Battle starting positions

[JarrusJenkins]

What the hell is wrong with the game as far as this is concerned?

Seriously last few games I've had, you end up on the side where there are 3 ships in total, then the other 9 on the other side all end up pushing that flank together...

Why the hell are game started like that? I've tried the "to hell with that" approach and that almost never works because the other team just catches you in a cross fire...

I personally don't like becoming the team "cannon fodder" and it seems it doesn't matter if your a DD, CL, CA or BB its all the same...

Why can't the computer balance the team more effectively at the start of the match?

[DFens_666]

The best thing would be: Just have a spawnzone where you can decide WHERE you wanna spawn yourself!

This would be much better from so many angles:

- Divisions could choose to NOT spawn on one place (like 3x DDs or BBs)

- DDs arent mirrored, so CVs cant know where the DD exactly spawned (mostly an issue for 1 DD games)

- Some people go to the same cap every time - instead of them being useless because they spawned on the other side, let them spawn closer to where they want to go.

- Occasionally you have those weird spawns (often coop tho) where you are alone on one flank, or very far from your next teammate. That was a big issue on Land of fire, atleast they somewhat fixed that. One BB often spawned alone in the corner, and if you had a CV in game, he could just kill that BB without any trouble.

[JarrusJenkins]

It does sound like a good idea...

bit like some of the shooter games... you can choose where you want to start but ideally during that process you could do with know where everyone else is spawning also.

[Armorin]

Would be nice to choose spawn point in clan battles. But in randoms? Just think about it.

[El2aZeR]

Anyone remember the lone spawn on Land of Fire in CV matches?

Fun times.

 

Spawning system has been overdue for an overhaul for years.

[CptBarney]

27 minutes ago, El2aZeR said:

Anyone remember the lone spawn on Land of Fire in CV matches?

Fun times.

 

Spawning system has been overdue for an overhaul for years.

Weegee: bUt MoNEh and wE tRiED tO iMpLEmEnT iT bUt sPReaDsHeET sAiD nO.

 

But yeah i agree as well.

[Sir_Grzegorz]

But how exactly you would like it to be done?

Lets say line 2 or 9 randomly placed in randoms?

I am afraid you cannot allow to choose in randoms as some players are special.

 

All in all I am in favor for it in random battles, for ranked and CB I am not convinced.

[LoucipherPL]

The first and foremost danger I see about choosing spawn places is the possibility for all players to choose roughly the same place. While the game would undoubtedly prevent ships from spawning into each other, this would result in all ships tightly packed next to each other... say, on the same flank. Talk about lopsided setup... and a veritable Torpedo Heaven 

Then... let's just think a bit deeper and imagine the players so undecided as to not being able to pick their starting point... or simply not giving a dud about it. The game would have to autoplace them somewhere after a brief delay so as not to keep others waiting. This requires the game to basically use the old system to make up for the new system's flaw. What's the point?

Assuming all goes well, all players pick their sides (more or less) correctly and there are no inactives, I still imagine more battles won or lost due to poor placement than what we see these days. IMHO, it's better to correct deficiencies of the current system than to introduce a new one that has the potential of becoming a veritable Pandora's box in its own right.

This is not to say WG needs not bother with the current system - it sure could use some work. Still, minor misplacements are usually easy enough to correct before rounds start flying back and forth in earnest. If WG corrects the most troublesome errors, I can see no harm in the current spawn system.

[WashedandDeceased]

48 minutes ago, El2aZeR said:

Anyone remember the lone spawn on Land of Fire in CV matches?

Fun times.

[Bear__Necessities]

I love it when in a BB and the spawn point is behind a bloody island. Great, coz with my sonic speed that’s not an issue...

[Captain_Newman]

9 hours ago, DFens_666 said:

The best thing would be: Just have a spawnzone where you can decide WHERE you wanna spawn yourself!

This would be much better from so many angles:

- Divisions could choose to NOT spawn on one place (like 3x DDs or BBs)

- DDs arent mirrored, so CVs cant know where the DD exactly spawned (mostly an issue for 1 DD games)

- Some people go to the same cap every time - instead of them being useless because they spawned on the other side, let them spawn closer to where they want to go.

- Occasionally you have those weird spawns (often coop tho) where you are alone on one flank, or very far from your next teammate. That was a big issue on Land of fire, atleast they somewhat fixed that. One BB often spawned alone in the corner, and if you had a CV in game, he could just kill that BB without any trouble.

In before all BB's decide to spawn as close as possible to the 9/10 lines on North / Northern Lights so they can get to their beloved spot faster 

 

Seriously though, I think this is a great idea for competitive modes. Giving this option to people in randoms is just giving them yet another way to fail spectacularly. 

[Molly_Delaney]

One fix:

replace the start battle button with 3 which correspond to 3 spawn areas, as they fill the buttons turn grey.

If no button is clicked before battle starts then your ship spawns in the middle of the map.....(adjusted to miss islands, etc).

 

Only downside, could lead to a lot of ships in the middle until people get used to it.....

[Yedwy]

No, spawn system could do with a rework but choosing where to spawn should not be a part of it...

[LoucipherPL]

[KillStealBoss]

Well once I was on West Virginia on land of fire map, spawned near A cap with a DD that left me. All my team went BC (in fact the ended up all in C ofc) and I was constantly spotted by DD so enemies got me (21knt) and killed me pretty fast... Happens. 

[DFens_666]

2 hours ago, Captain_Newman said:

In before all BB's decide to spawn as close as possible to the 9/10 lines on North / Northern Lights so they can get to their beloved spot faster 

 

Seriously though, I think this is a great idea for competitive modes. Giving this option to people in randoms is just giving them yet another way to fail spectacularly. 

 

True, for CBs it would be extra awesome. Feels like spawning on the wrong side happens all the time

 

As for north: Well, atleast you know its over right away

[DFens_666]

3 hours ago, LoucipherPL said:

The first and foremost danger I see about choosing spawn places is the possibility for all players to choose roughly the same place. While the game would undoubtedly prevent ships from spawning into each other, this would result in all ships tightly packed next to each other... say, on the same flank.

 

When your team does this on Mountain Range, it doesnt matter if they all spawn at C or not

They run from A to C, leave the flank open, game is lost by the 10 minute mark. So let them Spawn at C. MAAAYBE they can force their way through with more ships being there (or its lost either way). But instead, guys at A are useless for 5+ minutes because they are cruising over from A. The green part is our division trying to get crossfire from the center and take B. Well, wasnt enough either way. Enemies at A just moved full through and shot our broadsides.

 

It doesnt matter where people spawn - they choose to be useless. But going on the opposite flank, which takes 5 minutes, is worse than just spawning there in the first place.

 

3 hours ago, Bear_Necessities said:

I love it when in a BB and the spawn point is behind a bloody island. Great, coz with my sonic speed that’s not an issue...

 

Russian Cruiser center spawn on Hotspot. I dont know how many Donskois/Moskvas ive blapped there

[BlackYeti]

12 hours ago, DFens_666 said:

 

- Occasionally you have those weird spawns (often coop tho) where you are alone on one flank, or very far from your next teammate. That was a big issue on Land of fire, atleast they somewhat fixed that. One BB often spawned alone in the corner, and if you had a CV in game, he could just kill that BB without any trouble.

Oh yeah, i remember one of my Richelieu games, 2x CV. I lasted 5 minutes, doing 14k dmg but spreadsheet said i had fun!

[Oppressor_]

13 hours ago, DFens_666 said:

One BB often spawned alone in the corner, and if you had a CV in game, he could just kill that BB without any trouble.

 

A sinking BBaby is always a heartwarming sight, doesnt matter who and how achieved it. 

 

[Oppressor_]

18 minutes ago, Exorite said:

 

A sinking BBaby is always a heartwarming sight, doesnt matter who and how achieved it. 

 

PS: And if they do not spawn there, they are going to sail to the corner anyway, so....

[chazwozza]

How about only divs get to choose with the leader picking for the div 

[LoucipherPL]

Well, personally my own favourite technique of BB play is to maveuver in such a way that I always have at least 2 caps within firing range. This way I can provide fire support to anyone trying to secure a cap. BBs were historically built to dish it out at range, so what's wrong with them keeping the distance? I think it's the rest of the team's responsibility to keep rapid-firing fast-movers from sneak-jumping the BB, so that the BB can return the favour by shaving HP off any targets reckless enough to come too close or show their broadside. I've been in battles where this worked beautifully, and I've been in battles where it didn't work at all, so I know the difference. WoWs games play much the same as soccer games, with BBs being the defenders, CAs being the midfielders and DDs being the forward strikers. And the same rule works here: if the defenders must defend themselves from the strikers, the rest of the team has not done their job right.

[Johnny_Moneto]

Vor 4 Stunden, LoucipherPL sagte:

Well, personally my own favourite technique of BB play is to maveuver in such a way that I always have at least 2 caps within firing range. This way I can provide fire support to anyone trying to secure a cap. BBs were historically built to dish it out at range, so what's wrong with them keeping the distance? I think it's the rest of the team's responsibility to keep rapid-firing fast-movers from sneak-jumping the BB, so that the BB can return the favour by shaving HP off any targets reckless enough to come too close or show their broadside. I've been in battles where this worked beautifully, and I've been in battles where it didn't work at all, so I know the difference. WoWs games play much the same as soccer games, with BBs being the defenders, CAs being the midfielders and DDs being the forward strikers. And the same rule works here: if the defenders must defend themselves from the strikers, the rest of the team has not done their job right.

One of BBs job is to tank damage for the team in an intelligent way because a BB usually has better armour and bigger HP pool. By staying back all the time you'd be neglecting this potential to help your team win.

Sometimes even suboptimal gameplay will win games.

[ForlornSailor]

4 hours ago, LoucipherPL said:

Well, personally my own favourite technique of BB play is to maveuver in such a way that I always have at least 2 caps within firing range. This way I can provide fire support to anyone trying to secure a cap. BBs were historically built to dish it out at range, so what's wrong with them keeping the distance? I think it's the rest of the team's responsibility to keep rapid-firing fast-movers from sneak-jumping the BB, so that the BB can return the favour by shaving HP off any targets reckless enough to come too close or show their broadside. I've been in battles where this worked beautifully, and I've been in battles where it didn't work at all, so I know the difference. WoWs games play much the same as soccer games, with BBs being the defenders, CAs being the midfielders and DDs being the forward strikers. And the same rule works here: if the defenders must defend themselves from the strikers, the rest of the team has not done their job right.

 

Meh this is off-topic but I gotta take the chance to say it:

 

First of all: Its nice that you found the way to the offical forums that early. I wish many others would. Welcome.

Then: You are still very new to the game. This game has a really looong learning curve, also, because things constantly change. Ofc it depends on the individual, how fst he can pick things up, put when I say that most people are starting to get a decent idea of the game around the 2000 battle mark, thats not exaggurated. About what you wrote: Refering to historical standards is almost always missleading. The game differs from that, for various reasons, most important the need to find a balance and create an even playing field for all classes.

 

So, keeping the distance in this game is wrong, because you will lose map control, objectives and cant support your teammates enough. Especially beeing aggressive in the first minutes of the games is important with a BB. Every part of the map, I claim there, the enemy has to take with force if they want it. Or they are scared when they see a BB there and dont go for it at all. Easy win just by presence. Also, a BB in this game isnt 100% effective if staying at range. Your penetration shrinks, which means you cant get citas on many targets and experianced players will just dodge the incoming fire. Nothing easier for me in a fast, manouverable cruiser then to dodge BB shots from 16+km 2 times per minute.

 

The correct distance varies from tier to tier and from ship to ship. And also with depends on map and the state of the current round. Your own concealment is a decent indicator for the start. That means, some BBs can be ~12km away from their targets, others (like IJN) a little bit further. Later in the game, when a lot of ships have sunk, you often need to be way more aggressive. If your ship (and your designated target) allows it, you even go brawling, which means putting your BB at <2 km to the enemys. Its about the most fun you can have while playing a BB btw.

[LoucipherPL]

@ForlornSailor, thank you for your warm welcome and your valuable input. It is true you'd be hard pressed to find someone more new to this game on this forum than me. It is also true that this game requires a lot of practice before you can be even remotely good at it. Therefore I always treat such post as this one valuable learning material, especially when it comes from someone who has played so many battles.

That said, I am of the opinion that WoWS, being necessarily simplified and subject to certain balancing, still maintains a certain degree of historical fidelity and the basic physics is much less the same as it is in reality, so the common sense approach should work in any case. True, BBs can be more devastating if they come closer (lesser dispersion, bigger penetration, less time to dodge the salvo, ability to use secondaries), but then, enemies at close range have more options to hurt BBs, too. DDs and thrir torpedoes come to mind, many higher tier cruisers also have them. Then come the painfully slow turret traverse speeds on a BB. A faster ship could go in circles around the BB, for instance, torpedoing and shelling it to no end and never risking a main salvo in return. Of course, experienced BB drivers won't let their enemies come that close, but let me reach that level at my own pace. It's true that my most successful random battle in a BB involved gunning down a few ships at close range (the last one went down some 2km away from my position IIRC, and thanks to a lucky secondary shot), so I know aggressive approach can pay off. Still, I remember battles when closing in on my enemies only resulted in quickly getting sunk. In my own defense I could say there was little coordination within my team at that time, which left me exposed to rushing foes. That's why I advocate coordination and teamplay - a BB can be a beast if supported properly, as the driver needs not be concerned with defending his own ship and can concentrate on dishing out damage. And before you ask: no, I don't usually fire at 16+km ranges - even on bots in Coop - as I know the accuracy at such ranges is a joke and evading such shells is child's play for anyone bright enough to hold the steering wheel. The majority of my salvos are fired at targets 8-11km away, where accuracy is decent, shell flight time is not too great so the target actually has little time to react, and penetrations even with HE can occasionally grant citadel hits on anything but another BB. Not that I am the most lethal gunner on the face of this planet - quite the opposite, in fact - but I'm slowly getting the feel of what's the optimal or, as you put it, "correct" firing range for every ship. I'll eventually get there.

Once more, thanks for your valuable tips - I'll think about how to put them to best possible use. Fair winds and calm seas to you... good luck in your battles and see you in the sights one day!