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Yesterday 5D was performing clan strategies. Out of that 3 hour long test session, the most interesting part for me was that the de facto carrier player of our clan (70 solo WR on the US server, a bit less impressive on EU with his original account) was arguing for leaving out carriers from future tier 10 clan battles. He showed us his map calculations, and it is COMPLETELY impossible to remain outside of the AA range of the battleships and cruisers whilst so much as getting close enough to spot an enemy destroyer in the standard map control positions. The AA at tiers 8 to 10 is so strong and far reaching that attacking ships that is outside of another ship's AA bubble requires a legendary level of stupidity that myths would still speak of a millennia from now.

I bet I can. Give me a Hakuryu and two AFK Minotaurs and I'll show you.

Because their players either get better or quit. Battleships, cruisers, and destroyers performs more or less to their damage capacity (i.e. the damage that they are ABLE to do in one average game, the amount of fires they let burn, the amount of penetrating hits, etc.) but carriers have their damage tied down to player performance. Look at the average damage of the top players of the IJN carriers from tier 4 to tier 7. The difference of 3 tiers barely shifts the value of the damage done by 10k. A comparable difference in IJN battleships sees a difference of 50k in raw average damage. The CV damage scaling is basically a function of player skill, top performers of the class have nigh-identical performance across the tiers.

As are the ships. Have you looked at the distance you travel in a ship in 20 minutes? Most WW2 planes would be envious of that kind of cruise speed. The long run-up is already modeled in the game in the circle of no return as well as the run-up to the circle's boundary. The relative speeds of the planes and the ships are also not as they would be IRL. The torpedo planes that the Shokaku flies has a relative top speed higher than the fastest fighter in game right now. I'm not saying that the game should follow the performance of ships in real life, just that there is a reason that carriers rendered battleships obsolete in our world.

CVs at tier 4 have less damage than their battleship counterparts despite the Langley being, tier for tier, the most powerful carrier in the entire game with the possible exception of the Zuiho. CVs are a class that is far harsher with their sorting when it comes to player skill, and so carriers average higher damage. Carriers are also not prone to sailing in straight lines into destroyer torpedoes and dying with no damage done.

No they couldn't. For the simple fact that the general airdropped torpedo arming range is 50 meters (far smaller than the in game value) and a speed of 42 knots (faster than in game CV torpedoes) whilst battleships are significantly less maneuverable than they are inside of the game.

It'll make them more finicky and difficult to handle. Most CVs would probably prefer stronger squads over more squads if given the option. There is no real reason to have more than 2 torpedo squads IMO. Having fighters to shoot down is not any practice for going up against another skilled CV player who is also playing mind games with you. If I wanted to practice against stupid and easily manipulated CVs, I'll launch the training room.

The drop distance is already significantly larger than what they would be IRL, about three to four times longer if my estimations are correct. Destroyers are already able to avoid drops unless the drops are executed in such a way that they are literally unavoidable which is something that very few CV players can do. Battleships shouldn't be able to evade a torpedo drop anyways, they have a strong AA to protect themselves. Cruisers also have the defensive fire or insane AA DPS themselves. That is not a nerf that is in any way necessary nor justifiable unless massive overhauls are made to the class interactions in game. The CVs are primarily used for fleet reconnaissance and destroyer acquisition in clan wars as well as in ranked battles. If destroyers having their torpedoes spotted is a problem, then just reduce the range that the planes can spot their torpedoes so carriers will have to spot actively or their planes will miss the torpedo spreads.

The CV population is relatively low anyways, having more than 4 in a game is needless. In fact I believe that having two is more than sufficient. A lot of the skill that goes into carrier battles comes in from the mind games, either guessing where the enemy CV will strike next or scouting forwards and expending time to find the enemy strike and interception forces. Two CV players on each team just results in the two sides butting heads with RNG deciding the winner. Destroyers against carriers are interesting to say the least. On the one hand, being harassed by a 80% WR carrier in a destroyer basically ends games. On the other hand I've seen a Hatsuharu and an Ognevoi both die to a single autodrop by a Ranger so the Problem is hardly just the CV's fault.

I don't think most people would mind, they are way too many battleships in the game right now after all.

Radio jamming, radar jamming, and star rounds would be nice though I think that it would work better as a cruiser consumable available to several nations rather than something that should be specialized to the French. It's just my thoughts though, having a small and lightly armored but fast cruiser that supports offensive destroyer flotillas would be a very unique and nice addition to the game though I don't think that the French cruisers of all things would particularly benefit from that playstyle considering the dimension and silhouette of their ships and the handling that would follow.

That would be an unfortunate possibility, yes. The British cruisers might be extremely hard to handle, but at least they are unique and potentially very powerful. I don't know if the French cruisers really could have the same effect or will they be a waste of both out and WG's time.

Well, AA isn't the only thing that would make the French line interesting. The last thing I want is an overpowered line, so I would rather the French be a little like the British in that they're unique but situational rather than just being either flat improvements over the existing ship lines or worse versions of said ships.

No we do not. CVs, an entire game class for WG to model, balance, and market has percentages in the low single digits. This means that CV players are either too stupid to handle themselves and free XPed their way up the tree, or have stuck with the class for so long that they carry their team to victory in basically every single game they step into. The lack of average players, thanks to the stupid battleship buffs, are the primary factor contributing to the carrier performance gap in the present time. There is no exception, especially for a class that wields as large an influence as the carriers.

It's wrong for the same reason as issuing seal clubbing ships is wrong. It prevents newer players from getting into the game.

Clear Sky, in my opinion, is a medal that ruins lower tier carrier play and is one that is far more difficult if not nigh impossible to get without a carrier. It's a medal that encourages the higher tiered players to go down and use their superior experience and strategic awareness to bully newer players and chasing them away from the class. I think it should be something like "shoot down the equivalent number of planes as the total plane number of the enemy CV" which would both allow it to be received more often and allow surface ships to earn the medal.

There's still the issue that they're still mostly just ships with tweaked gun performance though. They don't bring anything new to the game really apart from easier to use battleships thanks to the superior shell velocity. I for one would think that expanding the cruiser and destroyer lines are far more beneficial to the game's health overall. Once that has been established, then the creation of more battleships can be dealt with. As things are, introducing a second line of battleships with the current meta would be hazardous to the existing game balance. Back on topic though: considering how unexceptional the French cruisers appear to be, what would be your proposal for their specialty?

I wish they enforced the 1 CV per team rule across the tiers, I think that having two CVs per team in the lower tiers is too volatile, especially since MM doesn't seem to take carrier loadout into consideration when distributing members.

Carriers engaged surface ships IRL. If we're going for realism, why should we provide battleship with a little safe space where they can go hide from their real life predators whilst they go around nuking the other classes? If the game mode was split into carrier battles and surface engagements then other ships will need to join the carrier battles in order to give the carriers something to engage and spot for. Carriers would probably chase all the battleships away. If that became a thing, then I'll be more than happy to take my CAs and DDs in to mess about with the carriers whilst the battleships can have their own little room where they can play citadel slots with their guns at 20 km, just like IRL. Some of the most fun ranked games I had were without battleships, because the fights are far faster and much more brutal. You still haven't answered my question. In your view, would it be fine if carriers performed in the game like they did in real life? So the difference between CVs and BBs are so large in real life is so large that players should not be given control of ships of both classes. Yet destroyers and cruisers are controlled by players and you would like to see the difference between them made large just like they were in real life. I see.

I suppose. I had far more success with my missile thread. Maybe I should just be needlessly pedantic in the opening paragraph of my posts to raise user engagement

I'd be inclined to agree in the case of their destroyers, but not their battleships. Their destroyers are fascinating, perhaps more gunboaty than the Russians whilst they might be better objective hunters thanks to being faster and potentially more sneaky. Their battleships, whilst possessing gun layouts that would make them nigh perfect for ranked and clan wars, are still just battleships. Big, well armored ships with dangerous guns and sluggish handling. They are indeed quite dull. The ammunition suggestion I made was to address this issue. The Alsace seems like a departure from the French battleship's "thing" though, and really isn't that much different from what a Montana already offers in the game minus the AA performance.

I'm surprised there't not more battleship mains in here, whining.

A torpedo hit would also almost definitely spell an end to any ship. Maybe we should have that in game as well!

Well done, you have excluded literally everyone from the forums. If you play World of Warships, you will have to play cruisers. No exceptions. The battleship mentality appears to be that they should be the hero of a first person shooter whilst everyone else is an NPC mook.

Are you arguing that CVs should be buffed to their real life performance? Do you realize that the Yamato's engineers expected the Yamato to take a total of 6 AIRDROPPED torpedoes before she was rendered unfit for further combat? Why do battleship mains always insist on bring up historical performance when they would take a full minute to accelerate, take a few kilometers to turn, and would have their rudder as well as probably their ship beam snapped if they pulled anything remotely like the maneuvers they did in game?