General CV related discussions.

[159Hunter]

35 minutes ago, 1MajorKoenig said:

- percentage of CVs among all ships in all games in randoms. Would be nice as you can directly apply this to game situations since we know how many ships are on one team. Plus I would exclude T4 as this tier is kind of problematic 

 

- alternatively could look at how many players are playing CVs in any given week among other ships. Meaning is different but nevertheless an interesting indicator.

Of these two the second one is a better indication of the popularity of a class. A popular class is played by many for some games, not by a few playing many games.

And, we also need to look at the amount of players per tier, to show if ppl are (as you are indicating inderictly) abusing tier IV, or if they are actually progressing down the lines (which for WG is the most important as grinding lines = money for them).

[BLUB__BLUB]

1 hour ago, 1MajorKoenig said:

Don’t get me wrong I am interested in these numbers.

I know you are. But don't slag the guy because he is right. 

If you look at it ä certain way" (in absolute numbers), WG is right: the Reeework is a success.

We have an increase of 50-100%. But ONLY if you do not look at what tiers they play...

 

 

1 hour ago, 1MajorKoenig said:

But I haven’t really seen a consensus on what KPI we should compare as the best discussion basis. I mean throwing around or comparing percentages is only useful or going anywhere if we all talk about the same kind of percentage.

Well I think we all agree these numbers are quite meaningless if you can have 4-6 CVs in one game at T4.

Considering there's just T6, T8 and T10 after that, it would count for almost half. 

 

1 hour ago, 1MajorKoenig said:

But to be a bit constructive I would suggest to either look at:

 

- percentage of CVs among all ships in all games in randoms. Would be nice as you can directly apply this to game situations since we know how many ships are on one team. Plus I would exclude T4 as this tier is kind of problematic 

 

- alternatively could look at how many players are playing CVs in any given week among other ships. Meaning is different but nevertheless an interesting indicator.

 

I would probably settle on of these two to try to make the question “are these things popular” a little more tangible 

I would NOT excluse T4, but want to know exactly which CVs are in game. 

Then put them in a nice graph. to see where these things are popular.

Because (I think you think the same...) I suspect most are at T4, and less at T6, even less at T8...

 

I have only empirical evidence... it is because many times when we have a "shoot down X-number planes" missions, 

my clanmates ask me to div up with them in a T6-8-10 CV. Else they don;t get a CV in game and can't do the missions. 

And over half of the T6/T7 games I play when not in CV, there is no CV on the other side... 

 

And I know why, or at least I think I do. At T6 you can break even with killing DDs and then doing some other stuff. 35K will do.

But at T8 you bleed credits if you don't make 45-50K. And at T10, better do 75 or more. You cannot do that just blapping CVs.

Here's an example: 

 

Spoiler

 

Now, as you see there's 2 things:

- I did well over 100K;

- ...and we won. 

Disregarding modifiers (premium time, camo, flags) this gave me 240K credits.

But the service-cost is 201k. Means I would have made 40K credits. 

I think for Hakuryu it is about 90K on a win, else you lose credits. 

 

And this is why you do not see many CVs anymore in the higher tiers. 

The average damage done doesn't make any worthwhile credits. 

At T8 the average damage is 50-60K. I think you lose credits on that. 

I'm quite sure you lose credits on a lost game. 

[Figment]

Yeah, the currency discouragement is rather significant. Ever done high tier artillery in WoT without premium? It's a huge, HUGE currency loss by design. WG prefers people to play higher mid tiers to ensure there's enough population in the lower tiers, while encouraging people to buy premium. If you compare to how much a scout earns per match, it's rather unfair. That or they forgot to change payout rules after the major artillery nerf. Which somehow wouldn't surprise me either.

 

 

 

Btw, 3 CVs in a division in sub tests, that because it's PvE, old MM rules allowing more freedom, or because they wanted to test how well CVs match up against subs?

[Figment]

1 hour ago, 159Hunter said:

Of these two the second one is a better indication of the popularity of a class. A popular class is played by many for some games, not by a few playing many games.

And, we also need to look at the amount of players per tier, to show if ppl are (as you are indicating inderictly) abusing tier IV, or if they are actually progressing down the lines (which for WG is the most important as grinding lines = money for them).

The amount of battles times their average XP should tell you if people stick to a tier very long. Could be people who use it as a free exp generator even. Don't know the numbers, but it'd surprise me given how much time you have to spend per match and in the queue. Doesn't seem worthwhile compared to some quick DD earning.

[ThePopesHolyFinger]

On 5/16/2020 at 11:23 PM, Figment said:

 whereas it is the excessive combination of boons that makes them rather dominant in matches (still beatable, but dominant nevertheless. The fact that they're beatable though means they can be balanced further by imposing restrictions on them).

 

 

Wtf are boons, and why are they "rather dominant"?
 

[AndyHill]

I did some simple illustrations for the limited range thought experiment. The ship is a non-CE Stalin, so the range circles are at 12, 15.8 and 20.4km. I have parked the ship in a fairly aggressive location, but at least these are feasible. From this kind of a location I have full control of the center of the map with 12km or 15km range and at 20km only the far west flank or the most dedicated campers are safe. AFAIK the map is as big as they come, certainly not small. Midway / Hakuryu spotting range without modifiers is about the same as in these pictures, with a CE captain it's 13.7km or 13.8km.

 

On a map that doesn't allow for cheeky island hugs, most of the frontline is easy to reach and just about any attempts to push to the green side of the map are easily accessible at 20km range, 15km should give you reach to the center of the map relatively easily and 12km can get a bit hairy without cover, since it's within your spotting distance. At lower tiers spotting distances and maps are both smaller and plane speeds lower, so all in all they should be somewhat comparable, but not directly equivalent.

 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

[BLUB__BLUB]

2 hours ago, Figment said:

Btw, 3 CVs in a division in sub tests, that because it's PvE, old MM rules allowing more freedom, or because they wanted to test how well CVs match up against subs?

I dunno. I guess they forgot to think about numbskulls trying that kind of crap. 

BTW it was PvP, both sides had subs and ships and CVs. Lots of b0t-fillers though. 

CVs did work well against subs, I got 4 of them in Furious. 

I think Ark Royal will do even better. Well actually that is because I'm kinda spamming that...

Furious is really the better CV. But I like a challenge.

[Murqy]

Can we just have the option to NOT play against carreris? And the people who enjoy this can have their fun alone and the majority who is here to play ships in a slow pace strategy game can finally get the fun back?

 

Someone made a comparison here to chess and that the CV is supposed to be the queen of the board. Yea, F***ING sure. If the queen can somehow levitate over the board like the horse (but with no restrictions) and her presence makes the other chess pieces for some reason get new strike angles and not have to wait for their turn. This is the most unbalanced, unfun, frustrating garbage I’ve seen in a game. WG clearly doesn’t understand what makes their game fun and something worth spending time on. I have supported this company a lot (as in, im truly a customer that WG wants to keep), and I would keep supporting it if it still was fun. WG is not going to get a single coin from me anymore. I'm so disappointed that something that was so good has been destoyed.

 

 

[159Hunter]

13 hours ago, Figment said:

The amount of battles times their average XP should tell you if people stick to a tier very long. Could be people who use it as a free exp generator even. Don't know the numbers, but it'd surprise me given how much time you have to spend per match and in the queue. Doesn't seem worthwhile compared to some quick DD earning.

Why on earth would you use tier IV as free XP generator? You just use that to boost WR stats.

[AndyHill]

What happens nowadays if you're a carrier and wait 5 minutes for a game? In RTS times it was a general rule to stop queueing if the timer approached 5min, since when you got over 5 and had another carrier to play against, the match would start completely regardless of what else was ready. I got some very interesting matches when the red carrier didn't follow that rule. At least I got to do a full sweep, killing both red ships in one battle.

 

So what happens now if there are hordes of carriers waiting for a game? If they're patient enough, will they get a game regardless as long as carriers match up? Are the T4 clubbers playing hordes of 2v2 CV battles or do they just wait forever?

[Figment]

12 hours ago, DB2212 said:

Wtf are boons, and why are they "rather dominant"?

Upsides. Or as the dictionary says a boon is a "thing that is helpful or beneficial" (in this case the benefits to the class of CV while you're playing a CV). It's the combination of attributed design elements and features that allow the CV to become dominant, rather than say a support class.

 

What I've been saying is that the class needs a rework and balancing, but that it is too strong for the jack of all trades that it is. A jack of all trades should be able to do a lot of things, but be worse at it than other classes that specialise in something (which doesn't mean they can't do something special others can't, but that special bit needs to be off-set in a power trade-off of sorts).

 

If for instance you'd have spotting, but little to no damage per second and not too great alpha striking power, you could still aid your team siginficantly on a strategic level as intelligence gatherer and damage multiplier or mitigator, but you'd be a lot less dominant in deciding the outcome, because you could do it all on your own. It wouldn't bother me if a CV couldn't on his own take out a ship in a few strikes. In fact, I'd say it would have to be a consistent campaign to do so. The example given earlier about bombs dealing 10s of thousands of hp damage is completely different from that strike being at a third damage potential, since that would mean you'd require three more strikes (three more strikes to lose aircraft, three times as much time spend flying) to do the same damage. If you can't be the main damage dealer, the role shifts more towards intelligence gathering and support. It also opens you up toa lot easier attack runs when you have to defend yourself and you're not exactly effective at that.

 

In the current design, CVs can defend themselves and take on ships alone, while a lot of players don't cooperate well enough to make that at least harder to do as intended, or because AA ships are lost (which IMO is a fair strategy: creating vulnerabilities within enemy ranks to exploit as a team).

 

23 minutes ago, 159Hunter said:

Why on earth would you use tier IV as free XP generator? You just use that to boost WR stats.

If the argument is that they can't do so well on other tiers (as some people have said) that they opt for seal clubbing, then it makes it possible for that as well.

 

As far as WR stats are concerned, that can't be the main reason for bad players, since just playing a CV can't raise your winrate. You'd have to be better than enemy CV players consistently. And from the looks of it, CVs don't have higher winrates per definition unless the player does well elsewhere (or is really, really crap in other things that something close to 50% ups your WR).

 

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

 

Average winrate for CVs is close to 50% (and if you tally all CV scores should result in exactly 50% given the matchmaker rules). DD's, cruisers and BBs have all higher WR. So playing CV's to up WR makes little sense. If players are already good, they'll get a higher WR maybe, but it's questionable how much higher from their average since again, it's mostly a comparison to how poorly other CV captains do.

 

In fact, the highest WR for CVs are without exception for CVs prior to the rework (because between the types of CV at the same tier the balance was rather poor).

 

[Figment]

4 minutes ago, AndyHill said:

What happens nowadays if you're a carrier and wait 5 minutes for a game? In RTS times it was a general rule to stop queueing if the timer approached 5min, since when you got over 5 and had another carrier to play against, the match would start completely regardless of what else was ready. I got some very interesting matches when the red carrier didn't follow that rule. At least I got to do a full sweep, killing both red ships in one battle.

 

So what happens now if there are hordes of carriers waiting for a game? If they're patient enough, will they get a game regardless as long as carriers match up? Are the T4 clubbers playing hordes of 2v2 CV battles or do they just wait forever?

I still have to grind the Langley and some other new cruisers/BBs, and unless there's tier 3s involved, it's almost always two CVs at tier 4-5. Think most match ups take about 2-4 minutes, but sometimes I see drops of 8-10 carriers at once (while amount of DDs/Cruisers and BBs stays similar), which I assume means it is just people leaving the queue since the MM is hardcoded not to allow more than two CVs.

[Figment]

12 hours ago, AndyHill said:

I did some simple illustrations for the limited range thought experiment. The ship is a non-CE Stalin, so the range circles are at 12, 15.8 and 20.4km. I have parked the ship in a fairly aggressive location, but at least these are feasible. From this kind of a location I have full control of the center of the map with 12km or 15km range and at 20km only the far west flank or the most dedicated campers are safe. AFAIK the map is as big as they come, certainly not small. Midway / Hakuryu spotting range without modifiers is about the same as in these pictures, with a CE captain it's 13.7km or 13.8km.

 

On a map that doesn't allow for cheeky island hugs, most of the frontline is easy to reach and just about any attempts to push to the green side of the map are easily accessible at 20km range, 15km should give you reach to the center of the map relatively easily and 12km can get a bit hairy without cover, since it's within your spotting distance. At lower tiers spotting distances and maps are both smaller and plane speeds lower, so all in all they should be somewhat comparable, but not directly equivalent.

 

  Hide contents

 

  Hide contents

 

Aye. Flights of course won't be following entirely straight lines most the time if they're still searching for a target and often have to loiter for a bit to find a good opening for an attack (unless they already know the target's position, angle and timed the attack to coincide with a good opportunity, rather than having to fly around the target to line up their run. This is all circumstantial, but provides openings for both offensive and defensive counterplay. During the RTS period, I'd often force CVs to line up their aircraft again, putting them longer in my AA bubble than they wanted to be. This would become a bit more viable if getting that attack run right as you only get one opportunity is more important.

 

Today what I see a lot is aircraft flying from one side of the map and back before even selecting a target. Just spotting for the sake of spotting. The difference in the above situation is you would be more limited in target selection (rather than pure reach). You'd have to know where it is and go for that objective if you don't have a lot of loiter time and need fuel for the return trip. A lot of flights which today would end up in an attack might be used for spotting and a second wave for attack (where the first wave gave you an idea of whereabouts you'd have to go for your target). But that first flight might just have to be aborted early to make sure the air get home safely (or dropped on nearest target to at least have done an attack and not waste too much DPS) due to the target being surrounded by too much AA or getting the right attack vector would take too long.

 

As such, it's not just being able to theoretically reach a target (circular max reach), it includes getting into a position on the right target, which makes your path more irregular and effectively shortens the max range a bit. That different path includes avoiding AA bubbles. And in most cases, ensure you're getting enough aircraft back to not fly inferior squadrons.

 

You'd have to pick an attack vector sooner than today, where today picking the best attack vector is usualy an option. Some ships within that circle might actually be out of reach for a proper attack because of it.

 

The CV is also a lot closer to the frontline, so if a DD breaks through somewhere, there's far less buffer miles to protect the CV. CVs today often are located at the more remote islands. In the images above, it's also easier to get a shot on the CV if you worked a flank as BBs and broke through. For instance, breaking through to F2-F3 with say a Kongo or Colorado would already provide an angle in conjunction with a spotter (could be your CV doing the spotting for you, could be a CV once spotted remains visible longer than other ships would and/or easier to spot from a distance, which I'd say should be done anyway given the current CV spotting ranges are ridiculously low for their size).


Of course if return fuel is not hard coded (as in your flight time is simply running out), a CV player could opt to attack outside of that range, but then they'd definitely lose their entire squadron. Against some targets they might expect to lose these anyway, so they'd be willing to do so, but they shouldn't be able to keep that up. And if it's not worthwhile in terms of inflicted damage and loss rate in regular attacks, I'd imagine most would opt out of doing that too often unless it's a really high priority target.

Mind, if a ship is sailing away from a squadron their return flight gets dynamically longer, so it would effectively slowly reduce their range a bit as well, lest they lose the squadrons. Fuel management could make a huge impact in that sense.

[AndyHill]

So, what kind of a range are you thinking about (for a high tier CV)?

 

When I'm in a carrier the straightest and fastest path to the best target is already an important consideration, because I need to max out my damage output. Squadrons are already regularly throwaways, that's why they are shortened before attacks into heavy AA concentrations - and that's why shooting down planes is so negligible as counterplay. The carrier isn't expecting many to come back to begin with. I'd say that the vast majority of the time when I launch I know what and where I'm going to attack (I need to select the plane type at launch), so that wouldn't change very much either.

 

The most important question still remains; what makes the range-limited carrier turn into something positive for the game instead of just being less bad?

[Pikkozoikum]

13 hours ago, BLUB__BLUB said:

CVs did work well against subs, I got 4 of them in Furious. 

Only against sub players, who don't know how to dive. I mean I got kills on sub with Fuso, but I wouldn't say, that Fuso is op against subs^^

When I played Sub on PTS, no CV did any dmg to me, beacuse a Sub can dive and react always faster, than the CV

[Figment]

11 hours ago, Murqy said:

Can we just have the option to NOT play against carreris? And the people who enjoy this can have their fun alone and the majority who is here to play ships in a slow pace strategy game can finally get the fun back?

Splitting pops across game modes is rarely good for a PvP game. It could (if all else fails) still be a PvE unit, but that too would be a nuclear option.

11 hours ago, Murqy said:

Someone made a comparison here to chess and that the CV is supposed to be the queen of the board. Yea, F***ING sure. If the queen can somehow levitate over the board like the horse (but with no restrictions) and her presence makes the other chess pieces for some reason get new strike angles and not have to wait for their turn. This is the most unbalanced, unfun, frustrating garbage I’ve seen in a game. WG clearly doesn’t understand what makes their game fun and something worth spending time on. I have supported this company a lot (as in, im truly a customer that WG wants to keep), and I would keep supporting it if it still was fun. WG is not going to get a single coin from me anymore. I'm so disappointed that something that was so good has been destoyed.

The point made regarding the chess pieces that not all rules need to be the same to be part of the same game (this was more part of a semnatics discussion about what unit rules entail).

 

Another point made by that same person is that a unit that can do more in a PvP game should be restricted in other ways, for example by not being able to do other things (well). Especially if they're able to do something other units cannot, they should make a trade-off in being relatively less good at things other units specialise in and get some sort of blind spot or weakness to exploit by others.

 

So if we'd have a queen in this game and we'd stick to the chess analogy, it'd be a queen that'd require multiple turns to take out any other unit to compensate for its increased movement capabilities in comparison to a tower or bishop.

[thisismalacoda]

Vor 2 Stunden, Figment sagte:

 

Average winrate for CVs is close to 50% (and if you tally all CV scores should result in exactly 50% given the matchmaker rules). DD's, cruisers and BBs have all higher WR. 

[Figment]

1 hour ago, AndyHill said:

So, what kind of a range are you thinking about (for a high tier CV)? [1]

 

When I'm in a carrier the straightest and fastest path to the best target is already an important consideration, because I need to max out my damage output. Squadrons are already regularly throwaways, that's why they are shortened before attacks into heavy AA concentrations - and that's why shooting down planes is so negligible as counterplay. The carrier isn't expecting many to come back to begin with. I'd say that the vast majority of the time when I launch I know what and where I'm going to attack (I need to select the plane type at launch), so that wouldn't change very much either. [2]

 

The most important question still remains; what makes the range-limited carrier turn into something positive for the game instead of just being less bad? [3]

[1] Depends, seems like a fine-tuning thing and dependent on exact combination of mechanics. Let's start with the return flight, is the return flight:

1. Controlled by the player in path and timing?
2. Does it return home automatically unless a non-abortable attack has already been initiated?
3. Will it return home at high altitude by a straight line impervious to AA (as they do today)
4. Can it be made into a straight return flight line by cancelling control over the aircraft (like you can now)?
5. Do you need to submit a flight plan of X km where you have minimal control once airborne?

 

Do weather effects have influence on speed and fuel rate? (wind for instance - and if so, to what degree?).

Does the return flight calculate any likely new position of the carrier or does the player have to guess if the aircraft can make it home?

 

What is the reload, launch and turn-around speed of aircraft squadrons? What's the launching order (do you have to set it)? How many aircraft do you have and go up in each flight? How many aircraft drop their payloads per sortie?

 

 

What is the effect we desire to have? What's an attack you're willing to accept as fair?

 

 

I'd say (wet finger number) the max "logistically safeish"  semi-effective range ought to be 20-25km on the largest of maps (making effective range in the order of 15-20km), but for smaller maps, 13-17km flight path + (including) 2km loiter should more than suffice. I don't need flight distances to be historic to be in game, rather it shouldn't be too far from the front. It should mean the further out from a CV you are, the less influence it can have, the less time there is to plan an attack, the less long it can spot you. I'd rather sorties not take minutes on end. Getting the CV in range from when it can engage you is probably one of the main things to determine. When is it acceptable?

 

It's not just a range we're setting here, it's range in conjunction with a lot of other design choices and compared to other unit's capabilities (like how fast they can practically close in on a CV in hiding). If I yell range X, it might mean very little or can be argued to be too powerful or too restricted depending on the overall design scenario someone else has in mind.

 

 

 

[2] What do you mean by shortened btw? I take it you mean a shortened path towards a ship covered by a dense AA bubble, possibly resulting in a higher miss rate, rather than first outlining the attack optimal w.r.t. the targeted ship?

 

How many aircraft the carrier expects to come back and is willing to expend is largely determined by the return value of throwing them away and the reserve/replenishment rate. Today you might do 0-20K damage in a single run (depending on tier, RNG etc.). So could well be worth it to throw those aircraft away and wait for them to replenish at a reasonably fast rate. What if it's 0-12K and it takes 3 minutes before you can torp something again? Is the hit on your DPS still worth it? Would you still throw them away? How many aircraft do you have anyway and how quickly are they replenished in squadrons and when does replenishing of aircraft on deck start?

 

 

[3] Could you first define positive influence? Because this would be a rather subjective and personal definition (there's no objective standard that's equal for all players, see how some players react to the presence of heavy hitting or faster than realistic turning BBs, cruisers with hydro / radar, torpedoes in general, etc.). If you don't want a positive to be defineable, you could make it undefineable as such.

 

30 minutes ago, thisismalacoda said:

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

Their dominance in a match compared to other classes is not necessarily WR related as one or two CV players HAVE to lose (outside of a draw), so a bad player will not improve their WR by much. Unless maybe if it's usualy far below 50% and there's a smaller difference in extremes of the bell curve here.

 

A bad player might deal more damage than they're used to doing (simply because they're staying alive longer), but simply dealing more damage doesn't need to result in a higher WR if the other CV deals the same amount of damage or more, or to higher priority targets. So while it might be used to boost certain stats, I doubt WR is the main reason, unless they're simply a lot better than other CV players. So suggesting they primarily do it just to up WR (while it's also been suggested it's mosly bad players playing them 'because it's so simple'), rather than say upping their overall K/D or Damage/Match stats, or because it earns them more silver because normally they'd die faster and thus deal less damage. I'd doubt that.

 

There's ample reason to sealclub, but I very much doubt it's WR in this particular case.

[Figment]

1 hour ago, thisismalacoda said:

https://wows-numbers.com/ship/4185896944,Langley/?order=battles__desc#leaderboard

Look at the people playing these ships the most.

 

The fast majority of people with high winrates havn't played more than 20-30 battles with the Langley, with just a few exceptions per page who played over 30 battles in the high winrates or overall. If you look at those who played hundreds and hundreds of battles though, WR is a huge mixed bag. A lot of the people who play a lot of CV at tier IV seem to even have worse WR than their average WR and are actually undermining their own stats by playing them (obviously not true for all).

 

So it seems those people just enjoy it for some other reason than WR.

[Murqy]

2 hours ago, Figment said:

Splitting pops across game modes is rarely good for a PvP game. It could (if all else fails) still be a PvE unit, but that too would be a nuclear option.

The point made regarding the chess pieces that not all rules need to be the same to be part of the same game (this was more part of a semnatics discussion about what unit rules entail).

 

Another point made by that same person is that a unit that can do more in a PvP game should be restricted in other ways, for example by not being able to do other things (well). Especially if they're able to do something other units cannot, they should make a trade-off in being relatively less good at things other units specialise in and get some sort of blind spot or weakness to exploit by others.

 

So if we'd have a queen in this game and we'd stick to the chess analogy, it'd be a queen that'd require multiple turns to take out any other unit to compensate for its increased movement capabilities in comparison to a tower or bishop.

If WG insist of having the CV:s in the game, a split is the only option. I'm not going to waste my time (and I speak for many others) having my concealment blown when I need it the most in interesting engagements just because an unbalanced airborne parasite feels the need to be everywhere and harsass and destroy the game of others. With concealment lost, so much potential of this game goes up in smoke. DDs for example (why you should pick one instead of a CA) trades amor, hitpoints, gunrange, penetratation, heals for this extra km:s of concealent. For what, if there is a cv present? Torps? Go with mino, zao or yoshino then....

 

About the chesspiece, if u had a class that was fast as a DD, armor as a BB, consumables as a CA all at the same time then the queen comparison is legit. Now CV is faster than anything by far, always parked away from any action with unlimited range hence also by far best defense (since it can strike without revealing itself) , the consumable of radars is pathetic compared to CV presence and the fighterplane that is always used as a hot airbaloon spotting platform. 

 

In chess then queen is bishop and rook combinded (only exceeding them with not having their individual limitations, not extra strenghts). The queen doesnt come with any weakness so I dont get what you are talking about. She is the best piece, but not op. In WOWs the CV (queen)  would be equal to DDx 6 ( speed x 6), Submarine x  2 (all dimensions available), Knight X 64 (since CV can jump over anything without having to touch the board at all, something any other ship cant do in WOWs unlike the knight), spectre mode (since CV can strike without actually going anywhere with the hull, where the queen always risks herself), BBx4 (in survivalrate) with stealthfire capabilities and torps.

 

My point is that CV:s is so ridiculously op that the chess comparison falls apart completely, and it feels you just want to turn it into a form of definitions as math equations. Turn it around, try introducing a chesspiece with all the bs I mentioned above and see if anyone would find that game fun. The game would be more about playing around that single chesspiece rather than to win the game, which happens when something is broken and op and makes everything else obsolete.

 

One can argue that the CV were OP in real life, but that was just before radarguided AA-turrets and anti ship missiles were introduced.

[BLUB__BLUB]

4 hours ago, Pikkozoikum said:

Only against sub players, who don't know how to dive. I mean I got kills on sub with Fuso, but I wouldn't say, that Fuso is op against subs^^

When I played Sub on PTS, no CV did any dmg to me, beacuse a Sub can dive and react always faster, than the CV

I got 4 in one game... 

 

Yes they probably were stupid and I was kinda savvy. 

I'dnot say a sub canreact faster than a CV. Because "planing ahead" is a thing. 

I also got three in one game with Queen Elizabeth. Usually just one or two though. 

And other surface ships bothered me more than the subs. 

[BLUB__BLUB]

1 hour ago, Figment said:

So it seems those people just enjoy it for some other reason than WR.

[AndyHill]

1 hour ago, Figment said:

[1] Depends, seems like a fine-tuning thing and dependent on exact combination of mechanics. Let's start with the return flight, is the return flight:

1. Controlled by the player in path and timing?
2. Does it return home automatically unless a non-abortable attack has already been initiated?
3. Will it return home at high altitude by a straight line impervious to AA (as they do today)
4. Can it be made into a straight return flight line by cancelling control over the aircraft (like you can now)?
5. Do you need to submit a flight plan of X km where you have minimal control once airborne?

To answer this properly we'd have to start from some kind of a declaration of intent for the design, defining who we are designing this to and what the goals are. Without one I'm basing my reply on a reasonable design that WG would be likely to implement (they dislike any complicated stuff with passion). Return flight is automatic as it is now (flying back was considered too boring by WG and rejected outright) and it will be impervious during the return leg (only possibility, imagine carrier AI maneuvering your planes home) and can be sent back home manually (you need to be able to switch bomber types fast without running out of fuel or spending all attacks). If it's possible to suicide, it needs to be a clear choice - like boosting through automatic return warning.

 

Flight plan in general is an interesting design element often used in strategy games to model command inertia. I don't see WG implementing something like that, but I don't really see a clear design advantage for one, either, though it might be interesting to hear if you have something in mind.

1 hour ago, Figment said:

Do weather effects have influence on speed and fuel rate? (wind for instance - and if so, to what degree?).

Does the return flight calculate any likely new position of the carrier or does the player have to guess if the aircraft can make it home?

The return will be automatic and automatically returning planes will make it home safely. As for weather, I don't know. In WG's designs weather has always favored planes even though logically it should be exactly the opposite. So probably no.

1 hour ago, Figment said:

What is the reload, launch and turn-around speed of aircraft squadrons? What's the launching order (do you have to set it)? How many aircraft do you have and go up in each flight? How many aircraft drop their payloads per sortie?

I don't know. Probably something in the region of what it is now, since the current design is based on the overriding principle of "not being too boring" according to WG.

1 hour ago, Figment said:

What is the effect we desire to have? What's an attack you're willing to accept as fair?

Well this is the real deal, isn't it? How much damage can a unit that can strike anything anywhere (where it matters) anytime do and still be considered balanced? I can't come up with a number above zero. Also I have never claimed that there is a place in the game for carriers, actually  I'm pretty convinced that there isn't. This is something that needs to be answered by someone who actually thinks that carriers should be in the game and has an idea of what kind of a positive impact they might have.

2 hours ago, Figment said:

I'd say (wet finger number) the max "logistically safeish"  semi-effective range ought to be 20-25km on the largest of maps (making effective range in the order of 15-20km), but for smaller maps, 13-17km flight path + (including) 2km loiter should more than suffice. I don't need flight distances to be historic to be in game, rather it shouldn't be too far from the front. It should mean the further out from a CV you are, the less influence it can have, the less time there is to plan an attack, the less long it can spot you. I'd rather sorties not take minutes on end. Getting the CV in range from when it can engage you is probably one of the main things to determine. When is it acceptable?

 

It's not just a range we're setting here, it's range in conjunction with a lot of other design choices and compared to other unit's capabilities (like how fast they can practically close in on a CV in hiding). If I yell range X, it might mean very little or can be argued to be too powerful or too restricted depending on the overall design scenario someone else has in mind.

Well without a clear goal for the design it's hard to do anything besides comparing changes to the current system. I can pretty confidently say that I probably wouldn't notice much difference if flight range was 25km and 20 wouldn't be very limiting (and would not change the situation in clan wars, for example). 20km is where - at least on some maps - the range would begin to limit my reach in theory and focus my efforts on the frontline, but that's what I'd probably want to do anyway. Campers would be safe, though, and I'm not sure that's desirable. Loitering is not usually a big deal, the only time I would ever consider that is when I'm getting especially juicy spotting - and in most cases like that I can just dump a fighter to spot and continue with my own business.

 

Historical flight distances wouldn't be much of a limit on a 48km x 48km map and of course historical accuracy isn't really a thing in a game like this, but the ability to spot and strike far outside of battleship gun range was basically the only reason for carriers' existence in reality and with the given range limitations we would be changing that historical relationship radically. Of course that doesn't completely invalidate the design in itself, but it does reduce the elegance and value of the design and implementation.

2 hours ago, Figment said:

[2] What do you mean by shortened btw? I take it you mean a shortened path towards a ship covered by a dense AA bubble, possibly resulting in a higher miss rate, rather than first outlining the attack optimal w.r.t. the targeted ship?

 

How many aircraft the carrier expects to come back and is willing to expend is largely determined by the return value of throwing them away and the reserve/replenishment rate. Today you might do 0-20K damage in a single run (depending on tier, RNG etc.). So could well be worth it to throw those aircraft away and wait for them to replenish at a reasonably fast rate. What if it's 0-12K and it takes 3 minutes before you can torp something again? Is the hit on your DPS still worth it? Would you still throw them away? How many aircraft do you have anyway and how quickly are they replenished in squadrons and when does replenishing of aircraft on deck start?

Typically my opening move on a Midway is launching rocket planes when the counter reaches zero. At first possibility I initiate an attack in empty water or some hapless island so that 3 of my 9 planes instantly fly back to the ship. Then I fly a quick sweep on some part of the map, checking out what's there and usually find an opportunity to slam a few rockets into a hapless ship, dive in using the other 3 planes of the flight as a HP buffer to get me through AA so that a full 3 plane strike gets through. That's typically 10-15k damage plus fire(s) on an unsaturated ship and while the possibly remaining attack planes are boosting towards stratosphere I'm already sending out the next flight.

 

Depending on what I saw on my first pass, the next group is typically going to be rockets if I found a DD to play with or if I just want a quick peek at another part of the map or bombers if I have a target I can really start to do damage to. I played most of my carrier stuff before Midway torps were buffed so I wouldn't take those out unless I had a very specific target for them or I'd gone full pokemon on flak puffs and didn't have anything else to fly. Nowadays I guess they're pretty good too, especially to punish people who are silly enough to go forward and be aggressive and not able to turn freely to dodge.

 

As far as shortening flights goes, I never go in with a full flight unless I'm expecting to make several runs at someone and I don't expect a large  portion of them to return even from a successful attack. I don't doubt that people down on the surface think they're doing good stuff and outplaying me when they shoot down a few planes, but in reality I don't expect many to come back to begin with. Sometimes they do survive, of course, which is why it's a bit funny when some claim that it's such a disadvantage to lose planes, when in fact carriers are the only class in the game that has even a chance of getting its ammo back. Those torps and shells are gone forever when they leave your ship and as long as the clock is ticking, they're not going to be infinite either.

 

Midway starts with 16 rockets (9 per flight), 16 torps (9 per flight) and 20 bombers (12 per flight). To be honest I can't be arsed to check the numbers, but theoretically you can fly something like a hundred or so planes per game total. The highest total in the game is Kaga at about 150 or something and Midway is a lot lower than that. In practice I rarely run out of effective flights during a battle. Of course it does happen, but that's largely because I suck.

2 hours ago, Figment said:

[3] Could you first define positive influence? Because this would be a rather subjective and personal definition (there's no objective standard that's equal for all players, see how some players react to the presence of heavy hitting or faster than realistic turning BBs, cruisers with hydro / radar, torpedoes in general, etc.). If you don't want a positive to be defineable, you could make it undefineable as such.

It's hard to come up with a general definition, especially one without influence from personal preferences. Basically anything that makes the game "better". If we look at specifics and what carriers offer now, relevant positive influence could be for example "variety" or "increased tactical depth in clan battles (and randoms and all other modes)" or perhaps "promoting aggressive and exciting playes instead of camping". I can't even come up with a positive equivalent of "unfair and unrestricted pooping all over everyone trying to play the game properly", but if you can think of one, that would be a relevant positive influence.

3 hours ago, Figment said:

Their dominance in a match compared to other classes is not necessarily WR related as one or two CV players HAVE to lose (outside of a draw), so a bad player will not improve their WR by much. Unless maybe if it's usualy far below 50% and there's a smaller difference in extremes of the bell curve here.

At T4 there are generally mostly very inexperienced players and especially many of the carriers are playing their first games in the class and have no clue. That's the point of seal clubbing, using your own experience to beat people who have never had the chance to learn stuff yet.

1 hour ago, Figment said:

Look at the people playing these ships the most.

 

The fast majority of people with high winrates havn't played more than 20-30 battles with the Langley, with just a few exceptions per page who played over 30 battles in the high winrates or overall. If you look at those who played hundreds and hundreds of battles though, WR is a huge mixed bag. A lot of the people who play a lot of CV at tier IV seem to even have worse WR than their average WR and are actually undermining their own stats by playing them (obviously not true for all).

 

So it seems those people just enjoy it for some other reason than WR.

I think you originally had the list sorted by win rate or something listing the best people who played the ship. If you look at the actual listing of people who play the most and then check the leaders and their relative performance in Langleys, it paints a very different picture.

 

Also I don't know if you're aware of it, but AFAIK that site only lists people who have searched themselves or had searches done by someone at some point, so you might run into weird anomalies like average winrate not being a little below 50% and such.

[El2aZeR]

6 hours ago, Figment said:

CVs don't have higher winrates per definition

 

CVs are mirrored, therefore CV global WR is completely meaningless as it only shows whether a particular CV is superior when compared to its contemporaries. How much they fluctuate is also determined by how many CVs there are as a mirror match up will always result in a 50% WR.

This is why you find the biggest fluctuations in CV WR at T8, where the most CVs are found.

[AndyHill]

3 hours ago, Figment said:

What if it's 0-12K and it takes 3 minutes before you can torp something again? Is the hit on your DPS still worth it? Would you still throw them away?

Oops I forgot this part completely. Reducing the carriers' ability to do damage and making their planes more vulnerable would absolutely force them to be more careful as well as give them less impact in the battle. However, it wouldn't make the influence any good instead of just less bad and this change is not feasible, since potatoes are already running out of planes early in the game.