0.10.7 Public Test 0.10.7 - Submarines in Ranked Battles

[davide_matteoni_defender]

belli somergibili ok

 

[Fackeldackel]

Dear Wargaming, after doing my missions here is my feedback. I was looking forward towards the submarines since i love the boat movie and using torpboats in game. So i am sad to tell you, that i consider my ingame experience with submarines quite....disappointing. In essence, they are a weaker version of a destroyer with some match breaking mechanics on occasion.

These are just 2 annoying situations i experienced:

1) A CV being unable to attack a submarine and the submarine being unable to ping the CV to actually do some damage resulted in the players having to wait until the time was up. Frustrating and a waste of everyones time. This must not be allowed to happen at the main server Wargaming!

2) Only submarines left fighting one another but lacking the skill to hit one another with torps, resulting in everyone else having to wait again until the clock runs out. Rage!!!

 

Submarines are weak, an annoyance at best compared to destroyers. Only battleships are actually at risk due to the stupid ping / dmgcon cycle of death when there are still HE - spammers in game. They can not support their team, their DPM is mediocre at best and yet they can ruin a match by forcing everyone to wait until the clock runs down (mostly in standard battles). As a matter of fact i had more fun roadkilling subs with my destroyers than actually playing submarines.

 

 

How i wished subs had been implemented:

1) Dump the current ping mechanic and homing torps.

2) Give them different types of torps as ammo type: A hard hitting type like the IJN torpedoes which are slow but make up or it with incredible alpha and fast torps with low damage but high flooding chance like the european torps. Both torps should be hard to detect.

 

This would make subs superior to torp boats if the player can aim and plans out his attack in advance. Since unlike torpboats sub are unable to create a wall of torps planning and choosing the right torps for the attack before getting close to the target would create a new and in my opinion exciting experience. The getting close part to guarantee the hits and being able to do so thx to diving would be the main aspect of playing subs: High risk, high reward.

 

3) Give subs something to support the team, for example a revised ping mechanic. Instead of this stupid homing stuff, pinging a target could give the team a damage buff when firing at the pinged target. On the downside, the pinging sub would become visible to everyone in pinging range to simulate the active ping. This would support the team and give pinged ships a counter measure beside damageconning: They could try to sink the submarine.

 

4) Better captain perks, most of the current one are useless. Just watch the boat movie and you should easily get some nice idea. For example increased maneuveribily when submerged and undetected, to improve on the cat and mouse play between subs and surface ships (torp, dive to become undetected, change course, get away) Or something to increase the surface speed when detected for the "captain yelling: give me everything she got" moment.

 

Damnit Wargaming, subs could have been so much fun but you realy blew it. When i get to choose between a submarine and my destroyer, i pick the destroyer anytime.

[Smeggo]

I love playing them in coop. They fit in there 

 

And torps should not be able to be launched from greather depths.

Again - look at the Halloween-subs from 2018. They could fire from surface and periscope depth only and it was good.

[tsounts]

 

Enjoy more lack of balance.... Now bbs won't even be leaving their spawn....

[Night_Knight_]

Bei den U-Booten hatte ich die Erfahrung, dass Ping und Torpedos sehr schlecht miteinander kooperieren.

Pingst Du und wirfst dann Torpedos ist der Ping vor dem Treffer aus, ein zweiter Ping kommt zu spät da der Torpedo weiterläuft.

Torpedierst Du und schickst den Ping hinterher interessiert es den Torpedo nicht 

 

Traf auf 3 km kein Schlachtschiff, dann "wurde " ich aufgetaucht und Ende

Schade, bisher waren  die U-Boote ganz gut, jetzt sind sie sinnlos.

[ZeuSueZ1337]

1/2

 

This is the review based upon the first PT-session with access to both t6, t8 & tX subs. 

 

Lets sum up the positive at first:

- The underwater-world is looking stellar.

- The selected BB's with ASW actually seems to be a deterrent, but I still dont understand why not all BB's are getting em'?

- The DD and light cruiser depth charges seems to still work, albeit a bit less effective in terms of damage than in previous tests (by design?)

- The CV's also have a fair chance to both spot and hurt the subs with their bombs or rockets.

- The ability to hit surfaced subs with guns seems plentiful but still tricky so on the looks of it, balanced.

 

Now lets look at the less positive things:

- Damage from the sub torps, are you kiddin' me? It seems that they were using Swedish fish. Had several hits on BB's that survived 4 sub-torps. This seems odd to say the least.

- The reload time of torps seems way to fast. Basically you can "torp-spam" and that should be the case imho.

- DD's should be able to fairly accurate determine the position of a sub using hydro (or add an extra consumable and call it sonar) DD's are the primary sub-hunter but currently they are not that impressive.

- Heavy cruisers without any sub-counter seems very unbalanced. Maybe just equip them with a one-use only depth charge or airstrike like that on a BB? Heavy cruisers are gonna be badly outplayed.

 

And finally the big one

 

- CV's auto-DRC makes it almost impossible to "torp-snipe" em'.

That shouldn't be the case. Now, we know you hold CV's to a lower standard, but all I'm asking is that the auto-DRC for instance only cancels the homing feature for the first say 2 or 3 times, thus making it viable for a sub to target the CV if they really want to.

Again I know that this will force CV players to actually maintain situational awareness and move(!) their floating airfield to a safer location, instead of just point-and-click and be done with it.

But this could overall improve the game in that the CV just doesn't sit in the back levelling the entire fleet of surface ships.

 

2/2 will follow after next PT-session.

[Tomst3r87]

I played the subs only in coop battles, but my experience seems to match with the experience people made in ranked battles.

I like the idea of subs in general, because they add a whole new level / playstyle to the game, but since their torpedos are completely useless, the submarines are useless too, as sadly as it sounds.

Most of the torpedos miss their targets, even when you ping a ship twice. The path they travel isn´t comprehensible for me. If you get closer than 3km to a target, it is almost impossible to hit. The most effective way to destroy an enemy submarine was to ram it. That is ridiculous!

And why do the torpedos of the subs significantly less damage than the torpedos of the Destroyers or Cruisers? That makes no sense at all! We all know the pictures or videos when a ship is hit by a torpedo and the devastating impact it creates. But in World of Warships you just damage the livery of a ship or do some dents to the hull!

I remember than I managed to hit a BB with two torps, causing almost 7000 damage. Then a destroyer came by, fired its torps at the BB and sank it with a single attack, just to show me how useless my sub is :(

Submarines could have such a high potential and could be fun to play, but their current implementation is just boring. I don´t want to repeat everything that has been said already to this topic. But I think especially "McBaal" and "lovelcebeer" made some good suggestions how to fix some of the existing problems ;-)

 

Two other points I want to adress:

- The Destroyers and the Cruisers need an indicator where their depth charges, when selected, hit the water, to be more effective. The explosions should be improved to. At the moment they look like explosions of handgrenades.

- Every additional submarine in a team means one less other vessel (BB, CV etc.). If both teams have three subs in their team, there are six ships less in total to fight each other on the surface level. Sometimes this felt a little bit less exciting compared to a match without submarines (especially if your ship has no depth charges or air strikes to fight subs). Perhaps it would be required to increase the number of players on both sides, at least in coop.

[gabberworld]

10 minutes ago, Tomst3r87 said:

And why do the torpedos of the subs significantly less damage than the torpedos of the Destroyers or Cruisers?

 

 

most likely because off faster reload

[Pablo0208]

PB Test 0.10.7 subs - overall I give it a thumbs up

think people miss the point like they do with CVs . once you concentrate on guided torps (or planes in CV) you are a victim to attack.... that annoys them as its slighty different with CX & DD & BBs where you can react a bit quicker.. Any DD can spam up a BB just like a Sub or Subs..  The only gripes i have with subs is the very slow recharge for diving times. your virtually forced to the surface for battle on many occasions even if youve been on the surface to charge up.

 

Otherwise hard work but novelty fun... subs make you look for threats more often esp when your pinged 

[Master_Eosander]

The submarines are well modeled, no shade on that.

Some very odd functionality, likely added due to vast ignorance, makes sub gameplay dull and boring.

A submarine at periscope depth in a war situation, does _NOT_ expose all masts; Only the periscpoe, nothing else. It may look cool for the programmers, but is historically and tactically horrendous.

(That comment also goes for hanging a ship's bell on the front of the fin; Only in port!)

The "snorkel" was a late war invention, far from all subs had that facility.

Submarines very seldom (i.e. never) use active sonar to target surface ships; Passive sonar in combination with periscope observations, and non-homing torpedoes were a fact during WWII.

Ships using active sonar during submarine chase; DD:s, and occasional cruisers. Never heard of BB:s being involved in sub chase operations.

Using submarines in-game in a correct way, would be using them against CV:s, thereby forcing DD:s to defend them until they had sunk the submarines,

This would implement a new (historical) kind of necessary tactics whenever submarines are present.

Submarine speed on surface were high, but _very_ low submerged, submerged endurance was directly connected to use of speed; High Speed = Very short endurance, Low Speed = Long endurance

Fix this instead of connecting endurance to detectability.

 

If a submarine had a deck gun, it was used against merchants, not against Men-'o-war

If a submarine had AA-gunnery, they were used only if the submarine could't dive.

Nevertheless - if you have submarines in a game with deck and AA guns, allow use of those.

 

It was interesting to test them though, but there is a bit of homework to do...

 

Late addon; There is  a ship type missing, somewhat essential to submarine (or anti-submarine) operations - The Frigate, which is a dedicated sub-chaser.

[Black_Hacker_]

Submarines in ranked battles are ok if you have an cv in your game because if you kill the other submarine its too op.

But i like it.

I also want more submarines in this game, means more nations and more types.

[komorowianka]

Subamarines are super... The game is better with this, should be in game... The game is amazing with this

[Dosenkohl11]

My first impressions with submarines ingame:

 

- The artwork of the subs and the sound under water are really nice. Well done so far for the atmosphere.

- Gameplay is not the easiest especially the fight underwater against another submarine. Also you must look at minimap for not crashing islands.

- sad is that not all ships have weapons against submarines. why??? I am a big damage pinata in my kremlin...

- dont know how many submarines will max  join random battle. more than one is not good i think.

- Will they be only on tier 6, 8 and 10?

 

In summary i think we dont need submarines anyway. Mostly they got the last places in aftergame stats.

 

[ReichsHorscht]

Hi,

Test was ok. Submarine is not what i prefer, but it is so :-)

 

[Panzerblitz]

I had this round earlier today in Ranked on PTS. Fast forward to 08:30.

2 subs were the only ships left standing and it took forever til we came to a conclusion, despite the willingness to fight each other and not run.

 

 

[jackdaniels46]

Submarine have to stay in different part of the game, coz demanding lots of attentions and distract the game at all !!!

[Arrrgee]

Although I don't expect Wargaming staff to take any notice of feedback, it feels good to vent off my frustrations!

 

So.....I was not impressed with Submarines, at all.

 

The gameplay is boring at all tiers, they are boring to play, and to play against, if you take a Battleship out then there isn't much to shoot at, then it's just a clickfest of RNG guided depth charge dropping planes. On top of this coming out of a ranked game with more than 60k damage was a rarity.

 

I had a ranked game where one submarine remained on the enemy team, it hadn't been spotted at all and we spent 10 minutes trying to find it to no avail, not exactly thrilling gameplay.

 

I think the ultimate problem here is trying to force a submarine class into a surface warship combat game, there is ultimately no way of forcing this unholy marriage without ruining something and I suspect that overall gameplay and enjoyment for the playerbase is what is going to lose out in the end!

 

Scrap this rubbish idea NOW, if you like money and want to keep receiving it from players then don't put submarines into this game as the money and playerbase will dissapear very quickly if you do!

[Contramaestre_Mayor]

Me gustan los submarinos y espero tenerlos definitivamente.

[Peterson_1]

Achei interessante os navios holandeses

[komorowianka]

Testy super. Gra nabiera wielu dobre nowe blasku, wyczekiwanego od lat. Okręty podwodne pokazały, że są grywalne i bardzo uzupełniają ciekawość bitew, powinny w grze, jeżeli do ma być gra o okrętach, bo bez nich grze brakuje jednego z najważniejszych elementów... Ta kategoria zna jest okręt tak ważna, ponieważ w marynarce są okręty świata, a w grze ich nie były.

[admiraldelorin]

Worked through the ranking. No obvious bugs found. Interface is pretty much intuitive. Ping is very workable. The nr. of tactical considerations increases exponential with subs. The artwork continues to be astounding. 

Sub players at certain maps will have to invest some time in mapping the sea floor, at several locations and at very in-oportune times seabed rose to level where diving deeper is not possible in wider areas.

If possible the mini-map would benefit from an option to show the depth contour lines say  at 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 15, 20, 40, 60, 4500 meters.. in game or as mod ?

 

Possible issue with collision model, sub seemed to get stuck or hit yet no contact to seafloor, rocks or mountains was visible.

 

When can we have subs in Clan Battles  and especially  in Training ?

 

There are physical limits to MMO numbers but could you consider increasing fleet size? 

Capital ships outnumbering cruisers and below is unnatural at least, especially in the early evening hours (Europe) there where fleets in ranked with 4 capital ships vs 1 CC 1 DD 1 S   

[ciancoloni]

Subs may have more realistic operational scenarios.

1. You may think about invertion layers (salinity and water temperature) according to depth. So you can allow commanders to avoid detection using these layers at the best;
2. you may think about night scenarios allowing use of  smokestack ship trace. This might allow a sub to navigate in surface with an higher speed
3. maybe necessary a tutorial about subs commands and options
    

[ciancoloni]

Another issue abot realism for subs is the use of sonar.

Sonar is an active device having a problem witj its use. If you use active pinging you have a very good landscape of target and tactical situation, but you show yjw enemy a clear picture of yourself. So, this is why subs use hydrophonic research and, due to this fact, I suggest you to give subs also the hydrophonic research, at least as a consumable, like surface vessels

[Cylas47]

 i

 

 

[Clanky_Cain]

I've played 21 coop and 6 battles in ranked in subs so far and I have to say I like them.

 

Yes, they are squishy, but they are essentially just tubes that can dive. No armor to speak of.

Torpedoes are OK, if you achieve at least one ping.

Fighting other subs is always a challenge, but possible. (I mounted the ramming flag and tried surprised some subs)

Attacking surface ships while submerged can only be done from quite far away, as they have to climb to the surface. For that I climb up to periscope depth, attack and go for the deep dive again).

One thing I don't understand is, why they have no AA. It is clarly modeled on them. Why not use it, even if it is just throwing some pees at enemy planes.

That staggered torpedo reloading on the american subs is also something I don't understand why it is done.

If you keep track of your surroundings it is also possible to evade most incoming depth charges.

 

I also like playing against them as a surface ship, especially in DDs.

Yes, there are some ships which cannot fight them, but using WASD + R hack you can counter them more often than not. Just keep them spotted and they will run out of battery. Hitting the same spot for double ping, if the enemy is manoeuvering is pretty hard.

It is completely normal that every ship has its specific role on the battlefield and BBs are just not meant to counter Subs.

That Depth charge Airstrike consumable is ok, even if it takes some time to get used to it (same with dutch airstrike).

 

All in all I find it challenging to be a really good sub player, but manageable. Then you can have an impact of the outcome of the battle.