All maps should have storms

[ReaperChief]

Just as the title says. I can't wait for the next updates to introduce more stormy maps as I think equalize matches between ships. You can fight a DD as BB due to 7km visibility and it's so fricking cool. I also like the music during these occurences.

[Ictogan]

Nope, nope and nope. Weather can be fun at times, but the uncertain timing of it and the different effects that it can have on the battle depending on the current situation adds a lot of stupid and unnecessary RNG, which we definitely don't need.

[Aotearas]

I disagree vehemently until they readress the render limitations.

 

I have zero issues with reduced viewing distance and a spotting distance cap at 8km, but enemies that are spotted by your allies should NOT stay invisible to you just because they are more than 8km away from you. Enemy ship spotted 9km away from you? Can't see it, can't lock your aim to it, can't assist your team. Goodbye team cohesion, hello camping.

[puxflacet]

... RNG...

 

i think this abbreviation is overused and completely unsuited for your statement...you mean probably variety? unpredictability? or so...

 

gosh my whole life is RNG then

[Aotearas]

 

i think this abbreviation is overused and completely unsuited for your statement...you mean probably variety? unpredictability? or so...

 

gosh my whole life is RNG then

 

It is wholly applicable, because afaik the moment when the storm starts is random. I've had it happen soon after the beginning of a match, I've had it happen late in the match and I've also had matches (yes, high tier matches!) when no storm triggered.

[ReaperChief]

Well, it's supposed to be random. I adds an element of surprise and depending on where you are on the map, you are either in big trouble or not. And the fact that you can only see what you spot is perfectly reasonable. In reality, storms impact comms and sensors on the ships and that is be reflected in the game. 

[IamTroublemaker]

Might as well quit the game then...

 

I disagree with this idea, it should be exclusive for certain maps only.

[ghostbuster_]

i agree with troublemaker. its so anoyying sometimes. exp. for BBs.

[krazypenguin]

I was asked to complete a questionnaire about WoWS recently and one of the sections was about the weather.  This is pretty much what I put:

 

Typhoons\Cyclones add an interesting random element to the game, but can result in long periods of boredom.  The first time I saw one I died before it got started, I don't recall the second but I do remember the third.  It was on a domination battle and the enemy held the left side of the map, we held the right, with both teams were closing on each other when it hit.  And then nothing happened for the next 4 or so minutes because no one could see anything.  Once it cleared the fight started again.  On that occasion, it didn't add much of value and it was frustrating to know that enemy ships were close enough to attack...if only we could actually see them.  I guess the idea is that you can use the poor visibility to relocate, but most ships are so slow that in reality it's not possible.  That said, I do not want the duration increased.

 

I voted for the storm to hit at any time in the battle, to last 4-5 minutes and when asked about how often they should happen I opted for "other" and said 1 in 25 battles.  IMO, they should be kept quite rare, otherwise they will lose their special status and become common and therefore boring.

 

However, I also said that I really like the weather effects overall, the way that ships at long range become difficult to see, almost just vague grey shapes is very good.  Mainly. I'd really like to see improved lighting effects, I think there is a lot of scope there.

[Cosseria]

All maps should have storms the day when all ships will have more dependable AP rounds and more accurate guns, so that the global RNG influence on the battle isn't increased.

[ReaperChief]

I wonder what kind of ships you guys play. I mostly play BBs and for me some of the best and exciting games were on stormy maps. Probably for the cruisers and the DDs I've massacred it wasn't a great experience.

[Aotearas]

Well, it's supposed to be random. I adds an element of surprise and depending on where you are on the map, you are either in big trouble or not. And the fact that you can only see what you spot is perfectly reasonable. In reality, storms impact comms and sensors on the ships and that is be reflected in the game. 

 

Please, please do not attempt to argue on the basis of 'reality'. This game is NOT realistic.

 

If this game were realistic:

Ocean map would be of 95% of the map rotation.

Destroyers would only have a single torpedo per launcher, no reloads.

Games would take hours, not minutes (the ingame speed is accelerated, just check the distance travelled stat at the end of a round and you'll see).

Gun accuracy ratings would go from ~30% to more like ~3%.

CV attacks would wreck everything with near impunity.

Night battles would be a thing and tough luck for anyone that doesn't have radar.

Gunnery would be looking at ballistic tables instead of looking through an aiming scope. Less Mk1 Eyeballs, more Mk1 Brain+advanced math!

 

 

Rather than try the completely irrelevant 'muh realism, bruh' angle, you have to argue the benefits or lack thereof from the existing gameplay meta. What does the storm do? It absolutely eliminates the possibility for ships to exploit any range advantage for example. Ships who were balanced around having superiour range that say trade manouvreability, turret travers, health or armour for it suddenly get shafted because they can no longer use their distinct advantage to compensate for the latter. Say russian DDs vs IJN DDs. An IJN DD will care little about being forced to go closer, it has the stealth to remain hidden even 8km away. The high tier russian DDs don't. If they get that close, they will get spotted. What would a russian DD do usually? Stay at range and provide assisting fire, whilst manouvering close to their superiour maximum range to avoid being hit when spotted. Good luck not getting hit at 8km.

 

 

I say it again:

IF the game would dispense with the nonsensical render limitation and allow teammates to shoot at spotted targets, I'd be perfectly fine. By all means, reduce the spotting distance, reduce the engagement distances, but you can't simply go ahead and eliminate a whole gameplay niche and call it a job well done.

Make it harder to spot things, don't care, can adapt. But for the love of it, do let people shoot at things that are actually spotted even if it's not within the arbitrary 8km limit.

[ghostbuster_]

I wonder what kind of ships you guys play. I mostly play BBs and for me some of the best and exciting games were on stormy maps. Probably for the cruisers and the DDs I've massacred it wasn't a great experience.

 

worst situation for bbs is the storm. no target at all. and you can be suprised by an ijp ca, who can kill you with torpedos quite easy.

[Pekoe_Darjeeling]

Before maybe I would think twice about this but now it's whatever for me I could even play with subs I think.

[SV_Kompresor]

All maps? no...but maybe another map with a cyclone and a few maps with a mild storm (or a blizzard) which lowers your view distance but not too much

[JapLance]

All maps should have a chance to have a storm. Some maps could have a bigger % of getting bad weather, so for example a North Atlantic themed map could have a bigger chance than let's say a Mediterranean one.

 

But it should definitely not be like North is now, where there's a storm (I don't like the Cyclone name) on almost every game.

[puxflacet]

there is a warning before storm so you have plenty of time to prepare your strategy. it's just dynamic enviroment - not rng, becouse you can prepare and adjust

brain turned off is not the same thing as rng even though the results may be the same...

[Admiral_H_Nelson]

 

Please, please do not attempt to argue on the basis of 'reality'. This game is NOT realistic.

 

If this game were realistic:

Ocean map would be of 95% of the map rotation.

Destroyers would only have a single torpedo per launcher, no reloads.

Games would take hours, not minutes (the ingame speed is accelerated, just check the distance travelled stat at the end of a round and you'll see).

Gun accuracy ratings would go from ~30% to more like ~3%.

CV attacks would wreck everything with near impunity.

Night battles would be a thing and tough luck for anyone that doesn't have radar.

Gunnery would be looking at ballistic tables instead of looking through an aiming scope. Less Mk1 Eyeballs, more Mk1 Brain+advanced math!

 

 

Rather than try the completely irrelevant 'muh realism, bruh' angle, you have to argue the benefits or lack thereof from the existing gameplay meta. What does the storm do? It absolutely eliminates the possibility for ships to exploit any range advantage for example. Ships who were balanced around having superiour range that say trade manouvreability, turret travers, health or armour for it suddenly get shafted because they can no longer use their distinct advantage to compensate for the latter. Say russian DDs vs IJN DDs. An IJN DD will care little about being forced to go closer, it has the stealth to remain hidden even 8km away. The high tier russian DDs don't. If they get that close, they will get spotted. What would a russian DD do usually? Stay at range and provide assisting fire, whilst manouvering close to their superiour maximum range to avoid being hit when spotted. Good luck not getting hit at 8km.

 

 

I say it again:

IF the game would dispense with the nonsensical render limitation and allow teammates to shoot at spotted targets, I'd be perfectly fine. By all means, reduce the spotting distance, reduce the engagement distances, but you can't simply go ahead and eliminate a whole gameplay niche and call it a job well done.

Make it harder to spot things, don't care, can adapt. But for the love of it, do let people shoot at things that are actually spotted even if it's not within the arbitrary 8km limit.

 

Brilliant post! Very well argued case.

 

The key point for me: the ships are balanced (or at least WG try to balance them) without storm conditions. If storms are to become more prevalent then they need to be rebalanced to include the fact that they benefit some ship more than others. If storms remain only in one map ("North") as a gimmick then you can just about get away without rebalancing.

 

What worries me about Patch 0.5.6 is that it is extending the range of ships that may me included on the wretched "North" map.

[Aotearas]

there is a warning before storm so you have plenty of time to prepare your strategy. it's just dynamic enviroment - not rng, becouse you can prepare and adjust

brain turned off is not the same thing as rng even though the results may be the same...

 

'Plenty of time' is subjective. For a DD and a cruiser perhaps. But for a BB which takes the better part of a minute just to turn, 'plenty of time' is measured differently. Also, whilst dropping whatever you were doing to reposition yourself in preparation for the weather effects might sound all dandy in abstract theory, doing so in practice is still subject to situation. A cruiser currently engaged with the enemy might not want to reposition itself because it might mean exposing its broadside in a turn and subsequently getting deleted.

 

The simple matter of fact is the weather doesn't effect all ships uniformly. A DD currently stalking an enemy might care naught for the weather change. A cruiser currently getting chased by several gunboat DDs might be happy about it, a BB in a gunnery duel might be disadvantaged because he can't just turn around and meet up with allies until after the storm hit and he's no longer risking his broadside in a turn. The consequences are entirely situational and the time at which the cyclone triggers is entirely random, which does nothing to help migitate the situational impact.

 

Or to put it fewer words: the storm is discriminating ships unequally and thus ruins the basis upon which those ships are balanced against each other.

It is quite literally obstructing the game's balance.

[Admiral_noodle]

I like the storm and the fact it knocks the whole game on its side. I would love weather on all maps.

 

But not always. And not always the same weather.

 

Maybe 1 in 10 games should have "adverse weather". Cyclone should be pretty rare but if also like to see "rain" - like cyclone but less extreme. And snow, fog... Mostly just variations on the render range effect - which I find excellent for variety of gameplay.

[Aotearas]

 

Maybe 1 in 10 games should have "adverse weather". Cyclone should be pretty rare but if also like to see "rain" - like cyclone but less extreme. And snow, fog... Mostly just variations on the render range effect - which I find excellent for variety of gameplay.

 

Not the render range. A spotted target should be visible. Teamspotting is already the ingame equivalent of indirect target acquisition and as such the difference between actually seing a target through adverse weather or not is irrelevant for as long as an allied ship is providing targeting assistance in form of spotting the enemy.

 

What should be changed with adverse weather is spotting distances and possibly maximum dispersion (lack of reliable fall-of-shot observation meaning overall decrease in accuracy) to simulate bad visibility. Those are changes that are sensible and don't throw the entire game balance out of whack. DDs can still spot targets for friendly cruisers and battleships and the latter can still provide assisting fire (albeit at reduced accuracy for example). But there is NOTHING more vexing than sitting in a cruiser/battleship, looking at all the red markers on your minimap representing spotted enemies, having multiple such enemies within your firing range yet you can't actually aim at anything because they are outside the 8km render limit and thus invisible to you. That sort of gameplay mechanic is the antithesis to the teamplay focus of this game. It turns a match of two (ideally (pfffft, yeah I know)) organized teams into an everyone-for-himself and is doing so in a way that impacts some ships more than others and as such is an imbalanced mess. WG wants this to be an esport. You can't make an esport out of a game that suddenly decides to abandon all balance for a couple minutes. Counterstrike, StarCraft, DotA and such titles did not become successfull esport games for randomly throwing its balance to the wolves!

[Admiral_noodle]

Well for the eSport mode you could just have "fine weather". However it's unrealistic to me to be able to shoot targets in fog/poor visibility without radar assistance. Hiding in rain equals was indeed "a thing".

 

I respect your opinion but disagree. I like the way the weather has been implemented - even if it unbalances the game - for the sake of immersion and realism.

[albinbino]

If all maps have Cyclones than lots of economic flags will be wasted. There is nothing worse than when you put  your XP and credits flags on the ship for the battle where you lose 10 min in the storm without shooting at anything to make those flags pay credits and XP. It is ok to have storm in one map but to have it in all maps it would be terrible.

[Aotearas]

Well for the eSport mode you could just have "fine weather". However it's unrealistic to me to be able to shoot targets in fog/poor visibility without radar assistance. Hiding in rain equals was indeed "a thing".

 

I respect your opinion but disagree. I like the way the weather has been implemented - even if it unbalances the game - for the sake of immersion and realism.

 

Though I'd begrudge the fact that playability takes a backseat to an arbitrary standard of immersion and realism (there's other things that could be implemented to enhance immersion without impacting the gameplay), if my arguments hold little meaning to you, then we'll have to agree on disagreeing.

[ShuggieHamster]

I*'m fine with the possibility of major weather on all maps. random it up so 25-30% chance of the cyclone popping up ... no problem.

What I would like RIGHT NOW is the weather we get at the start of every map - the snow, rain, choppy waves - to remain throughout the entire match. This weather doesnt affect the gameplay but is atmospheric and very immersive.

weather had an immense effect on naval combat ... dont see why we should be immune simply because it messes up stats/flags/predictability. if the war in the pacific taught anything, its that a flip of the coin re weather can change an entire battle.