suit the game meta. She lacks any real strengths. She is rather dull to play. She doesn't seem to be very much of an upgrade from her predecessors. And she has a significant list of weaknesses.

The only good option is that if your carrier is AFK, then a bot should launch those planes at the enemy CV. It's very selfish to pick a CV and refuse to be feeding the enemy planes don't you know?

What is the purpose of AP bombs? Is it to give carriers a better alpha vector? USN bombs are more than powerful enough, overpowered in fact. Alpha damage was never the issue with carrier dropped bombs.

I'm not getting much response for this thread compared to the ones I had before. I'm kind of annoyed actually

Not sure if it's the best format for it. I'm pretty sure I can write a political treatise weekly for the screwups that WG comes up with.

It's a secret to most people, but the IJN destroyers are actually overperforming. To combat this, War Gaming has introduced a new skill for all owners of at least 5 premium battleships called "Fair and Balanced". It's a skill that extends your torpedo acquisition range by 20000% and takes over your rudder when you're on a collision path with enemy torpedoes.

I'll think about it ;)

Much obliged

Is that so? It seems I will have to review the sterns of more ships

It's alright, I don't actually expect any of my suggestions, even the ones that would self-evidently lead to a better game like the aircraft interface suggestion, to actually be implemented. Writing these ideas is a bit of a hobby for me. If you like my ideas though, I have absolutely no objections if you wanted to pass them onto some place where it could do some good.

Well, at least I managed to make you happy somehow =P Whilst I do think that randomness can help with the variation of games, I disagree that it makes the game interesting in the long run. Whilst I am happy when things go my way, the high that I get then is followed by the slightly bitter sentiment that I bested the enemy not because of what I did but because of what the server decided to give me. I do like shell dispersion, it does keep even knifefights more exciting. That said, I disagree that randomness inherently makes things better. When I am less than 10 km away from a Yamato, I fully expect that the next salvo will be a citadel through the bow because I know that the Yamato's shells can inherently penetrate my ship's bow. I'm elated when the shells go off course, but I act under full comprehension of the potential consequences of my choices. Being under fire from an HE salvo is entirely different from that. There is nothing but probability governing the fires that are set from HE shells. It's like if the overmatch mechanics were tied to the random number generator, some shells will bounce clean off whilst others will cut clean through the bow and go straight into the citadel. Being able to know how much a ship can potentially hurt you is something that I find to be a big plus in the game, and I feel that the current system detracts from that. I could see a salvo as it comes flying towards me, and I can tell what the salvo would do to my ship five or six seconds before the shells land. Now admittedly this is not usually enough time for me to do something about it, but I do at least have a sense of what the shells could or could not do to me. I don't get that for the fire or floods. I understand completely that my opinion on this matter is contentious, but I believe that the game experience would be much improved if players aren't made to feel cheated or screwed by the server because a die rolls a certain way. Now you would no doubt argue that the shell dispersion is governed by the same unreliable system that I am arguing against and would like to know why what I'm proposing is so fundamentally different. I don't think I have an answer that would be to your satisfaction though, at least not yet.

I'll probably change it soon anyways. ;p The IJN should probably get a flood for every torpedo against an equivalent battleship imo. The USN should probably have a similar arrangement. The KM and SN could probably make do with 2 on the same segment. Maybe torpedo belts could negate some incoming flood damage. Could be an issue. I personally try for mixed divisions, but balance will probably be hard to achieve. I'll probably come up with something tomorrow.

I drew it myself. That doesn't mean I'm not a terrible person (-_-)

Speaking frankly, shooting HE at the same range you are doing right now would probably help your team more than you were doing previously. Drawing the fire to one of the smallest and maneuverable ships in the game can do wonders for your team.