NobleRipper

I really wish I could look forward to something as cool as submarines being added to a WW2 naval battles game. Then I look at every horrible balancing decision WG has made, all the dud lines they've brought in recently, all the signs that the devs don't even play this game that they make... It's just sad at this point how little trust they've caused me to have in their ability to get this right.

Yep. The website doesn't work properly either.

Someone desperately needs to remind the team working on subs about the K.I.S.S. acronym- Keep It Simple, Stupid!

I wonder how they managed to break it, was there any kind of update done on the Armoury with the most recent patch?

WoWs art department does (mostly) great work. WoWs UI department... Not so much.

Pfft, dubs not subs (But obviously options for both...)

Said it before in the last new-weebs thread, and will keep saying it until it happens: When, WG??!?

For me, it's that way and the 'does it do what it should do to be the type of ship it is?' test; with Z-31 it handles alright, has smoke and torpedoes and isn't visible from space, so it gets to tick the 'absolute basic destroyer necessities achieved' box on my list ;) I only have Błyskawica and Jervis otherwise at T7, but I'd definitely rate Z-31 below both.

It's quite illuminating that the reaction to the posted apology so far, from a lot of people apparently in the know about such things, seems to have been 'he's a stand-up guy, I don't doubt that he's sincere; of course, it's not going to count for anything as soon as WG higher-ups disown or ignore it entirely'. Way to build a corporate image, I suppose...

But she's popular and combat-efficient, WeeGee said so!

The light cruisers: absolutely worth it, especially for Ops (Leander and Fiji); heal and smoke is a great combo (option of radar later on) and personally I like the simplicity of only having RN (S)AP, it's really powerful when you learn how to land it in the right places. The heavies: I really love Devonshire, I'd take her against any other T6 heavy (to be fair I'd say the same about a few of the other T6 heavies as well), would even say she has a certain resemblance in how she plays to the Graf Spee if that's your thing especially now the latter has gone to the gulag; I also have London, but for me she somewhat falls between the two stools of her light and heavy tier-mates without being as good as either; not sure about the rest of the line as they don't really interest me.

My go-to test for whether a ship is good or bad is the ol' 'would I be doing better off right now in any/some/most/all other ships?' chestnut. Admittedly I only have a couple of other T7 destroyers, but so far as I've seen Z-31 is in at least the 'most' category (even compared to some T6s).

Only played the Z-31 so far (and don't really care to try the later ones), but for what it's worth: agreed with @SodaBubbles, she's just not interesting; does the DD basics (relatively agile, smoke, torps) but without being all that good; no extra consumables to play around with; not even any distinctive/endearing flaws that might call for new tactics or interesting adaptations of gameplay style. She seems a little like the Mikoyan to my mind, with powerful guns (but few of them), agility that isn't quite all it's cracked up to be, and torps that could easily be overlooked (albeit not to the same extent as Mickey Mouse's). I'm quite disappointed personally because I like the idea of a 'microlight cruiser' destroyer; unfortunately, Z-31 doesn't seem to do it even as well as Aigle (which is a tier lower) and it's only the prospect of an occasional good salvo with the AP that makes her worth taking out.

A lot of people are talking about the 'light cruiser without a citadel' concept; I prefer to think of it as a light cruiser without the DPM. Compared to other destroyers with much faster reload, or all those light cruisers with many times more guns, I'd say it's more like a light battleship: big single salvos with lots of up-front damage but a long time between. As far as the torpedoes go, I really wish they had a little more speed *or* a little more damage *or* a little quicker reload, as it is they don't feel useful so far that I've been playing. Only played Z-31so far myself, but based on the experience I don't think I'll bother going further.

Who was it that said, "He's a hard man to ignore... But it's worth the effort." And just like that, the forum seems much less cluttered all of a sudden ;) As for Yukon, it seems WG have perfected the art of shooting themselves in the foot in their mouth. Glad I got Nelson before she was sent to the gulag...

"Carriers OP plz nerf!!!!11one" ~The Imperial Japanese Navy c. 1945

Next stop: Skynetted. I may pry my A and D keys out of the keyboard and burn them in solidarity with John Connor and La Resistance...

I know that they're the most reliable hitters on the ship, but if I'm playing a German carrier then I prefer literally any other weapon (including secondaries) to the torps; it's just such a blow to morale to see them slam home but the corresponding red bar move scarcely at all. I've done (comparatively) good work with the German divebombers though; as long as you zoom out to maximum the aiming reticle placement isn't too much of a barrier to navigation. Personally though, I love how quickly the RN torp aiming narrows down (damage isn't stellar but it's still better than the Germans, at least at T6 where I play); would plump for them myself if I were OP.

Yep, apparently come 10.6 the bots will be able to change speed to dodge torps and will be made more capable of avoiding islands. If only the same patch could be applied to potatoes!

If you want an easy line, the US or RN destroyers can be pretty forgiving, as can the main (old) German line. If you want to really learn how to play destroyers well, play the Euro line: no smoke, so you have to learn map awareness and positioning; slow-loading and -rotating guns, so you have to learn how to make every shot count; fast-reloading torps with pathetic damage, so you get plenty of practice in aiming torps; they don't work very well without quite a few captain skills but there are several areas you can potentially invest in, so you get practice with planning out your commander builds. Just beware that they get a lot slower from T7, and the heal is a trap (it won't save you if you get into trouble). Think of them as the masochist's approach to learning destroyers...

Was more thinking the sailing botes that everyone chugs around in (because meme), but that too. Just as soon as the Co-op bots learn to unstick themselves from the new superglue terrain we have this update, they'll sweep all before them; already saw a red AI Fiji bring destruction down on a player team almost single-handed ;)

Probably disappear for a while (gotta underline that FOMO impulse) and then pop back up again some time down the line, possibly sooner rather thanlater dependent on how much emphasis WG want to put on hybrids in the game.

Raptor Rescue already has a support fleet in it, so having Support Ships in Ops has certainly got some precedent behind it. Would definitely be nice if Ops got some more love, even if it's kind of an 'indirect buff' like adding in a useful ship type... As far as suitability for Randanked goes, I suppose it would be down (aside from how WG implement them, and given the state of carriers, subs etc. I wouldn't hold my breath on that being 'well') to how willing the playerbase is to embrace the new class. Someone's made the point above that support classes are a staple of RPGs, and even other MOBAs, but it may well not be the kind of thing people come to Wargaming titles for.

I imagine you're right, at most they probably want folks to have the footie on in the background while they stay furiously thrashing botes. That said, having played/seen vids of WoWs and vids of World of Tanks, got to say that the graphics in the latter are looking way better these days, at least to my eyes. Perhaps that one is really WG's 'beautiful game'? ;)

That's why they do it, sadly: to encourage people to buy premium time. There's no real need for 'servicing' costs in the game anyway, the ships are all just pixels and they don't bother with historical accuracy in so many other areas that including it here feels token at best and like a way of scamming people to pay for what they're told they already earned at not-best...