Dirigible Derby: some observations

[SodaBubbles]

 

I've played Dirigible Derby many times now. Some thoughts....

 

1. DESTROYERS. I may win or lose if I play well in a cruiser or battleship, but if I play well in Shim (which I have played a lot), I nearly always win. Torp spam is incredibly powerful in this mode, so much so that it might be a good idea for the devs to adjust the number of DDs downward to one or two (or remove them entirely from this mode). In Shim I have consistently racked up 100-120K damage games, had several in the 150K range, and a couple over 200K. Because ships must move in predictable paths in brawling range, they are easy marks for an experienced IJN DD player (don't have Somers so can't comment but seems about the same). Of course, that could have been avoided if...

 

2. T10 is Totally Inappropriate for this mode. Offense scales faster than defense as you rise in the tiers. At T10 offense rules and no ship lasts very long under the hail of HE and AP and floods of Shim and Halland torps. This mode would be far more intense and interesting at a lower tier where the big ships would last longer and not be so vulnerable to torps, and where every ship was not a walking apocalyptic death machine. It goes without saying that with one or two exceptions, once one side is down two ships the match is usually over. That is not true in the lower tiers. Dirigible Derby offers the win-win potential for good matches to please players and give them the chance to grind ships, with short matches to please WG. 

 

3. Map choices. (1) The T10 maps are hard on cruisers, offering few places for cruisers to duck behind islands. Something like the map for Raptor Rescue or New Dawn, with plenty of small islands to duck behind, would have been much better. (2) the maps all had open spaces before the end when the airship arrived, meaning that the side with living torp DDs at the end had massive advantages because they could deny that space while sitting outside it. Some maps need to have cramped interior spaces where the dirigible arrives, which would be better for cruisers or BBs and more dangerous for DDs. (3) The spiral map on Shards was a great idea and led to lots of open water action. More of that kind of outside-the-box thinking, please. 

 

4. Performance Threshold. I understand that the devs love botters, AFKers, and Yolo'ers because they cause collapses, shorten games, and put players back in the queue faster, but they are unnecessary in this mode, since it is usually pretty quick because the airship control the match duration. The mode should be gated with a 45% WR threshold to keep out the botters and other parasites. Position fun modes like this as reward modes for players who are committed to keeping it real. 

 

Your thoughts? 

 

[Montrala]

True that DDs are very strong in this mode. I have great battles in TRB Hayate and F3 Shima. Hell! I even had torpedo kills in Khaba, that I survived

 

I would love to see this mode at different tiers, but limiting it to TX for a start is not huge deal.

 

Maps are OK and actually some end in cramped area or have choke point near the end. Parking GK or even going in with torp DD here can make huge difference.

 

I don't see this coming. Anyway, this mode is so much fun, I do not care about win or loss. I only got a bit salty about FDR in one match, that went to opposing corner of the map than finish point. I think this player just did not understand the point of this mode not being about farming damage.

[Cyclops_]

Sorry but the few battles I have played it is not the DD that  cause a win, ( and I played DD and CA) but it is the ability or lack of  team play that loses. Also the teams are to big, it is just like playing a random, smaller teams brings more team play and strategy. larger team have little team play., Players that bring in TX ships that they have purchased and have little or no TIX experience, let alone TX experience.

 

So, please lets have smaller teams, and lower level of ships, like T8 maybe or a mix of TIX / TX ?

 

[Montrala]

6 minut temu, Cyclops_ napisał:

Players that bring in TX ships that they have purchased and have little or no TIX experience, let alone TX experience.

 

So, please lets have smaller teams, and lower level of ships, like T8 maybe or a mix of TIX / TX ?

 

Do you realize, that there is even more players with zero experience (not only in TX, but generally in game) that purchased TVIII and TIX premiums? So how this would help?

[BoxOfAngryBees]

my recomendation:
* HE shell/burn damage as well as fire chance x0.5 specifically for HE spammers - either heavily nerf or remove the brits HE machine guns

* increase map size depending on tier level (would mean a new map tech or map rework but ... well, thats the only way i see to fix the issue of getting shot at 10 seconds after map start - and potentially being deleted before the game starts)

* get people to effectively balance gimmicks/ships/MM/maps

* and by the grace of the norse gods - implement a meaningful tutorial!

[arttuperkunas]

1 hour ago, SodaBubbles said:

 

2. T10 is Totally Inappropriate for this mode. Offense scales faster than defense as you rise in the tiers. At T10 offense rules and no ship lasts very long under the hail of HE and AP and floods of Shim and Halland torps. This mode would be far more intense and interesting at a lower tier where the big ships would last longer and not be so vulnerable to torps, and where every ship was not a walking apocalyptic death machine. It goes without saying that with one or two exceptions, once one side is down two ships the match is usually over. That is not true in the lower tiers. Dirigible Derby offers the win-win potential for good matches to please players and give them the chance to grind ships, with short matches to please WG. 

 

This is not my experience of the dirigible derpy mode. In fact, if your team concentrates on moving the dirigible and staying in the cap zone, you can win despite being overwhelmingly down on ships. If anything, steamrolling losses can have less of an effect than on randoms.

[Camperdown]

Maybe too much of a simplification, but the team which understands you have to stay ahead of the airship wins? So average team IQ is paramount and basically random.

[Padds01]

1 i find the insanity of the shima torp spam game destroyingly unfun in any mode , its like playing against multile cv's you have no real counterplay , the dd just sits in its physics defying stealth field or invisibility bubble and spams wildly untill eventually they get lucky.

 

2. said almost exactly the same mysef, i suggested if they want to keep it t10 put in a modifier that drops all ranger and damages by a % maybe even but in a dispersion penalty 

 

didnt play enough for 3 , though i doubt mark 1 choices will be optimal

[Kruzenstern]

My one and only experience with this mode was trying my newly won Hayate because I thought "Well, this mode with a predetermined way for the teams to go must be good for long range torp spam". And hell I was more right than I thought, iirc there were 4 DDs on every team, 3 Shimas each plus my Hayate and an enemy Halland. You could walk on torps from one Dirigible to the other... And even my badly spammed torps (I suck at tier10 in general and tier10DDs specifically) hit stuff... But it certainly was not a lot of fun...

 

I totally agree with the OP that this mode could be fun if:

- Teams were smaller

- Tier was lower

- DDs were limited

 

[arttuperkunas]

14 minutes ago, Padds01 said:

1 i find the insanity of the shima torp spam game destroyingly unfun in any mode , its like playing against multile cv's you have no real counterplay , the dd just sits in its physics defying stealth field or invisibility bubble and spams wildly untill eventually they get lucky.

 

Out of all the things that are broken/problematic in this game, I don't understand how shima torp spam is topping your list.

 

I play a lot of shima, and I regularly play against shima. It's hardly a team destroying eater of worlds at a tier that is chock full of radar, CVs and long range hydro. That honour arguably belongs to Asashio, which is a bit... much at T8. But not Shima.

[lovelacebeer]

I’m genuinely surprised some people are finding the torp spam an issue. 
 

However to be fair no matter what class I have played (and I have played all 3 classes) I have only once seen a game with 3 DDs per side, and I hardly see Shimas. 

[Andrewbassg]

2 hours ago, arttuperkunas said:

Out of all the things that are broken/problematic in this game, mode, I don't understand how shima torp spam is topping your list.

 

Oh it can be.

[arttuperkunas]

2 minutes ago, Andrewbassg said:

Oh it can be.

Sure, torp spam can be broken in this specific game mode, but he was making a general point.

 

If you can play defensively with shima, especially when you know the enemy's route of advance, and what's more that route goes through narrow channels or such, torp spam can be excessively strong. That said, this is essentially the ideal possible situation for a torp boat, and a world away from your average randoms match. It's kind of like assessing Schlieffen's general performance (OK) based on its potential in ranked (which is bonkers).

[Andrewbassg]

I already expressed my assessment of the mode, but  i should add that understanding the chosen ships strengths ( and playing accordingly)  is paramount

Nobody can expect from a Nevsky to start tanking or scouting. She is a long range spammer and harasser therefore should be played as such.

[Panocek]

4 hours ago, BoxOfAngryBees said:

brits HE machine guns

 

4 hours ago, BoxOfAngryBees said:

* HE shell/burn damage as well as fire chance x0.5 specifically for HE spammers

Tier 10 already enjoys -50% fire chance bonus and by virtue of being tier 10, supposed reward after prolonged grind, you usually have the most leveled captains on these, thus, you should be able to build survivability related skills without issues.

 

Besides, fires are main reason small caliber guns can remain effective against big boats. If you want invulnerability against small caliber guns in your big bad boat, go play War Thunder

[BoxOfAngryBees]

1 hour ago, Panocek said:

 

Besides, fires are main reason small caliber guns can remain effective against big boats. If you want invulnerability against small caliber guns in your big bad boat, go play War Thunder

50% was also more off the cuff than anything - the worst offenders still need to be scaled down in my opinion

[Panocek]

13 minutes ago, BoxOfAngryBees said:

50% was also more off the cuff than anything - the worst offenders still need to be scaled down in my opinion

Only if global BB firepower nerf follows suite, both overmatch and damage per shell. Then you can be as tanky as you like

[BoxOfAngryBees]

2 minutes ago, Panocek said:

Only if global BB firepower nerf follows suite, both overmatch and damage per shell. Then you can be as tanky as you like

If were talking survivability, I suppose its not as simple as we both make it out to be. The core culprit is the power creep - which, in its current state, is impossible to balance or treat effectively without sweeping changes. HE is a problem, yes - as is the overmatch mechanics of the bigger guns, smoke/radar combos, map sizes and gun ranges, DD/CA survivability ... not to mention the bugs that have been swept under the rug like the server tick rate (and yes, if it cripples gameplay, its a fuggin bug), the aimbot generally being inadequate, ship turn angles etc ....

 

Its tricky to turn one knob on a complex system and have the system not go all whack on you - let alone on a system that is basically mecahnics-salad at the best of times, a black-box for the rest for the dudes actually upholding it. I really can imagine wedgie game balancers getting eldritch cthulhu nightmares at night about the game.

 

still doesnt excuse wedgie from having let the game turn to the state it is in now ... i would actually be an advocate for a complete relaunch if that was the goal of it

[Hades_warrior]

7 hours ago, SodaBubbles said:

4. Performance Threshold. I understand that the devs love botters, AFKers, and Yolo'ers because they cause collapses, shorten games, and put players back in the queue faster, but they are unnecessary in this mode, since it is usually pretty quick because the airship control the match duration. The mode should be gated with a 45% WR threshold to keep out the botters and other parasites. Position fun modes like this as reward modes for players who are committed to keeping it real. 

I couldn't say it better myself.

[stefaan1974]

I just won the round for us by staying the entire game in our airship's zone, but don't receive the "relentless" achievement?

 

[__Helmut_Kohl__]

On 2/22/2022 at 10:20 AM, SodaBubbles said:

 

T10 is Totally Inappropriate for this mode. 

 

 

This mode is particularly about making high tiers (especially tier X) less passive. 

 

And as far as I have heard, that's precisely the beauty of it.

 

 

[Padds01]

On 2/22/2022 at 11:37 AM, arttuperkunas said:

Out of all the things that are broken/problematic in this game, I don't understand how shima torp spam is topping your list.

 

I play a lot of shima, and I regularly play against shima. It's hardly a team destroying eater of worlds at a tier that is chock full of radar, CVs and long range hydro. That honour arguably belongs to Asashio, which is a bit... much at T8. But not Shima.

well id guess its all perspective , i like to play brawling BB's and aggressive heavy cruisers, ie i want to be pushing , a shima completely shuts that down , theres no counter play theres nothing i can do , even if they get spotted miss and cloak up they reload faster than i can get into range to punish, i just have to put up with them sitting 7km away spamming skill walls on CD and theres no way to do anything about it.

Thers is more counterplay/interplay vs cv's than a torp boat.

 

I know this is about as arcadey and unrealistic as you can get without it actually having a coin slot, but things should still make in universe sense, and DD's just dont and i think that really adds to the aggravation , the stealth field, the cloak , the retardation of the line of sight laws of physics etc. the stupidity of the damage rules that had to be implemented to give them extreme tankyness,  there just magic and it grates.

[Brinckie]

On 2/22/2022 at 11:14 AM, BoxOfAngryBees said:

my recomendation:
* HE shell/burn damage as well as fire chance x0.5 specifically for HE spammers - either heavily nerf or remove the brits HE machine guns

* increase map size depending on tier level (would mean a new map tech or map rework but ... well, thats the only way i see to fix the issue of getting shot at 10 seconds after map start - and potentially being deleted before the game starts)

* get people to effectively balance gimmicks/ships/MM/maps

* and by the grace of the norse gods - implement a meaningful tutorial!

 

On 2/22/2022 at 12:28 PM, Kruzenstern said:

My one and only experience with this mode was trying my newly won Hayate because I thought "Well, this mode with a predetermined way for the teams to go must be good for long range torp spam". And hell I was more right than I thought, iirc there were 4 DDs on every team, 3 Shimas each plus my Hayate and an enemy Halland. You could walk on torps from one Dirigible to the other... And even my badly spammed torps (I suck at tier10 in general and tier10DDs specifically) hit stuff... But it certainly was not a lot of fun...

 

I totally agree with the OP that this mode could be fun if:

- Teams were smaller

- Tier was lower

- DDs were limited

 

It must have been said before but seems most people play BB hence the que with BB in this game mode.

If DD need to be limited and fire spam damage aswell then so would AP damage and the ammount of BB in this game mode.

By Default cruisers and DD that need open water or smoke to survive have less chance of being usefull when the range decreases.

 

Radar and Hydro are very powerfull in this game mode, especilly in the ones with a funnel built into it for the Blimp to pass through.

DD that actually need stealth and same goes for cruisers, are less effective if BB dont tank and push up.

 

Remember this game mode is not about sniping from the back but winning by TEAM effort to push that Blimp on or prevent the enemy one from progressing.

Sadly XP still  seems mostly  focused only on doing damage, i almost never see any DD or cruisers on top since they dont have the sustained stamina to do that.

 

Fun game mode imho but rewards needs to be looked at, the same goes for randoms etc, its way easier to get rewards/medals/xp in BB then anything else since damage is so easy to come by.

 

[Ocsimano18]

The main problem is team skill. Most players are below 47%, and the over 50% players per side is unevenly distributed, like 4vs1, and determine who wins before the match start. Also, as mentioned before, DDs have incerdibely more influence than other classes. Playing with a BB, you have very minimal carry potential, and feel it even more that you’re dummy in a pre-determined match.

[Brinckie]

5 minutes ago, Ocsimano18 said:

The main problem is team skill. Most players are below 47%, and the over 50% players per side is unevenly didtributed, like 4vs1, and determine who wins before the match start. 

And sadly thats exagerated by having no tutorial providing clearly what each ship class needs to do or try to achieve to provide a fun and engaging game for all.

 

Rewards don't help in that regards, xp, medals the likes.