tocqueville8

Nation, tier, general appearance, turret arrangement, every single thing about the torpedoes, AA values, hp, speed, gun range, rudder time, turret angles, individual shell damage and fire chance, etc.

To be honest, when I read "gun arcs" I never know whether people mean 'shell arcs' or 'firing angles' (the sector around the ship where the turrets are clear to fire). "Slow/floaty shells" is just more obvious to me than "bad gun arcs".

Again...this is completely false. But those are her own words...

In her original posts and several follow-up answers on Reddit, LWM mentions the consistency in "weapon performance". That's very broad, and surely it includes dispersion formula, sigma, reload, range and arguably even turret traverse, unless we want to deconstruct range in terms of shell, propellant and gun elevation (and other things, maybe: I'm not an expert...), or talk about "turret performance". And that's not even the entire list. She makes the example of "the Pensacola, if her 203s behaved like British 152s". That's very extreme, as those guns are different in pretty much every way. Surely, the guns on the Huron aren't going to be that different from those on the Haida. Meanwhile, Halland vs Smaland, Richelieu vs Alsace, etc. Same guns, same turrets, different "weapon performance". It's not crazy, but it is arbitrary to draw the line at shell ballistics, when there are so many examples of ostensibly the same weapons having different performance. And saying "my only 'vision' was that she'd behave like a Tribal" is also vague, and could surely include the consumables being the same, despite a bunch of sister-ships having different ones already. And there's no shortage of people complaining about lack of consistency there: just read some reviews or comments on the Z-44, and you'll find people complaining about the lack of hydro, as though that was supposed to be the defining feature of all German DDs. But no, that's not an issue to LWM: the issue is with the ballistics. Why? Because. It's just not that obvious, and maybe the people at WG didn't know either that this would be the flashpoint.

I consider range and dispersion to be part of the ballistics, so there are plenty. Then we'll have to agree to disagree. It's the ballistics of the Huron that are completely inconsequential to me, while I find this toxic relationship between LWM and WG both consequential and concerning. To each their own.

1) I'm fine with it. 2) Not really: I'm only interested in the ship being balanced for her tier and maybe fun to play. We already have several sister-ships that play differently from one another. 3) That's because some commentators have been moving the goalpost. The OP asked what the drama was all about, and the drama is about LWM saying "I deliberately washed my hands of how [the Huron] was going to be implemented, just that she would", only to then claim that a tweak a specific characteristic (she's got to be okay with tweaks in general, if she has no problem with "the ship being OP or sucking butt") constitutes an egregious breach of trust and a "lie". Frankly, and with all due respect, I think you and many others are missing the bigger issue: there's a real person out there who's "sad and upset" over a minor chance to a virtual item, goes on reddit to vent and writes "they lied to me", a pretty strong statement, and you're concerned with...the minor change to the virtual item? It's like the "when the wise man points at the moon, the fool looks at his finger" proverb, but in reverse: LWM is the moon, the Huron's ballistics are the finger. Realistically, I can't do anything about either, but I'm more concerned with LWM's state of mind, being very upset and calling for attention, hanging on to a game and a community to which she has contributed much despite what is now clearly a toxic relationship with the developers, than I am with "what they are doing with the Huron". The Huron is nothing, and this isn't about the Huron: LWM herself wrote she didn't care how the ship was implemented and how weak or strong she would be.

But again, how do Slava and Kremlin have "approximately" the same armour values? Deck, bow and stern are nothing alike, and very consequentially so...

LWM's argument is, though, among other things. In a reply to the post, she writes: "My only 'vision' was that she'd behave like a Tribal [...] so roughly the same structural plate as Cossack or Haida."

LWM also mentions "close approximation to armour values", but Kremlin and Slava have very different armour on the extremities... I know they're made-up ships, but it's the principle we're discussing.

I copy-pasted (ahem...) her reddit post, which you can also find on Page 1 of this thread.

It's a package, I guess: worse concealment, heal instead of smoke, better gun ballistics ---> different playstyle If cross-class consistency were that important to WG, they could've planned in advance to eventually release both Hornet and Enterprise, both with the TBD Devastators that were used at Midway. And maybe later an "Enterprise '44" with better planes, or something... Better training? Less moonshine ? Exactly: no reason other than to diversify the ships to make them both attractive to purchase. I'm sorry but no: reload is 13 vs 10.5 ---> 24% DPM difference best surface concealment is 11.7 vs 11.1 stock rudder is 10.9 vs 9.2 All those numbers are in the Hipper's favor, to make up for the lack of heal (or viceversa, if you will). I reckon that means the Hipper has more burst potential, but less longevity. Are they similar? Yes. Are they the same? No, they are tactically and strategically a bit different, even though the guns are (I believe) the same.

You might not, but for every copy-paste hull, even though many other elements are different, there's going to be someone complaining about it. It was like this for Shikishima and Yamato, for instance. And it's not really a "selection" if the ships are almost identical, and of the same nation. The Haida was withdrawn for...reasons. Making the Huron "the same, but slightly worse" would've lead to more disappointment and complaints. But why? Why would it be okay to buff the torps quite a lot, but not to go the open-water gunboat route? It seems pretty arbitrary... I just don't see how changing one ship parameter is more of lie/betrayal of trust than changing anything else, after LWM specified she didn't care how the ship was implemented. Why make the Alabama closer in playstyle to the North Carolina than to her sister-ship, the Massachussetts? Why not make both South Dakotas essentially clones, and brawlers, while keeping the NoCal as a sniper?

As @SkipperCH said: diversity. If they make 1:1 clones, people complain that it's a lazy copy-paste job. If they make a similar, but stronger ship...they're going to have to nerf her later for balance, so even with the "if necessary, balance changes..." disclaimer, people would complain about it being a sort of "pump-and-dump" scheme. If they make a similar, but weaker ship...people wouldn't get it (admittedly, this one is supposed to be free, but some players would still complain about getting an "inferior copy" of the original Haida). What we're left with is making it different. I imagine one option could've been a torpedo/AA gimmick with a Halland-esque flavor. Say, better range & reload on the torps, maybe a TRB and Def AA, but no hydro and only a standard smoke. Maybe slightly worse concealment, too. They apparently went for the open-water gunboat option: heal instead of smoke, worse concealment, still a hydro for whatever reason...but improved ballistics (still not quite "Soviet" though) to enable this playstyle a bit better. If implemented, would I care about the lack of consistency? No, I would only care about the ship being balanced in her MM environment. In fact, as a Haida owner (rarely a player...), I'd rather she were different.

For the purpose of this game, a Commonwealth DD that looks like the Haida, with 3x2 guns and a single torpedo rack, probably (but not necessarily) balanced around Tier 7. That's it. It's not like she was given a CA or a sub, instead. Or a Shimakaze clone with a maple leaf on it... Hornet and Enterprise belong to the same class, but their plane loadout is very different. And how are Massa secondaries, clearly a defining feature and a key selling point, the same as Alabama secondaries? For the purpose of the game, a heal is also a major difference between ships, yet P. Eugen and Hipper belong to the same class. And so on and so forth... When someone writes "I deliberately washed my hands of how she was going to be implemented, just that she would", I'd say she's grasping at straws if she declares to be outraged by a change to the shell ballistics, which are just one of a dozen of parameters that describe how the ship is implemented.

Are you...threatening me...with a discussion about ballistics? I'm bored just thinking about: don't bother. That's the entire point. It's much ado about nothing. An attention-seeking fiasco.

Some Tier 9s can hold on against a Tier 8 CV long enough for the team to push and win, if their own CV does something more productive...

Maybe it wouldn't have mattered, but what ship were you in?

The charts appear to show both pre-0.11.6 and post-0.11.6. There's a difference, but she's still far short of "Soviet railguns". I am and it is. It makes no sense that shell ballistics are taboo, but: the dispersion is not (again, see Massa vs Alabama) the turret traverse is not (ditto) the range is not (ditto, both main guns and secondaries) the rate of fire is not (Vampire vs Daring, Halland vs Smaland) It's the same guns in the same turrets: how could they?!? Oh, and it's fine to have different concealment and consumables (Daring and Vampire, Halland and Smaland...), or for the ship to "suck butt or be OP" (her own words), but won't someone please think of the ballistics? Give me a break.

Yeah, no. "I deliberately washed my hands of how she was going to be implemented, just that she would. They could make her OP. They could make her suck butts. That's not my area of concern." - LWM

Speak for yourself. I see no reason why the reload should be different across ships of the same class (Halland & Smaland) or the consumables (ditto, see also Daring vs Vampire II), but shell ballistics should be taboo. I take a holistic approach: all the parts combined to the ship's overall playing experience. One could also argue that the range and dispersion are part of what defines "shell trajectories", and going back to her Massachussetts review she doesn't appear to be complaining about all the differences, in main and secondary battery, to the Alabama's. They're supposed to have a different "flavor" despite being of the same class, and she simply noted the pros and cons of each. Too bad: people should. This is how LWM's post begins: "Let me preface this: I don't care if HMCS Huron sucks or not." Well, I do. I don't want more bad ships in the game, I don't want more OP ships in the game. Balance is important. As long as the Huron looks her class, and gets a reasonable combination of ballistics, firing angles, fire chance, DPM, torpedo power, AA, consumables, concealment, hp, etc., for her tier, I'll be okay with it. In fact, as someone who has a Haida (and rarely plays her), I'd rather the Huron played differently and required a different cpt build, to justify getting a second Commonwealth captain.

But that's always with Emergency Repair Expert. So you've never tried CE + FP + secondary range?

I got coal, dubs, camos and 2 weeks of premium the last few SCs I remember. And I also got a Tier 8 ship from the Community Tokens thingy, last time.

No. Sleeping Giant, from North to South

It does look like it, but Hizen's deck is 32 mm, while the Iwami's is 50 mm, so she'll shatter most cruiser-caliber HE.