0.5.11 Other changes

[Ph3lan]

Please leave all your feedback concerning the changes bellow in this thread!

 

Changes:

• Reload time of Surveillance radar shortened to improve cruisers
• Hydroacoustic Search and Defensive AA fire split into different slots
• US fighter ammunition increased by 30%
• Interface: Faster switching between Port, Modules, Tech tree etc.

[22cm]

Lol, another bad idea. Already it s 5 BBs everygame. Nerf destroyers and you ll get teams with more than 6 BBs.

[creamgravy]

RIP Royal Navy light cruisers, we never got to see how OP they must've been. 

 

[T_H_0_R]

The good stuff being introduced in 0.5.11 is completely overshadowed by the stupidity of these "balance" changes. If the purpose was to encourage fleet defense then fighter ammo should have been buffed on both sides. Not on the already more powerful side. Furthermore radar was perfect the way it was now - you could bait it out like def. fire and beat the cruiser. OTOH reckless DDs got recked by radar if the user was smart and had good timing. As for Hydro and Def. Fire both available at the same time - not sure how I feel about that. Now everyone and their grandmother can show a middle finger to CVs. Do we get a new slot for it alltogether or does it switches radar on plane slot thus forcing us to choose e.g. between def & hydro combo and plane & radar one...???

[Ictogan]

Three extremely bad changes here.

Coming from a player who has more battles in cruisers than any other type of ships, having both defensive AA and Hydroacoustic search is not needed and is too much of a nerf against DDs and CVs.

The reload of radar was always the thing that made it balanced. It was possible to bait it and then try to get close. There was always a risk in baiting it and if you just charged in without giving it any thought you died. It was enough for cruisers to get DDs to retreat temporarily, yet not an "I win" button. Now both USN and IJN DDs will be completely unable to engange Radar cruisers or any ships near them because the cooldown will be too low to allow closing in and getting back out again even directly after it has been used.

USN CVs do need a buff, but giving them more ammo is the wrong choice. Not only are AS CVs the most boring thing to play for most good CV players, they are also the most annoying thing to play against when the player playing it wasn't a complete potato(most of them were potatoes though). What is the point in making this even more extreme?

[Minibjorn]

 

• Reload time of Surveillance radar shortened to improve cruisers.

Right now I don't see any numbers, what the cooldown has been reduced by, but I hope it's not too much. Because right now you can as a DD captain, because of the long cooldown, bait out a radar from a cruiser and benefit from it. If the cooldown gets reduced so that such a tactic, among others, no longer matter I think it'll just damage over all gameplay. It could drive more DD captains to simply do long range torpedo launch (torpedo soup) and hope to hit... you know, the thing you used three patches to try and combat?

As the cooldown is right now, you have to think and deploy your radar at the time it matters, personally I like it that way, but... you also rarely get to use more than two in a normal game, because of its long cooldown and not wanting to waste it. So a slight reduction in cooldown would not hurt the overall use of it, but please don't overdo it...

• Hydroacoustic Search and Defensive AA fire split into different slots.

While I personally love having more options to combat the enemy, and I think you should always give the players more options... allowing them to use ALL the options at the same time, makes no them no longer be options, as you don't have to choose. So as a cruiser player I like the idea of having access to both... and it speaks to the cruisers role as Jack of all Trades ships, it allows me to more easily combat whatever I meet.... That said I'm not sure if this change will draw in more people to play cruisers, I'm sure the release of the RN cruisers will see a mass of players going to those, as we saw with the german BBs... but a lot of people don't play cruisers because they feel they are too easy to kill, and simply giving them more tools won't change that perception.

Also if every cruiser from T6 and up will now have access to Defensive AA fire, there better be a CV rebalance comming in the very near furture, because there will be even less CV players because of this... I think.

Now I have not tried high tier CVs since the blanket change to AA guns and the minor changes to bomber speed/health, so I can only speak to recent low/mid tiers from personal experience. And at the mid tier CVs, especially if you get uptiered, AA from ships can very very quickly eat up your planes before they reach their target.

So on its own, cruisers ability to have both tools avaliable is a good thing... but its effect of gameplay could be not so good.

• US fighter ammunition increased by 30%.

I'm not sure about this change, unless we see changes to the japanese in the coming weeks/months also... IF the US CVs take a setup with fighters at the moment, you already have a hard time to contest it as a IJN one... at T7 the F6Fs take so little damage from strafes, so you can't even effectively sacrifice a squadron to strafe his, and I think US fighters' strafe cost less than the IJN one, no? You can't take them on in dogfights either. While I know that the japanese CVs are much better at adapting to a game than the US ones, I'm not sure more ammo is the solution, but we'll see.

• Interface: Faster switching between Port, Modules, Tech tree etc.

Optimizations are always welcome

 

 

I don't agree that these are weak changes... balancing should always be done in small steps, because doing big balance swings usually don't have positive impact... usually!

Balancing should be small changes, observe their effect of the areas they affect and adjust if needed, and to that I think these changes are doing that... assuming that the cooldown reduction on radar is not massive, but like 30-60sec.

 

[StringWitch]

How will AA and hydro be placed now? In their own slots, or will will defensive fire replace floatplanes or something? The way it's worded on the announcement page suggests it's unlikely there will be an extra slot.. I think.

 

I agree with posters above in that these are weak changes. You're continuing to undiversify different builds.

 

Interface optimisations are looooooooooooooooooooong overdue too. That should've been sorted in beta.

[Diabolik__]

Please leave all your feedback concerning the changes bellow in this thread!

 

Changes:

• Reload time of Surveillance radar shortened to improve cruisers

 

Was it to improve cruisers or to nerf DDs, esspecially IJN DDs?

 

This change will improve just one thing and that is more and more and more long range second line torping. Nothing else, and I think that is the thing that nobody wants.

 

If you in WG have problems with too many DDs, limit their max number per game, a change that  everyone will be so much grateful. 

• Hydroacoustic Search and Defensive AA fire split into different slots

 

Cruiser might be a bit OP with this change, for me it is better to have choice to chose between one of mentioned consumable after we see what enemy we are going to engage. 

 

• US fighter ammunition increased by 30%

 

Don't play CVs so I cant comment on this

• Interface: Faster switching between Port, Modules, Tech tree etc.

 

Change that doesent improve anything in battle, pure cosmetic change I would say, but thanks anyway.

 

[22cm]

Let me correct myself: today I had the first game with 12 BBs.

And also, let me present you how the new MM looks: 1 cruiser each team.

 

 

 

[Fionia_DK]

I am mostly playing BB ATM. I have played a lot of CA.

I can see the CAs needs a buff. Their role has become more and more insignificant. So a buff to CAs is fine with me.

CVs dont have to cry. They are topping the stats. They have to play a little smart. Not dragging 3 squadrons over my Donskoi enroute to the target. All 3 squadrons was wiped out. Yesterday a CV dragged hes planes over my Bismack enroute to an Iowa. On hes way home he did it again. Worse: He did the same thing a second time. In all 4 passes over me. I killed 9 AC. If a CV can afford to do that, they are too OP.



Fionia

[TheBigLanowski]

It's so funny how you guys already rage about changes you haven't even tested yet! As for your pic 22cm. Almost no cruisers, that tells you something. It's pretty hard to hunt down a smart DD but on the other hand pretty easy to get nuked by a battleship. So the buffs are welcome. No comment about how it might be OP or not, I will test it first! So should you guys otherwise it is pure speculation. 

[eJojoX]

From my perspective cruisers need a little buff against BBs. They are just to easily killed of and that makes it really hard to play them offensive. Which than although plays in the cards of DDs. And there are now so many games with 5 BBs on each side. These changes will not help in making BBs a little less attractive. I started playing the game mostly with cruisers, but now I prefer DDs and BBs ... cruisers can be so frustrating.

[Xevious_Red]

The hydro/AA has been removed from the patch notes

[anonym_N94VxxjvHv2p]

Even if it's pure speculation ATM, i will throw in my 2 cents...

• Reload time of Surveillance radar shortened to improve cruisers

Well, another indirect buff to BB mafia. Though i'm inclined to think it will be no more than a 30 secs improve, when cruisers get better, DDs get worse, and BBs -the main cruisers killers- get even better.

Why don't try a different aproach, like improving the cruisers endurance to BB hits, a much bigger cause to the drop in cruisers numbers in game?

• Hydroacoustic Search and Defensive AA fire split into different slots

if it means more slots for cruisers, a big help; if it's just a position reshuffle then it's almost useless because you will have to quit another piece of equipment. so, just wait for more info

• US fighter ammunition increased by 30%

No carrier driver myself, so no opinion

• Interface: Faster switching between Port, Modules, Tech tree etc.

Improves are always welcome.

So, i'll just wait for more info.

[TIGERMARK3]

Even if it's pure speculation ATM, i will throw in my 2 cents...

• Reload time of Surveillance radar shortened to improve cruisers

Well, another indirect buff to BB mafia. Though i'm inclined to think it will be no more than a 30 secs improve, when cruisers get better, DDs get worse, and BBs -the main cruisers killers- get even better.

Why don't try a different aproach, like improving the cruisers endurance to BB hits, a much bigger cause to the drop in cruisers numbers in game?

• Hydroacoustic Search and Defensive AA fire split into different slots

if it means more slots for cruisers, a big help; if it's just a position reshuffle then it's almost useless because you will have to quit another piece of equipment. so, just wait for more info

• US fighter ammunition increased by 30%

No carrier driver myself, so no opinion

• Interface: Faster switching between Port, Modules, Tech tree etc.

Improves are always welcome.

So, i'll just wait for more info.

 

1. I have no ideea how this is going to improve the BB mafia since it is an update that benefits cruisers.

2. Hope not so many slots. I rarely use my Fighter plane I would rather trade it for Hydro

3. US CV increased loadout, well, I play low tier CVs, both US  AND IJN. Well, I can see why they do this. If you meet an IJN AS carrier, your fighters quickly run out of ammo.

 

[Ictogan]

 

1. I have no ideea how this is going to improve the BB mafia since it is an update that benefits cruisers.

2. Hope not so many slots. I rarely use my Fighter plane I would rather trade it for Hydro

3. US CV increased loadout, well, I play low tier CVs, both US  AND IJN. Well, I can see why they do this. If you meet an IJN AS carrier, your fighters quickly run out of ammo.

 

 

1. It will benefit BBs staying near radar cruisers a lot more than the radar cruisers themselves.

[22cm]

From my perspective cruisers need a little buff against BBs. They are just to easily killed of and that makes it really hard to play them offensive. Which than although plays in the cards of DDs.These changes will not help in making BBs a little less attractive. I started playing the game mostly with cruisers, but now I prefer DDs and BBs ... cruisers can be so frustrating.

 

^ This.

[Yurra]

Good thing they reverted the Def AA/Hydro split, cruisers with radar+hydro+AA would become too powerful against DDs, and the reduced cooldown of Radar is going to make life even harder for IJN and USN DDs. I know WG said that high tier cruisers need buffs in order to bring them in line with the performance of IJN cruisers, especially the Zao, but they should do it so that they don't screw DDs, which, again, already have a very hard time, especially at high tiers. Radar should have its cooldown reduced to 4 and 3 min for free and premium variants, respectively, 2 min is just too fast for an ability that denies a DD's ability to run away/hide/do damage(US DDs). Cruisers, if anything, need a HP buff to make them stand a bit more chance against the BB meta.

 

US fighters already dominate IJN ones. This buff would make sense if plane kills were more rewarded. And where are the long overdue AP bombs for US CVs, right now they are far behind IJN in terms of damage and overall utility.

[Panocek]

[TheBigLanowski]

 

Yep, I will abandon testserver now... no reason to test cruisers at all.

[Panocek]

 

Yep, I will abandon testserver now... no reason to test cruisers at all.

 

Destroyers have hard time on epicenter as well, with all the German BBs with secondaries build.

[krautjaeger]

Pro-job on the harbour interface now, it's instantaneous

 

[herrjott]

I just had a similar game

Had to cover behind an island for 10 minutes before I could dare to move to the center

Spoiler

But it worked

 

WG can try to soft-buff cruisers with consumables as much as they like, this will not move anyone back to playing them. I wonder if they ever understand that the BB masses are the cause for the low cruiser population and finally put a limit on them

[darkwingfighter]

Sooo, why WG decided to remove A hull on Kongo? Or to be exact make A and B one hull. (guns/torpedo bulge/AA -- B, rudder shift/HP -- A)

Also 2% torpedo bulge nerf?

[Panocek]

AA defensive fire and hydroacoustics aren't split, they occupy the same slot as before. Tested on RU cruisers up to Donskoi and on Cleveland.