They did it again - OP Killer Whale

[Procrastes]

16 hours ago, ForlornSailor said:

 

Absolutly agree. This makes no sense. Just give 5 stars if all the missions goals are accomplished!!

I hear you. During the last Killer Whale operation I played, this Fubuki was about to cross over the exit line and thus complete the mission with about ten seconds to spare, when the captain suddenly turned away from the exit point in order to fire off a few shots with his 127 mm guns at one of the approaching, full health enemy battleships.

 

Yes, really.

 

I pounced on the keyboard and asked him for the sake of all the little unborn hedgehogs in the world to turn back and get his stern to the exit, and he actually complied... but that was as close as they get. I'm not really sure if this kind of thing is reason enough to change what is otherwise a perfectly justifiable and easy-to-follow mission parameter, but since you can't court martial other players for stupidity in the face of the enemy, I'm tempted to give it a try.

[ForlornSailor]

8 hours ago, Butterdoll said:

A good slice of random teams is like another layer of difficulty and one's has to deal with it. 

 

Well, by making the choice to go alone or only with a division of 2 into the Operation, we already accept the challenge of random teams. We know enough people, that like to play OP to build teams of 4+ players. We´d even get more XP this way and a guarenteed 5 star. Infact, we do this in some operations. There are also people from time to time, that havent played and or that particular Operation ever before and ask in chat. And I have no problem helping these guys out, quite the opposite, its rather enjoyable. And here is, where it gets tricky: If experianced /better players, that dont need to play this OP anymore, stay away from random-teams: the balance of the OP will collapse. You have pretty much every round 1 or 2 people, that wouldnt pass the OP. And its ok, the team will carry them and you dont need 5 super unicums with great strategy to carry them, its enough if they do the right thing. And thats perfect, from a balance-PoV. But if more and more the team-composition swings towards 3 or 4 ppl, that have no clue what to do, then the percentage of failed games will rise. Which will lead to more experianced players not playing it anymore OR playing it in private parties.

 

A good example: ultimate frontier. Are the task given hard, individually? No. But they require most of the team doing the right thing at the right moment, even more then Killer Whale. So random games fail more and more. They didnt, when the OP was new, since many decent players participated. Nowadays, when on rotation, its a constant fail-show. Thats why I dont play it anymore random. Narai is headding the same direction, which is funny, since you can do the OP with 4 people. And now tell me: Why (if I know enough people) would I want to chose to play with a random bunch, get a 50/50 chance of failing completly, ruining all my signals and my time, when I can simply go with a decent team from the start, have a much higher sucessrate and on top of that - earn way more XP? Look like, I dont have to deal with the difficulty, that you mention, at all.

[NothingButTheRain]

14 hours ago, Fatal_Ramses said:

Last couple of days in ops have been the most hilarious time I've had in this game. I guess the escape-zone needs a HUGE flashing, buzzin neon sign that makes it crystal clear to the even most hardened window licker that its time to leave.

I cant even think what is going on in their heads

Ow I reckognise this one 

My guess would be that they are completely oblivious.

 

To a certain agree I don't even mind though, these people could likely be new people that shot up in the tech tree without having grasped the essense of the game too much (and I still remember me being in such a state, I was basically looking at all these shiny maps like an idiot and completely immersed in this new game that swallowed me whole and in awe with the port, port music and ingame dynamic music).

 

And I think one can't really blame them for it, though of course it can be frustrating at times.

 

So in the end, instead of keep trying and trying again, wasting flags and everything on these people (who can't in all cases be blamed  for their ignorance) and blame them, I try to find a more experienced bunch of people and play with them instead if I want to get a bit more serious.

 

And there's also the people who you can sorta blame for it, like the ones that insist that at least half the team must survive...even though it states that half of the alive teammembers must be alive, which is kind of a big deal for succesful completion 

[Cyclops_]

We did have I game the other night where 4 clan members went, (inc me) we had a CV in with us, we always had a 5 star when a CV player was in game, but this one, well it was totally beyond belief that as we headed to the Haven he stayed put, every one else in the team told him that he must come with us into the haven or he would be killed, no answer and maybe movement, we carried on messaging him that ships would suddenly appear behind him, but no he did not move, then lov& behold as soon as the reds appeared behind him he started asking for help, well no one could get any where near him, so he lasted all of 30 seconds from the red ships appearing, so yes OP I do gey your point, just trying to tell you you need to go in as a team, just dont go in solo.

[NothingButTheRain]

12 minutes ago, ForlornSailor said:

 

Well, by making the choice to go alone or only with a division of 2 into the Operation, we already accept the challenge of random teams. We know enough people, that like to play OP to build teams of 4+ players. We´d even get more XP this way and a guarenteed 5 star. Infact, we do this in some operations. There are also people from time to time, that havent played and or that particular Operation ever before and ask in chat. And I have no problem helping these guys out, quite the opposite, its rather enjoyable. And here is, where it gets tricky: If experianced /better players, that dont need to play this OP anymore, stay away from random-teams: the balance of the OP will collapse. You have pretty much every round 1 or 2 people, that wouldnt pass the OP. And its ok, the team will carry them and you dont need 5 super unicums with great strategy to carry them, its enough if they do the right thing. And thats perfect, from a balance-PoV. But if more and more the team-composition swings towards 3 or 4 ppl, that have no clue what to do, then the percentage of failed games will rise. Which will lead to more experianced players not playing it anymore OR playing it in private parties.

 

A good example: ultimate frontier. Are the task given hard, individually? No. But they require most of the team doing the right thing at the right moment, even more then Killer Whale. So random games fail more and more. They didnt, when the OP was new, since many decent players participated. Nowadays, when on rotation, its a constant fail-show. Thats why I dont play it anymore random. Narai is headding the same direction, which is funny, since you can do the OP with 4 people. And now tell me: Why (if I know enough people) would I want to chose to play with a random bunch, get a 50/50 chance of failing completly, ruining all my signals and my time, when I can simply go with a decent team from the start, have a much higher sucessrate and on top of that - earn way more XP? Look like, I dont have to deal with the difficulty, that you mention, at all.

I didn't know Narai was doable with just 4. I suppose due to the carriers being deplaned now, as I haven't tried Narai since the great deplanation 

 

Just yesterday we played Hermes a couple times, which was nice as I could get the last bits of XP for Fiji that way (still need a little bit but the ops was good fun!).

And we managed (iirc) 4 and 5 stars quite easily (with groups of 6 and 7 respectively), even though with randoms it was usually fail as Ruan tended to die at the torpy bit no matter how much I tried to explain and ping and well you know the drill 

 

So it's really not the operations (except UF, which remained quite bad imo since you need to save 3 of the turrets instead of 2), it's the sheer amount of potatoes one is expected to have to carry and I think WG could do something about that.

 

In Sunray I played most games solo (except sometimes on stream maybe and a div here and there) and managed to carry close to all games even if the rest were potatoes, because they would at least be able to defend the second tower long enough for me to solo 1 or 2 bosses while keeping the planes occupied and I'd still get 2 or 3 stars at the least.

And since I don't depend on teammate RNG as much, it gets less frustrating and more about my own individual player skill. And this made it a lot more fun in my eyes.

[MrConway]

15 hours ago, DFens_666 said:

Ok, @MrConway @Tuccy @Sub_Octavian

 

Change Killer Whale Operation. This is like sabotaging other players to screw them over - THIS IS NOT FUN!

Make this base thing go away, average player DOES NOT UNDERSTAND IT!

 

I could deal infinite amount of damage and kills, and i would still lose because of this - it has to go PLZ!

 

/rant

 

 

We'll pass on the feedback!

[iJoby]

15 hours ago, ForlornSailor said:

The thing is: that Cap circle is plain stupid. You can end the operation early, simply by placing 50% of the fleet in there. Some people actually go for that right away, in 1/3 games someone tells me to get back and move my [edited]in the circle - while im alone trying to sink the target ships! And some people even admit, that they dont care, they just want to finish the Operation in any way. like huh? Why even play? you gotta picture this: The equevalent of that mechanic would be a button in random, that you can activate only, when the score of both teams is even. It would end the round right away, resulting in a draw. You´d get people pressing that all the time with 00:01 in the game and if you´d ask them WTF was that for? They´d say "Dude, atleast we didnt lose!"

Absolutely agree.

I have just finished a game, and the 2 ships (in the end cap circle) of the 5 remaining, were screaming at me to get in the cap (5km from me) while we still had 2 target ships to kill for the 5 stars, 1 ship far east was nearly finished killing 1 target ship, and another ship with myself finishing off a target ship mid north,  was a good game, 5 star win with good team, albeit with raging screamers who would have been happy with 4 stars. 

[DFens_666]

1 hour ago, NothingButTheRain said:

I didn't know Narai was doable with just 4. I suppose due to the carriers being deplaned now, as I haven't tried Narai since the great deplanation 

 

Oh ye, we did it back when it still was with CVs^^ What is there now instead?

Narai can be done with 4, but its hard work (still kinda funny when you think how easy it can fail with 7 players )

 

[Procrastes]

11 minutes ago, iJoby said:

Absolutely agree.

I have just finished a game, and the 2 ships (in the end cap circle) of the 5 remaining, were screaming at me to get in the cap (5km from me) while we still had 2 target ships to kill for the 5 stars, 1 ship far east was nearly finished killing 1 target ship, and another ship with myself finishing off a target ship mid north,  was a good game, 5 star win with good team, albeit with raging screamers who would have been happy with 4 stars. 

Well, there's obviously no argument against taking the extra time to get a 5-star win. What gets my hackles up is when someone tosses away said win in order to land a few extra shots of no consequence whatsoever on the nearest bot ship.

[BLUB__BLUB]

13 minutes ago, Procrastes said:

Well, there's obviously no argument against taking the extra time to get a 5-star win. What gets my hackles up is when someone tosses away said win in order to land a few extra shots of no consequence whatsoever on the nearest bot ship.

He could ram him, that way he'd get the max points and be dead so half the team is in the exit zone. 

That is what I always do (How are you gonna sink that last BB you have no health... OK now watch this LOL).

 

[Procrastes]

6 minutes ago, BLUB__BLUB said:

He could ram him, that way he'd get the max points and be dead so half the team is in the exit zone. 

That is what I always do (How are you gonna sink that last BB you have no health... OK now watch this LOL).

 

Yes, depending on which exit point you get, it can sometimes be necessary for a player to suicide in order to secure a win for the team. For example, if you get the western exit point but still want to sink those mission-vital ships coming in from the north, it can be tricky to pull this off and still be back in time for tea and a win - at least if you're in a dreadnought battleship. A well-timed ram is a neat and fittingly manly-man solution to this.

[DFens_666]

2 hours ago, NothingButTheRain said:

I didn't know Narai was doable with just 4.

 

Btw, i was like, we did that with 4 guys and YOU were there... had to find screens.

 

Spoiler

 

- Sudden memory loss?

- Got abducted ?

- Where is the real NBTR

 

[Cyclops_]

37 minutes ago, Procrastes said:

Yes, depending on which exit point you get, it can sometimes be necessary for a player to suicide in order to secure a win for the team. For example, if you get the western exit point but still want to sink those mission-vital ships coming in from the north, it can be tricky to pull this off and still be back in time for tea and a win - at least if you're in a dreadnought battleship. A well-timed ram is a neat and fittingly manly-man solution to this.

 

Spot on, and it will always need to be a BB.

[NothingButTheRain]

4 minutes ago, DFens_666 said:

 

Btw, i was like, we did that with 4 guys and YOU were there... had to find screens.

 

  Hide contents

 

- Sudden memory loss?

- Got abducted ?

- Where is the real NBTR

 

I had forgotten about that. When was this?

 

We really owed it to BlackYeti for tanking for us several times though, he did great 

[DFens_666]

1 minute ago, NothingButTheRain said:

I had forgotten about that. When was this?

 

We really owed it to BlackYeti for tanking for us several times though, he did great 

 

Screenshot says 13.10... barely 1,5 months ago

[BLUB__BLUB]

5 minutes ago, Cyclops_ said:

 

Spot on, and it will always need to be a BB.

Hell no, I've done it with div-mates, all in cruisers.

 

Just now, DFens_666 said:

Screenshot says 13.10... barely 1,5 months ago

Makes me think of another challenge, maybe try to do it with all-DDs. 

[Yedwy]

IDK I met @fumtu in a random team op the other day (he was in arizona i think and I was giving my toddler leander captain a walkabout) we bagged 5 stars easy

[BLUB__BLUB]

1 minute ago, Yedwy said:

IDK I met @fumtu in a random team op the other day (he was in arizona i think and I was giving my toddler leander captain a walkabout) we bagged 5 stars easy

It's easy in Leander. I have done such a thing before, 5 stars, then after that entered Leander in a random game,

and then found out I had a ONE POINT captain stuck on it because I had aquired Fiji... didn't end well. 

[fumtu]

Just now, Yedwy said:

IDK I met @fumtu in a random team op the other day (he was in arizona i think and I was giving my toddler leander captain a walkabout) we bagged 5 stars easy

 

Well we had a decent team and you carried us to the victory. While it is good to have at least two BBs for KW I personally prefer cruiser and even a destroyer for it. By far the hardest part in this scenario is communication with the rest 6 players especially if the exit point is on the north. And that V-25 ... how I hate that V-25.

[DFens_666]

25 minutes ago, fumtu said:

 And that V-25 ... how I hate that V-25. 

 

Sometimes it feels just easier to drop it with a CV than to gun it down

[ajb13]

The main problem with operation is the criteria to win - 50% of ships to the exit zone. Not only does this seem to be too complicated for some players to understand it also leads to the stupid situation where in order to win you sometimes have to get your ship sunk.

 

My solution - change the main objective and some of the secondary ones, while also moving the exit zone and adjusting some bot behaviour.

 

Have a single exit zone in the NW corner around A1

Change to main objective to all remaining ships to exit zone.

Drop the secondary objective to prevent the enemy entering the harbour and replace it with have at least 3 ships get to the exit zone.

Adjust the bots to not enter the harbour but instead move to intercept you as you go towards A1, that way the cruiser and BB targets in the NE would stay north of the island and come towards you.

 

The numbers and entry points of the bots would probably need to be adjusted as well, but I feel that a change to the objectives along the line I just proposed would make for a more satisfying experience.

 

Of course it wouldn't stop players who want to deliberately sabotage the run by not moving into the exit zone, but at least with the simpler main objective you would then know they were griefing and not just misunderstanding the situation, and could submit a ticket with a screen shot to WG, hopefully get them banned if they do it all the time.

[iJoby]

2 hours ago, BLUB__BLUB said:

He could ram him, that way he'd get the max points and be dead so half the team is in the exit zone. 

That is what I always do (How are you gonna sink that last BB you have no health... OK now watch this LOL).

 

Target ship was surrounded by 2 normal ships, 1 was a DD, and I was in a low health Budyonny, I would never have made it to the target ship for a ram.

[BLUB__BLUB]

3 minutes ago, iJoby said:

Target ship was surrounded by 2 normal ships, 1 was a DD, and I was in a low health Budyonny, I would never have made it to the target ship for a ram.

That's a baaaaaadddd ship for Ops (I used it myself though, I like a challenge).

 

[iJoby]

14 minutes ago, BLUB__BLUB said:

That's a baaaaaadddd ship for Ops (I used it myself though, I like a challenge).

 

Bad ship for you obviously, but my ship of choice, who doesn't love a challenge.

 

[BlackYeti]

4 hours ago, DFens_666 said:

 

Narai can be done with 4,

 

Only if one of them is a Scharnhorst or Lyon  @ForlornSailor y u no invite me for operations anymore? Is it because I said I hate Dunkirk?