Do roles even exist, for classes, rather than individual ships being proficient in certain roles?

[Figment]

You hear a lot of people complain about roles lately, particularly where it comes to submarines (of which we have two very similar lines with some minor differentiation now), but it made me think about something else... are roles actually so well-defined in WoWs? And are they communicated well to (new) players?

 

WG doesn't seem to know quite what a role is, just look at the descriptors for the various classes on the loading screens of their "role". For each category of ships, it's literally about as sophisticated a description as "DÛÛÛÛuuurrrrr....Does pew pew with main guns? Irunno."

 

 

 

In reality, each ship class has a huge amount of variety within their class, sometimes divided per nation, sometimes within the nation. In fact, you could argue it's so all over the place that ship roles are more to be categorised and defined by their assigned gimmicks and arbitrarily assigned variables than their class. If you want to define cruisers as a class in WoWs... Then you can mostly talk about the few characteristics they have in common, like a similar tonnage (not even always true) and plating thickness (ranging from Swedish balsa wood to mighty Stalinium). Good luck giving the same general role definition for a class, where you get it to suit every nation and provides a detailed description of the role of the ship you have in front of you.

 

So yeah. WG came up with "it does pew pew".

 

 

Are we surprised a lot of people who rely on others to inform them (rather than figure it out for themselves), don't know how to handle their ships? Ships don't have one defining feature either, it's the combination of features that creates a role as a specialist, generalist or whatever. You can get way more information from the inter-ship stats comparisons pre-match (sadly that is gone once you're in the match). But that still doesn't explain roles in a way all people can interpret.

 

So if we want to define roles, shouldn't we be looking more at creating "Role radar charts" for individual ships to explain how well their stat combinations fit various roles? At the very least we should give them a set of better categorized role descriptions that make (new) players understand what they should and shouldn't be attempting with these ships. Indicators like optimal ranges for certain ships to engage enemies in. I'd like to see this information in radar charts be provided in port and on the loading screen such that you can also compare with other ships. Each role should have mouse overs to explain what is meant by it.

 

Example diagram for the Friesland with DD class roles and relative proficiency ratings in comparison to other DDs it might encounter:

 

 

Similar role charts should be made for each class and then applied to each individual ship.

 

TLDR version: Ships have multiple roles. to communicate this to players, we should give them role ratings in the form of a radar chart that's viewable in port and on loading screens (including comparisons with other ships in general (port) or that they'll encounter in the upcoming match).

 

[tocqueville8]

This is actually a very good idea.

 

My go-to sources for ship reviews are LWM, especially for older premiums, and Yuzorah's articles on The Daily Bounce. While they both give us excellent write-ups, I suspect a lot of the information they put out there is just not going to help most players make a decision, and what would is more on the line of what the ship can do rather than important, but fairly obscure numbers like the shell weight or AA sector damage frequency. Those things have to be in the review for reference, so that you can compare them with the numbers of other ships, but you still have to imagine what they mean for the ship in action.

 

The "pros and cons" lists are useful, because they give you the standout points of the ship relative to her peers, but you've still got to read the whole thing to figure out what they mean in practice. I mean...that's the point: making readers go through the whole article. It's fine. But I also think there could be a visual summary of what the ship is good at.

For instance:

• some cruisers are good at kiting (HE, accuracy, agility, rearward firing angles, maybe long-range torps...)
• some are good at area denial (small frontal profile, good bow and deck armor, good AP, AA, high hp pool...)
• some are good at cap support (radar, hydro, smoke, concealment, burst damage, turret traverse, maybe torps...)
• some are good at flanking/pushing (speed, agility, powerful AP, good AA, maybe hydro, but little need for radar or smoke)
• some are good at brawling (close-range armor, torpedo broadside, AP penetration, turret traverse, secondaries, a vision consumable...)

These are just some of the possible "roles", off the top of my head.

Also, some of these situations are more likely to occur in the early game (area denial, cap support...), while others (pushing, brawling if you're not a yoloer) come later, so there's also a matter of early/late-game strength.

 

As I understand, this is the problem of going from hard data to soft data.

[Figment]

Communicating things visually is a generally important and quick way to transfer relatively complex information.

 

The guides you describe are great at detail and study, but generally bad for a quick comparison.

 

Hence these would be great complementary features. Explaining roles and proficiencies might also create more understanding and acceptance.

 

For DDs, you could define even more slight differences in role proficiencies: hit-and-run, DPS, Alpha Strike, baiting, firestarter (HE). The wheel shouldn’t get too full, so making such roles toggable would ease comparison. Of course once assigned it could help as additional filters in ship searching and selection (of grind goals) in both the tech tree and owned ship carroussel.

 

Extrapolating, it’d also be nice if you could see in game how taking on certain captain skills, flags and modules would improve such roles before acquiring them. For instance, showing the max potential of the ship opposed to where it is now with a low opacity layer (and ideally explaining how to acquire such stats).

 

There’s a big information sharing and choice supporting opportunity here IMO.

[Panocek]

I'm afraid you're overestimating attention span of majority of players, whom have difficulty finding more detailed stats than vague "Firepower: 73", nor have interest in finding anything beyond "does it pew pew?"

[Itwastuesday]

Well I think it's fairly simple.

 

CV - does CV things. Some are decent at hunting destroyers, others are worthless.

 

BB - either has strong long range guns or is worthless.

 

CA - radar ship that can't kill DD, nonradarship that can, possibly both (Nevsky?) or is useless long range HE spammer. 

 

CL - useless except for possibly radar Minotaur.

 

DD - can either torp sniper battleships, be Marceau/Småland or is largely useless.

 

Submarine - it's a gimmicky torp DD.

[Figment]

14 minutes ago, Panocek said:

I'm afraid you're overestimating attention span of majority of players, whom have difficulty finding more detailed stats than vague "Firepower: 73", nor have interest in finding anything beyond "does it pew pew?"

Lack of attentionspan is why I want to provide them with a clear graphic that may entice them (eventually) to think a bit deeper about a subject and in doing so provide minor education on how to use the ship using trigger words. Ultimately, it may change behaviour and manage expectations.

 

Say Scout: 8/10 vs Scout: 3/10 would try to use exactly that sort of superficial understanding you talk bout to trigger their curiosity and shape their preconceptions of a ship a bit more.

 

Whereas "firepower 73" doesn't say much about how to use it, for BB players, things like Torp brawler: 8, Secondary spammer: 9, Sniper: 3, Citadel protection: 7 could possibly change their perception of what it is supposed to do, where before they only saw guns so can do pew pew. If it is integrated right with the rest of the UI, it could also affect people's ship tuning, like choice of modules and captain skills and changing their behaviour around and expectations of the performance of the ship in question. It might also give them a basic explanation when they fail at using the ship that they might do something wrong.

 

For more experienced players, it'd also provide a neat advanced ship search filter.

[MoveZig]

I'd say there is still a remnant of a class system, with some types of ships having specific expectations on them. But basically it comes down to DD -> cap and scout. Radar cruiser -> cover domination points and screen for DDs (and god forbid you equip something else instead of radar). CV -> scout DDs, harass, grief, finish off low-health ships and generally be a hated nuisance. Every other gunship falls into a murky damage-dealer role I guess.

[Karasu_Browarszky]

The roles should matter, but in practice they barely do. Which is why most battles don't feel like battles but more like trying to take a bath in a salad bowl. Roughly about as enjoyable as well.

[tocqueville8]

56 minutes ago, Panocek said:

I'm afraid you're overestimating attention span of majority of players, whom have difficulty finding more detailed stats than vague "Firepower: 73", nor have interest in finding anything beyond "does it pew pew?"

 

Can't say I agree with this.

 

The community is full of ship reviews, guides, questions about which coal ship to get here or on Reddit, etc. I don't know about "the majority of players", but a lot of players certainly have curiosity.

 

But when you look at reviews, you find data like "250k AP DPM" or "2.0 sigma", which are important to experienced, knowledgeable players, but might be hard to read for the more casual ones. And they still don't give a complete picture: you need to know the penetration curve, the horizontal dispersion, the vertical dispersion (unpublished, right?), the impact angle, the flight time curve...

 

Take Ohio and Slava: the former has much better AP DPM and slightly better sigma, but if you need to punish a fleeting broadside at 19 km, what would you pick? Slava, no doubt. She's still not perfect because the turrets turn slowly, but she's just much more consistent.

One could read a whole write-up comparing the AP DPM, or the alpha strike, of all Tier 10 BBs, and look at 4 different graphs, but in the end some players are going to want a rating: how good is this BB at slapping broadsides at range?

[Redcap375]

1 hour ago, Panocek said:

I'm afraid you're overestimating attention span of majority of players, whom have difficulty finding more detailed stats than vague "Firepower: 73", nor have interest in finding anything beyond "does it pew pew?"

 

This..

 

Anyway, roles of the classes went out the window many moons ago. Now you have CL's beat up BBS and DDs mudering crusiers.

 

Never used to be the case, when there was only a few lines and AA was a thing. Like when atlanta's and Clevelands used to support CV with AA cover? Those that remember those days. All that went out the window along with teamwork when they made a ship do everything well to make it super easy for the average player to compehend. Basically dumb it down.

 

The thing is, teamwork is a concept very few WOWS players understood and got worse when they turned it into arcade mode.

[tocqueville8]

15 minutes ago, MoveZig said:

I'd say there is still a remnant of a class system, with some types of ships having specific expectations on them. But basically it comes down to DD -> cap and scout. Radar cruiser -> cover domination points and screen for DDs (and god forbid you equip something else instead of radar). CV -> scout DDs, harass, grief, finish off low-health ships and generally be a hated nuisance. Every other gunship falls into a murky damage-dealer role I guess.

 

No offense, but that's incredibly simplistic, and it doesn't do justice to the OP's idea.

You might as well say that all ships come down to "do damage, take damage, contest caps (directly or indirectly), try to win".

 

DDs don't "basically come down to cap and scout":

• many Soviet and French DDs are more about harassing/farming large targets in open water (or behind islands, but then they won't absorb potential damage...)
• the Z-52 line, as well as Vampire 2 and a few others, can pull the smoke+hydro trap
• USN and Pan Asian DDs are good at laying smoke for the team/division, others much less so
• smokeless DDs have a hard time capping early, no matter how good their AA is
• some DDs have a massive torpedo armament, which is better against clusters of large ships; some have fast-reloading torps, which are better against other DDs to help contesting caps; some are fast and have fast torps with good angles, which is better for rushing.

 

These are distinct capabilities, for different scenarios.

[tocqueville8]

11 minutes ago, Redcap375 said:

Anyway, roles of the classes went out the window many moons ago. Now you have CL's beat up BBS and DDs mudering crusiers.

 

But what about the OP's point that different ships in the same class have different roles/capabilities, and that it might be helpful to represent/rate them?

[Karasu_Browarszky]

2 minutes ago, tocqueville8 said:

 

No offense, but that's incredibly simplistic, and it doesn't do justice to the OP's idea.

You might as well say that all ships come down to "do damage, take damage, contest caps (directly or indirectly), try to win".

 

You got it. That's what the meta is now. A complete mish-mash of universal pointlessness.

[Figment]

1 hour ago, Itwastuesday said:

Well I think it's fairly simple.

 

[...]

Or you'd get something like this for quick role and strengths/weaknesses comparison that players can understand more easily. (Note: numbers are not to scale :P).

 

 

[Mad_Dog_Dante]

1 hour ago, Panocek said:

"does it pew pew?"

This is basically me.

[tocqueville8]

13 minutes ago, Karasu_Hidesuke said:

You got it. That's what the meta is now. A complete mish-mash of universal pointlessness.

 

I don't see the point of being so cynical when someone makes a creative suggestion.

 

The OP is right: different lines or premiums in the same class play very differently, i.e. they give their best in different tactical and strategic situations, and it could be useful to try to represent that somehow.

Something between WG's "Resistance 100, Torpedoes 17" useless ratings and some reviewers' hyper-detailed (and very well-written) analyses.

 

I offered some suggestions above regarding cruisers: for instance, Ibuki, Riga, Plymouth, Carnot and Napoli excel at different things, but those things are in-game tasks that are a consequence of their hard stats (armor scheme, concealment, etc.)

[Karasu_Browarszky]

1 minute ago, tocqueville8 said:

 

I don't see the point of being so cynical when someone makes a creative suggestion.

 

The OP is right: different lines or premiums in the same class play very differently, i.e. they give their best in different tactical and strategic situations, and it could be useful to try to represent that somehow.

Something between WG's "Resistance 100, Torpedoes 17" useless ratings and some reviewers' hyper-detailed (and very well-written) analyses.

 

I offered some suggestions above regarding cruisers: for instance, Ibuki, Riga, Plymouth, Carnot and Napoli excel at different things, but those things are in-game tasks that are a consequence of their hard stats (armor scheme, concealment, etc.)

 

Yes, I agree with what OP is saying. This isn't necessarily about intra-class combat roles, though, but more about ship specific differences, their strengths and weakness. It would be a good idea whether with pictures or in a verbal format to relate to the players what they are good for. As a relatively modest casual player, I mostly go by the combat role expectations, but I'd find something that goes into a little more detail helpful to let me optimize the ships combat abilities better.

 

Cynical or not, it just doesn't seem like WG shares our interest.

[Yedwy]

@OP Vaugely but in reality its mostly dependant on the ship or line in question

[tocqueville8]

51 minutes ago, Figment said:

Or you'd get something like this for quick role and strengths/weaknesses comparison that players can understand more easily. (Note: numbers are not to scale :P).

 

A few suggestions for aggregate ratings:

 

- long-range survivability (can the deck be overmatched by most BBs she'll face? How big is her citadel?)

 

- short-range survivability (does she have good secondaries, potentially?), especially useful at low-mid tiers

 

- repositioning (speed and concealment): Langley bad, let's just say

[Figment]

@YabbaCoe Any chance you could tell us if there's any priority being given to UI improvements and ways to inform/educate players these days?

 

I know there's a lot of cynism going around the community (see above) and I realise implementation of what I'm suggesting would take quite a bit of time, money and effort. The direct return is probably hard to define. But it would raise quality of life for players and be recognised as a player oriented positive improvement* that's not just a money grab**.

 

 

 

 

* Although probably taken for granted soon after when the next pet peeve pops up. :p

** Some people will probably argue it's only done to make premiums seem like good investments***
*** even if they'll have lower ratings than tech tree ships...

[Figment]

2 minutes ago, tocqueville8 said:

A few suggestions for aggregate ratings:

 

- long-range survivability (can the deck be overmatched by most BBs she'll face? How big is her citadel?)

 

- short-range survivability (does she have good secondaries, potentially?), especially useful at low-mid tiers

 

- repositioning (speed and concealment): Langley bad, let's just say

I was also thinking about scouting and number of waves (Soviet CVs are relatively bad at scouting due to having just one wave), travel time ratio (again bad rating for Soviets - which kinda forces you to sit closer to the action) and direct vs indirect damage (flooding/HE), where British for instance are better. Quality vs quantity might be a thing to consider as well (number of torps vs damage per torp).

[SeaWolf7]

1 hour ago, Redcap375 said:

 

This..

 

Anyway, roles of the classes went out the window many moons ago. Now you have CL's beat up BBS and DDs mudering crusiers.

 

Never used to be the case, when there was only a few lines and AA was a thing. Like when atlanta's and Clevelands used to support CV with AA cover? Those that remember those days. All that went out the window along with teamwork when they made a ship do everything well to make it super easy for the average player to compehend. Basically dumb it down.

 

The thing is, teamwork is a concept very few WOWS players understood and got worse when they turned it into arcade mode.

Agree 100%

Its turning into a bit of a free for all atm. People ignoring their role in the game for personal gains or missions. There is actually too much choice atm imo. i find it can have a negative impact on newer people to the game as they are constantly changing ships/roles perusing challenges and rewards rather than working on a single class and getting the basics of game play down first. 

[Figment]

28 minutes ago, Yedwy said:

@OP Vaugely but in reality its mostly dependant on the ship or line in question

That's my observation as well. Classes are more a collection of roles, where the same role might be present, but shifted in efficiency or usage compared to other classes.

Think of scouting, a Dutch or British CA/CL becomes the next in line to scout as a DD would if you're out of DD compared to other cruisers, but as a cruiser, they're naturally worse at it than DDs.

17 minutes ago, SeaWolf7 said:

Its turning into a bit of a free for all atm. People ignoring their role in the game for personal gains or missions.

That's not that new tbh. Some people thought they squeezed out more exp by chasing that last ship (or had more fun doing it) than ensuring a win over a draw or loss by capping since alpha. This is largely a mindset issue where people try to optimize their fun or grind goals at the detriment of themselves and/or others. Especially when they don't understand their chances of winning.

Quote

There is actually too much choice atm imo. i find it can have a negative impact on newer people to the game as they are constantly changing ships/roles perusing challenges and rewards rather than working on a single class and getting the basics of game play down first. 

Depends on the player's capability and pre-existing knowledge, but for the "don't need to read the manual" crowd there's a very high Dunning-Kruger chance if they assume that knowing one line of a particular class ships makes them masters of the class of ships for the entire game.

 

Playing Dutch cruisers for instance is completely different tactically, strategically and in terms of patience, timing and target selection compared to other cruisers that also rely on firestarting.

[tocqueville8]

13 minutes ago, Figment said:

I was also thinking about scouting and number of waves (Soviet CVs are relatively bad at scouting due to having just one wave), travel time ratio (again bad rating for Soviets - which kinda forces you to sit closer to the action) and direct vs indirect damage (flooding/HE), where British for instance are better. Quality vs quantity might be a thing to consider as well (number of torps vs damage per torp).

 

All good points.

 

I'd argue that AP weapons are easier to use against ships that are often semi-stationary (Stalingrad, Baltimore, Kremlin...), while HE ordnance is more consistent against maneuvering targets.

[Panocek]

2 hours ago, Figment said:

Lack of attentionspan is why I want to provide them with a clear graphic that may entice them (eventually) to think a bit deeper about a subject and in doing so provide minor education on how to use the ship using trigger words. Ultimately, it may change behaviour and manage expectations.

You can make prettiest, cleanest chart or best TL;DR there is, but it doesn't matter if guy you want to read it doesn't care, all he cares is making boomy noises when you click left mouse button.

 

Especially given current stock of ships, you're expecting such player to pay attention and roughly memorize something like 20 such charts to cover all the baseline ship niches, let alone one-off premiums. And if guy is willing or even trying to memorize that, he's probably already a 54WR+ player just by virtue of playing with screen turned on.

 

And Wargaming introduced brief description of the ships in tech tree. Does that help those who could use some help? I doubt, because they don't care

 

1 hour ago, tocqueville8 said:

 

Can't say I agree with this.

 

The community is full of ship reviews, guides, questions about which coal ship to get here or on Reddit, etc. I don't know about "the majority of players", but a lot of players certainly have curiosity.

 

But when you look at reviews, you find data like "250k AP DPM" or "2.0 sigma", which are important to experienced, knowledgeable players, but might be hard to read for the more casual ones. And they still don't give a complete picture: you need to know the penetration curve, the horizontal dispersion, the vertical dispersion (unpublished, right?), the impact angle, the flight time curve...

 

Take Ohio and Slava: the former has much better AP DPM and slightly better sigma, but if you need to punish a fleeting broadside at 19 km, what would you pick? Slava, no doubt. She's still not perfect because the turrets turn slowly, but she's just much more consistent.

One could read a whole write-up comparing the AP DPM, or the alpha strike, of all Tier 10 BBs, and look at 4 different graphs, but in the end some players are going to want a rating: how good is this BB at slapping broadsides at range?

Those who want to find info are already rare breed. Especially as most reviewers tend to put comparisons to existing common ships, so vague "250k dpm" is usually presented with bit of context.

 

Also Slava due to having only 406mm guns can be pretty crap at dealing with angled ships at range, so there is no clear cut answer to "me want to clap ships at range" question... Well, there's Satsuma I presume.