Analysis of AA rework and Ship/CV-interaction

[anonym_DKZABZXaXZld]

First impressions about the upcoming CV and AA rework. Made a new thread for this because it got pretty long and I don't want that comments on this mess up the whole CV rework discussion page.

 

I will only focus on the interaction of surface ships vs the carriers from the viewpoint of the former, and on the AA rework, because both don't get that much attention under the bright light of the new CVs. I will let others fight the battle of making the Carriers themselves fun and engaging. To avoid confusion: I will call the Flak bursts 'bursts', even though the game currently refers to them as 'breaks' or 'gaps' (Is this a real thing or is WG making things up?). I will also not go into what changed, but how the changes impacted the gameplay. If you are not up-to-date, watch a video/read an article that explains AA sectors, difference between long/medium and short range AA, CVs, etc.

 

Playing against Carriers

Note that the Test server is a horrible testing enviroment, where the only other human players sit in the CVs, and the rest are bots who never punish missplays. On top of that, most CVs will just avoid you to farm the easy AI, and when they actually drop you, it is clear that most of them think you will react like a bot does. In short, most of the following in this section might be biased.

 

- as a BB

Good maneuvering will help you dodge most of the damage from bad carriers. However, even with US BBs, which consistently farm planes within their AA-range, your AA will not help you to actually stop damage from coming in. Most of the planes fall out of the sky only after they dropped their load or they do in too low numbers*. That really is the main point here, you will trade HP for plane XP, your dodging skills determine how much HP you loose and your AA will determine how much XP you get. Against good carriers... you are food, especially in low tiers and slow BBs. Special note: AP bombs are still a thing, and a single drop (not the whole squad) can take 20k out of your Bismarck. At least they are somewhat harder to aim and you have some chance to dodge AP bomb drops from bad CVs. Just remove this, WG.

 

*: This issue is not BB specific but due to the way damaged planes get chosen for a strike over healthy ones, always ensuring that the main squad is as healthy as possible.

 

- as a Cruiser

Only tested AA Cruisers. Defensive Fire doesn't feel like it is doing much. Reasons for this will be given in the AA rework section. You also don't have the range anymore to defend much more players other than yourself, which is a huge impact to teamplay. With double rudder shift, you will have no problems dodging most of what a CV throws at you. Your AA actually shoots down planes before they are in your face, but even in a fully specced wooster with defensive running, a Midway (without legendary mod) can get at least one drop out of a squad. Chances are good that the squad wont be capable of much more afterwards, but he will get it in and nothing can really stop it. The biggest issue I see with this is that on the main server, BBs will wait for you getting flushed out of your defensive position or punish your predictable movement when you dodge. Any good CV player who doesn't care who actually kills you will take that trade, since he has unlimited planes anyways. Played some heavy cruisers, but noone dropped Ap bombs on me, so I can't comment on that.

 

- as a DD

Tested fully AA specced defensive fire gearing. DDs also get a a heavy 50% bonus for the focussed sector. Got into some heavy plane enviroment multiple times, and despite all of that I never shot down only a single plane (I believe DD bursts are smaller than those of other ships, so they hit less often(?)). So don't spec your DD into AA I guess. Dodging drops is supereasy and you can even trick carriers into misplacing his rockets, which are pretty easy to hit on all the other ship classes. Spotting is still the main problem, but the situation definitly improved for this class.

 

Overall I didn't really struggle in any of the classes, but again, gameplay on the test server is always questionable. It has to be noted that especially at low tiers, you can get dropped on for 10 minutes straight (as long as you dodge) and shoot down 3 planes in the whole match, no matter your AA spec. Your AA seems to be nonexistent. Really, really good carriers still (already) exist, and they can dominate the match, rendering you completly helpless in most situations, which really reminded me of the current carrier situation. They are very rare however, which also reminds me of the current situation.

 

Update: Playing against good carriers

Overall I would say, mastering carriers will be easier than with the old system, so you will meet more of this type. On top of that, you will see more Carriers in general. It will be fun... Like I already said, BBs are complete food, the dot-mechanic is even easier to abuse now (and gets built in for bad carriers, so even those can't mess this up), and fast drops from different angles are impossible to dodge. Against cruisers, Carriers received multiple options, and especially the rockets seem to be insanly potent against light cruisers. Good carriers have no problems dealing with your AA, no matter in which ship you are in. Planes are too goddamn fast and your AA range is too small. While a bad CV will sometimes go out of his way to make sure his planes are within your aura as long as possible, a good one will just zip in and out without risk. And by that I mean it seems to be pretty safe to drop a defensive fire, fully specced wooster, if you know what you are doing. This is also true for T8 CVs vs T10 AA. It is way too easy for a good CV to avoid your AA altogether, which honestly makes my next section, 'The AA rework' pretty pointless. So the situation for cruisers compared to before got way worse. In the old system, your main problem in heavy AA ships was, that the enemy CV could just avoid your aura and wreck your team (ignoring AP bombs shitting on heavy cruisers through defensive). Now, he can avoid everything about you. I still believe that the situation for DDs improved, but the spotting issue is still huge an didn't really get adressed.

 

According to El2aZer, a good CV has no problems killing DDs. If he is right, the situation for all classes either got worse or stayed the same. The only player in a CV game who has an easier time than before is the bad CV when playing against a good CV, because he is safer farming his damage while he looses. And that is only if he doesn't get sunk early.

 

Good vs bad CV-matchup: Currently, there is no way of ever winning that damage race as a surface ship. The skill difference problem did NOT get adressed properly.

 

The AA rework

So how do the actual numbers look like? Why is the low tier AA so bad? What is it like in high tiers? First and foremost, short range AA is pretty much as useless as ever, shooting down planes that already dropped, and occasionaly getting a single bomber before he drops, that's all. Medium range AA at T10 has around 3,5 km range, which can't be improved, so it doesn't do much either. Most of the magic happens with long range AA. And the magic essence is the balance between burst damage and plane hp.

 

Burst damage vs plane hp

Let's start with T10, where burst damage without any modifiers is pretty much the same as plane hp without modifiers, which makes things easy. One burst will kill a plane flying through it instantly, and the smallest modification that improves plane Hp will let it survive, requiring a second burst and effectivly doubling its survivabilty. That is why, even though most AA skills look much worse than before (20% range->15% damage), they are still extremly effective, pretty much counteracting this effect and halving plane survivability back to one burst if the CV actually specced enough to make it 2 bursts. So all the speccing you do to your ship or CV pretty much decides if you will/get two- or oneshot by long range AA in a sort of cat and mouse game. Considering tier differences or with medium range AA it might still take several more hits to bring a plane down.

 

If your burst damage already oneshots planes, more damage obviously doesn't help further, and you can only take AA Mod 2 or activate Defensive Fire to increase the amount of bursts (aka dicerolls to actually deal the damage). This looks good on the surface, since uptiered CVs don't have to combat infinitly scaling AA anymore, they only have to fight the bursts themselves which don't scale as hard. But it also decreases the effectiveness of most AA builds, since more damage is often the only option. Especially low tier ships, which have horrible burst amounts but high damage per burst to begin with, gain only from more AA damage when uptiered.

 

In this plane hp vs burst damage race, fully maxed plane hp will outscale burst damage from captain skill points and ship modules combined (even without considering stuff like Midway legendary), but defensive fire or good sector usage brings the favor back to the surface ship. So skilled play gets rewarded, in theory. Making up the difference with good sector usage is also much easier for cruisers than for BBs, which I think is fair.

 

When going down the tiers from T10 to lower, plane hp decreases faster than burst damage, but the amount of bursts per barrage goes down as well to counteract this. This allows bottom tiered ships to still heavily damage higher tier planes, but trade for this with the chance to do so.

 

Anything else that's good? Oh yes, AA looks and sounds way better.

 

Overall, I can see what WG was going for and I understand why they think it's good. Now let's explore why it's not.

 

RNG, so much RNG

So you got your ship enough burst damage to oneshot planes at its tier with long range AA, congrats! You head into battle, get some planes near you and... nothing happens. Your bursts just refuse to appear where the planes are. Get comfortable, because you will see this a lot, especially at long ranges (I believe accuracy decreases with range). You will learn that the main factor that determines your actual AA effectiveness is luck, not your spec. The only thing that can help you with luck is to increase the amount of bursts you get per barrage (the amount of dicerolls you get), which is only possible with Defensive Fire or a T9-T10 module (AA Mod 2). And this luck can land you anywhere. I had situations where one full duration Wooster Defensive Fire shot down 3 planes, and I have shredded a whole squad in seconds other times. T10 can kinda deal with this, due to its somewhat high bursts per barrage, but low tiers will always struggle with the most important stat (actually hitting) being pretty crap and no way of improving it, making pumped up damage stats through AA builds heavily RNG-dependent. AA builds used to decrease RNG! Just to make it clear, you will still shoot down planes in low tiers, there is just 0 consistency.

 

Let me just stress how broken this is. In the old system, plane hp doesn't exist, there is a chance to kill a single plane within a certain range, and you can both directly modify the range and the RNG with captain skills and modules. Now, plane hp does exist, and there is a chance to kill planes within a certain range, but they removed all control over the range and almost all control about the RNG; and the only thing you can actually modify is the question 'Do I kill the plane instantly or will I have to roll the dice a second time?'. They somehow took the old system, expanded it by adding plane HP, and ended up with a system that has less to offer than the old one. Why even introduce plane hp if everything ends up as RNG anyways (ok it makes it more engaging for the CV, but gameplaywise)? In the end, it only has an effect when it gives the top tier CV a bigger advantage.

 

Where is my teamplay?

I noticed that I really struggle to protect teammates due to the range and AA changes. Usually there are 1 or 2 BBs in 7-8 km rage of my cruiser in high tiers, which I can (in the old system) protect with some movement and fully ranged AA. When I activate Defensive Fire with the old system, planes fall out of the sky because long range AA with Defensive is devastating, especially with Manual. I can understand why WG wanted to make it more playable for CVs, but now... Pretty much all ships have a small number of bursts per barrage (even AA cruisers) on their long range (6-7km, again: no chance to increase this), and real burst defense only starts with the medium AA (3-4km). Most of the Damage bonus from Defensive is already overkill, and the only thing that actually counts is the increase in burst amount per barrage by 50%. 50% more of a stat that's not that great to begin with doesn't make it suddenly awesome, and if you really want to help a teammate, better get within 2 km, so your 'medium' AA can help, which now sits at ranges that used to be ranged-specced short AA. In summary, I believe Defensive Fire teamplay is dead, and the consumable is just a button that makes your AA sound cooler. Oh, it seems to still scatter planes, but I still got hit pretty reliable by rockets and bombs while it was active, maybe the actual Cv testers can tell me how much the scattering stopped them from doing something.

 

The whole sector thing isn't working

Nope. I got none of it to work. By design alone, a CV will drop you, fly over you, and drop you from the other side, repeat. Which means you need to switch constantly to be effective. The switch time of BBs is already too long for this. In a cruiser, you are 100% occupied with 10 things more important when you get dropped. In a DD, you switch pretty fast, but your AA is so bad it doesn't matter. If you mess up, you get punished by much worse AA. It really has to be noted that ships with high sector modifiers, which sounds great, also punish you much harder when you mess up. And there is a lot of room to mess up. Counterintuitively for example, you have to start switching to the opposite side before the CV even drops you, because that's where the planes will be after he dropped, when your input has its effect (switch time). He waits with his drop? Well, now your AA is on the wrong side. Most of the time you also want to turn into the drop, which actually turns your strong AA away from the planes and your weak AA to them. Think about it, the best way to face torpedo planes is by them being directly in front, but you only have a left and right sector. It is messed up. Additionaly, switching takes a lot of focus from other things, you constantly have to watch the planes while you also have to play the rest of the game. And those planes can be pretty fast and stealthy. In short, leaving everything at 100% is the best thing u can do.

 

Modules and Captain skills

Again, i won't focus on the stuff for CVs.

BFT: 1 point skill in the good old times, got nerfed again by only affecting short range AA, which is useless 90% of the time. I would only take this on gunboat DDs now, it looks like an AA skill, but it really isn't. Should be a 2 point skill now honestly.

AFT: Like I already explained, that 15% increase might effectivly double your damage, so it's a good skill. More range was obviously way better though.

Manual AA: Complete joke of a skill. Maybe a 1-pointer, never ever 4 points. Increases your AA damage by 10%, which is less than AFT, and only if you are a god at correct sector usage. And -20% switch time won't make you that god, believe me. On top of that, spending 4 points on it might actually punish you, because it removes those 10% from the other side. I have 0 clue what they were thinking. Any skill build on this horrible sector mechanic will always be bad.

AA Mod 1: Same as AFT

AA Mod 2: Increases bursts per barrage by 2 for long and medium AA. Finally something that increases the goddamn chance to actually hit those planes!!! Sadly, low tier ships can't take it, and they struggle the most with low burst amounts. Also competes with Gun reload, so I will propably never take it. In all honesty: THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE EFFECT OF MANUAL AA.

 

Conclusion

Summing up, I think we end up with an AA system that looks more impressive in theory, but is slightly worse than the current one in praxis. I don't expect much from AA anyways, but I am still disappointed given the amount of work that clearly went into this. I hope they can improve some aspects of it. The thing that needs the absolute most work imo is the sector mechanic and Defensive Fire. I would also love something that makes AA work more consistent and less RNG-dependant, especially for low tiers (more bursts, less damage).

 

So there we go, thank you for reading this wall of text and have a good day!

[Bortasqu]

I read all of it, and it's a really good writeup on the the reworked CV gameplay mechanics.

 

But I'll take the reworked CV mechanics all day over the old mechanic we got now. Also the whole sector thing sounded cool, but it's implementation got over-simplified and bad at the same time.

[El2aZeR]

To add to the above:

The only difference I've noticed between test 2 and 3 is that now a burst will spawn directly on your planes at certain intervals. Annoying for sure, but not enough to do anything meaningful before the strike has expended most of their ordinance.

 

Skilled CV players have actually become far, FAR more dominant in the rework than in the current iteration. I currently maintain over twice my CV average damage in my Midway and can already achieve a topkek 150k in the Ranger.

Meanwhile newcomers or potatoes too have become more useless. So much for fixing the skill gap.

 

Killing DDs is a cakewalk, had a game in which I killed 4 DDs and assisted in the kill of the fifth in the opening 6 minutes of the match in my Lexington (to put this into perspective, in the current RTS version I'd be about finishing up my SECOND strike after 6 minutes). Rest assured that I can pull that in any other USN CV as well. Highlight of the day was killing an Akizuki in a SINGLE DB attack a minute into the match with my Midway without a detonation, although to be fair that has remained the exception. Usually you need two or three attacks, but it's rare that a DD survives a strike (and I did kill a second DD shortly after the Akizuki, putting my team 2 ships up in the opening 2 minutes of the match). Even if he does though he'll usually be fodder for whatever DD on your team he runs in to.

Likewise cruisers melt under your drops. BBs are the most damage resistant but they also suffer the most from DoTs, making them nice farming material to reward yourself with once all priority targets have been cleared out which doesn't take all that long. If you hate the Conqueror, you're going to uninstall the game in rage because of USN DBs.

 

4 hours ago, Duke_of_Lauenburg said:

Oh, it seems to still scatter planes, but I still got hit pretty reliable by rockets and bombs while it was active, maybe the actual Cv testers can tell me how much the scattering stopped them from doing something.

 

In my experience DFAA does nothing but intensify the amount and damage of flak bursts (as it states on the consumable description), aka it's completely worthless due to the ridiculously high plane speeds making the AI lead so far off it's not even in your general vicinity if you slow down or turn just slightly, which you will inevitably do to get into an ideal attack position. Said speed also allows you to reach targets from across the map within ~30 seconds, right when DCP runs out if your target has been saving it. Convenient, isn't it?

 

Generally speaking USN torpedo aiming is incredibly fast when you're out of combat and gets significantly worse under AA. At least that's my theory, I'll have to play a few more matches to confirm that.

 

In conclusion AA is pretty much worthless against anyone who has some brains (which to be fair can't be said about the majority of the playerbase). If you find yourself under attack by a skilled CV player, bottom tier or not, you may as well quit back to port. No amount of fighters, DFAA, AA skills or AA stacking with allies is going to save you.

Unless ofc you're in a CV yourself. As the only class CVs actually have pretty brutal AA on top of their CAP so it's rare that a squad survives beyond the first attack.

[Bushpanther]

I dislike games with the current itteration of CVs; this new CVs in the game might just end my WOWs carreer 

[antean]

My comment is directed to the Ship/CV interaction & for the tier 4 ships/CVs.

Two games with two human CV players on each side and  2- 3 other human players.

I happened to random play DDs both battles.

I ended up sinking 3 of the 4 enemy human reworked CV players. That should have guaranteed two wins (but only got 1 due to a blatant WG AI Bot cheat).

Maybe I got very lucky or maybe this whole rework idea is just plain dumb.

This proposed CV rework is, imho, a total FARCE, a bad joke.

There's going to be a lot of current CV players outright quitting the class if the FARCE is instituted.

I'm going to enjoy feasting on these new joke CVs.

 Whenever I kill one I'm going to say in 'All' chat …. "Next!"

[_V_I_X_]

Nice wall of text, just what i wanted to rant about, everything looks cool but in praxis its not so, playing full aa on test is rewarding and estethicaly pleasing as staring into wall (with some cool sounds)! agreed 100% with ya 

[NoirLotus]

I didn't play much non CV ships. 1 game in Dallas, 1 in NC, 2 in DM and 1 in Courbet, everytime with AA upgrades but no skill linked to it.

 

At T4 AA guns seem pointless, even more than they are now.

 

At T6, AA guns are working better, but they feel weak against a T+2 CV. On the other hand catapult fighter can have a great impact on a squadron, killing several planes in a few seconds.

 

T8 NC is still a strong ship against CV, even if Midway planes are hard to kill.

 

DM is still a no fly zone, def aA shreds planes as if they are paper, and even without it, T8 CV suffer heavy casualties and can't do much damage to it.

 

On the switching side for AA guns, I agree that it is of little use. When a CV is attacking a teammate, it can be useful to help kill a few planes but when you are the target, as the planes attack quickly from 1 side then the other, it seems counter productive to use it.

[RAHJAILARI]

Very good write-up @Duke_of_Lauenburg. Though I do not play CV myself much, I like to keep up to date on any changes and of course AA is and important part of utility for any Cruiser, sad it seems to be rendered rather useless for now but maybe that'll change yet.

[anonym_DKZABZXaXZld]

Played some more, included the 'Update: Playing against good CVs'-section.

 

This will propably end my work on this topic, because the situation becomes more depressiv the deeper you delve into it, and knowing WG will push this through no matter what.

 

On 11/28/2018 at 7:48 AM, El2aZeR said:

Killing DDs is a cakewalk, had a game in which I killed 4 DDs and assisted in the kill of the fifth in the opening 6 minutes of the match in my Lexington

 

Well, I guess I got lucky then in my DD games - that is insane. Updated my article to keep it up-to-date with my knowledge about the topic.

 

On 11/28/2018 at 7:48 AM, El2aZeR said:

In my experience DFAA does nothing but intensify the amount and damage of flak bursts

 

Well, thanks for that information. 'Button to make your AA sound better' is, I believe, the best description they can give to the consumable now.

 

On 11/28/2018 at 7:48 AM, El2aZeR said:

In conclusion AA is pretty much worthless against anyone who has some brains (which to be fair can't be said about the majority of the playerbase). If you find yourself under attack by a skilled CV player, bottom tier or not, you may as well quit back to port. No amount of fighters, DFAA, AA skills or AA stacking with allies is going to save you

 

Yup, that's what I found as well. RIP

[Redcap375]

On 11/28/2018 at 6:48 AM, El2aZeR said:

To add to the above:

The only difference I've noticed between test 2 and 3 is that now a burst will spawn directly on your planes at certain intervals. Annoying for sure, but not enough to do anything meaningful before the strike has expended most of their ordinance.

 

Skilled CV players have actually become far, FAR more dominant in the rework than in the current iteration. I currently maintain over twice my CV average damage in my Midway and can already achieve a topkek 150k in the Ranger.

Meanwhile newcomers or potatoes too have become more useless. So much for fixing the skill gap.

 

Killing DDs is a cakewalk, had a game in which I killed 4 DDs and assisted in the kill of the fifth in the opening 6 minutes of the match in my Lexington (to put this into perspective, in the current RTS version I'd be about finishing up my SECOND strike after 6 minutes). Rest assured that I can pull that in any other USN CV as well. Highlight of the day was killing an Akizuki in a SINGLE DB attack a minute into the match with my Midway without a detonation, although to be fair that has remained the exception. Usually you need two or three attacks, but it's rare that a DD survives a strike (and I did kill a second DD shortly after the Akizuki, putting my team 2 ships up in the opening 2 minutes of the match). Even if he does though he'll usually be fodder for whatever DD on your team he runs in to.

Likewise cruisers melt under your drops. BBs are the most damage resistant but they also suffer the most from DoTs, making them nice farming material to reward yourself with once all priority targets have been cleared out which doesn't take all that long. If you hate the Conqueror, you're going to uninstall the game in rage because of USN DBs.

 

 

In my experience DFAA does nothing but intensify the amount and damage of flak bursts (as it states on the consumable description), aka it's completely worthless due to the ridiculously high plane speeds making the AI lead so far off it's not even in your general vicinity if you slow down or turn just slightly, which you will inevitably do to get into an ideal attack position. Said speed also allows you to reach targets from across the map within ~30 seconds, right when DCP runs out if your target has been saving it. Convenient, isn't it?

 

Generally speaking USN torpedo aiming is incredibly fast when you're out of combat and gets significantly worse under AA. At least that's my theory, I'll have to play a few more matches to confirm that.

 

In conclusion AA is pretty much worthless against anyone who has some brains (which to be fair can't be said about the majority of the playerbase). If you find yourself under attack by a skilled CV player, bottom tier or not, you may as well quit back to port. No amount of fighters, DFAA, AA skills or AA stacking with allies is going to save you.

Unless ofc you're in a CV yourself. As the only class CVs actually have pretty brutal AA on top of their CAP so it's rare that a squad survives beyond the first attack.

 

This ^^.  Agree and came to the same conclusion when playing them.  DD's are easy so the amount of rage CV players will get now is going to be comical. 

 

Oh well, the majorly of you asked for the rework so here it is  Better the devil you know sometimes. 

[invicta2012]

15 minutes ago, Redcap375 said:

Oh well, the majorly of you asked for the rework so here it is  Better the devil you know sometimes. 

We didn't ask for that. What people hate about CVs is their ability to deliver DD levels of damage without incurring DD levels of risk.... If the rework doesn't correct that then it's a complete failure. By the sounds of it the planes are too fast, can attack too often, and defence against the CV, the heart of the entire matter, has been given no thought whatsoever. 

[Redcap375]

2 minutes ago, invicta2012 said:

We didn't ask for that. What people hate about CVs is their ability to deliver DD levels of damage without incurring DD levels of risk.... If the rework doesn't correct that then it's a complete failure. By the sounds of it the planes are too fast, can attack too often, and defence against the CV, the heart of the entire matter, has been given no thought whatsoever. 

 

And what did you expect? 

 

Do you think for one second that casual players will play this if they are subject to the same level of AA we have now?? Not one will and many don't because of that reason as well as skill gap. 

 

And people where STILL moaning that CV's were OP.  You know when you used to press that magical button and all those nasty planes evaporated? Well now they are still buzzing around your head setting you on fire...Constantly. Or when that CV missed that Bomb/Torp drop on you and had to re-load? Yeah, i'm still buzzing around your head with ammo to last a lifetime. 

 

They have taken away the skill gap and made it into a freak show for consoles. BATTLESTAIONS MIDWAY mk2.

 

And when you have TWO CV players ganging up on 1 DD?   It's a sorry sorry sight. 

 

Alot of people asked for a rework because they, god know, thought CV's were OP without even playing them.  

 

"So yeah, the majority of players asked for this rework." 

 

Play a few CV games now in middle/high tiers and get back to me with how it's going (your highest is a tier 6).  You need to experience it . Coming up against a Buddy with defensive AA is a completely different kettle of fish compared to even tier 8-10 Battleships, never mind Cruisers.

[invicta2012]

3 minutes ago, Redcap375 said:

Do you think for one second that casual players will play this if they are subject to the same level of AA we have now?? Not one will and many don't because of that reason as well as skill gap. 

I see them playing destroyers and cruisers, one dev strike away from being back in port..... CVs should combine the overall durability of a BB, the ability to make a mistake and come back from it, but their individual attacking units should be as fragile as a DD, and they shouldn't have the ability to dev strike things or nag ships to death without there being a fair counter strategy. 

[Woman_At_Work]

One question regarding the AA defense for ships:

Maybe I'm wrong but I read the catapult fighter will be still available (and also the skill to double it). But I've also read that these planes will remain only 30s in the air (-60s on BB / -330s for CA???). I've never seen them in action in those testserver vids.

Are they worth it in the future? Just asking because I'm planning some captain skills.

[Panocek]

So... if one were to salvage this working as intended of a rework, what could be done?

 

-remove "engine boost" from aircraft or cut down its effectiveness?

-increase time gap between launching squadrons?

-???

 

One thing that strikes me is no direct control over AA. If CV players directly control their flyboys, then players on the surface should be able to manually aim AA guns, then you would have skill vs skill (somewhat). Especially DD and CA/CL could make use of that, BB could be stuck with automatic AA  It would in theory solve difference in amount of guns per ship

[NoirLotus]

12 minutes ago, Woman_At_Work said:

One question regarding the AA defense for ships:

Maybe I'm wrong but I read the catapult fighter will be still available (and also the skill to double it). But I've also read that these planes will remain only 30s in the air (-60s on BB / -330s for CA???). I've never seen them in action in those testserver vids.

Are they worth it in the future? Just asking because I'm planning some captain skills.

Catapult fighter has a shorter duration for BB and cruisers but what has also changed is that you don't simply launch 1 plane, but a full squadron (between 3 and 6 planes depending on tier). It is then much more efficient against enemy planes.

 

 

[Uglesett]

5 minutes ago, Panocek said:

So... if one were to salvage this working as intended of a rework, what could be done?

I have two ideas:

 

1) The one requiring actual work: Reintroduce planes as a limited resource. This will again balance planes as a limited resource against AA as a limited/dwindling resource (in the current version, destruction of AA mounts is balanced by planes being a limited resource).

 

You could get rid of total deplaning by allowing the CV player to launch only minimum strength squadrons after a certain number of aircraft losses. So that the CV will always have something to do, but if you throw away your planes you'll be less powerful in the end game.

 

2) The band-aid solution: Remove module destruction (at least for AA mounts).

[Redcap375]

On 11/30/2018 at 9:54 AM, invicta2012 said:

I see them playing destroyers and cruisers, one dev strike away from being back in port..... CVs should combine the overall durability of a BB, the ability to make a mistake and come back from it, but their individual attacking units should be as fragile as a DD, and they shouldn't have the ability to dev strike things or nag ships to death without there being a fair counter strategy. 

 

"Counter Strategy"??? 

 

Plane Kills:

 

Cleveland: 54

Texas: 32

Gilio: 21

Mino: 31

Lion: 47

NC: 31

Alabama: 36

Massa: 24

Gne: 42

Sharn: 29

Kuts: 28

Des: 30

Buff: 29

Atlanta: 50

Hipper: 29 

Bis: 24

FDG: 30

Kidd: 27

 

Sorry, did you mention sometime about "Counter strategy". 

 

That's not including WASD or support from any other ship.

 

I have never understood peoples problems with the old CV''s.

 

It's still in testing so hopefully things will change, but i'm not holding my breath i'm afraid. 

[Panocek]

17 minutes ago, Uglesett said:

I have two ideas:

 

1) The one requiring actual work: Reintroduce planes as a limited resource. This will again balance planes as a limited resource against AA as a limited/dwindling resource (in the current version, destruction of AA mounts is balanced by planes being a limited resource).

 

You could get rid of total deplaning by allowing the CV player to launch only minimum strength squadrons after a certain number of aircraft losses. So that the CV will always have something to do, but if you throw away your planes you'll be less powerful in the end game.

 

2) The band-aid solution: Remove module destruction (at least for AA mounts).

One solution would be increasing cooldown for every plane lost, lets say 2s penalty per plane.

[El2aZeR]

21 minutes ago, Panocek said:

One solution would be increasing cooldown for every plane lost, lets say 2s penalty per plane.

 

Planes already regenerate fairly slow, the actual issue is that you practically never lose enough planes for that to ever matter unless you potato hard. Even with fixed plane reserves added it wouldn't make a difference because whereas previously you only needed to destroy two waves before the CV starts running out, now you have to deal with the full reserve amount because fighters don't exist anymore.

E.g. to deplane a Midway you'd have to kill all 116 planes with only AA. In the current RTS version you're "only" dealing with about 70 and that's with actually useful AA, lengthy pauses between attacks and the CV helping you with fighters.

 

And quite honestly if it were easy for players to shoot down planes then reworked CVs would be completely useless as their only purpose is to deal damage. If it is not however they automatically become overpowered UNLESS DoT is nerfed hard - to the detriment of other classes.

 

This rework is a fundamental failure. I see no way with which it can be salvaged.

[Panocek]

3 minutes ago, El2aZeR said:

 

Planes already regenerate fairly slow, the actual issue is that you practically never lose enough planes for that to ever matter unless you potato hard. Even with fixed plane reserves added it wouldn't make a difference because whereas previously you only needed to destroy two waves before the CV starts running out, now you have to deal with the full reserve amount because fighters don't exist anymore.

E.g. to deplane a Midway you'd have to kill all 116 planes with only AA. In the current RTS version you're "only" dealing with about 70 and that's with actually useful AA, lengthy pauses between attacks and the CV helping you with fighters.

 

And quite honestly if it were easy for players to shoot down planes then reworked CVs would be completely useless as their only purpose is to deal damage. If it is not however they automatically become overpowered UNLESS DoT is nerfed hard - to the detriment of other classes.

 

This rework is a fundamental failure. I see no way with which it can be salvaged.

AA intensity affecting drop accuracy (not due to DFAA), "minor flooding/fires" with half the duration as DoT nerf to carriers. Or go back to RTS, but with rework squadrons - Midway flies around with 12 TB squad, but only 3/4 attack. Fighters could be as multirole fighters - can only autoattack (left click) squadrons, but carry minor ordnance against ships - small HE bomb for IJN, rockets for USN.

 

Just throwing thoughts

 

[Aragathor]

So unlimited planes + nerfed AA + reduced utility of defAA. This looks even more retarded than the current CVs.

[thiextar]

These new aa mechanics seem like the dumbest thing ever. Carriers shouldnt even be able to drop the most powerful aa ship in the game fully specced into aa... Thats just stupid.

 

dfaa needs to spread the planes out, otherwise it makes aa cruisers pointless.

 

aa range needs to go back to what it was, otherwise teamplay vs carriers becomes impossible, and battleships are balanced around this.

 

aa needs to not be random at all, it should be a constant dps aura, or atleast as close to that as you can come with the flak mechanic, making it an rng fest is the stupidest thing i can think of.

 

All in all: Do you want another aa-creep where every ship suddenly needs stronger and stronger aa? Cause making aa cruisers useless is exactly how you get an aa creep started.

 

 

[Aotearas]

It's sad really that basically everything I expected (and feared) came true. Even worse however is that I hadn't expected WG to turn AA defense into a pure RNG gamble and basically eradicating the ability to protect other ships with your AA.

 

 

This rework is such a conceptional failure it should be aborted and WG go back to the drawing board. But hey, that ain't happening because quite apparently WG wants to force the issue just as hard as they were ignoring the previous CV issues until they flipped the table rather than actually work to resolve any of those.

[philjd]

Played the test server a few times, but only once as a CV.

1st iteration - AA didn't exist for any practical purpose (didn't seem to matter what ship or fitting out done)

2nd iteration - reverse of above, AA seemed OP (but I mainly payed strong AA ships for that one)

3rd iteration - not tried yet.

 

But... I am baffled by the logic behind the 'sector' aspect - on small ships (DD's) and a few other ships that have centrally mounted AA it has some logic to it. But for most cruiser, all BBs and all CV's, do they physically  move the gun mounts from one side of he ship to the other?? Blame it on the FC?.. but each side has their own on larger ships. Just seems to be complexity for complexity sake, or, 'how do we get the player to think they are participating in this aspect' perhaps.