Aotearas

That was the original intent. Considering how WG seems hellbent of screwing clan battles over aswell however ... I'll wait a bit until WG figured out what they're actually going to do. If clan battles stays the same design failure as it appears now, I won't bother playing those and will simply use my Juliet Charlie flags on my DDs from then on.

I think I'm really becoming infamous for my detonations, am I not?

Don't put the clan wars at tier X then? Perhaps? Just maybe? At the risk of sounding like a broken record, but why change a working formula (tournament style 9vs9 @ tier VIII) if it already leaves you with unpleasent limitations to start with and nought but an "we'll have to see if it works". That's change for change's sake, not an improvement or even a sensible experiment (after all you can't generate data on how CVs work in a tier X competitive meta if you exclude them from participating entirely). I've never been a fan of the "don't fix what ain't broken" philosophy. Many things can get improved even though they aren't working poorly. But this here? This is designed to fail, nevermind the utterly unnecessary drama that should've been so bleedingly obvious that I simply won't believe that no one at WG thought you were going tp royally piss off a lot of people (the CV players at the very least). First step should've been classic 9vs9 @ tier VIII tournament style. See how it goes, generate data. THEN you can try different tiers or team composition limitations. Then after ironing out some uncertainties you can try to tweak team sizes if it makes sense and doesn't cause too many balancing concerns. But WG went along, took a look at the proven tournament format, presumably emptied a bottle of Vodka and then proceeded to utterly ignore all the accumulated tournament experience and try to design something from scratch, which obviously didn't even work out rather will if you have to flat-out exclude an entire ship class. I will also not beleive you that all the clans you tested this with never brought up any of those concerns, or alternatively: if they didn't I severely doubt their competency to provide proper feedback. There's no two bits around it, WG done screwed the pooch with this. Rather than attempt damage control and simply force the issue until it either fails or somehow gets beaten into a shape that will no doubt more or less mirror classic tournament format (because again, that format developed for good reasons!!!), WG should make use of their prerogative to drop unwelcome changes and not try to reinvent the wheel. There are so many ways in which clan battles can be accessible to many players and help suit it to their specific limitations to a satisfying degree. You can have a league system to reduce the occurance of extreme skillgaps for example, you can add league divisions based on different teamsizes. You can provide the same for different tiers. It won't be 100% perfect, but I'm sure as hell it wouldn't lead to such a community meltdown.

Oh, I can absolutely knock WG on accessability if you deny dedicated players the choice to play their dedicated class. And I would love to see some more in-depth reasoning on the team size limitations, because as it stands right now that decision is direct cause for a majority of problems many people in here are having. I mean, simple logic dictates that if CVs work in competitive 9vs9 (as is evident with plenty empiric experience to back that up), but somehow doesn't in 7vs7, then why would anyone choose to utterly lock out an entire game class along with its dedicated players, when simply NOT going for a 7vs7 format renders the perceived problem inexistant? Does not compute.

Isn't the entire point of clan battles to have TEAMS fight another? If so, why cut down the numbers and argue to make personal skill more relevant? Isn't Ranked supposed to be for those who want to test their personal skill? And accessability? You seriously want to argue accessability, but in the same moment you exclude an entire class from participating because it's a bit harder to play and not many people have a tier X CV (yet somehow you can't just rent them out like you can with the Shimakaze, the Zao and the Großer Kurfürst ... huh!?) ? Where was the accessability there I ask you. And those community rules for tournaments were as they were for good reasons. How can you genuinely say making the rules for future tournaments will be up to the organizers (i.e.: the community) and not you, but for clan battles you suddenly saw fit to just flip around a proven format for what reason? Smaller clans? Is that everything? Is the "smaller clans can't consistently field larger teams" really the only argument you have that doesn't circle back into issues created by the small team size? Is that really the only reason you have for all those changes? I was looking forward to clan battles. I wanted to be part of a team and compete with other clans. But this aberration that you're calling clan battles isn't going to provide any depth of gameplay considering you essentially exclude half the game from it (no CVs and only one BB). You neuter the playable game content because too many single digit member size clans wouldn't be able to join? Really???

So? Wouldn't that be easily migitated by just sticking to the proven 9vs9?

Eh, everyone has opinions, there's bound to be plenty people with ones that oppose the current mood in the community. Evidently WG tested its clan battles with plenty clans who seemed to have quite different opinions from those we see exclaiming theirs here on the fora right now. The real question however is if they actually have any arguments to promote or debate other people's opinions and if those arguments are any better than those of the others. I couldn't care less about someone having a different opinion than mine. Only thing I care is if he has any sensible arguments to support it. And to be perfectly frank, "not every clan can bring a CV player" isn't a sensible argument that would warrant excluding CVs from clan battles entirely. Nor is "CVs are too strong in 7vs7", because tournaments have shown that CVs actually work rather well in the 9vs9 mode that most people had been expecting for clan battles. And neither is "tier X CVs are too strong" because tier X in general isn't exactly well balanced, particularily in regards to competitive formats that value different strengths than what comes and goes in randoms, yet another selfmade problem that came about from WG shunning the proven tier VIII environment. And lastly, any arguments comparing clan battles to Ranked (this has little to do with Teob_VGs comment as much as it's about WG reasoning for the entire clan battle format) is comparing apples to oranges, since Ranked is supposedly about solo play, with 7 randoms vs 7 randoms without even allowing divisions. Comparing that with clan battles where a uniform, coordinated team that's supposed to work together is simply wrong from the get go and trying to draw conclusions from one to the other can only lead to false conclusions and misinterpretations.

So, I'll make it short: I had originally planned to go with a lolIFHE build for whenever I reach the Henry IV., because 240 / 6 x 1.3 = 52 meaning it can penetrate the 50mm armour threshold seen on a good couple hightier ships (Khabarovsk and Mostkva troll armour, deck armour on german BBs, etc.). Because why the hell not. Now though with the upcoming planned changes to IFHE, I would trade an awful lot of fire chance and the initial value for beating that threshold doesn't exactly look like it would make up for it. It also reminded me how useless the IFHE skill is for heavy cruiser guns in general and makes for a poor captain skill consistency for some lines of ships, most prominently the russian cruiserline which consists mostly of ships that benefit greatly from IFHE (both 152mm and 180mm need IFHE to do consistent damage past the lowtiers) but once you finally reach the Moskva at tier X, suddely that captain skill is utterly wasted. So you either have to respec the captain if you want to use it on the Moskva, or you have to train up a completely new, specialized captain for it. Seeing how WG is planning different IFHE effects depending on gun caliber (less firechance reduction for calibers of 139mm or less, greater firechance reduction for calibers of larger diameter), how about WG adds a third step: increase the HE penetration benefit for guns of a caliber of 203mm or higher so those guns get enough HE penetration to defeat the 50mm armour threshold (at the expense of firechance of course). That would require roughly a 1.5x multiplier instead of a 1.3x one. So IFHE could look like this: Gun caliber =< 139mm: 1.3x HE penetration, -1% firechance reduction Gun caliber > 139mm and < 203mm: 1.3x HE penetration, -8% firechance reduction Gun caliber => 203mm: 1.5x HE penetration, -8% firechance reduction Anyone thinks this might be a worthwhile addition to the game (beware IFHE Zaos) or is it just me trying too hard to get a lolIFHE Henry to work?

Git gud Scrub!

I probably wouldn't even have to retrain my Minotaur captain (Radio Location ftw)

Or WG could simply follow the tournament experience at tier VIII which has proven to be a rather well balanced tier for competitive play without somehow imploding all game balance with CVs in the teams. Tier X has a tenous balance in randoms at the best of times, but for competitive? Might aswell make it tier II ...

Even longrange the Moskva wins a HE duel vs HIV. Actually the only ship I'd consider a viable competitor vs the Moskva in a longrage HE slugging duel would be the Hindenburg. And regarding the Z-52 or other DDs, no that doesn't depend on player skill. That DD can literally get into a cap, pop smoke, then hydro and spot any DD at the same distance even the most stealthy DD would be spotting in open waters anyway, plus the utility of spotting torps. In sheer cap contestion potential no other DD beats the Z-52 without outside influences like allied radar cruisers (at which point the counterargument would be there's nothing keeping the Z-52 from having support from his allies just the same).

Because the Henry IV has 240mm guns and uses the standard 1/6th caliber HE pen rule. HIV, not KGV.

Well, guess who isn't going to play clan battles them. Even though I had very much been looking forward to them as an alternative to tournament play. If you intend to ward of criticism by way of empty placative platitudes and a diplomatically worded "deal with it" and "sucks to be you" if someone is an avid CV player ... I'm sorry (there it is again, I'm not actually sorry, it's just a figure of speech) but I won't be playing the crash dummy and smash my head against a wall just so you can generate some data to determine the scale of exactly how stupidly clan battles are being implemented. I don't need to strap myself into a car and drive it into a wall to know it's a retarded thing to do! But, for discussion's sake ... just that wee bit of genuine good will I've got spare lying around I'm going to ask a simple question that I'm sure you can answer if you care to: What necessitated a change in the gameplay formula to move from a 9vs9 to a 7vs7? Or alternatively: If no change was deemed necessary per so, what else convinced you to reduce the team sizes? I would absolutely love to hear the reasoning behind that change in format. I won't even try to hold a civil discussion about the CV changes because quite frankly that's a load of bull aswell as discriminatory to a quarter of the balancing basis this game is build around and those players who prefer playing that class with no redeemable argument I'm willing to accept, period. But at least the team size change, that is something that I could engage in a discussion with, see what problems you may have identified and how you think the reduced size format helps with preventing or minimizing those or whatever else WG feels necessitated the change.

This is f*cking retarded. And there goes ANY motivation to participate in clan battles. No CVs because WG apparently only tests with potato clans, tier X and then giving away free tier X ships on top of it and not even a comprehensive list but apparently just picked at random (who needs radar ships in competitive anyway ... have a Zao instead). WG, you're drunk. Stop wasting yourselves on Vodka. And no, this isn't meant jokingly!

Unless you happen to detonate, then play 10 games with the flags, then detonate on the 11th game and get no flags cuz 24hr limitation ...

Well, technically it's still IJN special weekend. So quit slackin' and back to the rice fields:

Unless you detonate ...

That horse damn well better have a better retirement plan than that matador!

I actually very much like Straits. Could do with being a bit larger so you can't essentially shoot from spawn to spawn, but the overall map design is pretty well thought out in my opinion, with a good number of spots ripe to exploit with positioning (the smaller islands near the map center can be used for pillaring to great effect). Mountainrange is a map I don't really like that much though since the line of mountainous islands cuts through the map off centre, effectively funneling the A cap and also creating a lot of open space between B and C. Wouldn't be much of an issue, if MM didn't decide to spawn ships places close to what they aren't suited to fight at or creating a natural beacon for lemmingtrains because one third of the map appears safer with more cover than the remaining two thirds of the map. All in all, imho asymmetric map design doesn't work with randomized spawn positions. The entire point of creating an uneven battleground is so that different types of gameplay can use their strengths, but if it takes them a quarter of the match to even get into those areas, possibly under fire as they try to reposition (or taking even longer if they're taking the longer, safer route), then it just ends up being porrly implemented. Symetric maps just are way less susceptible to such problems even with randomized spawns.

Actually, venting is a great way to blow off frustration and lower your stress levels, this has been proved. Granted, not letting things like that frustrate you to stress levels that require venting in the first place would be preferable, but alas not everyone has the same patience.

You are entirely correct, this isn't a popular opinion. For a good reason. But hey, don't let me or anyone else stop you from abusing a meme to discredit conflicting opinions. It's not like there's an easily discernable trend of foolproofing BBs by raising the skillfloor so high the first floor doesn't start below 15m above the ground. Between lowering citadels to such an extend that actually scoring citadel hits on even perfectly broadside battleships becomes a rarity, powercreeping BB AA through the proverbial roof, releasing a line of BBs with better concealment than a good number of cruisers, a stupidly powerful heal AND all the previously mentioned attributes ... naturally the next thing to improve is the dispersion. Clearly all those "have 23km range, must use it!" potatoes sitting at their ship's maxrange sniping away aren't hitting often enough. I mean, it's not like those early impressions haven't turned out to be entirely correct for the most part ... except for those times when WG went ahead and simply changed major parameters, then released the ships without giving community contributers enough time to actually update their impressions (KM DD line or Graf Zeppelin ringing a bell?). Hell even the RN BBs that for some period where actually being tested with radar or defensive AA respectively ended up culminating in a live tier X BB that's hilariously overpowered. Where exactly do you think we're supposed to refill on faith regarding WG being capable of properly balancing a ship, ESPECIALLY when we're being presented with impressions like, oh I don't know ... a BB with cruiser level dispersion. Just because you say it's a WiP? Didn't quite work out the last couple times, did it? I'm sorry (not really, this is just a manner of speech) but at this point WG appears insincere at the best of times, incompetent at the most of times and sometimes just downright deceitful. So, with all due respect: Stop victimizing yourselves as if you were being unjustly besieged by an angry mob and simply deliver something that doesn't entice such strong reactions in the first place. And yes, that process starts at the very design phase. No amount of "we're just testing, duh" is going to change the happenstance of you testing something ridiculous. Now, in all fairness: Improving BB accuracy to increase the importance of proper aim (and penalizing poor aim) is one of the possible balance changes I had proposed (though only in tandom with other changes such as removing the ability to score citadel penetrations after overmatching a layer or armour). But if the current "testing" of the Giulio Cesare is meant to generate data on the viability of such a change and then later applied to a gobal BB accuracy rework (in which case I'd be happily pitching in with words of encouragement and a couple suggestions), then this HAS TO BE FRIGGIN COMMUNICATED!!! Because if you don't, the only thing I can reasonable assume you're doing is WG simply giving another BB another gimmick that in its standalone form just ends up being overpowered at the expense of those classes that already have a hard enough time in the BB heavy meta as it stands.

Dude, priorities:

Had my first game in my KGV today. I shot my rear turret at a Tirpitz, just the rear turret ... 3 fires.

I'm more interested in what those deep water torps do to cruisers. That said, imho a new weapon type that hardcounters BBs, as much as I love seeing ANYTHING to curb the BB numbers, isn't going to do a whole lot to fix the actual problem. BBabies will still simply just run to the forum and cry h4x, then keep on playing and in the end the type of BB player that actually does his job and pushes is the one most likely to eat a face full of those torpedoes as opposed to those "have 23km range, why get any closer" nubcakes. And if there ever comes a time again where the class number distribution is normal again, suddenly those deep water torpedoes might end up being overpowered, as is ends up so often with halfbaked attempts to fix a symptom rather than the sickness.