Submarines Test Iteration #3 - Feedback

[Sehales]

Captains,

 

Please share your feedback about the 3rd iteration of the submarine test here.

Keep in mind that all you see is still in testing and can change at any point in future.

 

Thank you and enjoy testing!

[Seefelder]

I dont like this new gameplay at all, liked the 2 Test better and i tell you why. I dont agree with having only 2 depths, i want to surface my Sub and be able to use my deckgun, i know submarins have low HP,  but you can shoot form behind Island and use it against low health ships. 

 

I would also welcome the idea for the possibility to track submarine with hydro, lets say for a distance of max 5 km. As well it still lacks consumables. You could implement "snorkel", so you would not lose air while being on periscope depth. A nother one could be "killing engine" so submarine would not be tracked for a short time. "repair" would also be nice.

 

I totally prefer the gameplay of the second test.

 

[Grandgilad]

The subs are fast like a Tiger underwater. 

I watched 6 subs trying to catch each other at the end until timeout. It was insane. 

[1MajorKoenig]

14 minutes ago, Seefelder said:

I dont like this new gameplay at all, liked the 2 Test better and i tell you why. I dont agree with having only 2 depths, i want to surface my Sub and be able to use my deckgun, i know submarins have low HP,  but you can shoot form behind Island and use it against low health ships. 

 

I would also welcome the idea for the possibility to track submarine with hydro, lets say for a distance of max 5 km. As well it still lacks consumables. You could implement "snorkel", so you would not lose air while being on periscope depth. A nother one could be "killing engine" so submarine would not be tracked for a short time. "repair" would also be nice.

 

I totally prefer the gameplay of the second test.

 

 

+1

[VPH030]

To give feedback, you have to test. To test, you need an invite. I have no invite. Just the test client gathering dust on my hard drive...

[j00j]

Still waiting for test access!

[tinvek]

just watching flamu on youtube and especially how OP the torps appear to be

 

maybe make the player choose which torps to load before firing like we currently choose ammo, bit like how HMS conqueror chose the mk8s rather than tigerfish to fire at the general belgrano.  choose "dumb" torps and they retain the current damage, choose the homing torps and you get a reduced damage effect and maybe less range, choose homing and fail to ping the target and effectively you have dumb torps but with reduced damage / range

[tsounts]

 

[loppantorkel]

Seems like a good idea to give up on the bobbing up and down gameplay. Never liked that mechanic. I've only seen the Flamu video, but it seems like there's progress in terms of gameplay, some issues that he brings up, but nothing serious. Tough to tell how it influences general gameplay.

[steviln]

I do not really like it at all. Why cannot the submarines resemble actual submarines? The now dead competitor had subs that resembled real subs, and it really worked. As I see it, the submarines the way WG intend to use them destroy the theme of the game. It simply will resemble the real ships to little. Off course it is not a simulation, but there still is limits on how different things can be from reality? Like homing torpedoes in a WW2 themed game. 

[Panocek]

23 minutes ago, steviln said:

Like homing torpedoes in a WW2 themed game. 

Germans developed acoustic guided torps, which homed in towards picked up noise. They weren't locked on tho.

 

So in game terms you would have "dumb" torp that would start homing towards targets when closer than... I dunno, 3km?

[Smeggo]

Played some rounds again, still feels strange. Submarines that are fast underwater but slow on periscope depth.

Although I can understand that they need speed to have a chance to evade waterbombs.

 

The designers seems to love the ping mechanic unfortunately.

IMHO they should have stick with the Halloween-subs with their autoloaders and secondaries, these were way more fun.

 

Edit: On a sidenote, I really like the anti-submarine-warfare. Starting a bombrun and dropping depthcharges left-and-right is fun. 

 

 

[1MajorKoenig]

1 minute ago, Smeggo said:

IMHO they should have stick with the Halloween-subs with their autoloaders and secondaries, these were way more fun.

 

+1

 

Halloween subs were mostly fun. 

 

The last iteration without surfacing sounds absolutely garbage. 

[1MajorKoenig]

4 hours ago, tsounts said:

 

 

Ok now that looks really really bad...

 

- high speed underwater?

- no surface?

- cartoonish Ping mechanics?

 

This is shaping up really bad

 

Even WG’s Halloween subs were better in my opinion 

 

my humble opinion:

- add surface for highest mobility but also highest risk

- make subs viewrange surfaced just very low (to not interfere with DD spotting)

- add deck guns as Secondaries 

- make Torpedos run straight

- if homing Torpedos are really needed (which I don’t think they are!!!) make them T10 secondary ammo and much slower/worse so there is a trade off between shooting skills (straight runners) and stupid cartoonish pinging for far less effect (less torp speed and less torp damage!)

 

 

[Rionnen_marksman]

Homing torpedos?

 

what a ridiculous idea.

[Capra76]

I have no confidence that WG can deliver this in any kind of balanced or playable way without ruining the game in other ways.

[MementoMori_6030]

WG does to submarines what Disney did to Star Wars.

[MrFingers]

And The whole submarine torpedo-concept is soo far fetched that I suspect the one who came up with it must have had some permanent neurological damage from grinding out the PR directives... 

 

Torpedoes that magically become smart and homing after an action performed by the vessel that launched them, while already swimming in the water without any connection between the vessel and the torpedo itself (either via wire or radio-signal/guiding)... the technology for that only became remotely feasible and practical some 20 years after the scope of this game is really far fetched. There were already acoustic torpedoes (who homed in on their targets using a hydrophone, a passive sonar) used in WW2, like the German G7Es "Zaunkönig" torpedoes but they had the tendency of also targetting the own submarine, since those engines were louder than the engines of the target, and thus performed a 360. Rope-guided torpedoes (mechanical & analogue steering) was used around the turn of the century, but only in coastal applications, since it required large drums of wire to reel in the rope that propelled the torpedo (a bit like a wind-up-toy). If submarines need to get guided torpedoes, why don't destroyers get them then? They can also (visually) track a target, so... 

 

What I propose is this: I remain with my standpoint that the pings should give the submarine just a target-solution (the "white cone" we know from DD-gameplay) prior to launching the torpedoes, and the torpedoes should be non-homing (they can be hard-hitting or stealthy to offset that "downside").

 

That also gives a layer of depth to the gameplay (pun so very much intended!) for the submarine player. If he wants to be really sneaky: he can fire his torpedoes "blind" (without emitting pings, and thus without target solution "cone", somewhat comparable to the "manual drop" from RTS carrier gameplay) at the target. Want some more assurance, he can perform a ping for a narrow-spread cone. Two pings, sent within 5 or 10 seconds of eachother becomes the single-fire “line” (like the British DD’s & cruisers have). 

 

That emitted ping would show your bearing for surface-ships in the game itself via the same “sector-rosette” that RPF has, and visible for some 10 seconds after the “ping” reached the vessel, with it fading away after 5 seconds. But just like RPF would not disclose the actual distance (information given can be “close, moderate or far”, because sound decays as distance increases. A ping sent close would be received loud & crisp by the receiver (and blow out the eardrums of the hydrophone operator), a ping from far away would be soft & muffled). The ping's interaction with surface vessels would be a modelling of passive sonar (hydrophone). If one really wants, one can add a “blind sector” facing rearward, since the screw-wash would overclass ambient sounds and thus obscure the presence of a submarine. When a ship is stationary, that blind-spot goes away.

 

The surface-target should have no proper idea that one is targeted (just the same as a surface-target doesn't know he's been targetted by a torpedo-carrying DD, even with the PT-skill), just that a submarine has been detected in a certain sector around you, and at a rough distance if it had pinged (pings would decay to inaudible after a certain amount of km's, it's not that pings can be detected from across the map). The registration of a ping does not necessarily mean the submarine is targetting you, since pings work (and are) omnidirectional anyway. It could very well be that the submarine is sailing on a course parallel to you, and has no target solution on you. If a submarine comes within x km of a ship, it will become visible because the hydrophone picks up the engine noises, pump-noises,... of that submarine. If one wants to expand on that, a consumable "silent running" would reduce the sonic footprint of the submarine (allowing it to creep closer or sneak away undetected), at the cost of reduced performance (crew has to be silent and move slower, this would pause trop-reloading as well, since that is a notorious noisy process with the chains hoists), and a slower speed. 

 

This is just my concept, which is still rather rough and probably has some issues on its own, it very much still needs polishing and (severe) adjusting... I’m not saying it’s perfect, because it isn’t, but it won’t be as game-breaking as the magical torpedoes are now, and is at least remotely historical plausible + actually engaging for both the submarine (sneaky gameplay is an option, honing of tactics and skill are also possible) as the surface ship. The current mechanics are both far-fetched, and make post 0.8.0 CV-gameplay look like 4D-chess.

  

 

[iFax]

So, WG is basically saying if you're a BB, CV or a CA, hide at the border as you have NO sub counter play or ability to out manoeuvre the torps.

CL’s your depth charges are there just for laughs as you’ll be sunk before you can try to counter the sub.

DD’s, sub counter play? Good luck!

Torpedo belts, designed to counter all torps can now be avoided by super intelligent AI Tigerfish torps… Simply laughable!

Pinging through islands, just as bad as radar through islands, don’t give me the BS answer you gave before about radar…

A target that’s been pinged is visible for 30 seconds, so anything in smoke is dead. Pinged targets are visible to all friendlies not just the sub.

This could go the same way as the CV’s, the weapon system will make some super unicum players untouchable. In fact you can let your team potato while shadowing them and pick off the enemy while they’re feeding on your friends. All you have to do is get your team to focus the enemy DD’s and CL’s first.

Lastly SAP and RN CL’s, how do they counter subs with NO splash damage as they have no HE?

My serious question to WG, why would I bother to play any surface ships at all when this all goes live?

[Dutchy_2019]

Pinged targets... any information learned should only be available to the submarine itself, NOT the rest of the team. For a very long time, if ever, subs could not communicate  that kind of info while underwater. If you want the rest to know, surface, and your radio signal instantly is picked up.

 

But yeah.... listend to Flamu's live streaming that test yesterday. Comes down to the game becoming completely unplayable for DD's, and nearly so for every class but CV's, at least in the game as was on the test server. 

[MementoMori_6030]

Vor 53 Minuten, Dutchy_2019 sagte:

Pinged targets... any information learned should only be available to the submarine itself, NOT the rest of the team. For a very long time, if ever, subs could not communicate  that kind of info while underwater. If you want the rest to know, surface, and your radio signal instantly is picked up.

 

But yeah.... listend to Flamu's live streaming that test yesterday. Comes down to the game becoming completely unplayable for DD's, and nearly so for every class but CV's, at least in the game as was on the test server. 

Press "G" for Gertrude!

[Capra76]

Jingles has a video up, much the same feedback as Flamu.

 

 

Here's a question that maybe one of the WG staff can answer, if you want feedback why have you given out so few invites and what use is feedback from games that are 80% populated by bots?

 

 

[Bear__Necessities]

Feedback huh?

 

ok

 

[DrMechano]

The mechanic seem fine. The homing ability of torps on the second ping is waaaay too high and the fact it keeps people spotted even in smoke is a terrible choice. DDs are basically countered by Subs and not the other way around.

[MooseTwit_1]

Long waiting times to join battles, despite a (players in your level range 55/55 eg.), not filling up with bots quick.