Dutchy_2019

Considering the fact that the winning team gets a substantial Base XP bonus, this actually looks like a game that was quite balanced (also when you look at the individual scores). So WHY is this worthy of a thread?

Nothing straw man. You are conflating two things: monetary value and fair monetary value. - Hizen, and most of the pixel ships represent monetary value, since they can be obtained for money at a given price. What you are saying is that if you BUY a stereo it represents monetary value. If you are given that EXACT SAME stereo as a prize, but you can ONLY use it for listening to music and nothing else, you cannot sell it, cannot give it away or do anything else other than listening with it, it suddenly represents NO monetary value? Again, something that would be come as a complete surprise to an accountant, economist, or the tax office. Whether you consider that a fair value is your opinion, and a completely different subject matter.

I agree with what you say here. But whether something is a necessity or not is irrelevant (using your car argument, a decent 20k euro car would represent higher monetary value than a Bugatti Chiron, since you would need the 20k car for a living and would not need a Chiron for the same) to it having a monetary value in the first place, just as whether it - on occasion - is given away for free or at a discount. It is (or can) be relevant for the height of that monetary value, let alone whether someone considers it a fair monetary value. The relevant question for everyone to answer is whether it represents fair monetary value to them or not, resulting in the decision whether they are willing to pay for Hizen or not. In your opinion it seems it does not represent fair monetary value, which is perfectly legitimate and fine.

It is absolutely NOT a strawman, you are creating the strawman. - You can sell accounts (and ships impact its value), even if it is illegal. You can gift ships and accounts. You can - to some degree - actually trade ships (a gif exchange). Whether you can eat or turn something into anything else or you can only use it in a certain environment is necessary for it to represent monetary value is a somplete strawmen. If that argument were true, the stock market as is (and most of modern financial trading) would not exist and not represent any monetary value. Again, something that would stun accountans, bankers, economists, the tax-office and so on. As long as WG asks a price for it, and / or people are willing to pay for it, this thing represents monetary value.

Two different arguments you are making: - The monetary value is set by WG, at a given point. Completely correct argument / assessment of the situation. - That you consider the monetary value set by WG for T9 ships too high is your opinion, but irrelevant to the discussion if these pixelated ships represent monetary value - they do. Again - you gain something that represents monetary value. If your line of argument - I don't gain money when you receive Yahagi for free - is exactly the same that if you are given a care it does not represent monetary value since (a) you were not paying for it, and (b) you would not want to buy that car. And again, the vast majority of accountans, economists and tax offices in the world would seriously disagree with you there. Whether the object - virtual or not - represents a value in money is completely irrelevant to you wanting or not wanting to buy that thing in the first place.

So if a car which is normally sold for say 50.000 euros is given away for free to anyone who anyone who says cycles 200km in a day, and anyone who pays 100 euros extra gets SAT NAV included, that car suddenly does NOT represent monetary value? I find that a rather strange argument to make, and THAT is exactly the argument you are making., BTW, so would most economists, accountants and your tax office as well. So yeah, if you complete Hizen (pay 7800 doubloons) you get a 69% reduction in price on your good. If you complete stage 1 through 22 you get a 100% reduction on all goods.

Yet these definitely DO represent a monetary value which should be taken into account when judging this event, which we are all doing if you want to be fair in your assessment. You are paying doubloons for all of the rewards given without a need for a doubloon compensation (which represent actual monetary value) + HIzen. You are paying no doubloons for all the rewards given up until and incuding phase 22. Those also represent actual monetary value. Your approach would be correct if you would pay 7800 doubloons, and NOT receive any of the rwards for phase 1 through 22.

Although I share some of your concerns, I do not fully agree with you with the bolded: Prices taken from the EU Premium shop (Netherlands) Info about compensation and rewards taken from DevBlog: https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/89 If you complete the whole grind (including final payments) you get the following three ships: T2 Tachibana (4.11 euros) T5 5 Yahagi (14.15 euros) T9 Hizen (63.49 euros - based on prices of other T9 ships in the premium shop) That represents a monetary value of roughly 81 euros for the ships alone. The monetary value of the 7800 doubloons is 25.66 euros, so that is roughly a 69% reduction. That is the very high end of the scale (you have none of the ships you get during the grind). If you already have Tachibana you get credit compensation, or for the Yahagi you get 4000 doubloons in compensation (information taken from the DevBlog). Which means you pay 3800 doubloons for Hizen, or 12.50 euros for a 63.49 euro ship, which again comes down to a roughly 80% reduction in price. That is the low end of the scale (you already have Tachibana and Yahagi). Along the way you can also earn a permanent Christmas Camouflage which IIRC last year represented a monetary value of 12.50 euros, as well as a port slot (again a doubloon / monetary value). Where I do share your concerns: I do share your concerns about WG not yet having shared the mission requirements (so how hard the grind will be), especially in combination with the grind for the French BB Strasbourg. Will the missions be compatible (i.e. you can grind for both at the same time), or incompatible? Also, how ship-exclusive will the requirements for these missions (especially the Hizen campaign) be? Because that was one of the biggest problems with PR last year. Very few of the missions could be targeted simultaneously due to the requirements in ship classes and nationalities. Worse, last year buying the Gorizia beforehand made life a whole lot easier. The big question is if such a thing is integrated in this mission chain as well.

What about Pommern? And are you talking Randoms or Co-op?

And that was NOT made clear in any way in advance. They should have made clear that if you want to play on NA on patch-day you will have to have the NA game instance installed, ano NOT the EU instance.

The way I read these stats: Substantial increase in BB play might be at least in part the result of all the directives and missions that were far more efficiently done in BB's than any other class. For instance, for the Bismarck camo, the Damage and Ribbon directives are BB all the way. BB's are the 'easy' class to play, and we might see that reflected as well, with many of the newer players gravitating towards BB. The number of CV played games has actually increased. I wonder if these numbers include ALL game types. If they do, then the CV-'apologists' have no leg to stand on, most likely: If every Random game had a CV in it, the average for CV's would be 8.3% So even the lowest numbers would suggest a single CV in every 3 games (percentage wise). But the ting is that human CV's are relatively rare (to say the least) in Co-op, and even in Operations. If these data cover ALL games this implies that on average there could well be that the average is a single CV in almost every other game. When looking at the brackets including T4, that might actually be true (expecially considering the amount of double CV games). Also, the increase in BB's might be seen as a response to the prevalence of CV's, since BB's are the most resilient to CV damage and attacks.

1. Getting killed in my near full health Massasschussets by a one-salvo-kill Sinop in a ram that I should have seen coming miles away. 2. The infamous torp on the nose you see coming from miles, could expect, and still somehow cannot avoid.

Well, trying to put various things I came across in this thread together: Should BB's no longer be able to citadel cruisers? The answer is clear: they should still be able to citadel cruisers. Now about the point about CC's and Streamers and so on complaining about cruisers while playing BB and such: - As a BB and I see a cruiser at long range, I can easily citadel him, through the roof. At mid range and even close ranges, the ridiculous thing is that it regularly seems easier to citadel ANGLED cruisers while broadside cruisers do not get citadelled, but only get overpenned. Basically, the "Smolensk sickness" of old (park broadside to BB is the safest thing to do) seems to have spread to other cruisers. While cruisers that try to do the correct thing eat the full pens and citadels. This seems flat out wrong. Note also that many cruisers do have torps for close in fighting if necessary. Second, the fire spam meta (with the ridiculous high fire chances) makes going for a brawling BB a risky business, and has only encouraged island camping and back-line sniping by BB's. Note that the big change coincides with the IFHE Rework. That is why some demand for fire chances to be cut in half.

Sounds a lot like back-line torping, or torping into your own team. Correctly launching torpedos also includes trying to anticipate what the rest of your team mates will be doing. And yes, I get frustrated, and occasionally "pinked" because of this as well.

This morning on NA, decided to take out my Minekaze for a spin, and ended up as bottom tier in a T5-T7 match. Resulted in my first ever T5 Kraken, and my first ever against an all human team. I survived with like 100 HP remaining.

1. Yup, I know that. I meant that I see the exact same ship doing that in a game, so yeah. I know that it depends a bit on what ships you have what you can shoot. 2. True, but it seems many people in the game are more interested in farming damage rather than winning the game. Because huge damage numbers are 'cool'. They do not even comprehend that in doing so they might lose the game, and thus actually earn less XP in the end. 3. It is not about securing vision, it is about taking out a potential threat. The amount of times that I have seen BB's NOT fire at a low health cruiser or other ship behind a mountain - even when spotted by another team mate - is astounding. Allowing on occasion to heal up much later. So yeah, getting spotted might be a favourable think to do if it gets rid off an enemy ship early. 4. Sure, dropping over an island is not easy (I never said it was), but it seems that many people are not even willing to learn and try. And if you can, it can be a very useful tool to get rid of enemy ships that are low health and think they are safe.

My damage record in T6 Randoms, just by playing the game and pretty much not paying attention to the damage counter. Still made plenty of mistakes. The CV actually got a compliment from me, as he played it to help the team. His impact on the game IMHO was much bigger than his Base XP score showed.

In T3 through T5 Learn to live with being perma-spotted regularly since there double CV games on small maps are very common. So that (especially at T3 and T4) is something to be endured. Though it makes a massive difference if you are dealing with an experienced or an inexperienced player. In higher tiers it is still possible, but you have to be very circumspect, due to CV but also Radar. Tips: Endure the mess in T3 and T4, see it as a character building exercise. In other tiers, I would say play much less aggressive, and - especially with CV's around - do NOT rush caps. And turn AA off (as standard) and only turn it on if spotted by the CV.

Thank you for your response. Always firing at the closest ship possible: Quite often, yeah, that is the best thing to do, since that often represents the most immediate threat to you or your team-mates, because of (say) torps, or his guns suddenly have the power to do serious damage at close range. There could well be opportune exceptions, like cruisers sailing completely broadside or the opportunity to finish off an enemy ship. What helps a lot is paying serious attention to your mini-map, both to see the last known position of enemy ships, and to look for general moments where opportunities can occur. Never wander about the map on your own: Wondering around the map on your own more often than not gets you killed: easy to focus fire, often difficult to escape, and easy pickings for the enemy CV. It does give you good practice at dodging though, is my experience. Always fire at the target your DD's call you to fire at: As a general rule, if it involves the DD you are supporting, or it could be an easy target of opportunity for you (check mini-map and look around), then yes. I do not know if you have played DD, or play DD a lot, but otherwise try to do so. It helps you both as a BB player to anticipate what a DD might do, and where to expect torps from, as well as helps you as a BB player to pro-actively identify potential threats to that BB. I personally - on the mini-map - look for where Cruisers and DD's are going first, and - depending a bit on the BB - I do have a tendency to fire a few pot shots at the enemy cruisers when at (near maximum) range. With a some practice and some luck, you can seriously cripple a cruiser pretty much before the game has even started; and if you are really lucky, completely eliminate him. My record in that regard is taking out (eliminating) an Emerald with a spotter plane Myogi about a minute into the game. That is one threat to your DD's gone. And practicing that kind of aiming also helps you in aiming at other ships, including BB's, and ships hiding behind islands. Never yell at DD's to go out and cap: As I am finding out, as a DD player, rushing a cap is some of the most dangerous things you can do. As already pointed out, you can outrun your support easily. many CV players expect you there anyway. You also never know what is waiting for you, and what enemy ships (including DD's) are waiting for you. When going in at a more moderate pace, it also gives you an opportunity to assess the situation, and look for a potential way out if things di go wrong. Capping immediately tells the enemy where you are. As a DD player I am learning to be more patient. The times I did - compared to the enemy DD - it left me alive, and got the enemy DD murdered or effectively out of the game very quickly. I had the support, I was prepared for the engagment myself (guns in position, right pace, etc.) and in a position to escape. In all two of the games that decision - be patient, think survival first, cap later - on my side gave us the opportunity to win, and I am arrogant enough to say that in the one game we did win it was the decisive move. In the one we lost, it was our flank that held up against massively superior forces, but unfortunately the other flank collapsed (and the quality in CV play made the difference). In the third game - despite me being in an all but naked 6 pt Friesland ending up in Randoms by accident - it helped the team win, and in the end, being patient gave me the opportunity to cap a little later. As far as losing 3 DD's within 10 seconds, yeah that is in part the consequence of them being fixated on the idea that "DD's have to cap!" and them not being patient enough. Look, I know I am a very inexperienced player - as just a cursory glance at my stats shows - with just over 1100 Random Battles over EU (800) and NA (300) combined. I know that I currently am a mostly low tier, irregularly Randoms playing Co-op main with a 47% win rate on EU and 54% win rate on NA. But just applying some of these basic rules, be somewhat patient without trying to camp, has lead to a slowly increasing Win Rate (all solo), and slowly but steadily improving underlying statistics. And sure, there is still a whole lot of room for improvement for me. The above is how I - when playing BB try to approach things. Of course I regularly mess up badly (mostly by being too aggressive, or realizing too late that the rest of my team has abandoned my flank, losing mini-map awareness). But I have found with approaching the Random games that way, I have more fun, and still can do well on the damage front (I set my overall record that way in JB at 193k only two weeks ago, and today my record in T6 (Bayern) at just over 100k). Indeed, my damage numbers have gone up without me actually focussing on damage farming at all, but on staying alive, identifying the more serious threats, moving around, and supporting my team mates instead.

And how did we as the rest of the team support our DD? 1. By as BB's being in fairly close support. 2. By immediately targeting targeting the DD that showed up on our flank, even with our BB's. It chased him off. And whenever he showed up at later times, immediately send a welcoming salvo his way again, to chase him off again. Result: he never got a good torp drop off. 3. By immediately targeting the cruisers on our flank that showed up. And yeah, that meant that on occasion we would have to take shots that had little chance to do serious damage, but it made sure that they could not be an effective part of the battle. 4. By taking out the best secondary BB (Massa) - who admittedly made it fairly easy on us, but not in the least because our DD's torps forced him to. 5. Targeting the remaining enemy BB's. And you know why it worked? 1. DD did not suicide rush the cap. 2. The other ships took sensible positions on that flank, actually quite close to the cap (I think that for most of the fight we were all within two grid squares of each other). 3. The two BB's actually were willing to tank damage. Simply put, if WE as BB's had not taken a far more active role, accepted having to take damage, and had NOT prioritized the easy targets over the cruisers and DD, we would have lost big. And as far as communication goes, I think there were two moments of communication: - The first call by the DD to target a cruiser. The first shells were already in the air before the call went out. After that, communication was all but unnessecary. - When we had taken care of the cruisers and BB's, the request to the DD to screen us from the missing enemy DD. Which was not only taken up by the DD, but also by our surviving radar cruiser.

O wait: Capital ships the biggest threat? - Earlier on in this thread, capital ships were proclaimed not to be able to reliably shoot DD's, which was brought forward as the excuse to NOT shoot at DD's in the first place, and even cruisers are so hard to hit as to be pointless. - Earlier on in this thread, fire spammers were considered such a massive threat to BB's that they are the reason why BB's should never leave the AB or IJ line, and stay as far back as possible, which means that at that distance they can only semi-reliably hit BB's, which is good enough reason to NOT target cruisers or DD's. The above two statements do not seriously match the notion that capital ships are the biggest threat. Again, your first (the bolded argument) suggests that you put personal gain well above team play. Yet at the same time it is mostly BB players who demand DD players (and to a lesser degree cruisers) to adopt a play style - spotting above anything else - that will benefit BB's (since they get to shoot at the spotted targets without exposing themselves to any serious danger) at the very expense of the stuff that could make the DD earn a boat load of (Base) XP and credits, while denying them the support that could get them some Base XP (by capping). Talk about self-entitled hypocrisy. Worse, it demands that DD''s and cruisers get themselves killed (by exposing themselves) so BB's can farm damage (and thus XP). Seriously, some of the best and most team-oriented game play I have seen a DD do in a game I was involved in in the past few weeks - smoking up team mates, area denial with torps and shielding the big ships from an enemy DD in coöperation with a Chapayev in the end game, only got him like 8th place on the team. Yet without his team play I doubt we would have been able to win that game. And all I could do was give him a measly compliment for his efforts.

1. Funny how the islands block them from shooting cruisers, yet do not block them from shooting BB's that are close to those very same cruisers. 2. Based on how the current overmatch mechanic works in the game, that is actually NOT the most efficient way to rack up massive damage numbers. There is a reason why you now see so many BB's other than British spam HE all the time. 3. Quite often the mini-map shows fairly clear lines of sight between at least some of the BB's and the cruisers (no islands in between). 4. Maybe those same BB players should learn how to blind fire, drop salvos over islands and so on. You would be surprised what you can still actually hit. As a BB I have been in numerous games where I have had BB's next to me / close to me, and where I seem to be the only one shooting the cruiser right in front of them, and them aiming at BB's further away and occasionally across the map.

Similar mods are available through ModStation and Aslain's Mod pack.

Personally, as I am still learning the game, I try to play all classes (also, playing one class too often gets boring to me). On EU I have 38% cruiser, 37% DD and 25% BB On NA I have 40% cruiser, 35% DD and 25% BB

Because it is easy damage farming, which looks good in the statistics, and the know they cannot be punished for doing so because the BB's are too far away to do anything to them effectively. The assumption that you MUST flank along the 1 or 10 line to be able to lay a cross-fire is wrong in the first place: - If you get caught, you can have YOUR flank open, with no way out. - Many of the flanking manouevres take the BB's (or flanking ships) so far out of the game that (a) for parts of the battle they cannot interfere into the battle because they are blocked from firing by islands, and (b) they are too far out of the battle to actually support the centre of other flank effectively. Also, what can easily happen is that the flanking ships, by the time they actually can effectively flank, have lost the other side of the flanking fire, map control, and face an enemy that has turned around or can easily turn around. Again, there is time and place for flanking, depending on map, spawn, ship you play and how the game develops. Run out to the extreme flank should NOT be the automatic move in (solo) randoms.