NobleRipper

It was an interesting video, but I'm not sure what the point of it was. As our grand salty gnome overlord himself pointed out, if the skill itself isn't directly having the effect of increasing camping etc., its reputation is; either way, the camping etc. is happening, and that seems unlikely to change any time soon. I would also be interested to know what his sources are for the assertion that Stinkeye isn't actually all that effective. What he described was games where there are less and less cruisers (the natural prey of battleships) and much more destroyers (the natural predator of battleships): it seems as though that kind of situation would lead naturally to less damage caused by battleships than beforehand, and it could even be the case that the skill is actually a bigger boost than the numbers would suggest in that instance. Of course that's all speculation, but I don't think a statistical analysis was ever hurt by waiting for more data; that is, it might just be too early to tell.

(Probably needs an NSFW tag)

Were they not extensively tested beforehand? Surely the PTS could have helped, or even a dedicated test server iteration, rather than just releasing them into live play without proper testing.

In theory, I like the presentation of the Dockyard events; unfortunately in practice, they either take ages to load or fail altogether, which seems like poor optimisation when the game can load an entire map with thirty players in significantly less time. As was mentioned above, I'd expect to see the animations going the way of the dodo before too long (it's already started, with the German Dockyard you could watch the Spee being built in the background albeit with somewhat less detail; in the Japanese one, there was just a Tachibana on a slip and a Yahagi in the harbour, doing nothing). Then again, anything that keeps the update sizes down is a win in my book. As far as the rewards are concerned, I go for the free ships and ignore the last ones as (thanks to WG's new 'n' improved communication skills since the PR incident!) I know in advance that the only way I'll be getting them is by paying, which I can't be bothered to do. I think there was also some coal in one event that I was happy to get hold of as it let me afford another ship; aside from that, none of the flags/premium time/free XP/fail crates etc. is of interest. To be honest, it can be a real disappointment when I complete a moderately strenuous grind only to get a handful of flags.

At the moment I'm not really playing (except for trying a few new things out in Ops) because it feels like there's nothing to work towards: the current event is uninspired and where normally I'd try to stick it out for a free premium, the level of grind involved and my lack of specific interest in Anshan have left me discouraged. Two different flavours of Disappointment Crate are no longer in the least bit of interest, given I know they're only going to give me about two camos apiece, and even the numbers of crates available for F2P are rather lower than they have been in the past with similar previous events. More generally, though, the thing that makes me question whether it's worth continuing with the game is WG's attitude (as expressed through various updates, additions, changes etc. and with a certain amount of reading between the lines in their official communications) that this is a product to be pushed to suckers, aggressively marketed as if it were time-limited (hi there FOMO), rather than a game where the primary motivator is that they can take satisfaction in supporting it and which players can actually have fun playing.

The lvl 2 Spotter Plane skill looks promising for Ops, as the decreased reload and extra charges give you more chance to use it and the decreased duration doesn't matter so much given that individual engagements tend to be nasty, brutish and short (to utterly misapply quote a phrase). Perth has a short range, so extending it as much as possible is potentially very useful. Of course, you have to be comfortable with the Spotter Plane perspective to make best use of it, I find it's useful at long range but a hindrance at short, so the decreased duration could actually be a help when the enemy wave closes. If you don't want to snipe then Perth is best played like a big destroyer (specifically Aigle in my case), taking advantage of smoke/manoeuvrability/cover to get around the flanks of an enemy and hit their broadside (Ops), or in Co-op just motoring forward and smoking on contact seems to work nicely if you make sure you know what to do when the smoke ends (always have an exit strategy). Remember that she's not actually all that quick, so try not to get too far from objectives (the Spotter/sniping strategy can be useful here). I find I get the best damage results in Ops by ignoring my own torps for the most part and concentrating on gunfire; learn when to switch to AP (for a broadsiding cruiser or lightly-armoured battleship extremities) and when to stick with HE (most other times, especially when enemies are end-on). Perth's AP isn't as good as Leander's against angled or very light targets, so bear that in mind if you play them both. Save the torps for (ka-chik) close encounters, preferably when there's no chance of missing as the Ops bots cheat something chronic at torpedobeats. Best advice, though: keep the guns firing as quickly as they cycle, do everything you can to support that while mitigating the potential damage coming back at you; you're the one best-placed to work out how to do that within your own play style :)

Yay, 400 coal! And some random guff on the side, but every little helps...

Well, this escalated quickly.

I personally can't stand to wait for that slow gun traverse, so I go with Greasy Gears on my Perth captains (I have two, due to a fundamental lack of other Commonwealth ships to use them on). For Ops, Superintendent is generally worthwhile.

All the RN light cruisers have that as well (and presumably Mysore), it's one of the features of the line; they also hold their speed in a turn a lot better than the average. Handy when accelerating out of a smoke cloud when there are torps incoming...

Glad you got your answer! She won't steer you wrong, although I'll also back the minority opinion and suggest getting hold of Graf Spee as well at some point, as she's also pretty good for bot bashing :) Now that we've satisfactorily answered the original question, I'm just going to feel free to pontificate on Ops ships for a bit Generally, I find that DPS, survivability and manoeuvrability are most useful in Ops in roughly that order (which is why I'd have suggested avoiding Duca, the guns seem far to slow and Italian cruisers are pretty delicate; then again I only have the other two personally): the faster-firing ships always seem to get the most kills and usually damage as well, regardless of calibre if you're able to reliably hit superstructures, upper belts and unarmoured ends; there can potentially be a lot of ships firing back at you in some Ops if you become the focus of attention, so being tough or having smoke/heals etc. is a big advantage; speed and handling aren't as much of a factor, when you've finished off the northern cruiser/battleship spawn on Killer Whale and then realise you have to get your Warspite to the western exit you'll definitely feel the lack but in most situations it's less of an issue. If you want to do well in Ops, the best ship in pretty much all circumstances (my opinion of course) is Leander. Personally I'd rate her over Perth, as the RN AP shells are so much more versatile (albeit requiring a little practice to make best use of) and you never have to worry about switching ammo types; plus of course, she's free. In Narai, just use the T7 Leander which is Fiji I'd also second the suggestion for Devonshire, with the further mention that she's actually pretty close to the same experience as playing Spee in a silver ship: strong guns/torps, relatively tough, heal'n'hydro. London is an acceptable bridge between her and Leander, though always feels like the poorest of the three to me for some reason (possibly the high smoke detectability and short gun range). As for things which are not just RN cruisers, I'm a little surprised that noone's mentioned Fusō: she's got reasonable speed and lot of guns (I like to angle so as to engage one target with the forward three turrets and one with the rear three if I can, as effectively that way you're doing the work of two Spees at once), and the fact that Ops targets are mostly cruisers (and lower-tier at that) means that she doesn't suffer so much for being more less armoured than some and her slightly lower gun calibre isn't much of an issue. Of course, Warspite is great too ;) I'm also convinced that if I put a bit of work in I should be able to get a really good performance out of La Galissonnière at some point; she's got decent manoeuvrability and torps (although I don't find myself using torps all that much in Ops) and the main battery reload should cycle quickly enough to be useable in most or all of the various engagements that come up over the course of most Ops, if timed right. She's still a little too soft and without any consumables to make up for it, though, so would need a pretty aggressive play style with careful positioning to get the most from her. Also, I don't tend to play destroyers in Ops but Aigle might just have enough DPM to suit me (I'll be experimenting further). I'm looking forward to giving Mysore a go at some point (she's at the top of my list right now); as I say the lack of torps isn't a problem for me in Ops but the slower reload might be a bit of a drawback for all she seems to have better ballistics.

Of course, well fingers crossed then

Tenryu and Caledon (two of my favourite ships of any tier as it happens), St. Louis and Bellerophon (to go with my Charleston and Dreadnought respectively), Wickes, Valkyrie and Wakatake (T3 is as low as I generally go for tech tree destroyers as I didn't get on with most of the T2s); my alt. account has all the German T3 silvers (love the G-101's torpedo arcs!). Then again I also have a number of T2 (and T4) silvers that I'm quite fond of. How about you? Will the other T3 battleships be removed as well, out of interest? How about cruisers and destroyers, let everyone skip straight from 2 to 4? I wonder how the Italian tech tree will look to new players (who let's face it are probably going to be playing T3), compared to the others. Would it not make more sense to try and rectify the situation by providing more reasons to play the tier and thus reinvigorate interest (say, letting T3 and T4 count towards at least daily crates if not other missions), than follow a policy that ultimately reinforces the problem?

These things won't work while carrier mechanics remain so different from regular ships', they'll just have to split their time between two largely incompatible ways of playing. It would be better for hybrids if they (and maybe also carriers) had a fire-and-forget style of plane launching, broadly akin to how guns and torpedoes work at the moment, so the player is still able to concentrate on driving the ship rather than being away with the WoWpers all game and so unable to use their guns. Unless WG are striving for historical accuracy, where hybrids are less useful than a full-blood carrier or surface ship, in which case bravo so far!

As some folks have pointed out, going to more realistic speeds stretches out the compression of gameplay and makes things take longer; on the other hand, speeding things up would make for a much more reactive game with less time to think. Each has their place (proper sims and twitch shooters respectively), but you have to remember that all the shell flight times, torp speeds, plane speeds and even map sizes are calibrated based on the ship speeds, so changing them means changing everything else too. I seem to recall a thread posted a while ago stating that ship sizes are twice life-size compared to the in-game maps as well, presumably that would factor into travel times and thus speeds too.

Or the introduction of Kamchatka, mightiest and best real-life warship to ever sail the seas (automatic boost to spotting torpedoes!) ;)

It's the well-documented phenomenon of expense increasing with technology, to the point where smaller countries were less able to afford bigger ships. Then again, my point was that there are more ships available to choose from in earlier periods, not necessarily that there are less from later ones; that still holds true regardless of what the upper tiers are doing. It depends on what players are here for: naval history enthusiasts are roughly as likely to be interested in new historical ships whatever the period, and the wider variety between different designs is likely to appeal to people who come for the interesting and well-executed ship models. It won't appeal to the whole or majority of the playerbase (if anything actually does), but then again the 'not from world wars equals no/low interest' argument would seem to fly in the face of what we're discussing in this thread, namely a navy that had much less presence in either war than most of the navies already in-game (which the fans of world wars are more likely to go for). This is already a niche subject, and world war cred is not much going to affect specific interest in it; why arbitrarily discount other (broader) areas in similar situations? Aside from anything else I should imagine it would allow an expansion of the Dutch cruiser line as much as anyone else's ;) As far as sources are concerned, I should imagine that in many way they'd be much easier than a lot of the ones available for slightly later periods, given that most ships from the time I'm talking about were built in just the largest shipbuilding countries; the manufacturers' information is often still available, enough to make detailed plans of the ships in a lot of cases. There's certainly already plenty of published material to attest to that.

I logged into my NA-server account today and spotted a news item which I didn't think I'd seen around here: https://worldofwarships.com/en/news/sales-and-events/paypal-recruitment-rewards/ Has anyone else seen that one yet? Seems a lot like the one we had a few months back for doubloons, albeit with the notable exception that to qualify the new recruit now has to get to T6 instead of T5. Seriously you whales, you've got to stop spending so much; that way they'll start bribing us EU-server players with real beer tokens as well

Cheesy Chips and Gravy fo' evah! Or chipshop curry sauce ;)

Yep, it's pretty nakedly mercenary of them. Seems pretty desperate as well...

I feel you may have missed the incredibly cunning and subtle wordplay there, mate. Try having a look at the link in my post...

Thanks. Seems a little punitive, without the torps...

But what about the Canadians though? Surely they love Putin...

Not even any plans for Subs-only Ops? Might help the devs polish subs a bit before putting them into the general game, and also help ease people into them better. A wolfpack attacking a merchant convoy, a sub flotilla waiting in ambush for an enemy battlefleet, maybe a group of them penetrating an enemy anchorage or straits to attack the shipping within/beyond? On the original topic: can anyone tell me what the fire rate for Mysore's guns is? I can only find a figure on the wiki and I don't trust it, seems much too low.

I was wondering that. I know that NA doesn't have as many players as here, perhaps they're also less likely to make purchases (I'd guess things are more expensive over there as it's the region with the highest average wealth of all the WoWs servers). There doesn't seem to be any requirement that the new players are paying customers per se, it's probably that old chestnut of creating new opportunities for marketing (or padding out the server numbers to give an appearance of better health). The interesting part to me (other than the raised requirement to T6) is that they're encouraging people to link their PayPal accounts to WoWs, I'm wondering if that's not the main thrust of the exercise...