General CV related discussions.

[AndyHill]

35 minutes ago, Figment said:

I prefer there to be alternatives. The "only real solution" is extremely narrowly defined and can be used to deny the need of any class of ship in this game.

 

You can't show that "only real solution" for BBs either. BBs as a class exist because nations used to have a need to out firepower and out armour rival nations. Not because of game balance reasons.

When planes have destructive qualities (such as spotting anywhere eanytime and pooping all over everyone without counterplay), we need very good justifications for their inclusion in the game to offset the negatives. Things that can easily be done with ships (like Henris farming down Stalins if you think nose camping is a problem) don't usually cut it. 

 

I don't have to show a solution for BBs, because my problems are with planes, not ships.

35 minutes ago, Figment said:

Your call for need is essentially boils down to a question of "Do we as developers/players want it or not? Does it add a wow factor? Does it add something different and fun?".

 

Your question of need is flawed, in that it doesn't require an answer that can be objectively validated.

The simple question is "does something make the game better". 

35 minutes ago, Figment said:

Besides, you dismissed the argument I made about it stimulating teamwork and coordinated play (herding and dispersing role), from what I can tell because you personally don't want staying-close-together-teamwork to be stimulated (stronger together need creation) as you'd consider that punishment of solo players.

To offer someone appreciable amounts of AA support you're going to have to be within a few kilometers of him. That is already a very restrictive requirement. Ships able to move within let's say 10-15km from each other already offers them much more varied tactical options and because that is actually most of the time more effective against the 11 other ships in the red team, you'd have to make carriers extremely powerful if you want to make playing purely against them a viable tactical option.

35 minutes ago, Figment said:

This is current CV design discussion...

 

It's irrelevant outside of pointing out flaws with THIS design and flaws to avoid with a new design.

 

But you're not using it for that, you're using it to draw conclusions about any and all potential new designs that you haven't even defined yet.

Well the previous implementation was considered to be so bad that it was removed from the game by WG. Although good arguments can be made for them actually not being quite as bad as the current implementation for competitive(vision blocking by fighter control), I'm not very impressed by either. Anyway, would you not agree that if the current implementation is bad for the game, we should remove it while we work on something that is actually a positive impact on the game? That would certainly be an agreeable option for me, as long as the reimplementation is based on design quality, not a predetermined date like it was before. Note that if you diminish the current carriers' ability to spot and attack, the severity of the problem only ever approaches zero (and reaches it in the unfeasible case where it has no ability left) - whereas what I'm only really interested in is turning it into something positive.

 

So, starting with a tabula rasa, would you first experiment with RTS-style, current action plane game thing, off-map unit, AI unit (active or decorational / mission objective kind of a thing), a consumableusable by ships (like artillery in WT) or something completely different?

[Figment]

2 minutes ago, AndyHill said:

I don't think there's any point in discussing specific situations without recordings of such things happening, because we can't know what lead to the said situation in the first place and we can just decide that the carrier impact was positive or negative. Most of your examples seem to be about situations where one side has won the match already and then the carrier turns the situation around in the other team's favor. Won games ticking down the last seconds is not a problem unless it's way too common. What matters is what lead to that situation to happen in the first place. Was it interesting, tactical and all that. I'll demonstrate my thoughts with one example:

What lead to it doesn't really matter. Too many choice made by too many players. The question is whether you want this to be a situation where teamwork can beat the class advantages of another player as the game goals require you to try to beat it.

 

Btw, my examples cover start of match (spotting for long range units to minimize downtime), mid match (CV supporting either a weak or strong flank), not just end of match. But it's particularly important to discuss end of match situations given the potential CV advantages are greatest there. Depending on how impaired the CV's airfleet was during the match, of course. Ideally its striking capacity has been worn down to equalise or even minimize its remaining power against fewer ships to be expected to be alive in the end stages, meaning fewer ships can be expected to support each other, while it's not too far from the front so that it can be engaged in due time without having to withstand 8-10 sorties aimed at a single ship.

 

CVs are more of a resource management unit in terms of balancing requirements. You can tell this helps tone down their influence in the long run in games where a CV is the lowest tier of the match facing a lot of tier or even two tier higher units. Low tier CVs are never a real problem for the match, at least not in my experience. The exception possibly being there being two carriers working coordinated on a single target, hence one CV per side should be the limit IMO.

2 minutes ago, AndyHill said:

A few questions; first of all, why isn't it one of your team's DDs that's hunting down the red DD? Why do we need specifically planes for that? Also how is the carrier interdependent of the battleship? Why would it need the BB to fire desperate volleys when it can just blab the DD out of existence itself? And how is it fair that a DD that spent all of his smokes for smoking friendlies, has 10 kills, 6 solo caps and 400k damage as well as 300k spotting and 3M tanking and is now running away desperately to win the game for his team (note how problematic frontloading these examples with biased assumptions is) now gets blabbed out of existence just because a carrier knows how to steer his planes towards him and click? This is why if we want to talk about specific situations, we need the whole story with all the details to evaluate it properly.

 

Also when making assumptions about my interest and view on teamwork, do remember that I have been the tactician for a team in clan wars for hundreds if not closer to a thousand battles, whereas you not only haven't even tried, but also don't appear to have any interest in them even though they truly are the epitome of teamwork in this game if KoTS isn't taken into account.

Who says you have a DD? What if there's just one in the match and its on the other end of the map? What if it died? What if it is preoccupied elsewhere? Why should it be a DD to counter a DD? Why do you feel it is fair to need the same class to counter its own class in a situation like this? You could have asked about the cruisers. But why would you assume there would be any alive or present on that side of the map? Why are you once again talking about the current design of CV rocket aircraft? Why are you assuming that DD will be blabbed rather than be able to use its dodging skills?

 

 

But as to how that CV would be dependent on the BB, depends on how you balance its various (in)capabilities.

 

How effective are its own weapons against certain classes like DDs (capability to hit a small, moving target) and cruisers (high AA defense) to ward of attacks by them? How frequently can it strike (DPS potential)? Does it have defensive power left at that stage of the game (air power depletion)? Is the BB blocking access to the CV so it can't be engaged in close range combat and quickly killed?

In other words, is the CV requiring scouting damage or own damage to deal with the threat when working together to combat it? Is the CV mostly a power amplifier, mostly a power of its own, or only a bit of both?

 

That all depends on how you design the systems around it, how you communicate the data it gathers and how strong and accurate you make its tools.

 

 

 

You can't answer this unless you fill in some specifics, which you so far refuse to do because "you've been there, done that", or so you say. I trust you'll have gamed some variants. However, I very much doubt you've been extremely motivated to find a solution, given you're more than a little comfortable with the easier solution of removing them and focus on the existing version(s) for evidence why it can't work. My guess is your skepticism to a solution isn't new, because you seem very focused on the just two (or, actually three) iterations that have been (beta, post-beta balancing attempt including BB turn rate buff and current full rework). Not sure if there was an alpha balancing version that differed from Beta though, but that'd be at most a fourth iteration where three were basically the same save for some details. None of which even attempted to limit aircraft strike range. Hence you can't judge any system that would introduce entirely new logistical limitations, unless you run some scenarios with very specific settings and combinations of mechanics in mind.

[AndyHill]

28 minutes ago, Figment said:

What lead to it doesn't really matter. Too many choice made by too many players. The question is whether you want this to be a situation where teamwork can beat the class advantages of another player as the game goals require you to try to beat it.

Except that it was actually superb moves and excellent teamwork that resulted in one team gaining the upper hand and deserving a win. This is the problem with completely made up examples. There's way too much unknowns you just have to assume to be on the side of whatever argument you want to make. Unless there is a very specific and common situation (like for example getting pooped on without counterplay), they are not very useful. Case in point:

28 minutes ago, Figment said:

Who says you have a DD?

Nobody, but you said they didn't, which changes the situation completely. This is why made-up examples like this are very difficult to evaluate and why it would be so much more useful to have recordings so that the situation can be evaluated more holistically. 

28 minutes ago, Figment said:

You can't answer this unless you fill in some specifics, which you so far refuse to do because "you've been there, done that", or so you say. I trust you'll have gamed some variants. However, I very much doubt you've been extremely motivated to find a solution, given you're more than a little comfortable with the easier solution of removing them and focus on the existing version(s) for evidence why it can't work. My guess is your skepticism to a solution isn't new, because you seem very focused on the just two (or, actually three) iterations that have been (beta, post-beta balancing attempt including BB turn rate buff and current full rework). Not sure if there was an alpha balancing version that differed from Beta though, but that'd be at most a fourth iteration where three were basically the same save for some details. None of which even attempted to limit aircraft strike range. Hence you can't judge any system that would introduce entirely new logistical limitations, unless you run some scenarios with very specific settings and combinations of mechanics in mind.

The problem is that carriers exist in the game right now, and they are wreaking havoc in randoms and now clan battles as well. They are a huge negative impact in the games they are in right now and we simply don't have time for thinking about theoretical implementations that might offer something positive, we need a solution right now. It would be fantastic if WG removed the carriers and then started an open design process to come up with an implementation that would end up being a positive influence on the game, but that is even more unlikely than removing them outright.

 

As far as making improvements to the current system goes, that's a been there, done that, the subject has been discussed pretty thoroughly. And I'm not saying you shouldn't try to offer fresh, new ideas to the discussion, far from it. Reducing flight range is one of the more popular and generally more liked ideas that has potential to reduce the problem with carriers, but then again that might put even more pressure on the people who actually push to the frontlines (since they will be the ones in range) and encourage even more passive play. That, however, can't be known for sure without actual testing. The thing is, it's another form of mitigation and I don't see how it would turn a negative into a positive.

 

Just to clarify; do you feel that the game is better with or without carriers as they are now? If it's the former, I'd like to hear your views on the clan wars argument.

[Figment]

3 minutes ago, AndyHill said:

When planes have destructive qualities (such as spotting anywhere eanytime and pooping all over everyone without counterplay), we need very good justifications for their inclusion in the game to offset the negatives. Things that can easily be done with ships (like Henris farming down Stalins if you think nose camping is a problem) don't usually cut it. 

 

I don't have to show a solution for BBs, because my problems are with planes, not ships.

The simple question is "does something make the game better". 

Sorry, but again this is hypocritical. :/

 

Your problems are not with BBs, so you don't need to justify their presence, firepower and capability to roflstomp cruisers with massive capital hit strikes? So by that definition, if someone has no personal qualms with CVs, you don't need to justify them? Is that what you're argueing? I guess this discussion is over then. (Don't use arguments of convenience and apply double standards please...)

 

Btw, found nose camping to not be a big problem, since a stationary or straight line moving target is a simple target. British BBs have been quite useful against those nose campers. But that is essentially a specific situation which CV's could counter as an alternative to support players in units that would have bigger issues with those.
 

3 minutes ago, AndyHill said:

To offer someone appreciable amounts of AA support you're going to have to be within a few kilometers of him. That is already a very restrictive requirement. Ships able to move within let's say 10-15km from each other already offers them much more varied tactical options and because that is actually most of the time more effective against the 11 other ships in the red team, you'd have to make carriers extremely powerful if you want to make playing purely against them a viable tactical option.

By a few kilometers, I take it you mean being able to get close enough together within the 20-30ish seconds from spotting aircraft on the map heading in your general direction? I mean, if you're closer than that you should assume air strikes. Dispersing and converging is an option for smaller groups. When I do play with my nephew, we do that all the time. Even in BBs. Works quite well. We disperse when the situation allows for it or offers us better angles, but we don't go so far that we can't cover each other or help out if a DD or air strikes. Even if we can kill the aircraft that passed over the other (so not both engage at the same time), we'll ensure that CV (in the current system) is weaker by the next time it comes along and can't do multiple passes. I don't see this as problematic or seriously reducing your tactical options, in fact, I see this as working as intended in the spirit of a teamwork game.

3 minutes ago, AndyHill said:

Well the previous implementation was considered to be so bad that it was removed from the game by WG. Although good arguments can be made for them actually not being quite as bad as the current implementation for competitive(vision blocking by fighter control), I'm not very impressed by either.

Me neither. But the RTS micromanagement had some interesting gameplay IMO. From the perspective of a strategy game player, it's actually a rather fun thing to do. Though I'll readily admit I was no fan of the ease of high number narrow torp spread hatchings you could do with certain CVs and the amount of AI involved. Between CV's, the major fault in the RTS system was the plane HP balancing concept combined with matchmaking and air squadron load out selections not being balanced (or if you picked a fighter only setup not very useful). Similar things can be said for the current system. But given both are so different and specific in their design, I see loads of alternative designs possible that are fastly superior.

 

But again, like you, I'm very skeptic about WG's capacity and willingness to create such a new system.

3 minutes ago, AndyHill said:

Anyway, would you not agree that if the current implementation is bad for the game, we should remove it while we work on something that is actually a positive impact on the game? That would certainly be an agreeable option for me, as long as the reimplementation is based on design quality, not a predetermined date like it was before.

I think we already agreed to that many pages ago, I'm mostly opposed to permanent removal if that was the reason to remove it. :)

Though I've also stated I don't feel it's desperately needed to remove it completely as I can deal with it personally and a balance patch reducing some damage and frequency of attacks per sortie for instance would also be good enough for me.

 

Hell, I'd rather see this system with the old 5 (wide placed) torp spread in a single attack than 3x or 4x 2 torps, because of the lack of significant steering maneouvres you can do in that time frame with certain ships. I don't like how some torp spreads are so narrow you can't sail in between (only around) either. This whole CV uniqueness in completely different spread patterns that increase or decrease accuracy beyond a certain degree and all is one of the problems with the current and previous system, because it adds in extra balancing issues on an individual carrier level. Fan or straight spread + torp speed and activation time as a difference would probably have sufficed for that purpose.

3 minutes ago, AndyHill said:

So, starting with a tabula rasa, would you first experiment with RTS-style, current action plane game thing, off-map unit, AI unit (active or decorational / mission objective kind of a thing), a consumableusable by ships (like artillery in WT) or something completely different?

Ship has to be on map. Must be possible to take out to gain advantage or take away a threat.

 

Consumeables are crutchy. Feels a bit like Modern Warfare where you can call a helicopter to auto-fire and kill some people without warning to even the score a bit. It means PvE does what a player couldn't, it'd be hated even more because there'd be no skill at all involved. And what would happen if the target is out of sight? Would the attack continue and expose the target? Would it be aborted if the target is unspotted or the one calling in an air strike died? Too many ways to cause frustration with players on both ends.

 

War Thunder has this air strike call-in thing where players can make their ground units completely vulnerable to attack by going afk, while they control the aircraft for X seconds, obliterating enemies. These can be acquired on the basis of personal score. Note, other players can also go afk to try and shoot down or escort the bombing run. It's just way too easy to get access to them and the spam is horrid, while people going afk just makes them easier targets (you can see the names of the people airborne so you know who won't move out of the way). The balance is poor as well, given any hit is death and some you don't even need bombs for to kill (so some interceptors just go on a killing spree instead). I'd not favour such an approach, as it'd reduce the quality of ship play if players went afk now and then to control aircraft for what could be up to a minute.

I wouldn't entirely mind the ship being AI in mission type matches though (in fact, it'd be nice to have more PvP/PvE combinations, provided the AI isn't so dumb to run aground all the time with no coding to get out of it), but it would create a PvE element in a PvP game. Plus I think a significant number of players, like those who like BBs, are attracted to playing CVs. To deny them this opportunity would be a shame and AI potentially determining the outcome of a PvP match could be frustrating in many ways. Hence pure PvP, thus CV player controlled, would be prefered.

 

As far as the mechanics go:

I liked the map version for the battlefield overview it provided. However, it detaches you more from the rest of the players and the world more. Emersion and adrenaline from actually experiencing the attack is largely gone. So the current system has that over the old RTS view from a CV player perspective. It also is more appreciated as a skilled form of gaming by others I'd say if you are actively in control of the unit that's doing the damage, rather than simply ordering the AI.

 

What I like about the current setup is that you have to manually aim torps and lead in much the same way you'd do with ships by looking at the side of a ship, I also think it's good it's without the advantage of knowing their speed and getting a "fire here" indicator like ships get. It's more experience, skill and insight based aiming, which is a good thing IMO.

 

 

Just the frequency of attacks after one another and the control over the attack is probably too high. Should be more akin to one chance, at most two to get it right or bust (which is closer to what the old system did, except there you had multiple squadrons to setup inescapable traps with). A single attack run would leave DDs in a much better position.

In the current system the exact timing of the drop can be changed till the very last moment: if it turns out to be bad aim or the target just died, or you suddenly come under unexpected AA fire, all attacks can be aborted and tried again (with at most some aircraft lost). That's a big difference from a salvo fired with ships and the old system where you had to pre-plan attacks. The current system hence binds less consequences to choices you make. This is something I think was done better in the first attempt where you could give AI an order and abort as long as the attack run hadn't started. I wouldn't mind you having to lead a bit more and predetermine the angle of your attack run and dropping timing, while not allowing last second adjustmends. This would make for instance the old tactic of turning into torp aircraft and deliberately hitting their torps before they activate more likely and would reduce the accuracy of dive bombers and rocket aircraft alike with more chance of dodging possible.

 

So I'd limit the CV player a bit there in order to provide the target of the attack at least some time to come up with a move.

Then there's the range limitation, which I think would bring a bit of resource management to the class that's desperately needed to prevent it from being too dominant across the map and to prevent lighting up DD players constantly. There would need to be logistical effort and planning in positioning your ship safe and close enough.

I'd increase the visibility of the CVs so they'd be a target more often. Today it takes too long to even locate them to get a shot off even if they're in firing range on open sea. The longer they're not visible the more free strikes they get in a chase and the longer it takes for teams to actively attempt to reach and sink it.

 

 

 

The exact balancing in terms of damage numbers is not interesting at this point yet. With all that done I think they'd be a worthwhile addition to gameplay, able to compensate for lacking sides, or provide a bit of an offensive bonus to a winning side, without being a main damage dealer. Their advantage would be more logistical and attack vector flexibilty, at the cost of attrition and consistent high damage dealing.

[Eternus_Damnatio]

After many years away i come back to find CV's still yet to be balanced (shocker) it is about time they were just removed from the game.
The popularity graphs show they would hardly be missed the clan wars peeps dont want them as they ruin gameplay majority of random players would love to see the back of them.
So seriously WG when are you going to man up and remove this class you have failed to get balanced since the games release ???
From my own brief experience since coming back if a CV wants you dead you will die AA has been nerfed into oblivion and they can and will drop on what they want when they want.
This is especially true for the lower tiers where AA not only deals with the nerfs but is pretty much non existent anyway.
And to top this off after fighting your way through the enemy team enemy CV in your sights HE is pointless as they are essentially immune to fire now.
AP rounds will bounce harmlessly off the armoured deck meaning you have a very small section of ship to aim for all the while an endless wave of planes comes at you.
This was done because it is apparently unfair to the CV player as they will be controlling planes.
Boo hoo poor CV player having to multi task a bit after sitting at the back of the map out of harms way all game ruining the gameplay for the rest.

[Jimbomaxi]

Got a survey from WoWs  a couple of Days ago.  The questions was all about what strategies I use when getting attacked from CV-planes. I got the the impression that WOWs think its us players that sucks trying to avoid plane attacks and how to use the AA. However, I Think its good to see that they might be working on something to change the current situation . My suggestion to them was to nerf the CVs totally in randoms and let them have there own server where they can play CV versus CV. 

[steveraptor]

Ok so I just watched Flamus videos that showcases the new KM CVs.

 

Seems that WG tweaked some numbers around and overall the line looks interesting:

 

DB:

 

Don't know how the reticle and drop behavior look like, but number-wise, they seem to be a worse version of IJN DBs.

 

TB:

 

Highest alpha in the game, T6 drops 2x8000 damage, will be pretty fine vs T5-6 BBs since they are sluggish, TB are also fairly fast. However they will probably be useless against anything else.

T-X drop 3x102000.

 

Rockets:

 

Hard to judge at this point since a lot of info is missing, we don't know how the reticle looks like and the rocket dispersion. T-X rockets seem to be AP TiTs.

 

Armor wise:

 

Turtle back armor, Parasval is pretty much immune to citadel hits and Richtofen has BB armor and 50mm ice breaker.

 

Secondaries:

 

Starting from tier 8, 7km secondaries, 7.4km at tier X, GZ 105mm stat wise.

 

I think WG is encouraging more aggressive plays with those CVs, we will see if it ends up a meme or something that is actually viable....

 

Overall, the line looks fresh and different from the rest, which is very nice.

 

Also the plane art looks fantastic, 10/10, especially on Parasval, the planes look AMAZING. big kudos to the art team.

 

 

[Figment]

6 hours ago, Eternus_Damnatio said:

The popularity graphs show they would hardly be missed

Actually statistics apparently show they've become more popular after the rework (in-game pop went up to full queues initially before dropping a bit), likely the long queues due to matchmaker restrictions (only 1 or 2 in 12 allowed) help to reduce their number. It's at least one reason I'm not playing the Langley grind, as you often have 26+ tier IV CVs waiting in queue which makes a relatively long grind for low tiers even worse with a 2-4 minute wait time, so that probably deters a lot of people of going up the tiers. Don't like the lower tier CVs since for some reasons there's no fighter squadron consumeables there to aid ships without AA. On the one tier you would expect this to be useful...

 

In contrast, quick matchmaking can be done on any other class. You can't really argue popularity on the only class that's been significantly numerically restricted by comparing its numbers in game, since it by definition can't ever be more used than other classes and while people are stimulated to take the short queues by default.

 

That ~10+% of the ships used are CV means they're actually reasonably 'popular' (among those that use them). Seeing as they're 1/12th (8.3%) or at most 2/12th (16.6%) of the ships in a match by their matchmaker limitations. It means there's on average a little over one person playing one when a match starts. Either way, it would be impossible for a much larger populace to play CVs without finding themselves in matchmaker limbo constantly. "Hardly missed" seems like an exageration when it is pretty much at by WG intended numbers (one per side per match).

[Eternus_Damnatio]

3 minutes ago, Figment said:

Actually statistics apparently show they've become more popular after the rework (in-game pop went up to full queues initially before dropping a bit), likely the long queues due to matchmaker restrictions (only 1 or 2 in 12 allowed) help to reduce their number. It's at least one reason I'm not playing the Langley grind, as you often have 26+ tier IV CVs waiting in queue which makes a relatively long grind for low tiers even worse with a 2-4 minute wait time, so that probably deters a lot of people of going up the tiers. Don't like the lower tier CVs since for some reasons there's no fighter squadron consumeables there to aid ships without AA. On the one tier you would expect this to be useful...

 

In contrast, quick matchmaking can be done on any other class. You can't really argue popularity on the only class that's been significantly numerically restricted by comparing its numbers in game, since it by definition can't ever be more used than other classes and while people are stimulated to take the short queues by default.

 

That ~10+% of the ships used are CV means they're actually reasonably 'popular' (among those that use them). Seeing as they're 1/12th (8.3%) or at most 2/12th (16.6%) of the ships in a match by their matchmaker limitations. It means there's on average a little over one person playing one when a match starts. Either way, it would be impossible for a much larger populace to play CVs without finding themselves in matchmaker limbo constantly. "Hardly missed" seems like an exageration when it is pretty much at by WG intended numbers (one per side per match).

They became more popular because even a 5yr old could kill s@#t with them.

[Mad_Dog_Dante]

3 hours ago, Eternus_Damnatio said:

They became more popular because even a 5yr old could kill s@#t with them.

I'm also wondering how much of the bell curve in the total CV population is peaking at tier IV, making life miserable for everyone there while thinking 'I am awesome', while all it really is is a lack of AA at that tier.

[AndyHill]

13 hours ago, Figment said:

Though I've also stated I don't feel it's desperately needed to remove it completely as I can deal with it personally and a balance patch reducing some damage and frequency of attacks per sortie for instance would also be good enough for me.

Ok, so since we have established that removal until a not-disastrous implementation can be implemented is fine for both of us and I took a look at your views on entirely different implementations (I'm not going to return to the subject, but I didn't just ignore them) and I don't see major differences there (and we don't have detailed designs to discuss) I think we can concentrate on what we actually have now and if it can be turned into a positive addition to the game.

 

The question I'm wondering is that although you feel that you are dealing with something (and by the descriptions I've read I'm not convinced that you are actually dealing with them very effectively but that's another matter) and thus it's not much of an issue, why should you or anyone else have to deal or cope with a form of attack and recon that is so completely unfair? Why is being able to cope with something like that an argument even if we assume that you are doing effective damage mitigation while not giving up much capability against the other 11 or 10 ships?

13 hours ago, Figment said:

Sorry, but again this is hypocritical. :/

 

Your problems are not with BBs, so you don't need to justify their presence, firepower and capability to roflstomp cruisers with massive capital hit strikes? So by that definition, if someone has no personal qualms with CVs, you don't need to justify them? Is that what you're argueing? I guess this discussion is over then. (Don't use arguments of convenience and apply double standards please...)

No, it's actually quite simple. First of all, this is a CV-specific thread so if you really have problems with BBs (and I'm not saying a case cannot be made), it's probably best done somewhere else. Secondly, my problem (and many others' in this specific thread) is with planes, not ships, so it can not be used as an analogy for removing a class of ships.

13 hours ago, Figment said:

By a few kilometers, I take it you mean being able to get close enough together within the 20-30ish seconds from spotting aircraft on the map heading in your general direction? I mean, if you're closer than that you should assume air strikes. Dispersing and converging is an option for smaller groups. When I do play with my nephew, we do that all the time. Even in BBs. Works quite well. We disperse when the situation allows for it or offers us better angles, but we don't go so far that we can't cover each other or help out if a DD or air strikes. Even if we can kill the aircraft that passed over the other (so not both engage at the same time), we'll ensure that CV (in the current system) is weaker by the next time it comes along and can't do multiple passes. I don't see this as problematic or seriously reducing your tactical options, in fact, I see this as working as intended in the spirit of a teamwork game.

Without greater details all I can say is that this doesn't sound like something that would hamper me very much as a carrier and if by "closer than that (less than 20-30s reaction time) you should assume air strikes" you mean being at the frontlines, I mostly agree. And that's one of the things that make carriers so toxic to the game. Going to the frontlines and engaging the enemy is already dangerous enough and it should be encouraged, not discouraged. 

 

As I said earlier, I've been playing carriers in clan battles, where mostly pretty good players expect to be facing carriers, they prepare for it, they practise for it and they play up to hundreds of battles of it and I haven't seen super-effective anti-carrier tactics from them. I don't know if you have come up with something they haven't, but I'm going to need recordings or something more specific before I'm convinced.

 

Anyway, since we are on the subject of clan wars and we've established that we're talking about the current implementation (with perhaps some minor changes), let's get back to that clan wars thing.

 

For me, the most damning evidence of the carriers' destructive is clan wars and how carriers basically destroyed them up to the point where the best clans are openly protesting (if you've noticed some of the loading screens for certain maps have anti-CV slogans on them because the team that won the season named after the said map decided to change name in protest) against carriers and even contemplating a separate clan wars system without carriers (and any of the juicy rewards you get for playing official clan battles) just so that they can get decent games going.

 

When people in my clan saw the rules for this season (T10, 7 vs 7, only one carrier OR battleship) they asked me what kind of ships would be useful. After a few moments of thinking my hypothesis was "Cruisers with good long range performance, bring lots of Stalins". The reasons for that thinking were

1) Carriers destroy concealment plays, so good concealment isn't worth much

2) Pushing is very hard anyway and with carrier spotting much more so, so the game will be decided at range

3) There is very little room for tactical maneuvers, so the only thing that matters is the ability to shoot at the reds harder than they shoot back

4) AA is at best a secondary concern

 

What I missed was the true value of Venezias ability to quickly dive into its special smoke for cover, but then again my relatively casual group didn't have many of those to begin with. And that's me as a not the most dedicated and esteemed tactician of a fairly casual group of players. As a reminder, this is what the meta turned into at the top (image not mine and unfortunately I don't know who to credit for it):

Spoiler

This is what the epitome of teamwork in carrier battles looks like. The reason there is as much variety as there is in randoms is because there is so little teamplay. If people played the game like it's supposed to be played, they'd sit at range, let the carrier spot and then annihilate everything that gets spotted. That is WoWS played properly in a carrier battle. If you want variety in tactics, teamplay, ship types etc., removal of carriers is the best thing you could hope for.

[Nibenay78]

26 minutes ago, Europizza said:

I'm also wondering how much of the bell curve in the total CV population is peaking at tier IV, making life miserable for everyone there while thinking 'I am awesome', while all it really is is a lack of AA at that tier.

Well when one is overtired and bored, having a run with Hosho makes one feel pro and amazing. Or wait, maybe I'm still crap with CVs, and the ship is just vastly OP? 

Hm wonder which of the two...

[Figment]

4 hours ago, Eternus_Damnatio said:

They became more popular because even a 5yr old could kill s@#t with them.

So what is it, are they popular or aren't they? :)

 

The reason they became more popular is irrelevant (conjecture and speculation, though you're probably right on that one), but if you want to be childish about you either misinterpreting data (you could work at WG!) or getting caught out with a little lie that happened to fit your objective, that's your perogative... Look, you're frustrated and angry, great, but if you're going to lie and whine there's little chance WG will listen to you specifically...

 

But hey. Kids venting at other people is what people on here do...

 

1 hour ago, AndyHill said:

Ok, so since we have established that removal until a not-disastrous implementation can be implemented is fine for both of us and I took a look at your views on entirely different implementations (I'm not going to return to the subject, but I didn't just ignore them) and I don't see major differences there (and we don't have detailed designs to discuss) I think we can concentrate on what we actually have now and if it can be turned into a positive addition to the game.

Cheers. :)

1 hour ago, AndyHill said:

The question I'm wondering is that although you feel that you are dealing with something (and by the descriptions I've read I'm not convinced that you are actually dealing with them very effectively but that's another matter) and thus it's not much of an issue, why should you or anyone else have to deal or cope with a form of attack and recon that is so completely unfair? Why is being able to cope with something like that an argument even if we assume that you are doing effective damage mitigation while not giving up much capability against the other 11 or 10 ships?

Unfairness is in the eye of the beholder tbh. I don't consider it very unfair for a carrier to spot most ships. It gets only unfair when it's units that rely mainly on stealth. And like I've said before, I'm open to nerfing the scouting ability of CVs to make it more different from a DD spotting (giving the DD spotter more of an intel advantage to the side and thus more important than the CV spotter). As said before, I'm fine with there being a jack of all trades in game, as long as it is worse as other units. It can pick up the slack of other units, but shouldn't do better in their role than other units. So even if they'd have attack vector advantage, DPS should IMO be lower: flight time, accuracy, damage output per hit. More emphasis on supporting than on soloing, while taking a bit more of a risk than today. I don't think that's unfair at all.

1 hour ago, AndyHill said:

No, it's actually quite simple. First of all, this is a CV-specific thread so if you really have problems with BBs (and I'm not saying a case cannot be made), it's probably best done somewhere else. Secondly, my problem (and many others' in this specific thread) is with planes, not ships, so it can not be used as an analogy for removing a class of ships.

This is a fallacy. The example showed how subjective and widely applicable and thus easy to turn around your argument was. I also don't have problems with BBs, though just tried the Knyaz Suvorov and the seal clubbing you can do with it is ridiculous (8/9 wins, 1.92K/match), including a lot of DDs almost one shot. CVs only killed me once despite there being one or two in every match but one. Got Kraken twice. Even for seal clubbing to grind a tree that's ridiculous. But hey, Russian ships I guess.

1 hour ago, AndyHill said:

Without greater details all I can say is that this doesn't sound like something that would hamper me very much as a carrier and if by "closer than that (less than 20-30s reaction time) you should assume air strikes" you mean being at the frontlines, I mostly agree. And that's one of the things that make carriers so toxic to the game. Going to the frontlines and engaging the enemy is already dangerous enough and it should be encouraged, not discouraged. 

 

[Clan Wars stuff]

Agree, but if the carrier is likelier to be taken out you can do high risk high reward raids as well. Currently there's very little of that.

 

The CV being closer won't make things worse (particularly not if something is done about the take-off time and line up, it's too quick and simple right now to get the type of aircraft you need the most and not run out of them). Instead, it'll reward aggressive play because it'll risk being taken out. Of course that depends on the map a bit. But even if a CV is central and you make a push on the sides, you might get angles that you currently do not much sooner in the match. Especially if you make CVs less useful against DDs in terms of keeping them spotted early on, let alone constantly. That should make DDs more valuable again.

 

 

 

 

With regards to clan wars, if it's not this setup with a CV, you'll get the same "everyone do the sam" thing with other ships, because the amount of choice at tier X isn't that large and they're not all equal. Every game that has tiering and clan wars of some sort ends up with everyone using pretty much the same setup once it's proven to be more accomodating or flexible regardless of opponent faced and once everyone has that and someone finds a counter to it, everyone adopts that.

 

We had outfit wars in PlanetSide and it had absolutely nothing to do with normal gameplay. Since time was limited and you got access to it, transportation meant fighter aircraft, fighter aircraft, fighter aircraft. We were an amphibic assault, raiding and stealth/sabotage outfit. There was no water on the desert map we played on, so although some stealth ops worked okay, stealth ops take time and are prone to failure. Other outfits were used to dropship attacks (not available during OW) or tank assaults (obliterated by aircav without AA to deal with 20 aircraft out of 30 players). Only outfits with high DPS and all out high air mobility had a chance. So everyone copied the tactic, it was boring as hell. We almost got a win on our own terms though (we broke their base from the inside then rushed their spawns taking everyone out while they were out, then hunted them down one by one), sadly, with 50s to go, the GM teleported all enemy players that were kicked off the map back into their base while they were already wearing heavy Anti-Infantry suits: they saved their base with seconds to go, draw. But that was the second match. All subsequent matches became more and more of the same as it became clear there just wasn't time or resources to do something in any other style.

 

So the stuff you showed me doesn't surprise me at all. I can't expect Clan Wars to be any different, given how WoT (back when the IS-8 was OP due to an armour bug for instance...) and WoWs always been in ranked and CW with people gravitating to default setups. People take the most powerful or flexible equipment they have available in game. Whether it's a CV or something else, that will never change. It's one of the reasons I can't be bothered with CW, though don't have time for clans in general atm. And yes, I agree with your assesment of what tools to use in this case, but I don't see future CW to be much different (in that everyone brings the same ships or combination thereof), even without CV unless each of those ships is so well balanced towards another... And they're just not.

[BLUB__BLUB]

2 hours ago, Europizza said:

I'm also wondering how much of the bell curve in the total CV population is peaking at tier IV, making life miserable for everyone there while thinking 'I am awesome', while all it really is is a lack of AA at that tier.

Well that is easy to see, just count the numbers. At T6 you see a lot less CVs, at T8 they get a bit rare. 

 

[Eternus_Damnatio]

11 minutes ago, Figment said:

So what is it, are they popular or aren't they? :)

 

The reason they became more popular is irrelevant (conjecture and speculation, though you're probably right on that one), but if you want to be childish about you either misinterpreting data (you could work at WG!) or getting caught out with a little lie that happened to fit your objective, that's your perogative... Look, you're frustrated and angry, great, but if you're going to lie and whine there's little chance WG will listen to you specifically...

 

But hey. Kids venting at other people is what people on here do...

Get your facts straight pal I said based on the graphs they are obviously not that popular which is a fact and why they are the least played regardless of MM.
You then said they actually went up in popularity and i gave a reason for it i didn't contradict myself at all do you comprehend the difference because it seems that is above your intellect.
Then you have the cheek to make assumptions about me and call me a liar the old me would probably get a warning here as i would have posted the choice words i am thinking of right now.

Edit - So to clarify for certain double digit IQ people 
Something can be unpopular go up in popularity and still be unpopular 
Feck me having to explain such basics.

[CptBarney]

Well for the new cv we can see where agirs icebreaker went lol.

I wouldn't be surprised if the ap rockets are broken, torps bombers are bad due to poor arming distance (so slow bb only weapon), Dunno about AP bombers.

 

Oh well, lets see how mental these cv's are den.

[AndyHill]

31 minutes ago, Figment said:

Unfairness is in the eye of the beholder tbh. I don't consider it very unfair for a carrier to spot most ships. It gets only unfair when it's units that rely mainly on stealth.

It kind of isn't. Unfairness isn't necessarily easy to measure, but it's usually easy to recognize. And when I spot everything and crab all over everyone (including the not stealthy ships popular in CW), that's just unfair. To the extent that people better at carriering than me have called them a built-in tool for griefing and every time I play carriers it makes me not want to play the game anymore. That's why I have so much time to spend on the forums right now, I'm not actually playing the game.

31 minutes ago, Figment said:

This is a fallacy. The example showed how subjective and widely applicable and thus easy to turn around your argument was.

No, it simply did not. I want to remove planes from a ship game (until they can be implemented in a positive manner), whereas your analogy was about removing ships from a ship game, which is quite simply not the same thing.

31 minutes ago, Figment said:

With regards to clan wars, if it's not this setup with a CV, you'll get the same "everyone do the sam" thing with other ships, because the amount of choice at tier X isn't that large and they're not all equal. Every game that has tiering and clan wars of some sort ends up with everyone using pretty much the same setup once it's proven to be more accomodating or flexible regardless of opponent faced and once everyone has that and someone finds a counter to it, everyone adopts that.

There are about 40 ships at T10 at the moment, that's quite a bit of variety right there. Also your argument completely ignores the facts that this is clan season number 9 (I think) and it's the very first season with carriers in it. We know for an undeniable fact that both the lineups and tactics were far more diverse in the previous seasons (although not every team composition was equal, of course) as they are in KoTS tournaments that are played without carriers. More importantly, we understand the reasoning behind the chosen lineups and tactics - that carriers make concealment pointless, pushing extremely risky and tactical moves challenging in a meta where long range performance dominates all other considerations - and the success of teams at the top and their playstyle proves pretty much without a doubt that designing tactics and lineups on this paradigm produces the best result. Thus, the assumption is very likely to be correct.

 

[Figment]

7 hours ago, Eternus_Damnatio said:

Get your facts straight pal I said based on the graphs they are obviously not that popular which is a fact and why they are the least played regardless of MM.
You then said they actually went up in popularity and i gave a reason for it i didn't contradict myself at all do you comprehend the difference because it seems that is above your intellect.
Then you have the cheek to make assumptions about me and call me a liar the old me would probably get a warning here as i would have posted the choice words i am thinking of right now.

Edit - So to clarify for certain double digit IQ people 
Something can be unpopular go up in popularity and still be unpopular 
Feck me having to explain such basics.

I'd like you to show a graph where a ship that's limited in population can have a larger population of ships that aren't limited...

 

 

Use those braincells of yours and do some maths: it's literally impossible to have a thing that's restricted be more popular in numbers. They almost can't be played more because there's just no space in the matchmaker for them (!). But go on and use those braincells of yours to come up with bannable insults instead... Can't take critique apparently.

[Figment]

7 hours ago, AndyHill said:

It kind of isn't. Unfairness isn't necessarily easy to measure, but it's usually easy to recognize. And when I spot everything and crab all over everyone (including the not stealthy ships popular in CW), that's just unfair.

Thing is, you're basically always talking about a tier X CV (which has a pretty dense torp drop as well that's harder to dodge than the two dropped by a tier VI).

 

So what is your opinion on say... a tier VI CV in a Tier VIII battle in tems of fairness?

[Eternus_Damnatio]

1 hour ago, Figment said:

I'd like you to show a graph where a ship that's limited in population can have a larger population of ships that aren't limited...

 

 

Use those braincells of yours and do some maths: it's literally impossible to have a thing that's restricted be more popular in numbers. They almost can't be played more because there's just no space in the matchmaker for them (!). But go on and use those braincells of yours to come up with bannable insults instead... Can't take critique apparently.

Those Graphs show that CV's currently do not even make up 10% of the playerbase which means they are not even maxing out the available slots if they were every game played would have 2 CV's.
So who doesn't understand maths ? and you seem to struggle with English too go back to school kid.
And as for bannable insults you wanna check yourself the only reason i responded like that was because of insults flung by you all because you can't comprehend basics.
Insult me and give me attitude and i will give it back simple isn't it.

Edit- Forgot to add the majority of those CV's are also at tier 4 seal clubbing where there is no real counter to them.

[AndyHill]

1 hour ago, Figment said:

So what is your opinion on say... a tier VI CV in a Tier VIII battle in tems of fairness?

The unfairness doesn't arise so much from the carriers' OPness, but their way of spotting everything and attacking stuff without taking risks and even in a T6 battles they can still do that. That's why it's not really a balancing issue. Someone who plays more T6 can probably tell you more about how hard is it for the carrier to do stuff there. What I do know is that for T6 surface ships, T8 is typically a pretty unforgiving environment.

 

Torpedo spread isn't a very important factor, though, Hakus main threat (in addition to spotting) is its devastating AP bomb volley and Midway is more likely to burn you to death with tits and bombs, although I guess after the somewhat odd buff to its torpedoes those are pretty good too. 

 

Any comments about the clan wars stuff?

[Murqy]

The leadership of WG makes me think of the Soviet leadership during the Chernobyl-crisis. It doesn’t matter that the reactor has exploded and the roof is gone, since the leadership thinks it can just decide whether it happened or not.

 

“You don’t dislike the games where carriers are present, because our spreadsheets are telling us that you’re actually having fun…”

 

WG, seriously. Have a poll, ask the players what the majority actually wants and stop with this rusted, corrupted backwards kind of leadership. It was retarded when it came to Chernobyl and just made things worse, and in the end everyone knew about it anyway. Here you have a chance to get on top of the problem when you still have the chance. Use your devoted playerbase who loves this game and wants to improve it. FFS everything is handed to you, all you need to do is listen.

 

Or make the train go downhill, have your players flee to other gamedevelopers with only contempt left for you...

[RepSrb]

Ofcourse t4 cv is going to be overpowered, thats how they get new players for the graph...

new players get bad slow ships in bbs and some cruisers and dds so they choose cv to dominate. thats how they get most new players playing for cv category and show off graphs showing success.

they wanted to make good players bad and bad players solid in the rework. seriously how you do that?? contradiction to the max. that just shows they have no clue and rework was doomed from the start.

[BLUB__BLUB]

9 hours ago, Eternus_Damnatio said:

Those Graphs show that CV's currently do not even make up 10% of the playerbase which means they are not even maxing out the available slots if they were every game played would have 2 CV's.

You forget that a CV usually survives the whole game.

Meanwhile, I can do 4 games in a CL/DD where I get blapped within first 5 minutes.

So basically, you'll need a LOT more CV players... 

 

9 hours ago, Eternus_Damnatio said:

So who doesn't understand maths ? and you seem to struggle with English too go back to school kid.

Well, as math goes: rubbish in = rubbish out. 

As for English, it isn't everyones first language here, mate. 

 

9 hours ago, Eternus_Damnatio said:

Edit- Forgot to add the majority of those CV's are also at tier 4 seal clubbing where there is no real counter to them.

True. Those CVs could face T5 though, LOL. OK they also could get T3. Even worse.

At T6 it starts to get a bit harder. At T8 if all you can do is kill DDs you'll bleed credits.

At T10... you need ~100k damage to break even. 

 

8 hours ago, AndyHill said:

The unfairness doesn't arise so much from the carriers' OPness, but their way of spotting everything and attacking stuff without taking risks and even in a T6 battles they can still do that. That's why it's not really a balancing issue. Someone who plays more T6 can probably tell you more about how hard is it for the carrier to do stuff there. What I do know is that for T6 surface ships, T8 is typically a pretty unforgiving environment.

At T6 it is not that hard, though a potato will fail. You have to be good or lucky to get >50%WR. 

Because at that tier CV doesn't have the power to carry. Unless you are very good. 

 

8 hours ago, AndyHill said:

Torpedo spread isn't a very important factor, though, Hakus main threat (in addition to spotting) is its devastating AP bomb volley and Midway is more likely to burn you to death with tits and bombs, although I guess after the somewhat odd buff to its torpedoes those are pretty good too. 

It is in some CVs. Must say they did make them different enough, each one requires something different.

There's even CVs that you can't kill DDs very much, in mid-tiers. 

 

8 hours ago, AndyHill said:

Any comments about the clan wars stuff?

Yeah even though I do play CV and am quite savvy, I stil think it is sick.

I haven;t been playing much these CB and that is the reason for it. 

[Eternus_Damnatio]

33 minutes ago, BLUB__BLUB said:

You forget that a CV usually survives the whole game.

Meanwhile, I can do 4 games in a CL/DD where I get blapped within first 5 minutes.

So basically, you'll need a LOT more CV players... 

But there are not a lot more CV players are there that is the point they make up about 8% of players and do not even max out slots available to them as it is.
Not sure what point you are making here it just emphasizes what i have said already i never forgot anything.

 

33 minutes ago, BLUB__BLUB said:

Well, as math goes: rubbish in = rubbish out. 

As for English, it isn't everyones first language here, mate. 

Yes i know and agree now if he hadn't insulted me there would have been no issue it was his lack of understanding so to attack someone the way he did was bang out of order and shows the sort of person he is.
Don't know about you but i don't react well to being insulted especially when it is down to their own lack of understanding in the first place.
If understanding the English language is an issue for him then he should ask for clarification not start flinging insults.
Go back through this page and you can read the rest yourself.

  18 hours ago, Figment said:

So what is it, are they popular or aren't they? :)

 

The reason they became more popular is irrelevant (conjecture and speculation, though you're probably right on that one), but if you want to be childish about you either misinterpreting data (you could work at WG!) or getting caught out with a little lie that happened to fit your objective, that's your perogative... Look, you're frustrated and angry, great, but if you're going to lie and whine there's little chance WG will listen to you specifically...

 

But hey. Kids venting at other people is what people on here do...

 

33 minutes ago, BLUB__BLUB said:

True. Those CVs could face T5 though, LOL. OK they also could get T3. Even worse.

At T6 it starts to get a bit harder. At T8 if all you can do is kill DDs you'll bleed credits.

At T10... you need ~100k damage to break even. 

My point was more about the fact that after all this time CV's are still not balanced they are a failed project.