Most Cruisers can now "Stealth-AA" / WG nerfed CVs too much.

[Reniwn]

Hello everyone,

 

With the introduction of the update 0.8.0.3, air detectability of every ship has been reduced by 20%. This change was aimed to:

1. Stop CVs from unleashing instant attacks against DDs.
2. Reduce CVs ability of early game spotting

 

The reasons stated above are indeed required changes. However, this update did more than that. Now, cruisers have such low air detectability that most of them can Stealth-AA approaching planes. In this post, I'll give you a detailed analysis about the changes to the Air Concealment and long range AA relation. Please take a look at below tables with the following parameters;

• New Air Concealment : Air Concealment value of the ships (cruisers for this post) after 0.8.0.3 update went live.
• Max AA Range : Longest range which a ship can use its AA guns to damage incoming planes.
• Safe Zone for Planes : The zone in which your planes can safely spot enemy cruisers without taking any damage.

 

Table Revision 2. (Concealment upgrade and CE commander skill are included except Mogami rudder mod) (There may be very small errors that should not have a big impact on ships)

 

On the "Safe Zone for Planes" column, Red Color means that the ship can completely stealth-AA a squadron. Yellow Color means that the ship cannot stealth-AA a squadron, but the safe zone distance is so low that there is practically no time for a CV to disengage fast enough to avoid taking damage. I've assumed this zone as 500meters, however it can change according to the tiers, plane speed, direction of planes and targeted ship etc. And Green Color means that a carrier player can safely scout an enemy cruiser without taking damage to their planes.

 

At first I had thought that only Minotaur and Worchester would be able to stealth-AA just like they used to before 0.8. However, that was not the case. Far from the truth. The current numbers show that out of 43 ships in the list, 20 of them can stealth-AA planes. And another 5 of them can damage the planes just as they are spotted. That is absurd. There was no reason to buff cruisers to the point where they can dish out damage to the planes so harshly. This is like pre-nerfed Worchester radar; if you had spotted the Worchester in your DD, you'd find yourself back in port. The same thing is happening to CVs now thanks to the new "little" "balance" "tweaks" WG suddenly introduced to the game. And it is not only Worchester thats doing it, it is most of the cruisers. There was a reason why that Worchester was nerfed : In order to create a fair atmosphere for DDs. There was no need to buff cruiser air detection, they were doing just fine already. This change is ruining the new CV experience (which was already not pleasant thanks to all the recent nerfs).

 

What's interesting is that, the only T8 cruiser that a CV can safely spot is Chapayev. All the others have the ability to get in the CV's way. As you know, T8 cruisers can be faced by T10, T8 and T6 CVs (pretty much the most players will be there). This is beyond annoying.

 

Are the devs afraid of CVs spotting the entire teams in competitive matches? Well in that case, the CV can still spot the enemy team by sacrificing a whole squadron. The current nerfstreak will not solve this issue.

 

CV effectiveness against DDs was too powerful. What made CVs deadly to DDs was a combination of powerful rockets and RPF skill. RPF made the CV player find the closest DD, especially in the beginning of the match and unleash a huge number of rockets concentrated on a small area. Simply repeating that boring action made the game unfair to DD players. WG has taken a number of steps to solve this:

1. They promised to remove RPF from planes. In my opinion, this is a very much needed change.
2. They nerfed rockets. I believe that this was a fair change for both DDs and CVs. WG did not ruin CV rocket's experience by nerfing it to the ground.
3. They buffed air detection by 20%. I absolutely dislike this idea. I think this was not necessary. Can some DD/CV players leave their opinions below please? (Even though I read the same thing at least 10 times today). My current thought is that this could be helpful to DDs, but the other classes REALLY did not need this much buff.

 

I'd like to emphasis one important thing : If WG keeps adding multiple punishments for CV players, one of the most important problems from pre-0.8. CVs will still remain. In fact, it'll get worse. That is the skillgap between good and bad players. No matter how many punishments you add into the game (make AA harsher, make ships able to stealth-AA, make flaks which can insta-kill your squadron, change torpedo bomber aiming so that even the slightest mouse move will make the aiming reticle bigger, make rocket aiming last only 5 second etc...) good players will always find ways to get their job done, until a point where it does not seem fun nor profitable (for me, it is already at this stage). And the bad players will just get stuck on every single punishment because they don't even know/try whatever. In my opinion, playing CVs should be more simple. More complicated = more skill gap. Harder = lose players. Too OP = lose players. Adding more complexities will increase the skillgap and make the gameplay unpleasant.

 

I've heard people saying things like : "If a CV wants to keep me spotted for the whole time, he should pay with his planes! There shouldn't be any free spotting! He has to lose something!". If there are still players who believe in this idea, please stop right now. As a CV player I'll tell you this : If a CV is constantly spotting you, he is giving up all the damage he can farm from you and your team. The more spotting he does, the more time he wastes. And during that time, your CV can dish out dmg and sink enemy ships. The longer he keeps spotting you, the more opportunities your CV will have in order to carry your team to a victory. Oh? Did you just say "But i die when im spotted!"? Then I'll tell you that it's your fault for being in a vulnurable position where you'll die before you can disengage.

 

Constant spotting was an issue pre-0.8, where a CV player could potentially spot the whole map (minus AA zones) for as long as he pleased while still being able to attack. But with the rework, things have changed a lot. Let's see what happened:

1. Now CVs cannot spot and do damage to the different places at the same time. Big nerf.
2. Now CVs can only spot where their only squadron are located. Fighters HP are nerfed to ground so their spotting potential is not that valuable. Nerf.
3. In the past, even if a squadron got shot down, another could easily replace it. Now, it'll take you at least 30 seconds to get there. Nerf.
4. You can't spot torps for your friendlies. Nerf.
5. You cannot reliably defend your team against enemy CV. Very big nerf.

 

Going past all the above, as if it was not enough, people are still calling for nerfs and WG is implementing them like there is no tomorrow. If you add unspottable cruisers now, CVs will lose way too much value. That is not only from being able to spot the enemies for his team, but also for accidentally entering AA zone of ships without being aware of them nor retreating before it's too late, losing planes which take AGES to recover. You can't even see where the ship is moving towards before you start taking damage, so you can't even properly plan your approach. This is ridiculous on many levels. It feels like Cruisers became DDs concealment wise, but their AA is still very potent. They can see you earlier, they can prepare for you, but you cant prepare for them. They'll always dictate the engagement. This way, the damage a CV can deal will be reduced greatly.

 

I am also not sure about midway torp bomber nerfs. The spread was already so terrible that, it would launch 2 torps to one side, and another 2 torps to literally the other side of the world. I'm having a hard time believing that people can manage to eat all 4 torps in 1 go. Thats some achievement. I don't think i could do that... Reducing the torp damage a little bit is OK, but WG also reduce the flooding chance further (which is already very low right now), especially when we think that WG introduced new CVs as a "Damage Over Time" class. And well you guessed it right, another flooding rework is already in progress. I see not only unnecessary balance adjustments, but also yet another contradiction between WG's words & actions; and lack of coordination on WG's side. You know what's better than nerfing something that doesn't need to be nerfed? It's buffing a ship that doesn't really need to be buffed! (Enterprise)

 

I don't even care about hull control any more. Why need that on a ship that I don't enjoy playing? Do you know what's the most discouraging? It's WG nerfing things again and again even after the ships themselves aren't fun at all. The current situation of CVs is upright terrible. It was already pretty bad after the first hotfix (excluding hakuryu nerf which was good), I thought that there would be some changes to make it easier for both sides (CV & surface ships). But instead, it is always the other side (surface ships) that gets the benefits. As of today, I am no longer playing a CV game until WG fixes the class back to a "proper" state.

 

Uptiered CVs are doing not so good (at least in my experience). Its not even the flak that is killing me, its the absurd amount of continuous dps that is shredding my planes to pieces, even if i take the shortest approach with the best angle. But now, I can't even choose how to engage since they see me long before I have an idea what they are doing. Is WG even aware of the issue? Did they even TEST this hotfix before implementing it? My honest opinion is "Nope".

 

Sorry for the lenghty post. I hope that I was able to share my thoughts/feelings on the issues of the current CV gameplay on a constructive way.

[Panocek]

TL;DR

 

WG cannot into balans

[Yosha_AtaIante]

That could have been written by me, but would be akward after i declared my love for 8.0.2 rework. Thanks for that explanation!

[El2aZeR]

Honestly I'd mark anything below 700m as yellow due to plane speeds and the wonderful thing called render delay.

 

Not that I particularly care anymore ofc. *cackles in Chinese*

[Contrador]

I agree with the post on 100 percent, read it twice.

 

Props for the spread sheet, I was working on something similar, you saved my time.

 

 

[DJ_Die]

11 minutes ago, Panocek said:

TL;DR

 

WG cannot into balans

can it into speis though? 

 

they need to start doing small incremental tweaks instead of several massive changes of different mechanics at once.... otherwise you get strange or sometimes very unexpected synergies... 

[BanzaiPiluso]

Thanks for this. Very clever. Now why can't WG do this math and analysis before dropping the hammer???

 

[JaiFoh]

.....
Ok i was concerned by Mino and Worcester but this is ducking bonkers

i cannot believe i am saying this but
10% increase to Cruiser AA NOW please

[Yosha_AtaIante]

Vor 4 Minuten, Winged_Cat_Dormant sagte:

Thanks for this. Very clever. Now why can't WG do this math and analysis before dropping the hammer???

 

It's obviously intentional because minitaurs comolained about not being a "no fly zone" enough.

So they indirectly buffed AA with that.

[__Helmut_Kohl__]

There is no Stealth-AA anymore, as your bloom is as large as your AA when active. 

 

What you mean is that there is no invulnerable spotting for CVs anymore. Many cruises will be able to shoot at any planes that spot them (AA ships will always be spotted back though). 

 

Problem might be that some heavy AA cruisers can lure you well into their AA range now. But I am not sure how big the impact is if you don't run straight towards them and try to boost out immediately. This is where RPF helps btw. 

[hgbn_dk]

Stealth AA/ Stealth radar same mechanic

[Panocek]

10 minutes ago, __Helmut_Kohl__ said:

There is no Stealth-AA anymore, as your bloom is as large as your AA when active. 

 

What you mean is that there is no invulnerable spotting for CVs anymore. Many cruises will be able to shoot at any planes that spot them (AA ships will always be spotted back though). 

 

Problem might be that some heavy AA cruisers can lure you well into their AA range now. But I am not sure how big the impact is if you don't run straight towards them and try to boost out immediately. This is where RPF helps btw. 

There is no stealth AA as of firing at planes without being detected - you need smoke for that. BUT, with 1km margin between AA range and aerial detection Mino/Wooster can make quite an ambush, also you can't spot them without receiving considerable long range dps + flak. In clan battle condition, or at least in 3man platoon you can hope for team/division mates to shoot at lighted up AA cruiser when you're basically feeding your planes to the AA.

 

And RPF is already scheduled to be disabled from planes

[JaiFoh]

I was exceptionally bored on a conference call so i quickly put this together with an assumption that cruisers needed a 10% increase in their Air Detection

 

British and American Light Cruisers Retain the ability to ambush by AA but they are not drawing them in anywhere near as far before they would have to execute the ambush

[invicta2012]

1 hour ago, Fubucky said:

With the introduction of the update 0.8.0.3, air detectability of every ship has been reduced by 20%. This change was aimed to:

Why did they not do a per-class reduction? A flat reduction of 20% benefits bigger, more detectable ships more than smaller ones, and I don't think anyone was complaining about BBs being harassed? 

[Panocek]

1 minute ago, invicta2012 said:

Why did they not do a per-class reduction? A flat reduction of 20% benefits bigger, more detectable ships more than smaller ones, and I don't think anyone was complaining about BBs being harassed? 

Its not like baBBies aren't main WG customer and playerbase...

[invicta2012]

1 minute ago, Panocek said:

Its not like baBBies aren't main WG customer and playerbase...

True, but they have the least trouble with CVs.

[Griva]

1 hour ago, Fubucky said:

I don't even care about hull control any more.

Exactly that :D  Everything is so much broken - we don't care anymore xD

 

To be serious, WG had many other options how to make some aspects way better but they didn't. For example they could make that dispersion of torps or other things also depened on AA of enemy ship.

If you get hit hard by flak or just plane lose a lot of HP it could become less accurate.

I completely agree with problem of overspotting but I have no idea how this buff will resolve the problem, ships will be spotted anyway but planes are more in trouble.

I hate idea of 12 plane squadron, while you drop once or twice and all planes are dead.

WG had, have and will have no idea about fair balance ever or actually they fail so hard, becuase they don't know direction, they do just "lets try this and that, it might work"

[Reniwn]

Just now, invicta2012 said:

Why did they not do a per-class reduction? A flat reduction of 20% benefits bigger, more detectable ships more than smaller ones, and I don't think anyone was complaining about BBs being harassed? 

Exactly. WG did not even let the playerbase know about this major change. They just straight up slapped the sledgehammer on the live server without any notice, nor testing, nor feedback, nothing.

[1MajorKoenig]

1 hour ago, Panocek said:

TL;DR

 

WG cannot into balans

 

TL;DR

 

WG killed the CVs

[Horin728]

Yea it is so much easier to spot a 15 meter plane than a 200 meter cruiser... Effing logic, eh?!

[Panocek]

5 minutes ago, invicta2012 said:

True, but they have the least trouble with CVs.

I see plenty of butthurt from BB players when I somehow land 6 Midway torps for total of... 10k dmg

 

Just now, Horin728 said:

Yea it is so much easier to spot a 15 meter plane than a 200 meter cruiser... Effing logic, eh?!

One explanation would be planes being picked up by radar. On other hand, one would expect some sort of binoculars on board for squadron leader to improve standard issue eyeball mk.1

 

But hey, don't apply logic to wargaming actions at times, it might end badly for the logic

[El2aZeR]

14 minutes ago, El2aZeR said:

I have to admit, this almost brought a tear to my eye.

Almost.

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[Horin728]

Oh I am downloading the CN client as we speak...

[__Helmut_Kohl__]

50 minutes ago, Panocek said:

There is no stealth AA as of firing at planes without being detected - you need smoke for that. BUT, with 1km margin between AA range and aerial detection Mino/Wooster can make quite an ambush, also you can't spot them without receiving considerable long range dps + flak. In clan battle condition, or at least in 3man platoon you can hope for team/division mates to shoot at lighted up AA cruiser when you're basically feeding your planes to the AA.

 

Don't fly straight towards them and you should be able to boost away. 

[Panocek]

2 minutes ago, El2aZeR said:

 

Dunno if interested for regrinding Midway or splashing monies for some pay2noob experience. But who knows, if WG won't swing nerfhammer other way...