Analysis of AA rework and Ship/CV-interaction

[Aotearas]

4 hours ago, Panocek said:

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).

The problem with that idea is that it favours the CV disproportionally considering whatever ship he's attacking has to deal with more things than just the attacking aircraft, They still have to watch their angling against enemy ships and dodge incoming fire (which basically means it isn't possible to simply manouver against an airstrike, much as a CV can currently force a ship to give broadside to its team or risk catching an entire airstrike in its side) whereas compared to that the CV can focus entirely on controlling the strike as he'll be in the back (probably tucked behind an island for convenient cover) without any immediate concerns to its safety.

[Xevious_Red]

The AA (flak) in this doesnt seem to do a huge amount. The bulk of the plane killing comes from fighter squads who pretty much insta kill anything they can latch onto (can shake them off/drop your own fighters etc).

 

I think some of it could be addressed by making AA skills do more bursts instead of more damage (and slowing some of the planes down). Making a burst do +200% damage doeant matter if it doesnt hit in the first place

 

The surface ships have some pretty good fighter squads (6 planes in a squad for yamato).

 

The issue with this is that it frequently clashes - a yamato can probably live without the spotter plane and can afford to take the fighter squad. A Des Moines without radar? Thats a tougher option

[MrConway]

On 11/28/2018 at 4:11 AM, Duke_of_Lauenburg said:

 

 

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

Thanks for the great post - I've included it in my feedback to devs!

[Toivia]

Very good work on the writeups here, guys.

 

If I were to point one thing (and it has been mentioned in this thread), it's precisely that the moment they decided to reduce CVs to one squadron farming damage, it inevitably screws somebody over. Either the surface ship the CV is attacking or the CV that attacks. If the CV is to enjoy the gameplay, he must be able to get through AA and do damage, quite consistently at that. --> The poor attacked surface ship is screwed. If we want to allow surface ships to reliably defend themselves (if played well at least), then we screw the CV, because we negate all he can really do. --> No point for the CV in the game at all.

[Ataxia]

I really hope that your write up is completely wrong because if it isn't then the game is about to be totally wrecked into unplayability.

[peter_s_price]

On 11/28/2018 at 3:11 AM, Duke_of_Lauenburg said:

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!

I rather suspected that the reworked CV's would be even more dominant than they currently are. your write up confirms my worst fears.

 

If your CV doesnt hunt down their CV first then the never-ending supply of aircraft will end up trashing the surface fleets n the hands of a really good cv player. This might be the  thing that stops me playin WoWs because it seems likely to become  World of Sitting Targets