0.8.2 PTS - Space Games (and maps for them)

[MrConway]

Dear Captains,
 

Put on your space suits and all hands to battle stations: let the Space Warships Intergalactic Games begin! The time has come to return to Space Port and stand at the helms of some specially equipped ships that are ready to participate in the Space Games.

You can find the following ships on the Public Test servers: Alldestroyer (Kurfurst), Paris (Republique), Zaya (Zao), Galaxy (Des Moines), Norma (Minotaur), Aurora (Moskva), FlyFire (Gearing), Blue Aster (Z-52), and a new ship—Century Hawk (Hindenburg). Three more ships intended for a separate mode will be added later.

Link to full article
 

Other topics:

• General feedback
• Rewards and Arsenal
• Changes to CV
• Improved Port Interface and Service record
• Bugs

[fobgrvt]

That first space assault mode is pointless for the attacking team. I dont think I've seen 1 attacking team manage to destroy a single generator, let alone get anywhere near the final objective.  Just not enough time and the generators are so well hidden you loose 3min or so just getting there.

 

Finally managed to win once as the attackers, but it had more to do with the enemy team potato'ing, then skill.

 

Really feel like the attacking time should be extended or add a bit of time for each killed enemy.

[RedOnly]

32 minutes ago, fobgrvt said:

That first space assault mode is pointless for the attacking team. I dont think I've seen 1 attacking team manage to destroy a single generator, let alone get anywhere near the final objective.  Just not enough time and the generators are so well hidden you loose 3min or so just getting there.

 

Finally managed to win once as the attackers, but it had more to do with the enemy team potato'ing, then skill.

 

Really feel like the attacking time should be extended or add a bit of time for each killed enemy.

How are you supposed to play Space battles, if I start the PT client and I do not have any battle of that kind, any captain, any ugrade??

Do I miss something?

 

[FixCVs_Nautical_Metaphor]

I was not able to get any space battles in yet because waiting times in the Random Battle queue to level up the PTS account sufficiently. So just a few things from reading the developer bulletin and watching today's Flamu stream:

 

• I like that you include Hindenburg as a new space ship.
• Space camos for all these ships in the Arsenal are a good idea, also for the Tier VI ships that aren't even in the Space Battles. However, it would be nice if you could see those camos in the PTS. That is a general gripe of mine with the presentation of perma camos in the Arsenal and the premium shop: You don't get a good enough impression of what you are actually buying. Either include a zoomable 360° view or let players buy them from the port, just as the regular perma camos.
• The Space Assault mode seems to be much, much too complex for random teams of casual players. Many of them will not understand the objective and therefore not play the objective, leading to frustration all around.
• Generally, one of the things that made the first round of space battles so appealing to new and casual players was that they made some things very simple: always the same map - no need to select upgrades - always the same spawn area - never uptiered(!) - and if I remember correctly, always Domination mode. I am not sure if it is a good idea to deviate from the formula, although other players probably felt it got a bit repetitive toward the end because of these simplifications.

 

What I don't understand:

Why are the Space Battles ships classified as Tier VII and not Tier X, same as the ships they are based on?

[fobgrvt]

2 minutes ago, Nautical_Metaphor said:

I was not able to get any space battles in because waiting times in the Random Battle q

Dont think you actually need to play random to unlock the twilight battles.  It's linked to your service record.  Playing co-op should unlock it as well.

[fobgrvt]

28 minutes ago, RedAnark said:

How are you supposed to play Space battles, if I start the PT client and I do not have any battle of that kind, any captain, any ugrade??

Do I miss something?

 

You only have co-op unlocked at the start.  Without any captain or upgrades.  Once your service-record goes up, usually after 1 battle, you'll start unlocking the other features.

[Smeggo]

Space Assault is a funny close-combat action. Although the attacker is in a disadvantage. 

And it was bugged, we destroyed all generators, still the generators health-bars were full. Game told us to attack the base now, but it was invincible. 

 

Addendum: Ok, after the first battle it all worked. And on the other maps the disadvantage was on the defenders side. I guess the position of the re-spawn points make a big difference.

[Smeggo]

1 hour ago, Nautical_Metaphor said:

What I don't understand:

Why are the Space Battles ships classified as Tier VII and not Tier X, same as the ships they are based on?

 

I guess same reason as with the last eventships. To keep XP/credit-income (and maintenance) on T7-level.

[Zen71_sniper]

Firstly, rules are not clear and they are complicated (yes, reading is overrated - do you expect casual players to read?)

 

Secondly, defending is much easier. Attacking and respawning - just no.... 

 

Thirdly, visual candy for sure. +1 for that.

 

Possible bug: some ships are not visible on minimap - not sure if it is respawned ships....

 

Overall very meh. I will play it as a novelty for maybe game or two. Unless there is some SERIOUSLY good incentive to do it. 

[AlexFari]

are you in the defenders team? no problem, just park and shoot enemy and enjoy your heal. Victory guaranteed!

are you in the attackers team? oh, push and get wrecked, and respawn on the edge of the map and never reach the generators for the 2nd time. Defeat guaranteed!

[fobgrvt]

After managing to win as the attacker a few times, I can say the outcome depends more on how the defenders play then the attackers.  If the defenders remain within the defensive zone, it becomes almost impossible to win within the 7min limit.  I still think either the time should be slightly increased, time should be added for each killed ship on the defending side or some of the generators should be more accessible for the attackers so they can increase the timer.

[FixCVs_Nautical_Metaphor]

Ok, I got in three Space Battles in Assault mode. I was on the attacking team every time. Two times out of the three, they started to camp and pick fights with the defenders while not even spotting the generators, and consequently lost after seven minutes. The third time went better, but only in part because people on my team played more to the objective. The other part was because one of the defenders thought it prudent to sail his BB into the attackers' spawn instead of camping near his gennys.

 

I don't stand by my earlier suspicion that this mode might be "much, much too complex for random teams of casual players". But it will be a challenge. Many casuals will struggle to understand the objective. Others, while understanding it, will have a hard time to really act accordingly. However, a small majority will probably be more or less ok after a few runs. Just as in the submarine missions really.

 

That said, the problem is that the mode, and specifically people's inability to grasp what it is that they have to do, favours the defenders because I think most players have a tendency to camp and are not aggressive enough, and if even half your team is not aggressive enough, the attackers are in a very bad place. EDIT: And that's why I think the defenders don't need the extra buff of that insane health regeneration. (At least lower the regeneration rate...) Edit 3: At the same time, the attackers' benefit of respawning after a kill is worth a lot less because it takes so much time to respawn and get back into a good firing position. And time is the one thing the attackers don't have. I've respawned maybe half a dozen times now and only one single time did I manage to get back into action afterwards, and that was in a DD and in the one battle where my attackers did win after all, and after we already had two gennys destroyed. The majority of times, the respawn was useless.

 

Edit 2: Also the gennys might be too well protected by the topography. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems they are all "behind" an island that shrouds them from view and protects them from fire from all directions except straight from the rear, so the attackers can't even spot them until they are basically inside the defenders' spawn.

 

Also I think the gunfire sound sequence of the DDs was changed. I don't remember it being so drawn out, with this super annoying WHOOSH going on for several seconds. It could be a result of the general audio changes; in any event it gets on my nerves. (Though I doubt that is the reason why there are too few DDs in play - that was the same last time around.)

 

Edit 4: There is a full minute of countdown into battle. Probably intended so players have more time to familiarize themselves with the objective. Which is good. But once people have understood it, that gets a little long. Maybe lower it to the usual 30s after half the event is over or so.

[KtX2SkD]

Round #1, mode #1 (Space Battle):

• Article labels it as "Space Assault" but in-game it's labeled as "Space Battle".
• Over my three matches, the defender won every time, which casts doubts on the current balance and/or learning curve:
  • 1st match I was on attack, zero generators were eliminated.
  • 2nd match I was on attack, two generators were eliminated.
  • 3rd match I was on defense, zero generators were eliminated.
    • BTW, this last one I think attack team had Crystanos from staff on their side. Not to say staff are necessarily masters, or they'd necessarily flip match outcomes, but it could be the best hope we have as defenders to experience more than "barely any losses, ships or generators", let alone feeling pressure or a threat of losing.
• Related to ship respawning as attackers:
  • Allied ships' info that appears above their ships at sea was faded in some cases, and almost invisible in other cases.
    • It's probably related to the number of times they died/respawned. I sadly didn't get to pay this attention when I was defending.
  • Upon my respawn, my lock system was permanently locked to a certain bearing (CTRL+X), and my zoom system (SHIFT-key) was completely inaccessible, rendering me 99.9% useless.
    • The only change I could apply to the lock system was locking on-to enemy ships. It doesn't remove the bearing lock, but according to the motion of both me & the target, I can actually change the bearing that my lock system will remain locked to. I'd still be 98.9% useless though.

Hope this helps.

 

- KitCat.

[powerverde]

This mode will work well (ok, work better) for attackers in Division. If full of randoms, defenders will win most of the time.

[lovelacebeer]

Space assault is brilliant if your defending but attacking its very hard to do. 

 

Attacking a lot of players didn't appear to understand the objectives or were extremely passive and hanging back to avoid taking damage not understanding the respawn mechanics so in most battles the generators were never actually attacked.

 

i would suggest that the generators need to be spread out more so at least the ones on the extreme flank are easier to assault and then the attacking team has to work harder near the end. 

 

Considering how many players don't read what the objectives are before the battle I would also suggest better highlighting of the generators as the first target I have seen more than a few players bombarding the base and ignoring the generators. 

 

One minor bug sometimes ships (so far only friendly) don't appear to fully render and so you can't really see them 

[FixCVs_Nautical_Metaphor]

Also maybe there should be, you know, a reason why the attackers only have a limited amount of time.

 

I realize the whole back story of these space battles is some kind of gladiatorial games and that it's basically like a game of football, which takes 90 minutes as per the rules. But wouldn't it be so much nicer if, after the time is up, there's not so much a "referee whistle" but some kind of cataclysmic event that the generators have been, like, building up to?

 

I mean the way that it's now, the attackers could theoretically be fairly unscathed and in a very good position after the seven minutes, and basically have the defenders on their knees, but the game just says "time's up, sorry" and it is all over. Not very plausible or satisfying. No closure.

 

Maybe the generators could just need the time to charge up so they can release some annihilating death ray... granted, that would basically be the same as in the Sun Ray of Darkness Halloween mission, and also a bit worn-out as a trope, but still... or maybe they could literally pull out the plug and all the water drains out... or whatever.

 

Edit: Also I got into a Space Assault again this morning. According to the published schedule, it should be Binary Star and Rings of Saturn over the weekend.

[FixCVs_Nautical_Metaphor]

As expected, the "new" Epicenter mode is exactly as terrible as the old one, only on worse maps.

 

I find it really astonishing how tenaciously Wargaming cling to obvious failures like aircraft carriers and epicenter, throwing ever more ressources into these gaping holes rather than admitting failure.

 

Edit: Binary Star once again has a needlessly confusing mission description. It would be really good to adopt a consistent wording, and stick to it. If the Wiki is anything to go by, the terminology has been all over the place since forever. In http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Game_Modes#Domination, caps are alternately referred to as "control areas", "capture points" and "control points". in Standard Battle, there is a voice command "defend the base", so that's yet another name for essentially the same thing.

 

One of the things that makes the Binary Star mission statement confusing: Why call them "points" when they are yuge areas? In this mode, they initially are larger than normal even. From the description, I half expected small caps like the Buffs in Arms Race, and I expected them to appear after five minutes.

 

Edit 2: Personally, I like this new mode because it is something different. However, once again, the tactical implications elude most players at least initially, which is probably only in part because of the confusing description (which I was probably overthinking again, which others won't.)

 

You are basically sitting in the enemy cap from the start, which means that camping is actually rewarded here while sweeping flanking moves are punished. Once the five minutes are up, you need a lot of campers near the center of your cap to cap it quickly, while any flankers don't have a hope in hell of getting in there in time because it recedes from them fairly fast.

 

Edit 3: Whether it is intentional or simply bad RNG, I get a lot more Binary Star battles now than Rings of Saturn. Which of course makes me yolo in like a complete idiot, to get it over with asap, because I want to finish that combat mission for the rewards on the live server and get it over with. It would have been better to make separate combat missions for the two different modes.

[Zen71_sniper]

Binary Star was fun. Simple game mode, great map. Will play it on live. 

[FixCVs_Nautical_Metaphor]

Before getting into Torpedobeats, let me re-iterate my frustration with Wargaming's disorganized PTS chaos.

About the game mode itself, it os fast and action-packed, will not be everyone's cup of tea, super arcady but a lot of fun for skilled and quick-reacting players. Don't like the hexagon matrix on the "water" and the lack of ripples.

 

But the very first thing that comes to mind after the first game where I did not get immediately blowed up by more experienced testers is:

 

I can think of not one single good reason to move the smoke on Rover to the Z key. Period. Thess are even poorer ergonomics than per usual.

 

Ceterum censeo please, for the love of goddess, finally give us consistent keyboard bindings for the consumables.

 

Players have been asking for this for years. It can't be that hard.

 

Edit: Also I hate epicenter mode, old or new, but it is especially terrible for this mode and I'd rather you finally abandoned this idea instead of trying to fix it.

 

Edit 2: The "Battle on" button seems to be missing after the battle ends. So you have to go back to port. Probably a bug, I can't think of any other reason.

[Smeggo]

The Torpedobeat-Mode is hillarious. Like the bathtube-battles on speed, I like it 

[fobgrvt]

Yeah, best mode by far.

Kinda hoped you would add Kitakami for that mode.  She's been absent too long.

 

If I had to rate them, after playing all of them:

1° Torpedo Beats: Fast paced close range battles, with so many torps on screen, feels like the old days with shimakaze walls of skill.  Only downside, though it might just be my connection with the testserver, my fps often seems to drop to 10-20 when a lot of torps are on the field.

 

2° Space Assault: From an attacking point of view, it's a full on rush-mode all guns blazing.  The time restriction feels a bit too heavy, but nonetheless it remains fun and most of all it is doable within the 7min limit.  Defending side, if the entire fleet remains within the starting zone, I feel it's almost impossible for the attackers to win.  Some of the generators should be more accessible imo, or ship kills should add some time for the attackers.

 

3° Binary/Saturn:  This still just feels like epicenter.  And I fear it won't change much from the static gameplay you already see in the current version of epicenter.

[Capra76]

25 minutes ago, Smeggo said:

The Torpedobeat-Mode is hillarious. Like the bathtube-battles on speed, I like it 

 

Not sure I like queueing up for 2 minute battles, it's going to get boring very quickly.

 

Also map makes it hard to spot the torps.

[FukushuNL]

- Space Assault was the least interesting for me. Too hard for attackers to destroy the generators. certianly after the attackers get killed one by one, then spawn one by one and run into the grinder again one by one. 

- The binary star mode was fun to do, although I first thought you had to cap the "enemy cap" to win. Then when nothing happened with two caps, I noticed it were 2 neutral points we need to hold to get points, a la domination. 

- Rings of Saturn was a nice mode too. Nothing out of the ordinary here, just a nice twist on Epicenter.

- Torpedobeat.....what can I say.... ITS EPIC!!! I love that game mode so very much! Total chaos with torps flying everywhere. Supercharged DDs with lightning fast reloads and turbo torpedos. I totally adore this mode.

 

Overall reviews: I love the graphics of the environment, the strange liquid used as water, the graphics of and on the ships is great too. Likewise the sound of the guns, the lasers, the reloading, the impact, perfectly executed imo. But the music takes the trophy home, epic remixes of original WoWs tunes and that arrangement while torpbeating <3

 

All in all, looking forward to this event very much. Will be playing a lot of this. 

[Capra76]

A bit o/t but it would've been better if the 3 modes cycled hourly (or similar) instead of 2 days for one mode and 1 day each for the others, I missed the assaul mode.

[Cmdr_Han_Solo]

IM sorry that's it for me I will be doing not more testing at all I have four accounts across all the servers and always try and help test but wargaming have for gotten what we are testing and are just having a lough..