Sooo.... I got a U-Boat and this seems to be a thing...

[Gvozdika]

...what does one say? If you get your two pings and aim with any reasonable degree of intelligence - you can one-shot pretty much anything below CL level. I do not make these claims in jest. Oooooh no. I have pretty pictures to prove my point. 

 

Now imagine you are a DD driver - you've got a lot of things to do. Cap. Spot. Just DoDGe. Cap. Spot. Shoot other DDs. Mind Radar. Just DoDge some more. Chances are you might not notice the 90 knot homing missiles hurtling towards you. Boof!

 

Below was one volley - had it been a human player his time to react would've been a second or so. By pinging and then firing one set of torps to the left - one set to the right - you effectively create a converging 'wall' of torpedoes that gives them very little room to move. Note for the record the angle of my sub - 45 degrees off my target - so I can ping them and loose off two sets of guided torps while travelling in a different direction...

Of course this might be a fluke - a lucky strike? No it isn't. If you get an accurate volley off at a DD - ping or no ping - you will kill it. 

However surely they aren't that bad? If for example a Le Fantasque was zooming across in front of you at close to full chat - they wouldn't be able to track, lead and strike such a fast moving target? Oh... hang on.... yes they can.

For the record - note the angle of my sub. It is close to 90 degrees off the angle of that DD and bear in mind they would have had to 'lead' him - so possibly an even greater angle/change of direction. These aren't 'acoustic homing' - they're bloody Spearfish....

 

Drive-bys are also perfectly doable - just go under a ship without any ASW - pop up behind them and shotgun them. Yes that's four torps and four citadels. 

 

What about other subs? ASW? Nope - just smack them in the face with these super-torps. Even the aiming is done for you. Again - the 'time-to-kill' is measured in a single volley. Possibly less than 30s between twin pinging and striking. 

Occasionally you DON'T kill your target in one foul swoop. I nearly spat out my tea - I had to put down my scones and had to use both hands to use the keyboard! The horror. 

 

This is against bots and I have played subs in all of the tests before - so I'm not coming into this cold. However bots do tend to duck and dive (random course changes, speed variation) a fair bit more than the average human player.

 

This is also against the most agile of target - the skinny, speedy DD. 

 

Note also for the record that these kills are fairly early in the game - I had no issue getting to the caps with the express intent of knobbling the DDs in the early game.

 

Imagine what will happen when I stop farting around shooting nothing but DDs and start on targets that cannot shoot back or detect me. Imagine how this is going to do down in ranked if you get a few people who know what they're doing.

 

WG - are you REALLY sure this is a good idea? Just food for thought....

 

[Ubertron_X]

How did you hit another sub? My sub targets always seem to change depth as soon as I fire and all torps miss.

[Gvozdika]

3 minutes ago, Ubertron_X said:

How did you hit another sub? My sub targets always seem to change depth as soon as I fire and all torps miss.

Keep them double pinged - fire one set of torps while at shallow depth - change depth and fire a second set of torps at a deeper level. The result is that whatever depth they fancy trying to go to there will be a set of torps to cater for them. Easier to do with the USN sub with all the mobility modules kitted out. 

[Ubertron_X]

Fighting versus CV is very nice too: sonar ping neutralized!

[MementoMori_6030]

Vor 11 Minuten, Ubertron_X sagte:

Fighting versus CV is very nice too: sonar ping neutralized!

 Now add commander skills, and...

[anonym_cwVecOS6ecVy]

3 minutes ago, MementoMori_6030 said:

Now add commander skills, and... 

I think Sub vs. CV interaction will be rather rare and only happen in the end game hunting scenarios or if someone really wants to rush it, which will be likely to fail, because of other surface ships. If a sub is that close to you, it can still fire torpedos without locking you on / shotgun you and you will not be able to counter the ping.

[MementoMori_6030]

Vor 3 Minuten, Von_Pruss sagte:

I think Sub vs. CV interaction will be rather rare and only happen in the end game hunting scenarios or if someone really wants to rush it, which will be likely to fail, because of other surface ships. If a sub is that close to you, it can still fire torpedos without locking you on / shotgun you and you will not be able to counter the ping.

I only play CV occasionally, and only in PVE. So it's just a precaution against future WG shenanigans, like massively improved bot AI.

[PaxtonQuigly]

40 minutes ago, Gvozdika said:

WG - are you REALLY sure this is a good idea?

 

Was that a rethoric question? 

[SeaWolf7]

Awsome.

Another 4 months of testing and community led balancing ahead then.

[Procrastes]

4 minutes ago, Von_Pruss said:

I think Sub vs. CV interaction will be rather rare and only happen in the end game hunting scenarios or if someone really wants to rush it, which will be likely to fail, because of other surface ships. If a sub is that close to you, it can still fire torpedos without locking you on / shotgun you and you will not be able to counter the ping.

I thought WG had this figured out so that torps won't do enough damage to a non-pinged CV in order to sink it before the submarine is itself taken out by either the CV or its allies? Or are we seeing the emergence of a ship class that will be even more coddled than CV:s?

[HassenderZerhacker]

35 minutes ago, Gvozdika said:

Keep them double pinged - fire one set of torps while at shallow depth - change depth and fire a second set of torps at a deeper level. The result is that whatever depth they fancy trying to go to there will be a set of torps to cater for them. Easier to do with the USN sub with all the mobility modules kitted out. 

 

sounds a lot like CV tic-tac-toe play

[Yedwy]

44 minutes ago, Procrastes said:

Or are we seeing the emergence of a ship class that will be even more coddled than CV:s?

Yes

[Deckeru_Maiku]

53 minutes ago, Procrastes said:

Or are we seeing the emergence of a ship class that will be even more coddled than CV:s?

&

8 minutes ago, Yedwy said:

Yes

 

Coddling is desperately needed, as it's probably the former CV players, who "abandoned (CV) ship" after the "rocket nerf" (aka "implementation of a marginal skill barrier") and are now hopping on the next OP (by coddling) class...

[mariouus]

2 hours ago, Gvozdika said:

...what does one say? If you get your two pings and aim with any reasonable degree of intelligence - you can one-shot pretty much anything below CL level. I do not make these claims in jest. Oooooh no. I have pretty pictures to prove my point. 

It was very mutch expected.

 

Halloween event showed vividly that "normal" (with non-homing "slow" torps) submarine wount work in actual Random battle setting. If enemy actually manouvered - it was unliklely to do anything. Sub is an ambush weapon after all. 

 

Rather than taking the hint. And scraping the Sub thing. Probaly because Devs have no actual knowlege about gameplay. They decided "subs are great". And shoehorned them in regardless - Tier X are basically Modern SSN only with much faster torps.

 

Normal person would have understood - if you have do give something homing torps that are pushing 90.knots - you probably screwed-up somewhere with your concept.

[Myrmix]

I mean, they will get their goal if they implement them like that. Everyone will play subs because everything else is just screwed against them.

So will we see random battles with 2 CV each teams triking each other and the rest happening below the surface so they can get their sweet player engagement with the new mechanics?

[Elypse201]

7 hours ago, Myrmix said:

I mean, they will get their goal if they implement them like that. Everyone will play subs because everything else is just screwed against them.

So will we see random battles with 2 CV each teams triking each other and the rest happening below the surface so they can get their sweet player engagement with the new mechanics?

I don't think many ppl will play subs. The gameplay is really boring and not a whole lot to do. You ping and shot torpedos maybe dive once or twice(You could say they weren't ment to fight BBs and Cruiser or even DDs and instead hunting convoys but that's just my thought)
They are at least no in random battles yet.....yet
But since they are a ship class which isn't going to activley will take part in the battle it will feel way more empty.
It will be like CV's that WG needs to hold a certain percentage of players to play that class and if the number drops below that, they will just buff them most likely.

[HassenderZerhacker]

52 minutes ago, Elypse201 said:

I don't think many ppl will play subs. The gameplay is really boring

do you know what WG does in that case?

the same as with CV: they will make subs more and more OP until the popularity target is met. brace yourselves.

[Yedwy]

55 minutes ago, Elypse201 said:

It will be like CV's that WG needs to hold a certain percentage of players to play that class and if the number drops below that, they will just buff them most likely.

Ditto, and there lies the problem…

 

We have a ship class in a PvP enviroment beeing primarily countred by the semi-automated mechanic when interacting vs all other ship classes (unless it f* up completely by staying on surface) that has a “get out if the Dodge free Card” in its dive ability at any moment, huge spotting advantage vs most if its targets, homing weapon system as its primary and is relatively boring to play in comparison to other classes…

All that in a game run by a company that Balances the game via spreadsheets and averages most important of which is popularity…

 

What could go wrong there… 

[Profilus]

3 hours ago, Elypse201 said:

I don't think many ppl will play subs. The gameplay is really boring and not a whole lot to do.

So is max range/keep full HP BB play, but there's no shortage of those players sadly.

[Procrastes]

5 hours ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

do you know what WG does in that case?

the same as with CV: they will make subs more and more OP until the popularity target is met. brace yourselves.

This.

 

Which brings me to one point of interest, namely the ludicrously uncalled-for speed boost to submarine torpedoes that was pushed through right before the launch. You know, when they took torpedo speeds that were already around 70 knots, and gave them an extra +20 knots? My guess is that they did this so they could pretend to react to any complaints of subs being op by a mollifying "balancing" measure.

 

WG dev team: "Ok, boss, we have put submarine torp speeds at around 70 knots or so, just enough to make them a little bit op but not impossible to dodge."

WG top brass: "Well done! Now give them an extra +20 knots so they all do around 90 knots across the board."

WG dev team: "You got it, boss."

Player community: "GAAH!"

WG top brass: "All right, we decrease torp speeds to 70 knots, now stop whining already."

Player community: "...okay."

 

But now I'm thinking, what if WG decides that instead of toning subs down, they want to buff them even harder? Will they speed up those torps even more? Perhaps we will see torpedoes that will outrun their own pings and fly as fast as the shells of Russian cruisers...?! Polaris torpedoes...?!!!

[anonym_cwVecOS6ecVy]

• Equip low amount of ships with ASW
• Generate data and maybe mildly top up amount of ASW ships
• Sell new premiums with "awesome ASW capabilities"
• Cash in on OP early access Subs
• Cash in on OP Sub premiums
• Monitor popularitiy targets and nerf / buff accordingly
• In the end you can only lose again

This will be another balancing fiasco like the CV rework, another perma open heart surgery - with a spoon and a spatula.

[Gvozdika]

2 hours ago, Profilus said:

So is max range/keep full HP BB play, but there's no shortage of those players sadly.

I think the difference is that BBs (even those sitting on the border) are still part of the surface ship game. Sure, some might be camped further away than others - but you are fighting on the same level and as part of the same battle. You are 'in the fight' sending shells at them and they sending shells back at you - you've got stuff flying around and exploding all over the place. It is player vs player interaction where both sides get feedback. 

 

Subs feel like a different game to the point that you can blissfully wander around underwater in complete ignorance of what is happening 'up top' - after all, why bother motoring around up there when you can stay low and ping/shoot stuff. The exception to this is transiting to your first engagement - where you may as well travel on the surface to keep your dive timer maxed out. Otherwise - unless you like bobbing around in a gloomy blue murk while occasionally insta-blapping someone with your super-torps - the submarine player experience is mind-numbingly dull.

 

The surface ship experience isn't much better.

[Procrastes]

One question: Are all the USN subs markedly better than the German ones in almost every way that counts, or am I just imagining things?

[Cippalippus]

3 minutes ago, Procrastes said:

One question: Are all the USN subs markedly better than the German ones in almost every way that counts, or am I just imagining things?

Yup

[Procrastes]

5 minutes ago, Cippalippus said:

Yup

I see. Another instance of the old adage that you shouldn't let the Germans be especially good at anything in particular, I guess. Charming.