How to properly balance CVs

[Ictogan]

I've had a discussion with Sake78 in the recent thread about AA where he said that CVs should be put in the regular meta instead of having their own place outside of it. After grinding strike Bogue for a bit I came to a realization: what really seperates CVs from other classes more than anything else is not AA or being able to attack a ship regardless of the distance to it. It's fighters.

Fighters seperate CVs from other ships simply by being an ability that only ONE ship in a team has and that is only meant to counter ONE ship in the enemy team. And the main problem lies in fighter loadouts. They reduce the damage output of both the people who play them(because they barely have any planes to do damage with) and the people who play against them(due to getting planes shot down), causing overall CV average damage to go down.

This creates a meta where especially at mid-tiers CVs are quite UP when one of the teams has an AS CV and are completely OP when neither team has an AS CV. When I recently played strike Bogue, I noticed that I was often unable to do more than 30k dmg when up against an AS Bogue, but when up against any other t5 CV it was usually a 100k+ dmg game. And here my suggestion comes in: remove ALL fighter decks and balance CVs based on the stats produced after the change.

It's most important at tier 5 where CVs don't really have resupplies and AA is extremely weak. Weak AA makes AS Bogue the only thing that can counter other CVs at that tier and low amount of resupplies makes AS Bogue actually somewhat effective at it unlike higher tier fighter decks. But on the other hand, CVs at tier 5 are completely OP if an AS Bogue isn't involved. At higher tiers however I don't really care whether I'm up against a fighter deck because I know I will still be able to do tons of damage.

CVs will never have a "normal" place in the meta as long as fighter decks exist. Of course there are many other problems with CVs such as the current AA system which should imo be completely reworked as well as US CVs really needing to be fixed, but I would consider this to be even more important than those points because right now CVs need to be balanced in a way that they can still do some damage when facing an AS CV which makes them somewhat OP when not facing one(again, more at mid tiers than at high tiers, but the problem still exists in this way at high tiers).

[Aotearas]

First of, my CV experience is extremely limited so my opinion is mostly based on observing other CVs in games and conjecture based on what I can see in port/techtree. If anything of what I say simply doesn#t translate in practice, please tell so I can reformulate, thank you!

 

 

That said, I agree unconditionally. Air superiourity loadouts basically just remove the CVs from the game with the only exception being high tier CVs that get enough squadrons on the side to do damage in a somewhat noticable fashion.

The US CV lines is effected by this the most. Strike loadouts don't come with any fighters at all, whereas the IJN counterpart always gets at least one fighter squadron to harass or independently scout with. Air superiourity loadouts on the other hand come with one or two dive bomber squadrons at most and as such can't do much in the way of damage. So when it comes to dealing damage, between the few attack craft (and the possibility of an IJN squadron harassing one of those two during strikes), AS loadouts perform pityable. This is also reflected in the match rewards which is currently geared mostly towards dealing damage.

 

On the recieving hand, facing an AS loadout in a Strike loadout is severely limiting if not outright denying the Strike CVs capacity to have an effect on the game (provided the AS CV player knows what he's doing and is predicting strike vectors correctly to intercept). The result is two CVs are locked in an effective stalemate and incapable of effecting the battle by way of doing damage. Basically two less players for each team, nevermind it being a frustrating match for the strike CV and a rather boring game for the AS CV, with both ending up with very little rewards.

 

 

Imho Air superiourity loadouts should be removed and all CVs should get a more balanced loadout in terms of fighters. There is still plenty enough points to balance and differentiate the CV lines. US CV lines have fewer sqadrons with more aircraft, making the squadrons more durable and packing more punch, whereas IJN CV have more squadrons with fewer aircraft, making them less durable but allowing the CV player to partition his damage output more easily. US CVs can bruteforce a strike better, but IJN Cvs can exploit better micromanagement to improve their hitrates, etc. pp..

 

Other changes that could be made is to improve the accuracy (less RNG) for US divebombers, so they are better at striking smaller targets like DDs and CAs (the latter which synergizes with their increased durability to bruteforce through a CA's AA to deliver the strike), giving them a design focus on being better at dealing with those ship classes compared to the better BB strike capability for IJN CVs.

 

 

That's my .02$ on the topic.

[lankylad11_lankylad]

I think the first thing to do is for WG to think what they want CVs to do in the game, and how to encourage people to perform those roles.  Next, to decide what the focus of the two current CV lines are and their individual strengths/weaknesses.  The idea being to always have one CV better at some things, and one better at the other things so people can choose.  I agree that with mirror match making these specialist loadouts are pretty awful.  I don't think the barrage skill has helped, it has definitely skewed things in the IJN favour with them having more squadrons.   It makes sense to push IJN CVs down the torpedo bomber route and US ones down the dive bomber route.  but Dive Bombers need buffing with AP bombs and/or much increased accuracy.      I thought the US had better fighter power and air superiority while retaining some hitting power.  a.la pre 0.5.3 Lexington, but the IJN had the strike power.  Unfortunately this only happens regularly at tier 4.   At other tiers IJN can choose an option to get air superiority and superior strike capability.  US need to again be able to gain Air Superiority, while having a MIX of torpedo and dive bombers.  this means removing the barrage.  limiting tier 4,5,6 IJN CVs to two fighter squads and 7,8,9,10 to 3.  Giving Ranger and Lexington 2/1/1 and Essex and Midway 3/1/1.   I have played 700 games in Carriers, and have sailed them all except Taiho and Hakuryu.  I also think current AA levels are way too high at tiers 7+ but that's a different topic.  I also wish DD captains would accept that as current rewards are, A CV is always going to look to go hunting for Battleships rather than always doing what they want, as the rewards are not there to go scouting.   It would also be nice if people not in CVs stop blaming their CV captains for everything.  I have played more games than that in each of the other ship classes and own Des Moines, Iowa, Gearing and Midway as well as Shokaku, Amagi and Hatsuharu.  I pushed US CVs first because I had a US BB but not IJN.  I got to Midway to use 1/2/2 and pushed IJN CVs once this was removed

[lankylad11_lankylad]

Aotearas.  Hakuryu is the only tier 10 Carrier that can go air superiority and lay down damage.  because midway in that state has no torpedo bombers,  the DBs do not do enough damage to make up for that.  Hak gets 4/2/2 and with barrage can win the air war as well.  Midway needs 3/1/1, I have said that for ages.  this is why every midway went 1/2/2 because it couldn't compete with a Hak for air superiority.  but now Hakuryu is better at strike AND air superiority this is the problem.  IJN balanced tilted in favour of strike, USN balanced in favour of fighters.  Problem for US at lower tier is that they are limited to three squads and the stock is balanced.  You might consider giving Indi  a fourth squad, that allows it to do so much.   US really cannot go air superiority and lay damage down, and the barrage skill means the IJN can get air superiority if its AS v AS while having more damage potential

[th3freakie]

I was really expecting more than another "Rock is fine, Paper needs a buff, please nerf Scissors"

 

CVs are certainly unbalanced and, I'd argue, impossible to balance with the tools WG currently uses. Yet removing one of the classes of airplane would do nothing but make the game less interesting, while making it easier for TBs to nuke players at will, which then ends up in whining and another nerfing of CVs/buffing of AA.

 

Edit: and for what little it matters, the only CVs I play since closed beta is the Bogue, exclusively in AS, and I enjoy it thoroughly. 

[Ictogan]

I think the first thing to do is for WG to think what they want CVs to do in the game, and how to encourage people to perform those roles.  Next, to decide what the focus of the two current CV lines are and their individual strengths/weaknesses.  The idea being to always have one CV better at some things, and one better at the other things so people can choose.  I agree that with mirror match making these specialist loadouts are pretty awful.  I don't think the barrage skill has helped, it has definitely skewed things in the IJN favour with them having more squadrons.   It makes sense to push IJN CVs down the torpedo bomber route and US ones down the dive bomber route.  but Dive Bombers need buffing with AP bombs and/or much increased accuracy.      I thought the US had better fighter power and air superiority while retaining some hitting power.  a.la pre 0.5.3 Lexington, but the IJN had the strike power.  Unfortunately this only happens regularly at tier 4.   At other tiers IJN can choose an option to get air superiority and superior strike capability.  US need to again be able to gain Air Superiority, while having a MIX of torpedo and dive bombers.  this means removing the barrage.  limiting tier 4,5,6 IJN CVs to two fighter squads and 7,8,9,10 to 3.  Giving Ranger and Lexington 2/1/1 and Essex and Midway 3/1/1.   I have played 700 games in Carriers, and have sailed them all except Taiho and Hakuryu.  I also think current AA levels are way too high at tiers 7+ but that's a different topic.  I also wish DD captains would accept that as current rewards are, A CV is always going to look to go hunting for Battleships rather than always doing what they want, as the rewards are not there to go scouting.   It would also be nice if people not in CVs stop blaming their CV captains for everything.  I have played more games than that in each of the other ship classes and own Des Moines, Iowa, Gearing and Midway as well as Shokaku, Amagi and Hatsuharu.  I pushed US CVs first because I had a US BB but not IJN.  I got to Midway to use 1/2/2 and pushed IJN CVs once this was removed

While I appreciate your post and agree with a lot of the things you brought up, the main reason why I made this thread isn't IJN vs USN CV balance. Yes, US CVs need to have something going for them again, but that's not the point of this topic. I'm certainly not opposed to the idea of some CVs being somewhat stronger than others in the AS department, but I think that CVs that specialize only on fighters hurt overall balance between CVs and other ships.

[Ictogan]

I was really expecting more than another "Rock is fine, Paper needs a buff, please nerf Scissors"

 

CVs are certainly unbalanced and, I'd argue, impossible to balance with the tools WG currently uses. Yet removing one of the classes of airplane would do nothing but make the game less interesting, while making it easier for TBs to nuke players at will, which then ends up in whining and another nerfing of CVs/buffing of AA.

 

I'm not saying remove fighters, I'm saying remove specialized fighter decks AND BALANCE CVS BASED ON THE STATS PRODUCED DUE TO SAID CHANGE. Yes, this part of the sentence means nerfing overall damage potential for CVs.

[th3freakie]

 

I'm not saying remove fighters, I'm saying remove specialized fighter decks AND BALANCE CVS BASED ON THE STATS PRODUCED DUE TO SAID CHANGE. Yes, this part of the sentence means nerfing overall damage potential for CVs.

 

Ok, got the correction on the first part, but the point remains - removing one style of playing CVs because it's strong against the style you like. Nerf Scissors.

 

WG will never get the overall damage potential for CVs balanced because they included an absurd power multiplier in the form of manual drops. Unbalancable.

 

Now, what they could do is to have a common and big loadout, allowing players to form different squadrons from those. That way being AS or Strike wouldn't be fixed but fluid.

[Ubertron_X]

How about shifting the meta and respective rewards from damaging and sinking ships to killing planes and winning the skies?

 

People would then be encouraged to use AS and fight a real air war instead of going full strike, ignoring the other CV and bombing the s**t out of everybody else.

[lankylad11_lankylad]

 

I'm not saying remove fighters, I'm saying remove specialized fighter decks AND BALANCE CVS BASED ON THE STATS PRODUCED DUE TO SAID CHANGE. Yes, this part of the sentence means nerfing overall damage potential for CVs.

 

I don't like specialised fighter decks either, but the only CVs to get them are USN, but they don't even work for reasons I stated.  the balance BETWEEN CVs is the most important.  as for a damage reduction for CVs, I am not sure I agree.  thing is if you give US ones proper air superiority again, the IJN damage numbers will fall as a result because the US CV will be able to bully them again.  You can't be arguing to nerf US CV damage numbers ?  CVs should have similar damage numbers to BBs if slightly higher because they are more specialised and in a BB there may be a round where you pick a direction and the enemy doesn't go that way so you do less damage as a result, or you get focused early and go down.  that doesn't happen in a CV, you are more consistent.  how do you reduce damage numbers on CVs, you cant take any TBS off USN, and air torps don't do much damage as is, you have to be able to put a big dent in a BB in a strike

 

 

 

I was really expecting more than another "Rock is fine, Paper needs a buff, please nerf Scissors"

 

CVs are certainly unbalanced and, I'd argue, impossible to balance with the tools WG currently uses. Yet removing one of the classes of airplane would do nothing but make the game less interesting, while making it easier for TBs to nuke players at will, which then ends up in whining and another nerfing of CVs/buffing of AA.

 

Edit: and for what little it matters, the only CVs I play since closed beta is the Bogue, exclusively in AS, and I enjoy it thoroughly.

 

  I am not arguing for more torpedo bombers either.  damage numbers are fine as they are.  nor was I asking to remove fighters, more the specialised fighter decks.  difference.  problem is its hard to be balanced in a fighter heavy set up if you only have three squads, since you are either 1 fighter 2 strike or 2 fighter 1 strike.  as a US CV, my favourite was the old Lexington cos I could bully the Shokaku while doing reasonable damage

[lankylad11_lankylad]

 

Ok, got the correction on the first part, but the point remains - removing one style of playing CVs because it's strong against the style you like. Nerf Scissors.

 

WG will never get the overall damage potential for CVs balanced because they included an absurd power multiplier in the form of manual drops. Unbalancable.

 

Now, what they could do is to have a common and big loadout, allowing players to form different squadrons from those. That way being AS or Strike wouldn't be fixed but fluid.

 

you can't do that because people will go all TB or all fighter or something silly.  what you want is relatively balanced loadouts at tiers 6 +.  give indi a bigger hangar and such four squads, then all CVs at tiers 6 and up can have a balanced loadout

[Ictogan]

 

Ok, got the correction on the first part, but the point remains - removing one style of playing CVs because it's strong against the style you like. Nerf Scissors.

 

WG will never get the overall damage potential for CVs balanced because they included an absurd power multiplier in the form of manual drops. Unbalancable.

 

Now, what they could do is to have a common and big loadout, allowing players to form different squadrons from those. That way being AS or Strike wouldn't be fixed but fluid.

 

The reason why I think AS should be removed is that

a) they are very weak. Even if played perfectly, all they can do is take away the damage potential of ONE enemy ship, while giving up their own damage potential in the first place. Quite a few times after I played against fighter deck CVs I checked their stats. Not once did I see someone who uses mainly fighter decks and has a win rate of over 50% in the CVs he uses them in.

b) I think the concept of a ship who specializes in being able to counter one specific ship in the enemy team and no one else is flawed.

How about shifting the meta and respective rewards from damaging and sinking ships to killing planes and winning the skies?

 

People would then be encouraged to use AS and fight a real air war instead of going full strike, ignoring the other CV and bombing the s**t out of everybody else.

There is no point in winning the sky war if you don't have an impact on the surface war, because the surface war is what decides the outcome of the battle.

[22cm]

I was really expecting more than another "Rock is fine, Paper needs a buff, please nerf Scissors"

 

CVs are certainly unbalanced and, I'd argue, impossible to balance with the tools WG currently uses. Yet removing one of the classes of airplane would do nothing but make the game less interesting, while making it easier for TBs to nuke players at will, which then ends up in whining and another nerfing of CVs/buffing of AA.

 

Edit: and for what little it matters, the only CVs I play since closed beta is the Bogue, exclusively in AS, and I enjoy it thoroughly. 

 

Agreed. Usually the CV and BB players are not impartial at all, they are already doing the biggest damage and want to have nothing to counter their damage dealing, or to damage them back. You ll never hear that much whining from the DD or CA players.

[Xerkics]

Was it really necessary to create another cv thread on top of the other 3 going? The amount of cv this cv that is bordering on spam in this forum

[lankylad11_lankylad]

 

 

 

Agreed. Usually the CV and BB players are not impartial at all, they are already doing the biggest damage and want to have nothing to counter their damage dealing, or to damage them back. You ll never hear that much whining from the DD or CA players.

 

  I play both BB and CV, I don't have one side in favour and I have played more BB games than CV games.  but my main issue is the balance between CVs, I mean AA needs nerfing but the relationship between CVs and other ships is fine other than that.

 

"There is no point in winning the sky war if you don't have an impact on the surface war, because the surface war is what decides the outcome of the battle."

 

Agreed Ictogan, which is why the 2-1-1 needs to come back because you can impact the surface war as well

[lankylad11_lankylad]

the way to "remove" AS is to give indi four squadrons then go 2/1/1 on it Ranger and Lex, 3/1/1 on Essex and Midway.  US have to be a little more specialised with less squadrons, but that would help, as well as chipping fighter squads off the IJN ones and saying no IJN CV can have more fighter squads than an equivalent US one with a TB squad.  I have always hated 2/0/1, 3/0/1, 2/0/2, 3/0/2 and have never played them, nor on the IJN side

[Spellfire40]

First of, my CV experience is extremely limited so my opinion is mostly based on observing other CVs in games and conjecture based on what I can see in port/techtree. If anything of what I say simply doesn#t translate in practice, please tell so I can reformulate, thank you!

 

 

That said, I agree unconditionally. Air superiourity loadouts basically just remove the CVs from the game with the only exception being high tier CVs that get enough squadrons on the side to do damage in a somewhat noticable fashion.

The US CV lines is effected by this the most. Strike loadouts don't come with any fighters at all, whereas the IJN counterpart always gets at least one fighter squadron to harass or independently scout with. Air superiourity loadouts on the other hand come with one or two dive bomber squadrons at most and as such can't do much in the way of damage. So when it comes to dealing damage, between the few attack craft (and the possibility of an IJN squadron harassing one of those two during strikes), AS loadouts perform pityable. This is also reflected in the match rewards which is currently geared mostly towards dealing damage.

 

On the recieving hand, facing an AS loadout in a Strike loadout is severely limiting if not outright denying the Strike CVs capacity to have an effect on the game (provided the AS CV player knows what he's doing and is predicting strike vectors correctly to intercept). The result is two CVs are locked in an effective stalemate and incapable of effecting the battle by way of doing damage. Basically two less players for each team, nevermind it being a frustrating match for the strike CV and a rather boring game for the AS CV, with both ending up with very little rewards.

 

 

Imho Air superiourity loadouts should be removed and all CVs should get a more balanced loadout in terms of fighters. There is still plenty enough points to balance and differentiate the CV lines. US CV lines have fewer sqadrons with more aircraft, making the squadrons more durable and packing more punch, whereas IJN CV have more squadrons with fewer aircraft, making them less durable but allowing the CV player to partition his damage output more easily. US CVs can bruteforce a strike better, but IJN Cvs can exploit better micromanagement to improve their hitrates, etc. pp..

 

Other changes that could be made is to improve the accuracy (less RNG) for US divebombers, so they are better at striking smaller targets like DDs and CAs (the latter which synergizes with their increased durability to bruteforce through a CA's AA to deliver the strike), giving them a design focus on being better at dealing with those ship classes compared to the better BB strike capability for IJN CVs.

 

 

That's my .02$ on the Topic.

​You are wrong an some asumtions. You can conter the enmy CV 100% and that still wont win you the game if your Team is crap. On the other Hand If a Strike only get one  atack thogh it has influenced the battle in a way your hard pressed to get better in a AA loadout. On the other Hand if the Stike sipes the AA sucessfully he can have a Major Impact on the rest of the game were the reserve isnt true. (yes i did killed a strike ranger in a AA Ranger once in 2 atack waves ist posible if the enemy Team has 0 ships near the enemy CV.)

 

I agree thogh that balaced Setups would be the best solution thogh how to inplement that and Keep nattional difference is a bit of a worry.

[th3freakie]

The reason why I think AS should be removed is that

a) they are very weak. Even if played perfectly, all they can do is take away the damage potential of ONE enemy ship, while giving up their own damage potential in the first place. Quite a few times after I played against fighter deck CVs I checked their stats. Not once did I see someone who uses mainly fighter decks and has a win rate of over 50% in the CVs he uses them in.

b) I think the concept of a ship who specializes in being able to counter one specific ship in the enemy team and no one else is flawed.

 

There is no point in winning the sky war if you don't have an impact on the surface war, because the surface war is what decides the outcome of the battle.

Air Superiority loadout is not week at all. Maybe it gets picked by players having problems with their (stock?) CVs, I don't know, but they are most definitely not weak - if anything a tad OP, as they can create zones of permanent team dominance, the likes of which no AA cruiser or stealth DD can hope to match. Ruling the sky has an immense synergy with your most powerful team-mates. You make them invulnerable to their greatest threats. You also have unmatched data-gathering capacity, and instantly feed it to all of your team. Sure, it's teamplay, not solo-carry, but that should be desirable in a team game.

 

Likewise, it's not really about taking away the overall damage potential of the enemy, since squadrons are limited and he has choices. If the AS squadrons are supporting a push at A and scouting B, the other CV can rain submarine metal tubes in C and the AS can't stop it. It is, however, a more strategic game, where the choices about whom you support and when become more important than manual drop skillcheck #4573.

 

Most ships specialize, too. BBs are good against some targets, DDs against others. You don't bring a BB into a match and expect it to be just as good at fighting nimble DDs as at wrecking heavy CAs. And if you brought an anti-DD ship and the enemy has no DDs but many anti you... well, that was unlucky. But not less so than bringing a strike loadout and finding an AS on the other side.

[lankylad11_lankylad]

​You are wrong an some asumtions. You can conter the enmy CV 100% and that still wont win you the game if your Team is crap. On the other Hand If a Strike only get one  atack thogh it has influenced the battle in a way your hard pressed to get better in a AA loadout. On the other Hand if the Stike sipes the AA sucessfully he can have a Major Impact on the rest of the game were the reserve isnt true. (yes i did killed a strike ranger in a AA Ranger once in 2 atack waves ist posible if the enemy Team has 0 ships near the enemy CV.)

 

I agree thogh that balaced Setups would be the best solution thogh how to inplement that and Keep nattional difference is a bit of a worry.

 

1) remove the barrage ability

2) replace one fighter with a DB in every IJN AS set up

3) give indi four squads and 2/1/1 same Ranger, Lex.  Essex/Midway 3/1/1

[Mayv]

I curious what it would be like if all CVs were balanced like the Saipan. Apart from the 8 plane DB squad.

 

Less damage in the air at any given time, but planes have a quicker turn around.

[th3freakie]

 

you can't do that because people will go all TB or all fighter or something silly.  what you want is relatively balanced loadouts at tiers 6 +.  give indi a bigger hangar and such four squads, then all CVs at tiers 6 and up can have a balanced loadout

 

What would be the problem? People go all TB at start and find an enemy that brought fighters - the TBs burn. People went all fighters at start and the enemy went all fighters too - both battle it out, and then send the TBs or DBs. It will be much more dynamic. Combine it with limited flight time, and you've got a more realistic and more thoughtful game.

[Spellfire40]

 

1) remove the barrage ability

2) replace one fighter with a DB in every IJN AS set up

3) give indi four squads and 2/1/1 same Ranger, Lex.  Essex/Midway 3/1/1

 If you make it 1/2/3 you can remove fighters for IJN 1 fighter without (or even with barage) does nothing at all and the orginal Setups were 0/3/3 for IJN strike.DB are useless unless you want to give 1000lb for them too wich would be still worse thanks to smaller squad size.

[AgarwaenME]

How about shifting the meta and respective rewards from damaging and sinking ships to killing planes and winning the skies?

 

People would then be encouraged to use AS and fight a real air war instead of going full strike, ignoring the other CV and bombing the s**t out of everybody else.

 

And what's the point in owning the skies?

 

Where's the fun in fighter vs fighter combat in this game?

 

None that's what.

[th3freakie]

 

1) remove the barrage ability

Allow me to agree with this part. Ever since they introduced it, all youtube videos of CVs are waaaaaaaay to focused on doing perfect amazing OMG triple citadel barrages, and the whole air superiority point of AS is entirely lost on the multiple attempts to line up the perfect barrage. Meanwhile the other player does damage to the friendly team, but still loses 3 full squadrons to a silly AoE effect and unexplained speed-boost. It's playable and feels good when you get a good one, but kinda nonsense mechanics-wise.

[lankylad11_lankylad]

yeah, the barrage is stupidly over powered and helps CVs with more squads like IJN ones

 If you make it 1/2/3 you can remove fighters for IJN 1 fighter without (or even with barage) does nothing at all and the orginal Setups were 0/3/3 for IJN strike.DB are useless unless you want to give 1000lb for them too wich would be still worse thanks to smaller squad size.

 

 

I suggested 2/1/3.  as its "as" loadout because that shouldn't be what IJN are good for.  should be best at strike focused with SOME fighters ,whereas US are half and half strike and fighters thus US can retain some air control while IJN have better potential damage