RifledSteel

Wait. Hold it, gentle-commanders. Isn't Co-Op's just a fancy way of allowing new-ish players to get a handle of the basics for a new ship before joining randoms? Currently I use them as such before deciding whether to move up a tier or two, as there seems to be precious little strategy or team play at least up to and including tier III. You either mostly get random movement or a sealclubber CV mowing everyone down. I was unaware CoOp was intended as a separate game mode in its own right.

"A weathered Norwegian fisherman sits near the shoreline in the depths of a fjord, playing an ode to the midnight Sun on his Alphorn on a warm midsummer evening. The music reverberates between the steep clifffaces surrounding him, expressing his gratitude and love for all things living."

Around these parts 5 blasts means "W.T.F. are you doing?!" Most frequently heard when a leasure craft strays too close to the commercial shipping lanes near the main harbours.

You all seem to forget the most important part: The making of a list of the 'fun to play' category premium ships, which are being removed (temporarily?). As a new player I probably already have more premium ships than I know what to do with, but I'm sure my harbour maintenance crews wouldn't mind looking after another ship or two if needed. Only a few, short hours left before 7.1 goes live tomorrow.

Would you like to see some replays, or will you take my word for it? For whatever reason they are somewhat commonplace in tier IV games. I don't play CVs, so cannot say how it is done.

As a new player I am genuinely curious: How many of the experienced hands in this thread have recently tried playing a bit in the low tiers? If my limited experience is anything to go by, then low tier games are much worse smoke & torp fests when compared to what I see on Flamuu's stream from high tier games and in the various videos out there. I'm currently milling about in my tier III ships, and it is a rare tier IV game, which doesn't have at least one CV and a few DDs on either team. Usually you get two CVs and 3-5 DDs on either side. Unless you are very conscious about this potential trap, then new players are effectively *taught* by low tier games to play very, very passively (attempt to snipe from long distance). The amount of time I have to spend in each game trying to dodge those nasty 'cross drops' from CVs (two waves dropped at a 90 degree angle) is just silly. I find it quite difficult to not eat at least one torp in this situation. Same with torp runs coming from angry smoke screens in the cap circles. Especially in my König Albert this means I get to shoot very little when I attempt any active role, as my turrets cannot keep up with the wild maneuvering required. As for having to grind up a line to a particular tier in the silver ships before you can buy a premium ship of a given tier, I have to ask: Why? Currently you can buy premium camouflage even for regular ships from tier V. So if a new player is willing to spend the money, then on paper there ought to be very little difference in the number of games it takes to either FreeXP up to, say, tier IX after playing in a premium ship, and just playing the regular ships to the same leve. The exception is of course if the often non-upgraded silver ships on average earns way less XP per game. But if this is the case, then it means the silver ships must be way less competitive for a given level of player skill. Translation: New players 'should' be forced to play in horrible ships for a while, because it builds character/skill? Hint with a clue-by-four: Forcing newbies to use poor tools when better ones are available does not make them better at a given activity, quite the contrary. In fact there is even an expression for this attitude: Hazing. After watching especially Flamuu's stream for a while I am also curious about the 'advanced' gameplay supposedly taking place in the higher tiers that I am currently missing out on. Island hugging, stay-with-the-group, setup cross fires and exploit view mechanics? That works in low tiers as well. Radar and hydro-acoustics? I understand what they do, but it is kind of hard to train for them being available without actually seeing ships fielding them.