Operations are a hot mess now

[Panocek]

7 minutes ago, BlackYeti said:

Still IMO it's better to tweak ship tiers, upgrade Myoko to Mogami etc. instead of buffing tech tree ships to levels unachievable and unexpected by players.

Thing is, replacing ship by higher tier rarely changes much, besides adding bit more hp to the enemy.

Myoko, Mogami (203) and Ibuki have effectively identical firepower, so does Pensa->Orlean->Baltimore

 

Unless you create major jump, like from Myoko to Azuma or from Nurnberg to Hindenburg, simple uptier by one is effectively irrelevant, while players using "optimal" ships would probably clear Ops even faster/easier/more consistent.

 

[BlackYeti]

9 minutes ago, Panocek said:

Thing is, replacing ship by higher tier rarely changes much, besides adding bit more hp to the enemy.

Myoko, Mogami (203) and Ibuki have effectively identical firepower, so does Pensa->Orlean->Baltimore

 

Unless you create major jump, like from Myoko to Azuma or from Nurnberg to Hindenburg, simple uptier by one is effectively irrelevant, while players using "optimal" ships would probably clear Ops even faster/easier/more consistent.

 

Then just add one more ship to a wave. Anything is better really than inflating ships to the point they don't resemble tech tree counterparts at all. OR i'm going to extend an olive branch here leave the HP buffs but get rid of the invisible ones like damage, accuracy (?), fire chance (?). Maybe IFHE as well...

[Panocek]

3 minutes ago, BlackYeti said:

Then just add one more ship to a wave. Anything is better really than inflating ships to the point they don't resemble tech tree counterparts at all. OR i'm going to extend an olive branch here leave the HP buffs but get rid of the invisible ones like damage, accuracy (?), fire chance (?). Maybe IFHE as well...

So far only buffs noticed are ship hp and shell damage, I don't think other properties are changed. And biggest offender is Aegis, where large number of IJN CA are present, with 32mm HE pen, good fire chance and accuracy by default, dealing with that always was pain. Blame IJN for using exactly the same guns from tier 5 to 9

 

And AI pathing is already wacky at times, I don't think adding some more will help 

[arczer25]

7 minutes ago, Panocek said:

So far only buffs noticed are ship hp and shell damage, I don't think other properties are changed. And biggest offender is Aegis, where large number of IJN CA are present, with 32mm HE pen, good fire chance and accuracy by default, dealing with that always was pain. Blame IJN for using exactly the same guns from tier 5 to 9

 

And AI pathing is already wacky at times, I don't think adding some more will help 

ye 50k HP Myokos with also have 25mm plating with 32mm deck tend to be severe middle finger to some ships, yet frontal firepower of Myoko isn't greater than Furrytacos they replaced, but going for their boardside without any BB to draw fire, smoke or hard cover is kinda suicide.

[Panocek]

5 minutes ago, arczer25 said:

ye 50k HP Myokos with also have 25mm plating with 32mm deck tend to be severe middle finger to some ships, yet frontal firepower of Myoko isn't greater than Furrytacos they replaced, but going for their boardside without any BB to draw fire, smoke or hard cover is kinda suicide.

And the same Myoko but with OG 40k hp, 25mm plating and 32mm deck didn't served as middle finger when you were playing pre prework as tier 6 cruiser?

[RenamedUser_92906789]

4 hours ago, Seraphice said:

Please do not twist the words I said.

What I said was that some players are reporting that the operation is (still) too easy, and others are reporting that the operation is too hard.
I also already mentioned a large factor in this: new players.
Before the changes to operations, most of the people playing operations played a lot of operations, but now that operations has become more popular, there are more people playing operations who have less experience in the game in general, and less experience with the operations themselves.

And as we mentioned in a recent devblog, we are considering adding different difficulty levels for operations as future action point.

 

Happy holidays Captain!
~Sera

 

Ok, sorry you are right, I did twist them (mainly because im frustrated by the amount of defeats I see in this op), but that doesnt change your position on this does it?

You said you like the challenge... but as an ops main, I can tell you with certainty that Aegis is too hard and too fast paced for random teams. And its not just because of new players flux, mainly its because the operation was up tiered with no testing or thought put into it as how it will affect the game play.

[________________Morrison]

Getting nuked from 17km in a surry yea no this is fine.

 

I have to say. Aside from aegis being my personal torturer. bbs that lay in spawn and dont move an inch letting the cruisers take all the damage.

raptor resque fails alot  more than before.

[BlackYeti]

6 minutes ago, Milfious said:

 

raptor resque fails alot  more than before.

Raptor depends alot on route variant. Especially the one where 2 cruisers spawn on right hand side is 100% loss because usually the team has not yet returned from fighting the 2 DDs and 2nd Shokaku, and if you wait and specifically guard that other side you might be screwing yourself over if the game decides on a different spawn variant=congrats you are useless and no damage for you....

[Ubarad]

I thought you were going to mention Operations NPCs being buggy at the moment, which seems to be an issue in Aegis especially.  Operations are a great escape from Random battles when match making or participation levels are bad, yet it doesn't work that way since you get the same AFK or bot tier players throwing matches at those same times.  

[RenamedUser_92906789]

Indeed.

 

Something has to be done with obvious suiciders and griefers that do not like the random operation they got.

[arczer25]

19 hours ago, Panocek said:

And the same Myoko but with OG 40k hp, 25mm plating and 32mm deck didn't served as middle finger when you were playing pre prework as tier 6 cruiser?

even as tier 6 Cruiser they are easier to deal than with BB, since they focus on BB's first and you either get at least 25mm pen with Cruiser level's of DPM or things like Smoke to actually get on their broadside and pummel with AP

[Seraphice]

19 hours ago, RenamedUser_92906789 said:

 

Ok, sorry you are right, I did twist them (mainly because im frustrated by the amount of defeats I see in this op), but that doesnt change your position on this does it?

You said you like the challenge... but as an ops main, I can tell you with certainty that Aegis is too hard and too fast paced for random teams. And its not just because of new players flux, mainly its because the operation was up tiered with no testing or thought put into it as how it will affect the game play.

The operations were tested prior to their implementation in the new system, however if they do turn out to be imbalanced we will make sure to make chances in due time if necessary.

 

Happy holidays Captain!
~Sera

[BlackYeti]

3 hours ago, Seraphice said:

The operations were tested prior to their implementation in the new system, however if they do turn out to be imbalanced we will make sure to make chances in due time if necessary.

 

Happy holidays Captain!
~Sera

My fear is that excessive difficulty will frustrate players and drive them away before the company reacts and then ops will get abandoned once again because of low player count. There is an awful lot of sub 45% players playing ops, if this is the core demographic the thing has to be balanced with them in mind and not hinge on unicums carrying battles in meta ships.  

[Ubertron_X]

2 hours ago, BlackYeti said:

My fear is that excessive difficulty will frustrate players and drive them away before the company reacts and then ops will get abandoned once again because of low player count. There is an awful lot of sub 45% players playing ops, if this is the core demographic the thing has to be balanced with them in mind and not hinge on unicums carrying battles in meta ships.  

Exhibit A, a barely won "The Ultimate Frontier" from today:

 

 

5 out of 7 players have below 1000 games, 3 of them even 500 or lower, so if you have ever ask yourself how it is to fight a war with a bunch of green recruits, operations is here for you.

[Ymustihaveaname]

On 12/19/2022 at 10:47 AM, Panocek said:

And the same Myoko but with OG 40k hp, 25mm plating and 32mm deck didn't served as middle finger when you were playing pre prework as tier 6 cruiser?

Pre rework, I found it relatively easy to for example set up in Pensa to delete them (they arived broadside to give prefect cits if you aimed well so good training IMO what OPS should be...) one at a time as they arrived about as fast as my guns reloaded? I think for example the 2nd wave from the N West ie 1/2/3 line arrives much faster now and often before you have finished killing the first wave, as the ship's extra range, speed & HP has not been compensated for fully? This makes the fight much harder as I have almost never managed to fight Aegis as individual waves after the rework apart from with pre set divs of at least a couple of players, so you end up in much larger fights that burn your DC and thus give you end up burning down a lot of HP.

[DirtyHeddy]

8 hours ago, Seraphice said:

The operations were tested prior to their implementation in the new system, however if they do turn out to be imbalanced we will make sure to make chances in due time if necessary.

Maybe it has not been tested properly enough ...

Some faults - especially in Aegis - are more than obvious and should have been found in proper testing

So I doubt quality of the test practices

I recommend establishing new ones which will work

[lup3s]

4 hours ago, Ubertron_X said:

Exhibit A, a barely won "The Ultimate Frontier" from today:

 

 

5 out of 7 players have below 1000 games, 3 of them even 500 or lower, so if you have ever ask yourself how it is to fight a war with a bunch of green recruits, operations is here for you.

 

This is the biggest problem with Ops tbh; sadly something WG can't fix

[Ymustihaveaname]

7 minutes ago, lup3s said:

This is the biggest problem with Ops tbh; sadly something WG can't fix

Could they not scale the difficulty with WR (or number of games played etc or some combination?) of the players in the group as they scale it with T( ie T6/7/8) of ship involved in the group to balance the chance of a win by any group?

[Floofz]

The problem isnt the Operations the problem is the players. And the reason why Im contemplating just abandoning operations all together for now is that you get absolutely nothing for losing, the rewards are horrible so youre just wasting boosters. In random battles atleast you get something even if you lose and you play well, here it doesnt matter if you do 300k damage you barely even break even and end up with a few thousand xp even with boosters.

So yea, Operations now are just as frustrating if not even more frustrating than random battles, but it seems to be the WG way, frustrate the players.

[Panocek]

46 minutes ago, Ymustihaveaname said:

Could they not scale the difficulty with WR (or number of games played etc or some combination?) of the players in the group as they scale it with T( ie T6/7/8) of ship involved in the group to balance the chance of a win by any group?

Wargaming actively refuses to do any "skill matchmaking" in major game modes, and you think they will do it for Operations?

Also imagine witch hunt when there will be one 65wr+ impostor among crew of 45wr and below and enemy ships suddenly stop being garbage

[BlackYeti]

7 hours ago, Ubertron_X said:

Spoiler

 

Exhibit A, a barely won "The Ultimate Frontier" from today:

 

 

5 out of 7 players have below 1000 games, 3 of them even 500 or lower, so if you have ever ask yourself how it is to fight a war with a bunch of green recruits, operations is here for you.

 

Exhibit B: Newport, full team of tier 8 ships including a 5-man division and guess who has to carry??

 

Upon investigating:

 

I rest my case

[lup3s]

13 hours ago, BlackYeti said:

Exhibit B: Newport, full team of tier 8 ships including a 5-man division and guess who has to carry??

 

Upon investigating:

 

I rest my case

 

This, again, advocates the main issue being the quality of the players, not the Operation ...

 

Honestly, I really do not understand what is so difficult about this game. All that is required is some willingness to learn.

[BlackYeti]

47 minutes ago, lup3s said:

 

This, again, advocates the main issue being the quality of the players, not the Operation ...

 

Honestly, I really do not understand what is so difficult about this game. All that is required is some willingness to learn.

Well this is also my point that since this seems to be the core Ops playerbase balancing must be done with them in mind. This or Easy/Hard mode split for solo/division play.

[Panocek]

39 minutes ago, lup3s said:

All that is required is some willingness to learn.

And that is key aspect.

 

More and more people consider "gaming" as equivalent or replacement for TV, something as "brain turned off" activity.

[lup3s]

Just now, BlackYeti said:

This or Easy/Hard mode split for solo/division play.

 

I'm waiting for a Hard mode since Ops were first introduced; iirc this was already mentioned before Ops went live but WG never followed up on it.

It would be useful for solo play as well; some players actually want some challenge and not have them spoon-fed a victory.

 

The question then is, what is the current mode ? Easy or hard ? (or somewhere in between)