jss78

I think this didn't come across as light-hearted it was intended as. Was writing before my first coffee which is never a good idea. I have a heck of a lot of free event ships for WoWS, probably 12-15 or so, and love many of them. I was mainly talking about the visual stylings, which in some cases are weird and outlandish to me in Warships. In quite many cases I don't get why event camos etc. cannot explore interesting historical content, but have to look so explicitly out of place. E.g. why those high-tier free camos we're getting for USN cruisers must look like art-deco skyscrapers, when they have a massive, largely untouched catalogue of USN naval measures to use for extra freebie camos. I love both games. I'm a staunch Warships main but have been enjoying Warplanes a lot, and IMO that game would deserve more players. It's way behind Warships in events, but the actual in-game economy outside events is a lot easier.

DD's still have best concealment, best speed, are (generally) able to fire massive alpha strikes (torps) from stealth. This needs powerful counters, hence radar. My major problem with the radar complaints is -- the radar ships are not invisible. You are faster than them, you outspot them, you know they have radar, you know the range. So you should know where they are -- and if you don't, well, then be careful -- and where their radar reaches. There's no reason to put yourself where, if radared, you couldn't get out quick with an acceptable level of risk. There's a great thread on the forums about how to deal with radar in DD's.

Yeah, the law of big numbers -- over time your win rate will approach your true performance. I started my Lion off with a string of 10-12 straight losses. Just really bad luck, little or nothing to do with me -- those games where our team loses 3 dumbass DD's before I can even shoot at someone. After 95 games my win rate is still 43% though I've been winning over half the games for a while now. Can be a long road to stabilize those numbers.

I'd love this for sure. I'd make it tier 7-8 instead of 8-9 -- this is sufficient to get those Battle of Midway era ships, and the big fleet carriers, and would broaden the player base. Tune it so that the other ships play AA/destroyer screens -- and get to bring those pimped-up AA cruisers they've been longing to play.

There's no clear replacement IMO. DeGrasse feels OK, but when it comes to AA, not the same. I'll forever miss T6 Cleveland Killer Whale specifically, if you want to carry reliably, bring a 1/2/2 Ryujo. Just enough fighter power to stop enemy TB's, and unparalleled ability to delete whatever ship needs to go.

I was having some nice mid-tier fun in a Zuiho + Texas division, and ran into @MortenTardo with his two pals. Know that feeling when you intend to seal club and realize ... ... you are the seal.

I go with range. I tend to play around radar max range and use the AP as much as possible, but for tactical flexibility I like to have that 15-18 km bracket available. The HE still does great work at that range, and I find you can hit things just fine.

These are the historical flags of countries represented in this game. The game explicitly represents this era -- we have Essexes, Yamatos, Bismarcks etc. modelled in great fidelity, they are not just ships with a passing resemblance. While in part arcadey, there's a strong element of historical simulation. IMO the flags should be in the game if there's no legal obstacle. As far as I'm concerned, N*zi Germany and the USSR are strong contestants for the most reprehensible regimes of the modern era, though the former maybe more explicitly evil. But either way, they used these flags, and the countries are represented in the game. However, to be pragmatic, I'd AT LEAST welcome the German imperial flag. It's just wrong that even the colours aren't right in the Kaiserliche Marine ships. It's a distinct political entity, with many classic ships in the game, and deserves a proper flag.

I'm not terribly fond of the Expert Marksman + Expert Loader combo. Jack Dunkirk's and Yamamoto's perks feel more universally useful. Optimally you want a ship with sluggish guns and useful AP and HE. Especially the early USN CA's would probably be good because the reload and gun handling are kind of poor. I have John Doe on Pensacola and might put Halsey on the New Orleans.

I like all the modes, honestly. I prefer Domination for that nice balance of multiple objectives and fighting the enemy team. But Standard and Epicenter are both OK, and I like the diversity they bring.

I've loved the Richelieu. Bow-on tanking isn't a sufficient description of the playstyle. You'll be neglecting one of the major assets, the four-and-half-minute speed boost (with upgrade), which pushes you beyond 36 knots with Sierra Mike signal. It also has fairly decent secondaries which can do more work than you expect because of the good fire chance. The guns are really comfortable. Deceptively easy to hit with because of the flat arcs. And it's a goddamned fine looking ship. (With this avatar I can't claim to be a neutral observer, but it's really a ship with a bunch of assets if you study it.

I guess that's a fair point. I'll say I generally disagree with these kind of binary, on-off mechanics WG uses for gameplay flavour. Gimmicks of you may. AP bombs totally demolish certain ships, totally useless against others. They really suck from the POV of a CV player too, because of how constraining they are. For German BB's, I'd rather have the citadel hittable, and tone down the AP bombs.

This is a variation of the old "weekend effect" argument. As with the weekend effect, it's a load of hogwash and confirmation bias. For the sake of argument, let's assume the quality of players goes down. The relevant thing here is, both teams are drawn from the same pool. If the general quality of players goes down, the good player will carry more. Hence, if anything, you should win more, not less. Unless you're the one that needs to be carried. So yeah, TL;DR, git gud.

DD's and CL/CA get insta-deleted in this game all day, every day. If German BB's were alone with the struggle, I guess I'd sympathize. There are powerful counter plays to CV's. A good cruiser will shoot down those planes for you. They will not shoot down an battleship AP salvo heading at my Des Moines. I've had my German BB demolished a couple times too, but frankly I see no issue with this.

Agreed, with this rock-solid sample of 7 games, the conspiracy is confirmed. The second decimal suggests reptilians are involved.

Yeah, I think the last best hope is that they'll use the CV rework as an opportunity to fix Saipan. It's weird to me that they don't simply remove that "don't-lose-a-fighter-on-exit-strafe". Is there any doubt the ship wouldn't be closer to balanced with that change? It's not technically a nerf to the ship specs, only to game mechanics.

Eh, these things happen. But you just need to know that it'll happen less often if you get closer. You can't eliminate the chance of an unlucky thing happening. A single game might go belly up for a multitude of reasons. But think in the long term -- if you do the right things, good things will come to you more often.

Aiming does matter, as does distance. You'll miss a lot, that's a universal truth in this game. But get closer, and you'll miss a bit less. And that's all you need.

With German ships it's basically a damage over time mentality. Stay alive, and the damage will come. (Edit: unless your border surf at 20 km). They are not very easy to play well. Because of your derpy guns but strong secondaries, you must go close. Right to the edge of where the torpedo soup is not too thick. And you need to stay there, and stay angled well -- and use your tankiness to absorb enemy fire. But despite your perilous positioning, you must not die, because you need a lot of time to do damage.

One thing I'd note the addition of Coal/Steel has made the prospect of paying totally free a lot more feasible. Combined with FreeXP ships, and occasional events, this game now allows you to accumulate a good number of premium ships without paying a cent. For sure it's a heck of a lot better than in Tanks (but Warplanes is even friendlier!). To OP, really my #1 suggestion would be to slow down. I look at your stats and I see a fundamentally fine player, but one who's probably rushing the tiers too quickly. You have a good number of high-mid tier premium ships, and you have perfectly respectable stats in them. If you play these a bit more as opposed to rushing to Tier 10, you should see your credits problems disappear.

OP's suggested formula is reasonable enough, i.e. calculate a win rate based on last N games with currently owned ships. Sure, why not, if the sample is big enough it is indeed a better metric of how the player is currently playing. It's just really academic, because ... the game doesn't actually use the WR for ANYTHING. So it just calculates the WR based on all recorded games because, why not? It's the simplest solution, and the number isn't used for anything anyway. There are external stats sites that give you an entire selection of recent, solo-only etc win rates, if you're interested.

Well, the reward vs. grind is literally the cornerstone of free-to-play economy. To illustrate, consider that Missouri/Musashi etc. are ships that everyone can have for free. If these free ships allow people to grind so many credits that they solve any credit problems for all time, are they going to be buying that premium time for real money? Why would they? Also, they might buy fewer premium ships, because the credit gain incentive is irrelevant. And ultimately, someone needs to spend the real money to keep the game running.

Yeah I'd take CE also. Scharnhorst gets a decent concealment, and is also fast. That option to disengage is invaluable. I guess this could also depend on whether you're planning to use the captain on some silver ship. I use mine on Bismarck and thus has a full secondary captain (PM+BFT+AFT+ManSec and also CE).

Well this is interesting. On one hand it confirms that T8 MM is a bit rough. But it also breaks a couple assumptions I would've made based on my memory, which is apparently selective. First, I could've sworn you're bottom tier more often than this. Second, I would've assumed it's worse for cruisers (because of shortage of T10 cruisers).

I suspect I'm in the minority in this, but I actually like the current CV implementation, APART from the effect CV skill imbalance has on games. I like games with roughly equally skilled CV's. The CV's spot for your team, protect you from enemy planes, you need to think of your positioning relative to AA bubbles, move together. In short they encourage team play. All of this is good sh*t and enrich this game, more so than some other gimmicks many ships rely on. As noted above, the CV's are not invulnerable. The relevant " health pool" of a CV is the plane reserve, and if you play smart, you can deplete it quickly. This is a skill-based counter play, and again, good for the game. A planeless CV is a non-entity.