Been lurking long enough I think, and while I probably won't end up posting or responding to much after this I had an idea today that might be worth some salt.
I've seen a plethora of threads talking about BB balance: their ability to delete cruisers and the insistence of some players to reverse to the edge and take potshots at max range for the entire match. Experience matches with this sort as well, though I don't think it is as prolific a problem as it is made to seem, it is still a pain in the [edited], especially on the days that I want to take grind up cruiser lines. I have towonder, would the implementation of a damage falloff system help to ease this? If there is already such a thing in game I've not noticed it beyond dispersion at longer ranges, and I believe WoT has a falloff-like system in regards to penetration.
For anyone who doesn't understand what I mean: the game right now has a gun's range listed as a maximum firing range, beyond that a player needs to form their own conclusions about how close to that number their optimal range may be before shell dispersion takes too overwhelming a toll and makes a salvo nigh pointless doe to an utter lack of accuracy. Beyond this accuracy penalty firing at maximum range has no drawbacks and is more rng/luck based, and meaning cruisers can be magically popped from some incredible range should they be detected for more than ten seconds. This apparently encourages newer players to achieve that max range number and sit there, regardless of how good an idea that may or may not be, hence the camping problem and cruisers being deleted without a real fight. So why stop there with max range downsides? Damage Falloff means that the further a shell travels past it's optimal range, the less damage it will do, meaning shells fired 21km from your opponent may not hit at all due to dispersion, and if they do they'll do less damage than a shell fired from 18km, and much less than one fired from 15km. Gun stats and readouts in the port would reflect this, instead of reading just max range it would list optimal range, followed by maximum range.
Shots fired from within falloff range would deal full damage if they penetrate, not accounting for the RNG already in place. They would NOT receive a damage buff when within falloff range, just have the potential to deal their "on-paper" damage. no falloff difference between HE and AP as their innate mechanics balance them out already. I imagine the idea behind such a would be explained with wind resistance on the shell, reducing it's speed and therefore penetrating power after leaving the barrel. For example, in a battleship (the main class of vessel this mechanic would be needed for) you would suffer the most extreme variety of damage falloff as your guns fire the largest shells, the size and weight of which would lead to increased air resistance. To use t8 battleships as examples, their max ranges are from 19.9 (Amagi) to 23.3 (NCal) These ships would maintain their maximum ranges, but suffer damage falloff after a certain distance not far from what their "optimal" range is right now due to dispersion, somewhere between 14-17km. The exact number would vary between Bismarck, NCal, and Amagi for diversity and balance's sake.
This new "hard" optimal range would be shown on the gun or FCS module of the ship, giving inexperienced BB players a more enticing distance to aim for and hopefully, moving some of them away from lines 1 and 10.
There is of course also cruisers, which at t8 average at about 15km max range. for falloff to work I think they'd need a range buff to an average of about 17, and could suffer falloff from perhaps 14
- less severe than the battleships because of their smaller damage potential and caliber guns.
Destroyers would naturally suffer the least drawbacks and have optimal ranges very near their maximum, and maybe even barely being able to notice falloff penalties the closer to that max they are. A Kiev can reach out to something like 14.3km with the right captain skills, and it's optimal might be as high as 13.5, suffering negligible falloff penalties but be balanced out by it's naturally small gun caliber and damage. MAKE NO MISTAKE that I claim that this idea would work in the state I have explained it in, of course the exact numbers are hard to guess at without real testing, nor would damage falloff be easy to implement as it would require a whole new string of mathematical calculations for the game to make before a player decides to left click. I believe World of Tanks already has something in place similar to this that affects penetration values, but I'm only about ankle deep in that game so far and can't claim to know for sure. I also can't boast about a huge number of matches in game, something like 1400 last I checked? which means I am of course less experienced than the majority who seem to be active here (I like to think I'm above average but I'm sure everybody does). I also know next to nothing about ACTUAL naval warfare mechanics so I've no idea if this suggestion holds any weight in regards to such a thing, but realism needs to take a backseat to gameplay on occasion, no?
Would this system be viable? why and why not?has it been suggested before/already exists and if so, how could it be altered to help ease the issue of campy BBabies? falloff could encourage players to move forward instead of backpedal.
TLR would a damage falloff system work in WoWs
