alpreb

I will show a few screenshots from the port. I have given all HP related buff to american HE bombers as the tier allows, not because it is the best build, but because it makes a fairly basic point clearer: TVI HE bombers: 1783 HP TVIII HE bombers: 2979 HP (67% increase) TX HE bombers: 4589 HP (54% increase) The plane health differential between tier VI and X is 157%... No ship in the game gets that kind of durability buff going up the lines. A long as these number stands "balancing" AA is mathematically impossible. Take for example one of the most played ships in the game: The tier VIII battleship Bismarck. It has an average AA suite for it's tier, and is quite representative if the experience on it's tier. You're sailing, enjoying the view and quite alone. Suddenly, a Ranger's HE bombers closes in. How many attack runs should this squad do? 0 : That would suck quite a bit for the Ranger, at least he has unlimited planes and can try another target. the issue is that even the lowly Fubuki guns can hit a Bismarck and deal a little damage, this will be a very frustrating experience for the CV. 1: It is some damage to the Bismarck and maybe a fire, but at least 6-9 planes are killed and the carrier must use another type of planes. While the Ranger player could wish for more success, it is tier VI planes vs tier VIII AA. 2: Would suck for the Bismarck. getting hit twice (guaranteed on fire) downing 2-4 planes in total, the Ranger could send another wing fx rocket planes and put a permanent fire on him. 3: Who equipped these American Planes with the highest grade of Stalinium? I want to speak with the manager of Vought and personally execute him from treason. For comparison sake, let us say that 1 attack run is the optimal situation, how much damage does the Bismarck deal per attack run for this to be true? AA on the test server is dealt in a combination of flak burst that deal damage to multiple planes when hit and short range AA that slowly whittles down the health. Both of them are random, so distributing damage equally is... not entirely dishonest (although players will experience situation when nothing or everything dies, just like on the live server). A ranger's total HE bomber wing health 16,047. So the maximum AA per attack run would be around 15,000 to guarantee 1 strike. Let us say 13,000 damage, just to give a little buffer to make sure all the HE bombers don't RNG die too often, but also make sure the 2 attack never happen (since 3 planes fly home after the first run, there is only a max 10,680 HP left and normally those 6 planes combine for 3k health). Okay, we have now "fixed" Tier VI carrier vs Bismarck, but lets look at Tier VIII: Total wing health is 26,811 1st attack hits, no planes dies and and the 6 planes left for a 9207 total HP 2nd attack hit with 1 or 2 planes and the Bismarck is credited with 5-6 plane kills Still not too bad for the Bismarck, but the Lexington drops double to payload this actually represent +125-150% increase in damage, so a Bismarck should attempt to be with other ships to not take too much damage. And now Midway's Tier X HE Bombers: Total wing health is 55,056 1st attack hit, no plane dies and 9 are left with 31,551 total HP 2nd attack hit, no planes dies and 6 are left 12,367 total HP 3rd attack, 2-3 planes hit and the Bismarck is credited 4-5 Plane kills The Bismarck is hit by 8-9 bombers and is credited with even less plane kills for the damage and a bazillion of fires. It would be nothing short of miserable. The Midway has a similar damage output of a Lexington equipped with invulnerable HE bombers. The natural response would be "The Bismarck needs more AA power to not just be a plaything for the Midway" and I would agree. But remember, if you give even a "small" increase AA power, the Bismarck becomes immune to the Ranger, a "large" increase would render the Bismarck immune to the Lexington, a same tier ship. The numbers (and this means all of them) between tier VI and tier X carrier needs to be closer to each other, because the math makes the current situation horrible. Just look at the numbers in the screenshot (and those a with a 10 point captains, when this goes live it's worse). Everything is better; There is a lot of synergy making the tier X package so, so much stronger than tier VI. 157% health, 33% more planes, 22% more speed, 100% more bombs per plane, 22% more damage per bombs, 26% more armour penetration, 26% more fire chance and 29% larger hangar. Other captain/upgrade builds might lower and increase these numbers, but it is ludicrous. Oh, Tier VIII and X dive bomber come with a heal making sure that 2 strikes in the game, you just don't lose planes. Take a hypothetical scenario: 4 evenly skilled players go to the training room and pits 1 République vs 3 Normandies , 1 Des Moines vs 3 Pensacolas or 1 Shimakaze vs 3 Fubukis , who would win? No doubt that the TX ships have the advantage in firepower and durability, but even if they win, they will take a bit of damage in the process. With some luck (and positioning) the three tier VI ships might even win the match. Now take (and you can do the same in the live server, the problem is exactly the same) 1 X Midway vs 3 VI Rangers. I didn't screen shot the AA, but Midway AA will guaranteed down an entire Ranger wing in 1-2 burst shot. The Midway is effectively immune to bombers and will slowly but surely kill all three Rangers. WG, I beg of you, flatten these numbers. Make it so the Bismarck can defend itself against the Midway, while not being immune to the Ranger. Make so the Bayern can shot down a few Lexington planes and the Lexington has a small chance against a Montana. Make DD AA relvant.

From the looks of it, you have yet to hit anyone with secondary batteries.

Since I started playing the game the Langley only had the 1 fighter and 1 Torpedo bomber squadron setup and with the Bogue you got more options on how you wanted to fit your CV flight deck. Back in February they released patch 5.3 which among some re-works to high tier US Carriers, slapped that Dive Bomber Squadron in the Langley for no reason (Patch notes didn't event mention it). So now the Bogue is in limbo with weakest stock setup of all US carriers.

If the Bogue is flying 2/0/1, you only need to hit 3 torpedoes in the entire game to out damage his DB. Not to mention that he cannot completely replace his DB squad so any damage to that wing will make the Bogue fairly useless for the match.

If you don't do enough damage/kill enough ships/planes you stand to lose quite a bit of credits at high tiers, so the single most important objective of a high tier battle is to not die early. To avoid dying early you need to sail and use ships that stand good chances to not die. Exaggerated, Destroyers should never go out of concealment, Battleships/Cruisers should never be at anything but max range, Carrier fighter planes should be concentrating on protecting the flattop over all other targets. You end up with a very passive game in which nothing much happens until enough ships has been destroyed at long ranges so the individual captains can say "I have earned enough credits to cover my repair bill" and close into the enemy. There is no "balance fix" as such, since the repair bill is integral to the games design (if you didn't lose money at high tiers, lower tier would become depopulated over time if the game fails to attract enough new players).

It's quite a necro thread we have here