TX - we need some changes

[Crysantos]

Hey there

 

After 3 months of OBT I think we should take a look at the current state of WoWS when it comes to the final stage, TX. Since the start of OBT the High Tier playerbase has struggled with the bad MM, high repair costs and lack of players plus some unbalanced issues for certain ships - we've been told to wait until enough players reached the final Tier and now that we've got October, I'd like to address these issues a bit. The most important factor for a game like WoWS should be longterm fun and goals to reach, in order to retain players over a long period of time and increase the playerbase with new players adding to the old ones. Look at Eve or WoW, or even at your own franchise of WoT.

 

But the issue with WoWS is - TX isn't much fun right now.. not just for me, but I know quite a few players that feel the same way - and that's not healthy for the game or the players. I do understand why WG doesn't want to promote TX too much, it would hurt the lower Tiers and general population distribution - but if you lack the lure of the TX, people won't spend that much time and money to grind and maintain their TX ships. And when you get into TX battles, people are so reluctant to properly use their ship or sacrifice their hulls for the win due to the high repair costs that the motivation drops below sealevel.

I've been one of the first to grind to the Montana, despite being constantly dunked by higher Tier CVs and I got quite a lot of games on that hull. But the things that constantly reduced my motivation to actually use it are still in place - bad MM, choice of map with that bad MM, queue time and the repair costs. The biggest factor in all of this is the lack of a proper TX population, being able to fill the games with at least TIX and TX only - this results in odd MM and long queue time. But after 3 months and thousands of players, why do we still have so few TX players? How could we change that?

 

1. Get rid of repair costs and credit income at TX, seriously. If people want to use premium consumables, they can buy them and need to make money on lower Tiers. This would also improve the general gameplay and atmosphere in TX games - if you think this is too nice, include a certain servicing fee, but keep it low.

2. We had so many nice CBT events that pushed certain classes, reintroduce them - make it easier to grind through ships like the Ibuki/Baltimore/Izumo.

3. If the MM starts a reduced player number game, like a 6 vs 6 ... move it to a smaller map or change the mode, 6 players with 4 cap areas and uneven class distribution...not cool or fun.

 

You can re-iterate on this if we see "too many" TX battles - but it would increase the general TX population and we could finally do some tweaking of TX ships (with enough data to properly analyze), when they're actually fighting against ships they're supposed to fight, not sealclubbing Tier VIII's. I'd actually like to discuss some TX ships and the range issue (max range sniping yay) in general, but I feel this would end up in the general OP/UP mess.

 

What do you players think, are you eager to get to TX? Are you having fun playing your TX and if so, what ship would that be? What would you change about TX?

[lycea]

Playing my tierX has a good and a bad side. 

 

Good side is that you see in battle the reward for all the hard grinding towards the final ship because they are damn good and enjoyable 

 

On the other side I tend to play more cautious because destruction means a big repair bill. This is for example in a battleship not the way to play it, heck that ship should be lead ship in a push since it is the most durable ship on the team. It results in...how to best describe it...unnatural gameplay? 

 

If it wasnt for the unfair amount of credits that I might lose, I'd play my TierX all the time 

[MarcusFuriusCamillus]

TX is the most unrewarding tier to play, Besides only being a status symbol(Because it's extremely hard to make a profit) it serves no purpose because you're subject to the whims of certain overpowered ships that can oneshot you.

 

I really want to play it but I find myself looking at my TX ship in port pondering "Is it even worth it?"

Because even If I lose 40% of my HP the repair cost will outweigh my profit, Besides TX being a whimsical tier where everyone's taking potshots at extreme range and no one commits to actually playing the game.

 

Players want to play TX, But they can't(Due to service prices), That's why everyone is so cautious at TX games and they're dull and annoying.

I hope WG gives us incentive to play it instead of handicapping TX ships, Lower tiers are overflowing with people anyways...

[allufewig]

The high maintenance costs are WGs way of getting credits out of the system once players reached TX. Before that point, the grind does this. It is absolutely necessary to make playing TX costly. It is important both for the players (low/midtier-population) as well as WG (monetization of the game).

 

I do like the idea of a no-repair-TX-environment where the costs are not dependant on the amount of HP lost -> less campy game. But instead of the repairs and ammo, youd have to pay a not too low "entrance-fee", and accept that there are no credits to be earned.

[Crysantos]

The high maintenance costs are WGs way of getting credits out of the system once players reached TX. Before that point, the grind does this. It is absolutely necessary to make playing TX costly. It is important both for the players (low/midtier-population) as well as WG (monetization of the game).

 

I do like the idea of a no-repair-TX-environment where the costs are not dependant on the amount of HP lost -> less campy game. But instead of the repairs and ammo, youd have to pay a not too low "entrance-fee", and accept that there are no credits to be earned.

 

Yep, that's what I meant with servicing fee.

[Cuddly_Spider]

If tier X was profitable enough to play there constantly then people would inevitably get to tier X then not move. That wouldn't enourage people to get premium vehicles/accounts and it also wouldn't encourage people to keep on playing lower tier games, which would leave those games deserted.

 

These games aren't really about getting to the top tiers. The tiers are just a way to differentiate between ship/tank strength.

[Crysantos]

If tier X was profitable enough to play there constantly then people would inevitably get to tier X then not move. That wouldn't enourage people to get premium vehicles/accounts and it also wouldn't encourage people to keep on playing lower tier games, which would leave those games deserted.

 

These games aren't really about getting to the top tiers. The tiers are just a way to differentiate between ship/tank strength.

 

It's never supposed to be profitable - if you get no credits, there's no profit. You still need to pay ammo and your premium damage control, camo, etc.

[allufewig]

 

Yep, that's what I meant with servicing fee.

 

 

Yeah I know. I wanted emphasize the point that TX should not be cheap though. Cheaper than now, maybe, but not cheap. .)

[Cuddly_Spider]

 

It's never supposed to be profitable - if you get no credits, there's no profit. You still need to pay ammo and your premium damage control, camo, etc.

 

Ok then - sustainable. If there isn't a necessity to get premuim content and/or play on lower tiers the game model would be broken.

[ilhilh]

Removing a servicing fee removes any incentive to think before doing what you are about to do.  I know that I am only a lowly tier 8 but please don't dismiss me out of hand - I am aware that the costs of tier X are prohibitive and do need a rebalance but this needs to be balanced against player stupidity.  If you don't get punished for YOLOing down the centre then people will do it.  In WoT you can turn a small profit in tier X even if you die - but you need to pull your weight and probably run premium to achieve this.  It appears that in WoWs this is not the case and this is where the problem arises.

 

As more and more players get to tier X, the more the quality is likely to diminish to an extent as the people who get there by sheer weight of games played will arrive and there needs to be a mechanism to stop them being ridiculous.

[dblkion]

Nerf CV torp drop range, its retarded.

[Blue_Bug]

If tier X was profitable enough to play there constantly then people would inevitably get to tier X then not move. That wouldn't enourage people to get premium vehicles/accounts and it also wouldn't encourage people to keep on playing lower tier games, which would leave those games deserted.

 

These games aren't really about getting to the top tiers. The tiers are just a way to differentiate between ship/tank strength.

 

If the game is fun enough people will try to grid another tier X. In WoT I can play tier 10 with premium and I will make a small profit on average. Now the costs are so high that people don't even try to get another tier X. Let people play the tiers that they like. You can beter have people playing tier X as people not playing the game at all.

 

The current costs at tier 9-10 are absurd. People have spend so much time to get there and being there it is a large disapointment. This is not good for the game.

[Crysantos]

Removing a servicing fee removes any incentive to think before doing what you are about to do.  I know that I am only a lowly tier 8 but please don't dismiss me out of hand - I am aware that the costs of tier X are prohibitive and do need a rebalance but this needs to be balanced against player stupidity.  If you don't get punished for YOLOing down the centre then people will do it.  In WoT you can turn a small profit in tier X even if you die - but you need to pull your weight and probably run premium to achieve this.  It appears that in WoWs this is not the case and this is where the problem arises.

 

As more and more players get to tier X, the more the quality is likely to diminish to an extent as the people who get there by sheer weight of games played will arrive and there needs to be a mechanism to stop them being ridiculous.

 

Believe me, I understand the issue with money - the idea is to remove repair costs (roughly 250k on a CA, 300k on a BB) and on the other hand get no credit rewards. When it comes to the "quality" of TX games - and I think many people that play high Tier ships on a regular basis agree - it's not like it's a supreme elite using these ships now. I see so much bullsh*t going on in TX games you wouldn't believe it, I doubt the general "level of skill" would go much downhill with a higher influx of new players at TX. Neither people afraid to lose 200-400k per game and afraid to commit to a fight, max range fights nor people yolo-ing due to 0 credits cost are healthy for the game, so we need a decent compromise. You still need to grind a sh*tload of credits to actually buy and upgrade the ship (talking about 20 million credits) but the maintenance would be easier, premium ships are certainly nice for grinding isks but I play mine for the fun of it, with the benefit of good income, but certainly wouldn't stop playing them due to this change.

 

But if the pressure is on a healthy level with a mediocre entrance/servicing fee, we could have a real TX population and fairer fights - which would benefit most people on Tier 8 and above - take a look at the player distribution right now, I doubt that we'll see a 90% TX population and deserted low-mid Tiers with the current game mechanics. Check out my second link in my sig to see how many players are actually playing Tier IX or X. WG can simply adjust the costs if they see a unwanted amount of TX battles to keep it in check. I don't know any player besides a few CV captains that actually just pushed one line / class to play that particular TX with no intention to play and grind other classes.

 

But just my 2 cents on this ;)

[Admiral_noodle]

I'm likely to unlock tier 9 and 10, buy them and keep them for show. Not going to play them! (Maybe I will Iowa)

 

I think WG will need to look at this. Up to and including tier 8 is fine. There will be a lack of players above this.

[rafparis]

There is definitely too few people at tier X. Hell, i'm a top 50 player in my shimakaze, that says it all  And the wait times are very long...

The problem is the high repair costs, and the actual meta which is not favorable for CAs...

WG will never remove the costs of high tiers, all,their games work like that. What should maybe be done is lower a lot the repair costs, and augment the maintenance costs, so people will be forced to play more aggresively, and not be affraid to take damage?

The bigest problem is, i think, the curent high tier meta, too favorable to BBs.

[Doolio]

Can you guys tell me, on average, what would be a "normal player's" (not arithmetically average, but just "normal, ok" player) credit balance in a t10 ship after enough games (100 or 500 or something) if the player has premium account and does not use premium consumables/camo?

 

So, a normal "next door" player with vanilla consumables, ok gameplay and a premium account in a tier ten after large amount of battles.

 

I ask so I could compare it to WoT in the similar circumstances.

[alkiap]

Hard to tell average credits because the profile stats do not show it, just average XP

In my Montana u have the feeling that I was generally on par with costs (with premium account). However my average damage is in the top 10% for TX according to the overall stats that people occasionally post here, so I would think that an average TX BB would struggle to break even.

I do not see it as a huge problem though, even in bad games my credit loss was manageable. Ships which deal low damage (DDs) for sure are a different story

[rafparis]

Hard to tell average credits because the profile stats do not show it, just average XP

In my Montana u have the feeling that I was generally on par with costs (with premium account). However my average damage is in the top 10% for TX according to the overall stats that people occasionally post here, so I would think that an average TX BB would struggle to break even.

I do not see it as a huge problem though, even in bad games my credit loss was manageable. Ships which deal low damage (DDs) for sure are a different story

 

Hard to tell average credits because the profile stats do not show it, just average XP

In my Montana u have the feeling that I was generally on par with costs (with premium account). However my average damage is in the top 10% for TX according to the overall stats that people occasionally post here, so I would think that an average TX BB would struggle to break even.

I do not see it as a huge problem though, even in bad games my credit loss was manageable. Ships which deal low damage (DDs) for sure are a different story

 

The key for playing high tier DD is to never be seen, so no horrendous repair costs

And be happy if even one torp hit from your 15 in spread...

[Doolio]

Hard to tell average credits because the profile stats do not show it, just average XP

In my Montana u have the feeling that I was generally on par with costs (with premium account). However my average damage is in the top 10% for TX according to the overall stats that people occasionally post here, so I would think that an average TX BB would struggle to break even.

I do not see it as a huge problem though, even in bad games my credit loss was manageable. Ships which deal low damage (DDs) for sure are a different story

 

From what you said, playing a high tier BB seems reasonable. Even a bad player could maintain his t10 BB with 1-3 t5 matches (for example). Which is similar to WoT (which, for me, works fine).

 

But if the main variable is the class and if it can vary very much, then that could pose a problem with over/under-saturation in high tiers, regarding specific classes.

 

Thanks for the answer. I have read horror stories about the high tier maintenance boogeyman, so I wanted to see the more "factual" and less "feelz"-based response, as lot of those horror stories were written by people who didn't take into consideration the whole economy mechanics or don't have experiences with WoT or even f2p games in general. Then again, some forum users, clearly versed in the ways of such mechanics have told same horror stories. So I remain a bit confused

[Admiral_noodle]

Thing about TX economy specifically is that I'll only be playing that ship once every 7-8 games anyway, because I like variation.

 

We need a port slot sale!

[Crysantos]

 

From what you said, playing a high tier BB seems reasonable. Even a bad player could maintain his t10 BB with 1-3 t5 matches (for example). Which is similar to WoT (which, for me, works fine).

 

But if the main variable is the class and if it can vary very much, then that could pose a problem with over/under-saturation in high tiers, regarding specific classes.

 

Thanks for the answer. I have read horror stories about the high tier maintenance boogeyman, so I wanted to see the more "factual" and less "feelz"-based response, as lot of those horror stories were written by people who didn't take into consideration the whole economy mechanics or don't have experiences with WoT or even f2p games in general. Then again, some forum users, clearly versed in the ways of such mechanics have told same horror stories. So I remain a bit confused

 

Never trust horror stories, people like to exaggerate. A decent player with a premium account is able to break even, if you lose your ship a CA should cost roughly 220-250k, a BB around 300k - considering the amount of damage (main source of income) you need to do to make that money plus camo and consumables. That's your math. And that's the reason why people are so reluctant to commit or risk their ships, making these "top" fights rather dull and uninteresting. I really like the idea of an entrance fee to a TX battle, you know what to expect and you don't need to worry about lost HP without the urge to yolo for free.

 

If the TX situation would be fine... we would see more TX only fights, especially at EU prime time. I think it wouldn't hurt the game to tweak it to compensate for the lack of players compared to WoT, apparently many players feel that there is quite some room for improvement when it comes to this part of WoWS.

[Sharana]

The classes economy is broken, not the meta or the ships themself (most of them at least). BB is pretty much with the WoT's economy - you need outside help (premium ship or grinding tier 5) in order to buy the next ship, but on avarage you make profits, so after selling the old ship you will need to extra grind ~25% of the next tier ship's cost which is OK and on tier X you make small profit on avarage if you are above avarage player (here even avarage with the +20% credits flag). And if we take that as normal (as it should) we get CVs that make more and CAs less, DDs lots less. We have nice signals in WoWs and I don't have battle without the +50% exp (still 250 left) and +20% credits (I bought 2 packages so 200 and still have 120) on premiums or tier 8+ ships. As result I needed only 228 battles from tier 4 IJN CV to tier 10 IJN CV where the last 20 were simply money making in order to buy the tier X so the exp was collected in only 64 battles (tier 9->10). Essex now was even faster - 49 games so far and I need only 18K exp to unlock Midway (4650 avg exp + lots of 8-10K exp first wins) and in those 49 games I made most of the money needed for Midway (taking the first wins with Tirplitz added the small missing part). That's clearly not normal as CVs should get some kind of negative multiplier the same way DDs have positive one so they grind as fast as BBs. 

It's just that they don't have any kind of support rewards for now (WoT didn't have them also at the begining I think), so the damage classes profit much more CV>BB>CA>DD. All USN high tier cruisers are bad in ship vs ship combat because of their AA and they are grinded much more difficult then the IJN ones where only the Ibuki is bad on tier 9. The 5.1 patch is bringing more rewards for shot down planes and exp for cap,def and block in domination which is boosting mainly DDs and CAs. Spotting rewards are planned 5.3 ot 5.4 with looking for other ways to reward the ship's roles. So as whole the ships are good balanced for the meta WG is making, but the economy is still not and DD/CA won't get as much exp as BB for simply doing it's intended job.

[Admiral_noodle]

But 5.1+ things get better from that? Happy to see those changes on XP for capping and aa.

[Crysantos]

The classes economy is broken, not the meta or the ships themself (most of them at least). BB is pretty much with the WoT's economy - you need outside help (premium ship or grinding tier 5) in order to buy the next ship, but on avarage you make profits, so after selling the old ship you will need to extra grind ~25% of the next tier ship's cost which is OK and on tier X you make small profit on avarage if you are above avarage player (here even avarage with the +20% credits flag). And if we take that as normal (as it should) we get CVs that make more and CAs less, DDs lots less. We have nice signals in WoWs and I don't have battle without the +50% exp (still 250 left) and +20% credits (I bought 2 packages so 200 and still have 120) on premiums or tier 8+ ships. As result I needed only 228 battles from tier 4 IJN CV to tier 10 IJN CV where the last 20 were simply money making in order to buy the tier X so the exp was collected in only 64 battles (tier 9->10). Essex now was even faster - 49 games so far and I need only 18K exp to unlock Midway (4650 avg exp + lots of 8-10K exp first wins) and in those 49 games I made most of the money needed for Midway (taking the first wins with Tirplitz added the small missing part). That's clearly not normal as CVs should get some kind of negative multiplier the same way DDs have positive one so they grind as fast as BBs. 

It's just that they don't have any kind of support rewards for now (WoT didn't have them also at the begining I think), so the damage classes profit much more CV>BB>CA>DD. All USN high tier cruisers are bad in ship vs ship combat because of their AA and they are grinded much more difficult then the IJN ones where only the Ibuki is bad on tier 9. The 5.1 patch is bringing more rewards for shot down planes and exp for cap,def and block in domination which is boosting mainly DDs and CAs. Spotting rewards are planned 5.3 ot 5.4 with looking for other ways to reward the ship's roles. So as whole the ships are good balanced for the meta WG is making, but the economy is still not and DD/CA won't get as much exp as BB for simply doing it's intended job.

 

Happy to see that we'll get a lot of the things we've been asking for the past months, seriously I love what WG is trying to change the next weeks. But what's your opinion about the current TX situation?

[Sharana]

 

Happy to see that we'll get a lot of the things we've been asking for the past months, seriously I love what WG is trying to change the next weeks. But what's your opinion about the current TX situation?

 

Well I just hope they will be able to finish the economy this year and not next one. The question why the game left beta without it is valid one, but still they are doing something.

On tier X I don't think the meta is bad or boring. I might be used to it since CBT, but I like it and enjoy it much more then the tier 5 yolo and pew pew on close ranges with torps (both friendly and enemy) everywhere. If we don't consider the economy we know Midway is getting some kind of Nerf and Hakuryu will get the new spread making it better vs BBs. Yamato, Montana, Zao, Khabarovsk and Hindenburg (after planned buff) are pretty good. Shima seems just about right if the economy is fair while Des Moines was severely overnerfed and Gearing still bad.