What fun is, to play against an invulnerable (sub) ship?

[DeletedUser]

this problem have been named other times in other discussions related to the subs, but in my opinion, is the main problem that we have right now, and is something that WG itself does not know how to solve:

 

for most people, games are fun when there is a challenge, win is possible, but you could also loose

for someone games can be fun sometime when they cheat to have unlimited health or damage, and loosing is impossible

but what fun is, to play against a player that can kill you, while over his head is written: "IMPOSSIBLE TO HIT"  ????

 

to me there is none, and i don't belive i am the only one

 

i can have fun at charging against a battleship with a dd or a cruiser, dodging his guns to deliver a torpedo strike, that is fun cause there is a challenge, both of us could kill each other

sometimes i can have fun even against cv, cause even if is a very long way, and the cv have unlimited planes, is still possible to spot it, reach it, and shoot at it

Subs, can be killed ONLY by other subs, DD, or few CL that were equipped with depth charges. BB, most cruisers, and carriers have no way to hit them

sure, an inexperienced player could surface for some strange reason, and be killed by anyone. 

Makes as sense as seeing a carrier rushing to the cap together with the dds at the beginning of a battle but who knows, i have seen it happen.

but if the subs players have a brain, and subs will enter in random battles, the battle will be over when the last ship with anti sub weapon will be lost, no matter the skills of the surviving cruisers, bb and cv

 

WG, wanna go on and put subs in random battle?

do what you want, but then don't complain when many players will left the game

[Ronchabale]

This whole game is supposed to be balanced like rock, paper, scissors where anyone and everyone can take and deal damage to counterparts

This was true until we got the CV rework with godlike, untouchable damage dealing CV:s

(I am not saying that the old CV:s didn´t have issues however they were far less frequently encountered ingame)

 

Now they want to introduce another to some extent invulnerable ship class, a BB (and some cruisers) have no counterplay against a sub (haha) also DD:s have a new task to add to their long list alongside spotting, capping and not getting sunk by rocket planes or focus fire from CV:s spotting.

 

This is just insane..

I have been gaming since the mid 90:s and have seen a lot of games come and go, played loads of games for my own entertainment and with my children, one thing I learned in all them thousands of hours gaming, if it looks like and smells like it probably is  and it is time to move on

 

 

 

 

 

[Ocsimano18]

I played some BB matches in sub mode. Subs are not an issue, except in the endgame, if you have no teammates left who can hurt them. It's a bit similar to a BB vs stealth torp DD endgame. Also,  subs have to surface for a long time if they want to cap in the endgame. Same with sub vs CV, if the sub caps then you can hurt her. My only issue was playing CAs in the sub game. I think they also need depth charges to be viable.

[Gvozdika]

13 minutes ago, Ocsimano18 said:

I played some BB matches in sub mode. Subs are not an issue, except in the endgame, if you have no teammates left who can hurt them. It's a bit similar to a BB vs stealth torp DD endgame. Also,  subs have to surface for a long time if they want to cap in the endgame. Same with sub vs CV, if the sub caps then you can hurt her. My only issue was playing CAs in the sub game. I think they also need depth charges to be viable.

Key point highlighted in bold. A sub never has to surface, they never have to come to a vulnerable depth in order to attack. Once your DDs are out of it you basically have a unit that is both hard to find (like a DD but even stealthier) AND functionally invulnerable to most of the team list.

 

A sub doesn't have to cap if it sinks the surviving members of the enemy team first - been there, done that. I haven't had to cap once in a sub - hell, most of the time I can sit beneath 6.0 at 1/4 speed merrily sending pings and torpedoes away. Nothing is forcing me to come to a vulnerable depth. My ability to hit targets, to relocate at speed and to spot is unaffected by sitting at depth.

 

Having a class that is only really countered by a handful of ships on a team is just lining up a whole host of issues. A DD can still be shot if it's spotted by anything with a gun. A sub simply cannot be hurt unless the sub driver is an incompetent muppet. 

[Ocsimano18]

We had a different experience. I killed surfaced sub at the cap in the endgame.

[Procrastes]

What I am hearing, here...

 

Spoiler

26 minutes ago, Gvozdika said:

A sub doesn't have to cap if it sinks the surviving members of the enemy team first - been there, done that. I haven't had to cap once in a sub - hell, most of the time I can sit beneath 6.0 at 1/4 speed merrily sending pings and torpedoes away. Nothing is forcing me to come to a vulnerable depth. My ability to hit targets, to relocate at speed and to spot is unaffected by sitting at depth.

 

Having a class that is only really countered by a handful of ships on a team is just lining up a whole host of issues. A DD can still be shot if it's spotted by anything with a gun. A sub simply cannot be hurt unless the sub driver is an incompetent muppet. 

 

5 minutes ago, Ocsimano18 said:

We had a different experience. I killed surfaced sub at the cap in the endgame.

 

 

...is that we need a mechanic that makes it impossible for submarines to stay submerged indefinitely. I think it's time to renitroduce the "oxygen supply" mechanic, from the first test stage? 

[Commander_Ericson]

CV's were a lot stronger back in the old RTS version of them, able to kill anything. The difference was that you had to be very good a playing them, the number of cv players was lower (at least good ones) and early in a lot of games the cv's would normally be busy trying to counter each other.

 

At the moment I don't see how they can make subs either boring to play or too OP that they counter everything else. Making them more realistic in terms of slower, non-guided torps, etc would make them very boring to play. Japanese torp boats aren't popular because there are large periods of time waiting for torps to reload and then hoping the enemy sails into them. De-tuned versions of the current subs would be like this, which would make them pretty unpopular to play.

 

As they are they feel very powerful. To the extent of feeling like cv's, but without the ability to zoom around the map as quickly. A good sub player can take apart a team on its own without too much risk. Seen countless examples or subs able to avoid any damage, shotgun dd's on depth charge runs and even take out other ships whilst avoiding attacks from several other subs.

 

I hear the argument that they are easily killed by depth charges, but honestly how is a light cruiser or dd meant to charge down a sub +5km away towards the enemy whilst spotted? How many dd's and light cruisers sail +5km in a cap towards the enemy whilst spotted and live? It won't in most games and once the counter to the sub is dead, then what?

 

The class reminds me a lot of the old cv's where skilled players would easily kill off any enemy counter ships and then just farm the rest of the enemy team.

[Elizabeth_F_Beurling]

32 minutes ago, Procrastes said:

What I am hearing, here...

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

...is that we need a mechanic that makes it impossible for submarines to stay submerged indefinitely. I think it's time to renitroduce the "oxygen supply" mechanic, from the first test stage? 

I think we could for a start

 

1. adjust the electricity usage when submerged

2. remove battery recharge when submerged,

3. increase the battery recharge time when surface

4. reduce max speed when dived

5. remove the immune 5.9/6.0 meter zone

P.S. the whole spotting mechanics could have a rework, it is issue since day 1, CV and sub just magnifying the issue even further

 

[gopher31]

It's the same problem as with CVs. They can strike you but you ca do nothing to them.

Wargaming seems to focus too much on making ships fun to play rather than fun to play against.

[Gvozdika]

30 minutes ago, Procrastes said:

What I am hearing, here...

 

  Hide contents

 

 

 

...is that we need a mechanic that makes it impossible for submarines to stay submerged indefinitely. I think it's time to renitroduce the "oxygen supply" mechanic, from the first test stage? 

 

Pretty much, yes. 

 

A sub should have some sort of trade off for the ability to dive.

 

- Reduced speed when underwater. Perhaps allow short bursts of speed for 30s or so like with aircraft squadrons - but not blasting around at 25kts all the time.

 

- Inability to ping surface targets unless at periscope depth of 5.9m (still enable them to ping subs at depth but not ships unless they can visually 'see' them at periscope depth). You can fire torps below this depth but they will likely go under the surface ship you are shooting at.

 

- Limiting spotting to other submarines when at depth - maybe allowing proxy spotting of surface ships at 2km. Actual spotting of surface ships only at periscope depth.

 

- Limiting the amount of time dived by o2.

 

- Making subs vulnerable down to 10m depth - e.g. an overlap where they need to transition from periscope to 'safe depth'.

 

- Making use of the ping illuminate the sub for 20s like when surface ships fire. Add RISK to its use.

 

- Invert the ping mechanics. Make torpedoes launched without guidance 'dumb' far more damaging - ping guidance reduces the damage but allows homing capability. Make the homing element more of a sub v sub utility and reward those who can line up shots on surface targets like DD players have to.

 

One or two of the above would make using subs risky and require a bit more thought. It would also force subs to be at risk of detection/attack whenever they attack surface ships. Give players the choice of maybe avoiding using the ping and attacking stealthily.

[Kejoz]

Subs are WoWs  equivalent of Wots wheeled vehicles, playerbase sees them as a poor addition, devs and marketing pushes them into the game anyway to beef up new account numbers. Subs have a massive marketing potential so we will see them in randoms, in one form or the other. 

[Panocek]

49 minutes ago, Procrastes said:

...is that we need a mechanic that makes it impossible for submarines to stay submerged indefinitely. I think it's time to renitroduce the "oxygen supply" mechanic, from the first test stage? 

But you know you can outrun submerged subs even in beached stock Colorado? Sub HAVE to use ping mechanic to actually hope for torps to hit things when underwater, otherwise dumb fired torps will happily stay at their launch depth and miss their targets. And to use ping thing, you need battery. The same battery you drain when moving faster than 4kts

 

6 minutes ago, Gvozdika said:

- Reduced speed when underwater. Perhaps allow short bursts of speed for 30s or so like with aircraft squadrons - but not blasting around at 25kts all the time.

You mean feature that was IIRC present in all submarine iterations?

[Ze_Reckless]

1 hour ago, Commander_Ericson said:

At the moment I don't see how they can make subs either boring to play or too OP that they counter everything else. Making them more realistic in terms of slower, non-guided torps, etc would make them very boring to play. Japanese torp boats aren't popular because there are large periods of time waiting for torps to reload and then hoping the enemy sails into them. De-tuned versions of the current subs would be like this, which would make them pretty unpopular to play.

Wrong.

 

 

 

DDs only have two things over subs: speed and guns. Neither of those helps you when you are outspotted at the cap so all you can do is 'flank' and try to farm whatever goes to the map edges. Or just play subs, why would you want to play a DD when you can play a sub instead?

[Procrastes]

26 minutes ago, Panocek said:

But you know you can outrun submerged subs even in beached stock Colorado? Sub HAVE to use ping mechanic to actually hope for torps to hit things when underwater, otherwise dumb fired torps will happily stay at their launch depth and miss their targets. And to use ping thing, you need battery. The same battery you drain when moving faster than 4kts

Good point! Running out of battery power whilst underwater is certainly an incentive to surface. But I would contend that it is not enough of an incentive, since it still leaves it entirely in the hands of the submarine captain whether to surface or not. It allows the submarine to more or less dictate the terms of the engagement, when facing ships without ASW capabilities. This is perfectly acceptable in a simulation, but hardly in an arcade game such as WoWs. We are no more than two weeks in on the current test period, and I have already seen enough drawn-out sub vs. battleship endgames to last me century...! 

[Phayk]

There is an easy fix for the spotting issue and it's the same one that should've been implemented for CVs from day 1. No shared spotting. If you spot something in a sub (or aircraft for that matter), that information is not shared with your team. Maybe that could be limited to subs below surface level and they could just increase detection distance for surface-level subs. Then you can't be outspotted as a destroyer anymore.

 

Apart from that, all ships should get depth charges and there should be another ASW weapon or consumable.

[Your38PercentWRTeammate]

2 hours ago, Ocsimano18 said:

We had a different experience. I killed surfaced sub at the cap in the endgame.

 

Because they were bad players, that's all.

[Panocek]

50 minutes ago, Procrastes said:

Good point! Running out of battery power whilst underwater is certainly an incentive to surface. But I would contend that it is not enough of an incentive, since it still leaves it entirely in the hands of the submarine captain whether to surface or not. It allows the submarine to more or less dictate the terms of the engagement, when facing ships without ASW capabilities. This is perfectly acceptable in a simulation, but hardly in an arcade game such as WoWs. We are no more than two weeks in on the current test period, and I have already seen enough drawn-out sub vs. battleship endgames to last me century...! 

You see comrade, thats how you add new content and solve "too short battles" complaints from playerbase

 

Still, recharge battery on surface only might be a solution.

[Ronchabale]

20 minutes ago, Phayk said:

There is an easy fix for the spotting issue and it's the same one that should've been implemented for CVs from day 1. No shared spotting. If you spot something in a sub (or aircraft for that matter), that information is not shared with your team.

That would sort a few issues

[Ocsimano18]

25 minutes ago, Miblogdegolf said:

 

Because they were bad players, that's all.

I think they were good players because they needed the cap for the win.

[Ocsimano18]

2 hours ago, Procrastes said:

What I am hearing, here...

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

...is that we need a mechanic that makes it impossible for submarines to stay submerged indefinitely. I think it's time to renitroduce the "oxygen supply" mechanic, from the first test stage? 

You have to balance it, because the sub play should stay enjoyable. I like the fact that you need to move 1/4 speed to recharge the batteries, as it forces them to slow down underwater. I don't know if you need the oxygen besides the batteries, as it increases complexity, and it's already a hard class even for some experienced players. They should tweak this battery life thing more to get them move a bit more to the surface. Or to make it a risk/reward think, if they spend more time on the surface, then they can do more damage later.

[cracktrackflak]

Put CVs and subs together in a separate game mode with some PvE content and call it North Atlantic Convoys or something. It could probably become a very popular type of hybrid operation.

 

 

 

[HystericalAccuracy]

3 hours ago, Gvozdika said:

One or two of the above would make using subs risky and require a bit more thought.

You know the reason why so few people play DDs, right?

[Procrastes]

27 minutes ago, Ocsimano18 said:

You have to balance it, because the sub play should stay enjoyable... I don't know if you need the oxygen besides the batteries, as it increases complexity, and it's already a hard class even for some experienced players....

Perfectly valid considerations - but I don't think an added level of complexity is a bad thing here. As a submarine captain, I believe I'd rather be under pressure (ha, ha) than have the option to stay underwater for as long as I wished. Wargaming have coddled carriers too an almost insulting degree as it is, and I'd prefer if the new submarine captains were given a bit more of a challenge. 

[Hanse77SWE]

From a historical standpoint, here's my view on how subs should work.

 

1) Limited submerge time.

2) No spotting when submerged. (Except with active hydro.)

3) No "team spotting" when submerged.

4) Historical speeds. 

5) No citadel hits with ping. (Better accuracy is OK.)

6) Torps should only be fired from surface or periscope depth.

 

Will this be fun? Probably not but IMHO subs can never be implemented into the game without breaking the core.

[1MajorKoenig]

12 minutes ago, Hanse77SWE said:

From a historical standpoint, here's my view on how subs should work.

 

1) Limited submerge time.

2) No spotting when submerged. (Except with active hydro.)

3) No "team spotting" when submerged.

4) Historical speeds. 

5) No citadel hits with ping. (Better accuracy is OK.)

6) Torps should only be fired from surface or periscope depth.

 

Will this be fun? Probably not but IMHO subs can never be implemented into the game without breaking the core.

 

Strange to say but for once I agree with you 

 

All points ok except speed. Subs need an artificial speed buff otherwise it’s pointless. Something around 25kn surface and 15-18kn submerged. 

 

For the rest I agree.