Uglesett

Speaking for myself.... when the hell am I supposed to have the time to play the PTS? I mean, there's always some event or other going on in the live game, and of course I'm going to use my available game time to play those events instead of spending it on the PTS for marginal gains. To be blunt, @MrConway, I suspect that if you want more people to join the PTS (at least when testing important updates like the CV rework), you basically have to cut down on the activity on the live server at the same time.

Well, that's daft. I figured ~9k doubloons that I didn't really have any other use for to get a half-decent cruiser and a decent DD skipper was an ok deal. But having to buy all three bundles in succession? No thanks...

Off to gulag!

True.

This. Talk about fixing something that really wasn't broken. But come to think of it: @Spithas, can you add a poll to the initial post? Maybe that'll provide @MrConway with the feedback he needs.

Dude, seriously. It was literally right below this thread on the front page when you posted that reply.

While I agree that it's an issue worthy of discussion, I don't think we need two (let alone three...) threads on the same subject.

Considering the reworked CVs look like they're going to murder any cruiser trying to stay close to stationary behind cover, at least allowing some dynamic use of cover seems sensible. I don't think fragile CLs are going to be particularly fun for the next couple of patches, so throw them a bone.

No idea, I don't have her (yet). Might have the coal for her soon, though. If I'm going to guess, I suspect at least part of the reason is that people use her to shoot at cruisers a lot.

Musashi is tanky as all hell if you know how to position her, and the guns are awesome, but isn't Arms Race all about going forwards and taking objectives? She's definitely better with a bit of range to work with, because up close it can be really difficult to keep her turrets on target. They are glacially slow. Also, she's not terribly good at repositioning. I would think as BBs go the JB would be a good bet. She's mobile and can hold her own in a brawl with the reload booster. Personally, the only choices I have are the Musashi, Kronshtadt and Izumo, and... yeah, I won't be playing the Izumo. I guess I could have not sold the Neptune but... eh, I hated playing that ship and I probably wouldn't do very well with it in ranked. I think Kron can be very good for this, so that may end up being my go-to ship if I decide to try my hand at ranked.

Heh. I'm not terribly fond of the Normandie myself, and I wasn't really looking forward to that one. But then I ended my first (and only) game in her last night on first place, and also managed a Devastating Strike, First blood, Confederate and High Caliber, neatly taking care of the second campaign objective as well. Score! I admittedly did get some help from a couple of broadsiding cruisers on the other team, but I'll take it. Forgot to take screenshots, unfortunately In other news, I recently finished grinding through the Neptune and finally unlocked the Minotaur, and ermagerd is that thing a joy to play. I don't know what makes such a huge difference from the Neptune, I think maybe it's the nimbleness and turret rotation that does it for me. Where the Neptune is fat, sluggish and made out of tinfoil and citadel spaces, the Minotaur actually manages to dodge and actively angle against a lot of incoming fire, and doesn't seem to eat quite such massive amounts of damage when she does take hits. I've admittedly only played four games in it so far, but all of them have been good and even that first loss was a fun game.

@pzkpfwv1d Now switch to the dark forum theme and try to read your own posts.

It's a ship that by all accounts isn't worth buying. It follows that it's probably not worth paying for trying it out either. Anyone with a vague interest in the state of the gaming industry? It's content in the same way as e.g. MOBA heroes. Game content that modifies your options for how you play the game. You really didn't think that one through, did you? It's a ship they're probably not expecting many people to pay the full price for. If they genuinely believe it's worth buying, they wouldn't try to trick people into paying to try it out. If anything, this approach is just another nail in Le Terrible's coffin as far ad I'm concerned. It shows that they don't have faith in the ship selling itself. Wanting to know what you pay for != wanting it for free. (Yes, I do think WG should offer options to try out all ships that can be bought for cash and/or premium currency for free, in training rooms at least.)

For the same reason all other kinds of vendors offer "try before you buy" deals: To spark interest. Getting to try it out can mean that someone who is originally not interested can discover that the product actually appeals to them after all. Or it can make someone who's on the fence decide that it is indeed worth it. And the "it's a f2p game, the point is to make money" argument doesn't really hold water. Many other f2p titles offer some kind of weekly rotation or limited time trials where you can try out paid content for free to see if it appeals to you.

Erm. Yes, that is probably what they actually want to do. I was merely pointing out that if their goal was what they claim it is, they'd let us try it for free.

Erm. It's probably the biggest issue for CVs, and it's entirely possible to see several sides of an issue at once. Yes, CVs are probably going to be stupidly overpowered, especially against DDs. At the same time, they also look like they're going to be fairly boring and repetitive to play, and the lack of tactical options for actually moving the hull is part of that. Besides, if they give back proper control of the CV hull and consumables, they can at the same time unnerf damage over time effects on CVs, making them easier to get rid of.

I get more of a stoner vibe, tbh.

I certainly wouldn't be sad if Haida got her torps improved, but I'm not sure she needs it.

To be honest, I think if the CV rework is going to have any chance of being tolerable, they basically have to get rid of the rocket planes. And why not? After all, they nerfed large caliber AP shells so that battleships wouldn't be as effective against DDs. There's no game balance reason why CVs have to be the only class in the game that has weapons that are super effective against everything else.

I was thinking the same thing. If it had been "rent for 25 battles" rather than "rent for 7 days" it would have been a much more interesting offer.

Too much for too little. If they actually believed the ship was worth buying, they'd let us try it out for free.

I'm not sure I even need both hands to count the number of times I've been destroyed instantly in a DD by an RTS CV.

To be honest, I don't think that's inherently an issue with the CVs. I think the problem lies with the captain skills needed for an AA build. Right now, an AA build is, in most cases, too expensive for the amount of good it does. The AA-related skills do too much and cost too much. If skills like BFT were split up into multiple cheaper but more specialized skills, e.g. a one or two point skill that buffed AA dps and a two point skill that buffed ROF for low calibre main guns and secondary guns, it would be much easier to have builds that were decent against CVs without spending a crapton of skill points on something that gives you limited use. Right now the only vessels that really feel like they give you your money's worth out of skills like BFT and AFT are are ships like Atlanta that get all the benefits they give instead of just one of them. To be blunt, an AA build is currently pretty much useless. You just don't encounter carriers often enough to get more out of it than you lose over the long term. So removing it isn't really going to change much. AA builds pretty much only make sense if you regularly division up with a CV (which is going to make solo CV players hate you with a passion, so that's a bit of variation that probably isn't going to be missed that much). As for why you should play anything other than Musashi... well, the thing is if they hadn't introduced CVs they wouldn't have needed AA as a BS argument for "balancing", and they'd actually have had to balance the surface ships properly against eachother instead of relying on the AA argument as a crutch.