Aragathor

Now this is an extremely small minded argument. Removing "reward" ships doesn't mean that WG would not put up something else in as a reward. Or are you so entitled that only a premium ship will suffice?

They are embracing the meme and doubling down on the dumb decisions they made.

Don't worry guys, the ships can still be buffed after they are released! /s

The idea of reward ships is dumb as hell, as they create more problems than they solve. First, they split the players into have's and have not's, which creates a toxic atmosphere. I think all of the highly competitive online games have decided against having gameplay elements as rewards, and instead reward competitive players with audio-visual rewards that do not influence matches. Second, as showcased in this thread and in others, they create an elitist attitude in those who possess them. There is nothing more immature than lording it over others because you have some pixels and code in a game that others do not. This is kindergarten-level of pettiness. I've heard WoWS has an older playerbase, but I'm not seeing it. Third, WG is cornering itself by putting out new reward ships. They will have to resort to some extreme gimmicking to justify putting new ships for steel/rum/commendations. And as witnessed by the pay-to-play campaign they actively devalue competitive reward currencies. Four, how many reward ships can you play in a day? Too much of a thing is not a good solution. Flint, Black, Stalingrad, Bourgogne, how many more ships will WG add before it will be too much to get? Azuma's on the horizon, and there are rumors about the Wichita. What WG should have done is to create reward camos or special flags with an small extra bonus for winners of competitive modes. Imagine having a special reward camo on your T10 that says "I ranked out" or "I play in hurricane" which wouldn't influence gameplay, but shown others how good you are. WG cornered itself with a bad concept and is doubling down on bad decisions. They devalue steel by offering it outside of the competitive modes, but to do otherwise is to split the playerbase further, and then they would need to choose between competitive players and the paying masses of potatoes. This is a dumb situation and it's not going to get any better.

I have found out another PEF highlight, the main guns can be easily destroyed. What a piece of bull droppings.

Artificial scarcity comrade!

Last full season (the tenth) gave 5500 steel in total for ranking out. 3000 of it was reaching ranks 6 to 1.

Play a real battleship? Because when uptiered PEF is absolute garbage.

It doesn't have the oomph for operations. The guns would have been good if the reload was faster.

Can't wait for people to whine about playing 7 vs 7 all CV matches.

Instead of buying a lot of boxes i went out and bought the PEF. The ship is bottom of the barrel bad, no reason to play it outside of the missions. The upside to this is, I have a 2019 steel mission and a month to finish it, I have 12 days to get those last directive missions done, when I get them I will get the whole PEF compensated in doubloons, and most important I have a month to easily finish the new year's campaign with honors. Not bad for 26€.

What will happen is a MM pipeline with hundreds/thousands of CVs just waiting for a single game for minutes. Everyone will be pissed. I'll stick to coop.

Agreed. Compared to KGV DoY looks like a weaker brother, but it has enough going for it that I consider it a very decent T7 BB. The trade offs on the DoY have been compensated a bit, and while it doesn't have the damage potential of the KGV, it has extra protection thanks to the hydro. And the guns are more accurate. The PEF has nothing going for it. No special "thing". It's just a fast T6 BB with extremely weak guns, that fire as often as those of better ships.

Here's a nice commentary on the Balansgrad from Flambass: This thing is still BROKENLY OP

The whole German BB line is a joke now, not only Tirpitz.

24.01.19 is the end date. 6am to be precise, as that's the patch day and when 6am drops the server will go into maintenance mode, which will remove the current patch events and implement 0.8.0. I'm sitting pretty on 4450 steel and 36200 coal, with some coal left to get.

One can dream. I really would love to see a line of silver ships like the shiny horse.

When did the devs ever show an understanding of the game? Most of their decisions show they don't play what we do.

I've had 150k damage battles in the PEF and battles where I barely made any damage. The latter dominate. The problem of the ship is that it is a reward ship, and those rarely get improved. But there is one thing thing this ship isn't, a German battle cruiser. While it has weak guns, it doesn't have the reload to compensate for it. The turrets turn like on a battleship, while ships like Gneisenau and Scharnhorst have cruiser level turret traverse. The AA suite will go out the window next month with the CV rework, leaving the PEF with nothing. I predict that after the event is over Prinz Eitel Friedrich will become a lonely port queen, as beyond the optics it doesn't offer a unique gameplay experience. It could have been a T6 Scharnhorst.

One thing I've found interesting is a comment made under the linked article: WG has been pretty mum about AA and how to defend against CVs. From what I've seen the AA is getting nerfed with the rework. With unlimited planes and destructible AA mounts the balance is tilted in favor of CVs. They will deny that anything is wrong. Here's a link to the the first draft of the press release.

Funny that you mention it. I have been having moments where I could swear the bug was back.

You are looking at it optimistically. Here are my thoughts: 1 - This is a Free game, so Billy, Bob, and Barry, are going to quit after they realize balance was thrown out the window because of CVs. Last time I checked, Azur Lane was free. The people who are going to hunker down are those invested in the game, who have and will be ignored by WG for telling them it's a bad move. 2 - The 1-2 month estimate is a joke, if the balancing is finished after 3-4 months it will be a success. But to be honest I think that at least 6 months will pass before WG does anything sensible, in that time they will refuse to listen and lie through their teeth, even when faced with facts. WG has a horrible history of balancing and their reaction time is abysmal. Just look how they overnerfed Prinz Eitel Friedrich and how they nerfed Hindenburg while giving other cruisers at tier a buff, and then gave it a token buff that changed nothing. WG decisions are also based mostly on the RU server meta, which is dumb as hell. 3 - They will continue to ignore the feedback provided by the community. And they will continue to make bad decisions until they kill the game. WoWS is a great game, it's a pity the devs are incompetent fools.

Thanks for pointing the mission out. It's a three step mission: Step 1 - Earn 10k XP - Admiral Hipper Flag Step 2 - Deal 300K damage - 2x Azur Lane consumable camo Step 3 - Earn 3 mil credits - Captain Aurora with 3 points Final reward - Captain Hipper with 10 points So it's pretty generous, with 2 collab captains given out for free.

There is a reason I love the Roma, when you can just sail past the enemy, ignore his guns, and carry the team. I don't think the Prinz Eitel Friedrich is a good ship. The turret traverse is bad and the guns are horrible. But even a broken clock shows the right time twice a day:

Two SCs from the 4th stage of the Yamamoto campaign: Nice, but nothing to write home about.