Premium Ships - should Coal/Steel ships be immune from specific Nerfs like bought Premium Ships are?

[IanH755]

Hi all,

 

Having unlocked the Smolensk and seeing how understandable it is when people call this ship OP, what are peoples thoughts on allowing Coal and/or Steel Premium Ships to be directly nerfed as required?

 

Currently "bought" ships (even if won in SC's etc) are immune to ship specific nerfs but can be effected by global nerfs and as people have paid money for them (in 95% of cases) WG understandably don't want to hurt their premium ships sales by allowing them to be directly nerfed after being sold.

 

However Coal and/or Steel premium ships are not "bought" so should that mean they should be able to be directly nerfed if found by WG to be particularly OP?

[Egoleter]

I think it is rather stupid to have ships that are immune to balancing efforts in general.

The less ships this applies to the better.

[kfa]

You can buy a lot of free xp/coal ships directly from the store for cash.

[loppantorkel]

Nerf them. The game will just be worse off the more imbalanced it is.

[Padds01]

i dont think premium ships should be immune to balance

[FishDogFoodShack]

[edited]no.

[invicta2012]

I have no problem with blatantly OP ships being balanced, whether cash shop Premium or obtained for currencies. 

[gopher31]

Wargaming should have 1 month from release to rebalance ships.

Full refund should be available if the ship is changed in that time.

 

After one month the ships bought with any currency should be left alone.

 

Without some sort of limit and buyers recourse Wargaming could start releasing OP ships for sales only to nerf them later.

 

This plan gives buyers certain guarantees while allowing Wargaming to balance on the live server.

[affie]

There shall not be any ships immune to balance, but after said balance every player who bought it shall have the option to refund it since the product that was bought is altered no matter ehat currency has been used to buy the ship. 

[piritskenyer]

Is the resource you buy the ship with earnable? Yeah? Then nah.

[beercrazy]

My view

If it has ever been for sale for cash then it shouldn't be nerfed while all others are fair game

I am not even that happy with the global game nerf to say the spotted fire nerf we had but I understand it is something that had to be done 

I am also of the belief buffs to premiums should never happen to offset the nerfs shouldn't happen 

In my view wows has bigger problems than a few op premiums ie the cv debacle or the submarines that's being looked on with dread

 

 

[Lin3]

3 hours ago, Egoleter said:

I think it is rather stupid to have ships that are immune to balancing efforts in general.

The less ships this applies to the better.

Yeah, but look what happened when they announced plans to rebalance the GC.

 

A load of players cried "But I've paid real money for this. You can't nerf this. Or I'll want my money back."

 

So Wargaming caved in. Financial benefit at the expense of game balance.

 

However at what point does a game become so inbalanced towards pay to win that the player base evaporates?

 

It's a conundrum for Wargaming.

 

If Wargaming nerf the Smolensk, whilst leaving all the $ pay to win ships untouched then I will be disappointed.

According to this website:

https://wows-numbers.com/ships/

The Smolensk has a win rate of 51.42%. When you consider that only rather experienced or dedicated players will have saved up the coal to buy this, it's relatively not OP compared to

Nikolai 60,46% winrate

Kamikaze 58.3

Giulio Cesare 58,28%

Kamikaze R & Fujin 56,6%

Belfast 55.2%

Shinonome 54.95%

etc etc

 

 

 

[Egoleter]

7 hours ago, Lin3 said:

Yeah, but look what happened when they announced plans to rebalance the GC.

 

A load of players cried "But I've paid real money for this. You can't nerf this. Or I'll want my money back."

I know what happened back then.

I still think Wargaming made the wrong decision in announcing that they will not nerf premium ships and giving in to those who wanted to keep their overpowered ship.

I also think that the way Wargaming wanted to balance the GC was wrong. Their plan to move it into another tier was the thing the people hated the most. The outcry would probably been only half as loud had they tried to balance it on the tier they released it on.

[Kysmet]

Nothing should be immune to balancing changes, both up and down. I think WG should have pushed through the GC change because it needs to be taken care off.

Regardless of how you acquired the ship. (And yes, that includes the ships I actually paid money for).

[loppantorkel]

3 minutes ago, Kysmet said:

Nothing should be immune to balancing changes, both up and down. I think WG should have pushed through the GC change because it needs to be taken care off.

Regardless of how you acquired the ship. (And yes, that includes the ships I actually paid money for).

They could, but they might have been forced to repay and I suspect the GC OPness wasn't worth the cost. Just launch a new class and make GC UP against subs.

[IanH755]

7 hours ago, beercrazy said:

My view

If it has ever been for sale for cash then it shouldn't be nerfed while all others are fair game

I am not even that happy with the global game nerf to say the spotted fire nerf we had but I understand it is something that had to be done 

I am also of the belief buffs to premiums should never happen to offset the nerfs shouldn't happen

 

Thats pretty much my position on this too.

 

Items sold for real money should never be "changed" afterwards, either with buffs/nerfs specifically aimed at that ship but it should be affected by global buffs/nerfs. This then puts all the emphasis on WG doing their balancing job properly on the ship BEFORE release, even if that means that it takes 6+ months of testing and/or even using the PTS or "Live" server rentals if necessary, because once a "bought for money" ship is released it MUST not be changed.

 

My reasoning is that there is one big problem with Premium Ships - Balancing vs Money - If WG allow specific buffs/nerfs to be carried out due to balancing then people will stop buying Premium Ships reducing WG's income and killing the game plus there are legal aspects to consider too. If you release OP ships for money then people stop playing the game which also kills the game.

 

However of those two "killing the game" we've already seen that people don't leave the game when OP ships are introduced so the impact is minimal, and we've seen the backlash when "bought with real money" ships were looked at being balanced, which was a huge outcry. So to WG one of these is a more favourable position to hold so I don't see them changing their current position on "real money" ships any time soon.

[Egoleter]

5 minutes ago, IanH755 said:

plus there are legal aspects to consider too.

No, there are not. Due to their terms of use that you agreed upon during the creation of your account they can potentially do whatever they want to any ship.

 

6 minutes ago, IanH755 said:

nd we've seen the backlash when "bought with real money" ships were looked at being balanced, which was a huge outcry.

Actually it wasn't that huge. It wasn't the big masses who were against it. But the few who disagreed with the decision managed to make so much noise that it looked like most people disagreed with WGs decision to balance the ship.

[MrFingers]

1 hour ago, Egoleter said:

No, there are not. Due to their terms of use that you agreed upon during the creation of your account they can potentially do whatever they want to any ship.

An actual law stands above (and trumps) any agreement or EULA that is in violation with those laws (as per paragraph 14 of said EULA). There is a part in the lawbook regarding Digital Content that basically nails that backdoor in the EULA firmly shut. An item can be upgraded or improved without repercussion, but never downgraded. The only way WG could get around that is by offering a 100% monetary refund (thus "annulling the sale"), which is something WG will never do, and can never do, because how the hell are you going to refund a string of lootboxes where one of the "naughty ships" fell out from.

 

Spoiler

Quote

 

Digital content must match any description the trader gives to the consumer about it. Every contract to supply digital content has 'as described' as a contract term.

It does not matter if the consumer examines a trial version of the product before the contract is made and the final product matches the trial product or is even better; it is the description that is given to the original digital content that is important.

Certain digital products are upgraded over time. The digital content must continue to match the description but it can contain additional or enhanced features that are not part of that description.

Certain specific information about the main characteristics, functionality and compatibility of digital products must be given to consumers before they buy. Where information needs to be provided it is to be treated as a term of the contract and effectively becomes part of the product description.

 

 

Me personally I don't think that freemiums/premiums should be exempt from rebalancing, but only if a proper reimbursement is offered for those who do not wish to continue to use said product after it has been reworked and brought back in line. With the emphasis on proper (that does not mean doubloons). As long as WG can't/won't deliver that, I'm opposed to reworking stuff to bring it back in line, and WG should do its homework before releasing it into the wild.

[DFens_666]

9 hours ago, Lin3 said:

Yeah, but look what happened when they announced plans to rebalance the GC.

 

A load of players cried "But I've paid real money for this. You can't nerf this. Or I'll want my money back."

 

2 hours ago, Egoleter said:

. Their plan to move it into another tier was the thing the people hated the most.

 

This. I dont have GC, but even i was against it. Because it potentially could mean, that they do something to a specific ship which i like to play in Operations or in a division with a friend who plays a certain ship on the same tier. Just no.

Id be fine with any balancing change, but not moving them up and down the tiers.

 

best solution would be ofc to NOT make broken ships in the first place

Imo there are few OP ships anyway, but many ships are just broken and bad far the game (which a lot of people translate into OP, but it isnt)

[MyopicHedgehog]

With the GC they could have just introduced a (balanced for T6) premium and then balanced the T5 one properly and compensated those that had it appropriately (so if you had the T5, you would get the T6 one free lets say) - their attitude to going about rebalancing the GC was the problem for me.  Leaving it with its current hit points and moving it up a tier and having it go against T8 ships was also not a great idea.

[Kenjiro_]

10 hours ago, Lin3 said:

The Smolensk has a win rate of 51.42%. When you consider that only rather experienced or dedicated players will have saved up the coal to buy this, it's relatively not OP compared to

Nikolai 60,46% winrate

Kamikaze 58.3

Giulio Cesare 58,28%

Kamikaze R & Fujin 56,6%

Belfast 55.2%

Shinonome 54.95%

etc etc

 

Server-wide WR alone is not a criteria to define a ship as OP. If WG releases a ship with guided missiles that evaporates multiple targets from 25km and puts one in each team, it would have a perfect %50 win rate. But can we call that ship not OP because she has %50 WR? 

 

OPness can be defined by checking how the same player performs in a ship compared to the similar ones.

[StoneRhino]

Yes by all means never ever fracking eva! touch any ship to balance it!

Why should anyone even want a balanced game? Waaaaaaaaaay tooooooo boooooring. No challenge for all the min-maxer Topclanners.

And the casual players are crap anyways so if they quit who cares. Won`t affect anything anyways.

 

Concerning reimbusement of balanced Prems. I gotta ask, where do you people draw the line?

Have you used that Prem after you bought it? Sure or?

So when you have used such a ship for like 2 years why do you think you should still get any reimbursement at all? Have you, by then, not gotten your fair share out of the 50€ or so you bought it for?

It is a digital item unlike real things ( like a car ) but shouldn`t you consider wear and tear here too? :P

 

Personally i think alot of Prems should be rebalanced despite what some Players might threaten to do when WG touches this or that ship that they have bought.

Balance is the main thing to keep players playing, because they will have fun. Imbalanced stuff only generates frustration for the casual players. Even worse is when WG withdraws such imbalanced ships, because then you still have the ones already bought in the game, yet other players can`t get it anymore to "level" the playing field. No matter what i personally think about Pay to Win and crap.

[Nishi_Kinuyo]

For the Coal/Steel/Free-Exp/Reward ships: I'm fine if they get rebalanced when necessary.

36 minutes ago, Kenjiro_ said:

 

Server-wide WR alone is not a criteria to define a ship as OP. If WG releases a ship with guided missiles that evaporates multiple targets from 25km and puts one in each team, it would have a perfect %50 win rate. But can we call that ship not OP because she has %50 WR? 

 

OPness can be defined by checking how the same player performs in a ship compared to the similar ones.

Agreed, and looking at one of the WoT fansites, they actually have charts showing how a given tank performs on average for each level of player skill.

So you can see how a 45% winrate player does in a given tank and how a 65% winrate player does.

Which is probably one of the reasons why WG can be a bit slow with balance changes, because they have a fuller picture of each vehicle's performance, when the community only sees a small part of it.

[Lin3]

2 hours ago, Kenjiro_ said:

 

Server-wide WR alone is not a criteria to define a ship as OP. If WG releases a ship with guided missiles that evaporates multiple targets from 25km and puts one in each team, it would have a perfect %50 win rate. But can we call that ship not OP because she has %50 WR? 

 

OPness can be defined by checking how the same player performs in a ship compared to the similar ones.

But matchmaking is random. Wargaming doesn't put 1 missile cruiser per team in every battle. Sometimes it's 1 per team. Sometimes not.

 

Are you seriously saying that you think that the Nikolai, GC, Belfast, Kamikaze are NOT more OP than the Smolensk?

Are you seriously saying that the sort of player that's saved up 244,000 coal is a 5% worse win rate one than someone that forked out 35 euros for Belfast?

Are you seriously saying that the EU win rate of 51% for the Smolensk compared to 58% for the GC is irrelevant when it comes to judging which is more OP?

 

MM does not put 1 OP ship per team every battle, especially not in this seasons Ranked. When I'm playing in an ARP Myoko or a Shchors. There's been 1 battle this morning where we have had 1 Belfast to their Belfast. In that battle they had more Sinops than us plus an Atlanta. So, of course they won. Every other battle, they've had 1 Belfast, we've had none.

This seasons Sprint Ranked is just broken at tier 7 if you are playing in a free to play cruiser. You and your team are at such a disadvantage for not having that smoke + radar + hydro + high DPM combination. It's so broken that I'm not playing it any more.

 

This morning has reminded me how incredibly annoying ships like the Belfast are for a free to play player like myself.

 

My team and I are at a significant disadvantage because I didn't dip my hand in my pocket and pay real money for the Belfast when it was available.

That is stupidly poor game design for a game that's advertised as free to play.

It's way more annoying having 55% win rate Dollar ships like the Belfast in the game than it is to have 51% grind to get ships like the Smolensk.

And that 55% Belfast win rate shoots up in tier 7 ranked Sprint compared to Random, because it never has to face tier 8 and 9 radar ships.

 

[Kenjiro_]

8 minutes ago, Lin3 said:

But matchmaking is random. Wargaming doesn't put 1 missile cruiser per team in every battle. Sometimes it's 1 per team. Sometimes not.

 

Are you seriously saying that you think that the Nikolai, GC, Belfast, Kamikaze are NOT more OP than the Smolensk?

Are you seriously saying that the sort of player that's saved up 244,000 coal is a 5% worse win rate one than someone that forked out 35 euros for Belfast?

Are you seriously saying that the EU win rate of 51% for the Smolensk compared to 58% for the GC is irrelevant when it comes to judging which is more OP?

 

MM does not put 1 OP ship per team every battle, especially not in this seasons Ranked. When I'm playing in an ARP Myoko or a Shchors. There's been 1 battle this morning where we have had 1 Belfast to their Belfast. In that battle they had more Sinops than us plus an Atlanta. So, of course they won. Every other battle, they've had 1 Belfast, we've had none.

This seasons Sprint Ranked is just broken at tier 7 if you are playing in a free to play cruiser. You and your team are at such a disadvantage for not having that smoke + radar + hydro + high DPM combination. It's so broken that I'm not playing it any more.

 

This morning has reminded me how incredibly annoying ships like the Belfast are for a free to play player like myself.

 

My team and I are at a significant disadvantage because I didn't dip my hand in my pocket and pay real money for the Belfast when it was available.

That is stupidly poor game design for a game that's advertised as free to play.

It's way more annoying having 55% win rate Dollar ships like the Belfast in the game than it is to have 51% grind to get ships like the Smolensk.

And that 55% Belfast win rate shoots up in tier 7 ranked Sprint compared to Random, because it never has to face tier 8 and 9 radar ships.

 

 

I am saying winrate alone does not mean anything. If a particular player, say you or me, has average %45 wr, 30k damage, 0.5 kills on other T7 cruisers but %45 wr, 60k damage and 1 kill on Belfast, Belfast is OP regardless on wr...