The state of the game after 1 year

[22cm]

Well, it will be soon 1 year after the game was launched. Instead of making a long rant, especially that many things happened the way I said, I m just gonna count the bad and the good things.

 

Bad:

 

1. Lost more than half of the player base in one year. From 46-48k on EU at the launch, to 20k+ in weekends during an event like GNB. Maybe other servers are doing better, but "screw you and milk you" was the way to go on EU. If EU looses another half of the playerbase next year and goes below 10k, is in trouble.

 

2. Failure to attract new players. Including the marketing and advertising failure at the launch.

 

3. WG accounts are not unified and maybe will never be. WG has to understand that loosing players from WoT to WoWs is better than loosing them to another company.

 

4. The most money-grabbing WG game, with honours for the EU server for its privileged position ( including captain reskill only available with dubloons).

 

5. Pay to win premium ships are a regular policcy these days. Guess what ships will be most played this ranked season. Free to play, but pay to win.

 

6. Lack of clan-wars who maybe will never be implemented, because it s a way to earn gold.

 

7. Russian bias. If you re a stupid kid who plays this game, you ll believe Russian/Soviet ships ruled the seas in both world wars.

 

Good:

 

1. I have seen some advertising on TV, (History Channel, I think), and the WoWs on the road campaign. Still fails to attract new players, but at least is something.

 

2. We have finally seen some real events (Project R, GNB).

 

3. The "bundles-only" policy for the "screw you and milk you" EU server has stopped.

 

4. We have seen some discounts, rare, but we had them.

 

5. Team-battles, some form of coordinated battle (ranked is as random as the randoms).

 

6. We finally have premium ships available to buy in the tech-tree, with dubloons.

 

7. Free reskill for the captain skills,  after patches who affected them (AFT nerf).

 

Maybe you guys want to add something.

[RUSSIANBlAS]

The interface itself has had some nice improvements as have the graphics.

 

No more RU ships tho please 

[xXx_Blogis_xXx]

I m glad : 3. WG accounts are not unified and maybe will never be , this is best part

 

anyway i dont have any problems only vs bots and afk

[IamTroublemaker]

RU lines have the least "overpowered ships", in my opinion at least.

 

Clan wars and unified accounts are missing. (I'm pretty sure this would increase both the population and the activity of players on all servers).

 

Team battles are a complete fail, no rewards, no achievements (waste of flags). Currently only 5-7 teams are playing in top 100, out of which first two teams and the rest is from 90-100. I think that says enough.

 

The lines are released so slowly and I highly doubt WG will fulfill their "4 new lines in 2016" goal with this pace.

 

Haven't seen any real marketing.

 

Good things are tho the fact that UI was increased a lot, more info on the minimap, crosshair options, they listened to the community about some things like no more money grabbing limited time only bundles , premium ships added to the tech tree. Real events and discounts every now and then (only once on port slots tho ).

 

 

 

[th3freakie]

Russian/Soviet line is pretty good, thank you very much.

[AgarwaenME]

just to reply to this drek..

 

"bad"

 

1. The player base is far more than concurrent players on the server. And to compare the first week or two when a lot of people were just trying it, or were more actively playing before settling into a more normal activity level is just pure dishonesty. If anything it's been remarkably steady with the obvious ups and downs to to holidays, weekends and the like.

 

2. See above. Also I see "new" players all the time. Without actual numbers from WG though, neither I nor you can make a claim about this. Could they work to attract more? Certainly, but this game has a more narrow appeal than other games.

 

3. They're already unified enough for me, and while I wouldn't mind having gold shared too (though there's the issue with some wot players with a huge amount of it from non-paid sources) I'm entirely against shared free xp. I've no need to see people jumping right into high tiers with hundreds of thousands of free xp from wot, and the game wouldn't in any way be better for it.

 

4. This is just a silly claim. If anything wows is far more forgiving than wot, with lower tier play being much more worthwhile and far lower differences in tier to tier performance for most ships.Though a respecc option for credits (and a less punishing retrain for higher level captains) should be introduced, comparing it to wot is silly.

 

5. Hardly, even if some are borderline, they don't in any way dominate gameplay (numbers maybe particularly at t8, but not performance).

 

6. As if they couldn't make clan wars that didn't give away gold? Silly silly silly attempt to twist something into WG being greedy. Sure bring on clan wars, but you can easily do that without gold being an issue at all.

 

7. Stupid attempt to willify WG. In reality it's OP (and similar peoples) actual bias shining through.

 

Still it's amazingly hilarious that someone who spent ages arguing that things should be nerfed (always the things he didn't play of course, and pretty much always going through ridiculous hoops and claims of "but but realism" while ignoring far more pressing issues if realism actually was a goal), only to then see the unintended consequences (which we warned him about) pretend he had foresight. 

[krazypenguin]

*** Placeholder for post being edited ***

 

Bad

 

Sorry to say it, but still no Royal Navy.  The first 4 nations in the game should be (in no particular order) Germany, Japan, USA and Britain.  Then Italy, then probably France and then Russia.  Just like in WoT, where the Tiger and the T-34 are the most popular tanks for new players because they are the most famous, people in ships want to play the most famous warships.  Ah yes, those famous Russian ships like the erm...er... heck, I don't even know what the correct prefix for a WWI \ WW2 era Russian ship is.  

 

The weird discontinuity between WG titles from the same family.  I get that WoWS has a different dev team to WoT but it's just bizarre that features that work which the player base like and want are in one game and not in the other.  (This works both ways)  Examples (fixed now) are the mini-map not showing information in WoWS long after WoT fixed it, whilst in WoWS we've always had a carousel type option which WoT didn't have for AGES, even after modders released it.  Stupid that the 2 games are not "in sync" on many simple things, especially things that modders have made for years.

 

Poor balance at low tiers.  Tier 2-3 BBs have virtually no chance against DDs because of insanely stupid dispersion.  Yes I know that you shouldn't go alone, or let an enemy DD get close to you, but it happens sometimes and when it does there's pretty much nothing you can do about it, unlike at tiers 5 and up where you at least have a chance of "shotgunning" an incoming DD.  

 

CV play.  No tutorial mode to help players.  Many experienced CV players, tired of the AA buffs at high tiers, come to back tiers 4 & 5 and simply club the heck out of new players who don't have the skill, ship modules\upgrades, or captain skills to compete.  

 

Premium ship balance is generally off.  Kami R can take a 15 point captain and be stupidly OP in tier 5, whilst the Yubari's engine explodes as soon as you press W.  Or S.  Or neither.  Generally, premiums are either too strong, or far too weak (Mikasa and Katori say hello).  

 

We need expanded radio commands (e.g I need air cover or enemy DD has spotted me) to make it easier and quicker to communicate. That said, I do NOT want a repetition of WoT's "Help, I am spotted in A6" every 30 seconds.  So no automated chat commands please!

 

Good

 

No XVM.  Please, please, please make sure that we NEVER EVER get this.

 

Ship models are beautiful.

 

The game is a lot of fun.

 

The smaller nature of the player base means that there's considerably less toxicity than in WoT (for example) both in game and here on the forums, and more team play.  Slightly smaller team sizes probably help this too (less people means more cooperation). 

 

[SFCGunny313]

I m glad : 3. WG accounts are not unified and maybe will never be , this is best part

 

anyway i dont have any problems only vs bots and afk

 

And what, in your infinite logic, makes the un-unified accounts the "best part"?

Oh, let me guess...you'll reply with how unifying the accounts will suddenly lead so many players to jump right up to tiers 8-10? Is that it?  Please tell me that's not it.

[Vanhal]

Well, it will be soon 1 year after the game was launched. Instead of making a long rant, especially that many things happened the way I said, I m just gonna count the bad and the good things.

 

Bad:

 

1. Lost more than half of the player base in one year. From 46-48k on EU at the launch, to 20k+ in weekends during an event like GNB. Maybe other servers are doing better, but "screw you and milk you" was the way to go on EU. If EU looses another half of the playerbase next year and goes below 10k, is in trouble.

 

2. Failure to attract new players. Including the marketing and advertising failure at the launch.

 

3. WG accounts are not unified and maybe will never be. WG has to understand that loosing players from WoT to WoWs is better than loosing them to another company.

 

4. The most money-grabbing WG game, with honours for the EU server for its privileged position ( including captain reskill only available with dubloons).

 

5. Pay to win premium ships are a regular policcy these days. Guess what ships will be most played this ranked season. Free to play, but pay to win.

 

6. Lack of clan-wars who maybe will never be implemented, because it s a way to earn gold.

 

7. Russian bias. If you re a stupid kid who plays this game, you ll believe Russian/Soviet ships ruled the seas in both world wars.

 

1. Indeed

2. Nope, i see new players often. Problem is, that i see new players often and the playerbase is shrinking, so that means a lot of veterans are disappearing

3. I could said (and i did iirc) year ago, after seeing ridiculous devaluation of gold in WoWs, that it won't be unified, at least for a loooong time.

4. True x10, especially premium vehicles cost are completely unfair, as if we are punished for liking ships, not planes or tanks.

5. Nope. Even if you consider them better than regular ones (and that's some far stretching needed for such generalisation), they are miles from paying to win.

6. No unification, so the clan wars could be as well made without the gold prizez, what's stopping them? It's more like not enough people at work or/and perhaps lack of vision.

7. Tell that to my Shchors citadel, which appears to be way bigger than the ship itself. And on and on and on. Bollocks.

 

Good:

 

1. I have seen some advertising on TV, (History Channel, I think), and the WoWs on the road campaign. Still fails to attract new players, but at least is something.

 

2. We have finally seen some real events (Project R, GNB).

 

3. The "bundles-only" policy for the "screw you and milk you" EU server has stopped.

 

4. We have seen some discounts, rare, but we had them.

 

5. Team-battles, some form of coordinated battle (ranked is as random as the randoms).

 

6. We finally have premium ships available to buy in the tech-tree, with dubloons.

 

7. Free reskill for the captain skills,  after patches who affected them (AFT nerf).

 

1. I don't. Although it's not telling anything, as i don't watch TV anyway.

2. Both of which were very faulty. Project R was worse on EU than other servers and only after severe shitstorm they made it more or less right by resigning from the damn lottery. GNB was underwhelming grindfest ended with truly epic fail. Still better than no events in last yer. Which bring me to wondering, what game haven't got events during first, critical half year?

3. That is a success. Pity they won't hear out players more, as we were completely right on this one.

4. Hope they will appear as often as in WoT.

5. Not interested, and the fixed teams made my interest close to absolute zero.

6. Creepy expensive though. It's a start, i hope they will bring more of them later, and more often than once per year.

7. I don't think it's a matter so big than the above, but yeah.

[Ferry_25]

My opinion is not meant to raise discussions which are abundant elsewhere on the forum: I've given my input in those issues over there. I started in september. At the end of open Beta. i didn't know about this game before then. Heard of WOT but never really bothered to check it out. I was hooked almost right away. I really like the love and artwork in this game. The graphics are stunning. The gameplay is wonderful and I have had lots of thrills and near heart attacks playing it. (-; I also highly liked the pearl and diamond events. As well as the ARP missions. I especially watched all series and films for that so I knew what people were talking about.

My main issues are the often frustrating randomness in the matches. Sometimes I feel like I'm shooting fluffy balls with my so called ace of damage dealing battleships. Also the high tier economy: I don't mind to have something at stake but getting near bankrupt after a badluck game has demotivated me to play T10 battles. Furthermore capping has IMO become a too dominant factor. Lots of games when the battle was finally starting to rage nicely it was already ended before igt began by some "smart DD" who managed to sneak through. I hate to win and to lose this way. And given that it often demotivates that the only way to grind XP/ cash is by either capping or dealing damage. I seen lots of battles in f.e. CV's played a vital part in winning by scouting and covering. Making it possible for the others to hunt and shoot the reds down. And I've been in that role a couple of times as well. Of course I grant those killing ships their good share but IMO there should be some way to get profits from supportive actions as well. And finally I'm getting a bit tired of all the major updates. Every time I get the "hang of it" there are major changes making me to re-invent the wheel all over again. I'm not sure I'm willing to do so for much more times.

[daki]

Good topic, but TBH I expected a better opening post, than to focus on some trivialities and some plain wrong things imho.

 

My 2 cents:

 

The good:

- A lot of "epic" and exciting moments no matter the win or loss

- Ship models are gorgeous and sailing mechanics do give an impression of steering thousands of tons beasts of steel

- Shelling, fires, gun sounds... look and sound great

- Overall, the patches (despite some major misses and screwups) did improve the quality of all aspects of the game, and give hope for the future

- Decent balance overall (compared to similar titles)

- Decent community with limited amount of toxicity (again compared to similar titles)

- Weather effects are very nice (though I would like to have some matches where it would be turned on for the entire duration)

 

The bad:

- WG is still wandering in the fog about the CV class. While I am not a CV player, I would nevertheless like to see more of them as they add an important (and challenging) dimension to the game

- Matchmaking: While I in general think that it is not too bad, I pretty much despise matches with troll divisions. Please do not keelhaul me for what I am going to say next, but I also wish we had no mirror matchmaking (like in beta) as it adds quite a bit of variety and forces players to change and adjust roles.

- Lack of CW, lack of rewards for TB... - i.e. lack of good teamplay oriented modes & incentives

 

The ugly:

- High tier meta: by far the biggest issue imho. Its so much less fun than mid or low tiers. Way too much camping and fear (half the team starts basically retreating as soon as the enemy is spotted let alone shot at...) making me feel that most people reaching high tiers forget how this game is "meant to be played". WG should take some bold steps such as reducing the high tier matches to say 8vs8 (i.e. anything below 10vs10), cut map size or viewing distance to force closer encounters, adjust range of guns or increase/decrease the dispersion non-linearly (better accuracy close range and much worse long range)... Basically many possibilities yet very little tried or done by the developers.

 

[Shaka_D]

I want submarines

[SFCGunny313]

I want submarines

 

Then go to Steam and play Steel Ocean...

[WarburtonLee]

I have to agree on the marketing thing. I am fairly new to this game (played 3-4 months), and im very interessted in history, wargames, ships etc. But i had never heard of this game until just random luck surfing the internet.

I generaly play all kinds of history-based games, especially paradox titles. When i discovered this, i instantly liked it, and bought premium. I have no problem paying for a game i like.

[ColonelPete]

1: Wrong measurement. Count players per week

2: With over a million accounts there seem to be enough new players.

3: WG should work on that, but I can understand why they take their time

4: Prices are not that different, but premiums ships are indeed quite expensive: As I understand premium ships do not earn revenue for the development of the ships alone, but also for general development and server costs.

5: Not really, but I see a danger that the development moves that way.

6: Clan Wars would be nice, but I do not understand your gold argument.

7: Not really.

[MrFingers]

2: With over a million accounts there seem to be enough new players.

 

However, the numbers of active players at any given moment do not reflect that. That means there are reasons for players not to stick to the game for a considerable amount of time.

[woodyudet_17]

I think its improving.

 

I really like this game and its improved markedly in the last 3 months or so I think with some of the recent patches.

 

unlike WOT I find I enjoy the various tiers equally; just wish that the training ships were tier zero and there was a new tier 3 to cover off WW1 properly. There's too much of a leap between T3 and T5 - 1912 dreadnoughts with no AA against carriers is a very unhistorical and doesn't lead to good gameplay. Can understand the focus on WW2, but frankly find the WW1 era more interesting, but currently this is very truncated.

 

looking forward to the RN; if there was a mistake in year 1 it was not introducing RN instead of Soviet cruisers; Russian ships are understandable, but having RN after RU DD would have kept a lot more people happy.

[SFCGunny313]

I think its improving.

 

I really like this game and its improved markedly in the last 3 months or so I think with some of the recent patches.

 

unlike WOT I find I enjoy the various tiers equally; just wish that the training ships were tier zero and there was a new tier 3 to cover off WW1 properly. There's too much of a leap between T3 and T5 - 1912 dreadnoughts with no AA against carriers is a very unhistorical and doesn't lead to good gameplay. Can understand the focus on WW2, but frankly find the WW1 era more interesting, but currently this is very truncated.

 

looking forward to the RN; if there was a mistake in year 1 it was not introducing RN instead of Soviet cruisers; Russian ships are understandable, but having RN after RU DD would have kept a lot more people happy.

 

Partially agree, in so far as the RN

 

I cannot understand the continued bias towards the RU market.

What WG does, is use the EU and NA markets to fund the games, so they can continue appeasing the players in the RU market.

Given the current economic state of affairs in RU, we certainly can deduce the RU players are NOT putting up the majority of funds to keep these games going...no no...that my friends, is up to the EU and NA markets.

However, rather than try to appease the markets that actually PAY for the product, they continue to appease the RU crowd....and that, will likely never change.

[ColonelPete]

However, the numbers of active players at any given moment do not reflect that. That means there are reasons for players not to stick to the game for a considerable amount of time.

 

We have around 170k players per week on the EU server for three months now.

[1000guns]

 

1. Lost more than half of the player base in one year. 

One word I have heard from at least 10 people I tried to introduce to the game: MM

I don't know what happens on the other servers but people stopped playing after regularly being uptiered in their T3 T4 ships and probably met infamous sealclubbers

[von_Boeg]

7. Stupid attempt to willify WG. In reality it's OP (and similar peoples) actual bias shining through.

 

Nonsense, it makes perfect sense that they did make the Russian cruisers better then the rest and they ARE better then the rest. Since the game is not lifting on the RU market compared with WoT it is just logical that they are trying to woo new players from there with great Russian ships. You can check the stats for the Russian ships as much as you like, and there is just one logical conclusion.

[Lin3]

Player numbers are about to take a nosedive on the EU server, because there's that football tournament starting in France on Friday.

[BlueMoon51]

The big one for me is historical content when you consider if you exclude premium ships they have added nearly as many ARP ships as non-Russian/Soviet ones and I think we will be very very lucky to see more than 3 new lines this year and I think the only shot at 3 is if the 3rd is another Soviet line(as adding a new navy with the balancing that comes with that will eat up LOTS of time look how long it took them to balance 1 tier 3 DD for the RN a whole like of 10 ships they would have to be testing now!

[AgarwaenME]

 

Nonsense, it makes perfect sense that they did make the Russian cruisers better then the rest and they ARE better then the rest. Since the game is not lifting on the RU market compared with WoT it is just logical that they are trying to woo new players from there with great Russian ships. You can check the stats for the Russian ships as much as you like, and there is just one logical conclusion.

 

Except that's simply not true. But keep on dreaming.

[lankylad11_lankylad]

I hugely enjoy the game, i think most of it is well balanced and i like the variety of ships.  so if i am bored of one style i can simply switch over to another.  however i really do not like the absence of the royal navy at this stage and think the USSR have more than enough ships and should not get another of any description until at least one RN line has been introduced if not two.  I also think they have absolutely no idea what they are doing as regards aircraft carriers.  it started fine at the beginning of OBT there was balance there, then they changed the IJN Ones to take away full strike, but left the US ones in specialist loadouts.  then the added the barrage ability which tilted things towards IJN.  then they utterly destroyed Lexington, Essex and Midway.  Then they massively buffed Battleship AA at high tiers which really screwed with CVs further.  take CVs back to the drawing board WG and balance them properly both against each other and their main targets i.e Battleships.  each CV line should have strengths/weaknesses against each other.  other than that things are good.  P.S buffs to Kagero and US CA's too please !