Balancing by consumables, is it a good idea?

[Takeda92]

 

(Note to self, if I want to write a long thread, use Word and then copy/paste here)

 

Consumables at first were interesting mechanic to give classes their roles. BBs have repair Party to tank damage, DDs have Smoke Screen to escape and cover allies, Cruisers have Defensive Fire to screen allies from enemy CVs. They all shared a similarity that all ships of the class had them. Then we had Hydroacoustic Search, and we saw the first difference between ships of a class with the Germans. DDs also received Speed Boost which is a fairly good addition to their versatility, and of course Repair Party for high tier CAs, but they all had it nonetheless.

 

Then we started seeing consumables given to various ships to give them uniqueness outside of their class, like Iwaki Alpha and Kitakami with Smoke, first being a gift ship for alpha testers and seconds is a special case, enlarged destroyer that is no longer in game. Yuubari with DF is another special case rare ship (for the time it was introduced).

We saw consumables given to balance out underperforming ships, either to give them more roles like USN DDs getting DF, or to make ships competitive with their tech-tree counterparts like Atago getting Repair Party, which turned out to make the ship borderline OP (official statement from a dev).

 

With the abundance of DDs, and underperforming USN CAs, WG introduced Radar to counter smoke and give only 2 lines of cruisers a unique flair. Radar was controversial with the way it worked and with what ships received it. Many believed that Radar was a bad way to buff USN CAs to be competitive but it was a buff over other ships nonetheless.

 

After that, we’ve started to see more consumables used for balance purposes. Mikhail Kutuzov got Smoke just because players felt it was underwhelming (it wasn’t planned to have one originally). Atlanta got Radar despite it wasn’t exactly what players wanted. Premiums ships are now expected to have some sort of unique flair even if the ships themselves aren’t that unique or different from their regular counterparts (Lo Yang, Indianapolis).

 

Carrier-snipe at high tiers started to become a problem, so WG introduced long-duration DF. High tier German BBs have large turning circles and bad TDS? Give them over-the-top Hydro that makes them way too effective when it’s on, the complete opposite when it’s not. Then we learned British cruisers are getting smoke, cruisers getting separate DF and Hydro slots to make them more versatile and competitive, and increasing the use of Radar to counter the Smoke.

 

This is the big issue I see with the way WG are handling consumables. If there’s something wrong with the game, fix it with a consumable. A meta has changed and one class is used a lot? Make a new consumable. A ship is underperforming or people don’t want to play it? Give it a consumable.

 

The problem with consumables is the way they work. With one press of a button, they give you an instant area-of-effect circle around your ship for a limited time, then it goes away or the duration of the cooldown.

 

In my original thread that broke when I posted it I talked about Damage Control Party as an example of this, but I think everyone knows the problems with it without me explaining. On the other hand, you have a consumable like Speed Boost which works by giving you a percent increase of performance instead of this binary, all-or-nothing, area of effect buffs that other consumables provide. One seconds you see nothing, the next you see all ships around you for a limited time, then back to nothing. For a minute you are safe from CVs, then the cooldown starts and you are food or them. You press a button and now you are completely stealthy and no one can shoot at you while you shoot back no problem, unless they have other consumable, in which case, back to example 1. Just like Atago, we are seeing major consequence on the gameplay with the way WG is handling consumables.

 

TL;DR

This game started to feel like an MMO with all the way the consumables work and how WG are using them to change the game. They are meant to make the game more dynamic, but they way they work is very simplified and binary. Will it be good for the game if WG continue like this? Will all the game’s problems be fixed with “my consumable counter your consumable” or the ship balance by “my ships is totally bad when my consumable on cooldown?”

 

What could WG do to improve their consumables? Is it likely we could get more of the "Speed Boost" type consumables instead of the "Radar" type consumables? What are your thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

[Nechrom]

I absolutely agree that WG has gone overboard with consumables lately.

In some cases it makes sense like the DF for high tier CVs, as they don't have any unique abilities tied to the ship. While in other cases it just feels like WG is trying to pin the tail on the proverbial balance donkey using random consumables.

What's the deal with that weird torpedo reload ability which only two DDs got? Feels really awkward. Why not balance the DDs instead?

Why introduce a counter to smoke in the form of radar and then add even more smoke and then buff radar? Have we completely stopped changing actual values on ships for balance reasons?

 

I think the core problem with this consumable/ability dependency is with the abilities which affects the opponent. Smoke, DF, radar etc are all in that category because they are at least partially used to mess someone else up, and the victim is acutely aware of when this happens. While something like repair, hydro, spotter etc are defensive in nature in all but some very rare cases. The latter category will most definitely increase the performance and potential of the ship, but it's more of a thing you can tell after the fact in statistics rather than get directly wrecked by when the opponent uses it.

 

So I'd say you can be pretty liberal with the more defensive type of consumable since it has a less negative impact on the opponent. Perceived and/or actual.

But smoke, radar and the like should have a smaller presence in the game in my opinion. It's never fun to have those used against you.

 

Ideally the use of any consumable as a balancing tool should be the exception and not the rule.

[Userext]

RNCLs will have smoke too FYI

[Takeda92]

RNCLs will have smoke too FYI

 

So you only read the TL;DR.. I've already mentioned it.

 

Defensive consumables aren't good if they are given to the wrong classes or only to some ships and not the other. Just look at Hydro for German BBs with it's massive ranges and long duration. This consumable along made the class somewhat immune to torpedoes, while also being immune to citadel hits by design. There's really no class in the game that can reliably and consistently take out a German BB (T8-10) even if they have made mistakes.

 

Spotter planes to me seems another good example of a consumable. They are beneficial, but can be avoided and even taken down. After the buffs to Radar in the next patch, it will be even less of reason to pick Spotter planes over Radar for the ship that has the choice. 

[Takeda92]

My idea of Radar in the game.

 

1. Make a new module "Radar" for the ship that mounts it, with possible upgrades for the regular ships (so stock radar --> upgraded radar)

2. Make the radar an actual hitbox on the ship, that can be hit, damaged and destroyed similar to guns.

3. When you press the radar button, you get an arc similar to torpedo arc, when you click, you get a ping and detect everything in that arc up to a certain distance (so basically like torpedoes). Ranges can be similar to what we have know. Duration is lowered to about 5-20 seconds. Keep in mind Destroyers need extra time to become invisible again. Radar can't see through Islands.

4. Cooldown is also lowered, from 40-90 minutes.

5. Charges are increased to accommodate the increase use.

 

The idea is not to give the cruiser the chance to delete the destroyer from one use of radar, but it doesn't have to wait forever to use the radar again. The arc is there to make the Radar skill based, so it doesn't spot ships the player has no idea they are there.

 

The reason my duration and cooldown numbers vary so much is because I'm not sure which one will work. It will have to be tested.

[AnotherDuck]

What's the deal with that weird torpedo reload ability which only two DDs got? Feels really awkward. Why not balance the DDs instead?

 

Because they can't actually buff the IJN DDs, since that would inconvenience the BB players. Can't have any of them actually be better than the bottom few ships of their respective tiers. I've yet to see a sign that WG doesn't hate IJN DDs. Above T5, Fubuki has the best performance and claimed to be the only bright spot after Minekaze, and she's still only a third from the bottom (winrate, last 2 weeks). Shimakaze has a better winrate than Midway, and a better survival rate than Gearing. She's the second worst in those stats. In average experience, damage, kills, kills/deaths, she's plain worst. So naturally WG buffs cruisers to make it even harder for them.

[159Hunter]

 

Because they can't actually buff the IJN DDs, since that would inconvenience the BB players. Can't have any of them actually be better than the bottom few ships of their respective tiers. I've yet to see a sign that WG doesn't hate IJN DDs. Above T5, Fubuki has the best performance and claimed to be the only bright spot after Minekaze, and she's still only a third from the bottom (winrate, last 2 weeks). Shimakaze has a better winrate than Midway, and a better survival rate than Gearing. She's the second worst in those stats. In average experience, damage, kills, kills/deaths, she's plain worst. So naturally WG buffs cruisers to make it even harder for them.

 

While I agree they hit the nerf bat on high tier IJN DDs, and they hit hard, they are still the most popular class of DDs.

So this is probably along the lines of CVs, they are (more or less) happy with the amount of IJN DDs in game, so no need to buff them. Once their amount drops really low, compared to .. ? , they'll buff them.

 

To OP, only read TLDR, my view on consumables: need a few more AND we need to be forced to make hard choices. Only then will you see some differences, cause imo: the choice is always pretty straghtforward, thus lacking depth.

[Vanhal]

Better idea than balancing by turret traverse, but still not good, consumables are not really reliable enough.

[ShinGetsu]

 

Because they can't actually buff the IJN DDs, since that would inconvenience the BB players. Can't have any of them actually be better than the bottom few ships of their respective tiers. I've yet to see a sign that WG doesn't hate IJN DDs. Above T5, Fubuki has the best performance and claimed to be the only bright spot after Minekaze, and she's still only a third from the bottom (winrate, last 2 weeks). Shimakaze has a better winrate than Midway, and a better survival rate than Gearing. She's the second worst in those stats. In average experience, damage, kills, kills/deaths, she's plain worst. So naturally WG buffs cruisers to make it even harder for them.

TBH lately I tend to think WG is more biased toward the cruisers. They're getting unecessary buff after unecessary buff : Radar reload halved, no need for choosing between AA and Hydro (which made sense, because it was two different possible builds...), stupid overpens, concealment mechanics...

 

Though the german BB line is the very definition of powercreep.

 

"Balancing" with consumable is just an awful idea. I don't even need to mention the hydro on Bismarck...

[Ishiro32]

Interesting topic.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with the balancing by the consumables, as in the end they do provide a lot variety to the game. I would like to have number of interesting and different power ups that impact and compliment my game. So I am fine with for example idea of CA line with smoke instead of DF or DDs with DF instead of smoke, as long it’s clear what nation has what. In this case the premiums are most annoying as they don’t follow any rules and as such in the expanding roster of the consumables it will become more and more troublesome to know what to expect out of enemy.

I don’t like the DF on CVs as I think it was very rough solution to a nuanced problem and here is where I start to agree with you…


Consumables are problem itself. Stuff like Radar or DF are very binary and at the same time very passive from the player point of view. I press button and I see everything, I press button and I am safe from air and there is nothing enemy can do about it. They do not compliment the game, they dictate it. So yeah, have a like. I would totally want to see rework of them and it’s rather sad that this is the direction of that gameplay element.  Making them more active from the player POV would not only be more fun for all, but also increase immersion if implemented well. 

[Blood_Vessel]

 

So you only read the TL;DR.. I've already mentioned it.

 

Defensive consumables aren't good if they are given to the wrong classes or only to some ships and not the other. Just look at Hydro for German BBs with it's massive ranges and long duration. This consumable along made the class somewhat immune to torpedoes, while also being immune to citadel hits by design. There's really no class in the game that can reliably and consistently take out a German BB (T8-10) even if they have made mistakes.

 

Spotter planes to me seems another good example of a consumable. They are beneficial, but can be avoided and even taken down. After the buffs to Radar in the next patch, it will be even less of reason to pick Spotter planes over Radar for the ship that has the choice. 

 

Massive Range? Even the best-in-class German hydro is 5.5km. If your DD is <6km from a Bismarck, you're doing something wrong. I get that this does give them a torpedobeat heads up, and can give them up to an extra 2 minutes to dodge (!!!) but other ships and/or planes spot torpedoes for friendly units just as easily.

 

There is a saturation of German BBs just now, so maybe there's some perception bias going on?

 

Also, German BBs are not immune to citadels. If you continue to just shoot at the waterline centre ship, you're going to be a sad puppy. Maybe shoot at their turret magzines instead? (where they also have no big thick torpedo belt armour)

 

 

Because they can't actually buff the IJN DDs, since that would inconvenience the BB players. Can't have any of them actually be better than the bottom few ships of their respective tiers. I've yet to see a sign that WG doesn't hate IJN DDs. Above T5, Fubuki has the best performance and claimed to be the only bright spot after Minekaze, and she's still only a third from the bottom (winrate, last 2 weeks). Shimakaze has a better winrate than Midway, and a better survival rate than Gearing. She's the second worst in those stats. In average experience, damage, kills, kills/deaths, she's plain worst. So naturally WG buffs cruisers to make it even harder for them.

 

Previous meta was Shimakze Or Go Home - this will definitely skew the potato ratio of any statistics...

[Takeda92]

 

Massive Range? Even the best-in-class German hydro is 5.5km. If your DD is <6km from a Bismarck, you're doing something wrong. I get that this does give them a torpedobeat heads up, and can give them up to an extra 2 minutes to dodge (!!!) but other ships and/or planes spot torpedoes for friendly units just as easily.

 

 

Massive range for the torpedo detection, and it stacks with Vigilance as well. It's one thing to have a consumable help you spot torpedoes, but up to 3km range? on a BB? that's just a lot.

[DominusEdwardius]

The Torpedo reload booster is an interesting one and probably one of the few historical consumables. It is designed to replicate the quick reloading gear fitted to the Kagero and Hatsuharu classes which allowed a very quick reload compared to any destroyer that had gone before. It is a very powerful consumable if used correctly as it can often catch players completely by surprise if they were expecting a torpedo salvo 2 minutes later and receive a very nasty present 30 seconds later! It allows you to increase your damage potential, effectively firing twice in one reload and with the prevalence of radar smoke is often a bit pointless. However there in lies the problem it replaces smoke which means the player looses versatility in both offensive smokes, covering your retreat or covering allied ships and so is a bit of a selfish consumable as unlike smoke it doesn't really have a team play orientation.

 

There however has definitely been a bit of a power creep with consumables recently, before hard choices often had to be made such as the reload booster vs smoke, hydro vs Defensive fire, or radar vs spotter however such choices recently seem to be dropping one by one now that some ships can get 3 consumables starting with the German BB's. There does seem to be the removal of choice from the game and I'm not sure how I feel about that...

[_FTD_]

Interesting topic.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with the balancing by the consumables, as in the end they do provide a lot variety to the game. I would like to have number of interesting and different power ups that impact and compliment my game. So I am fine with for example idea of CA line with smoke instead of DF or DDs with DF instead of smoke, as long it’s clear what nation has what. In this case the premiums are most annoying as they don’t follow any rules and as such in the expanding roster of the consumables it will become more and more troublesome to know what to expect out of enemy.
I don’t like the DF on CVs as I think it was very rough solution to a nuanced problem and here is where I start to agree with you…

Consumables are problem itself. Stuff like Radar or DF are very binary and at the same time very passive from the player point of view. I press button and I see everything, I press button and I am safe from air and there is nothing enemy can do about it. They do not compliment the game, they dictate it. So yeah, have a like. I would totally want to see rework of them and it’s rather sad that this is the direction of that gameplay element.  Making them more active from the player POV would not only be more fun for all, but also increase immersion if implemented well. 

Man where is the anime picture that you always upload with your post

 

 

[Takeda92]

Man where is the anime picture that you always upload with your post

 

 

 

I'd like to see that too 

[Spellfire40]

 

While I agree they hit the nerf bat on high tier IJN DDs, and they hit hard, they are still the most popular class of DDs.

So this is probably along the lines of CVs, they are (more or less) happy with the amount of IJN DDs in game, so no need to buff them. Once their amount drops really low, compared to .. ? , they'll buff them.

 

To OP, only read TLDR, my view on consumables: need a few more AND we need to be forced to make hard choices. Only then will you see some differences, cause imo: the choice is always pretty straghtforward, thus lacking depth.

A ship either underperforms or dont. It dont matters If its popular or not. 

 

Ship dont needs a buff If people still play? Give me a break.

 

You think every kagaro or shima skipper has a Fletcher or Karba parked next to it to play whats hip? 

[ColonelPete]

It is ok for fine tuning, but not for basic balancing.

Consumables are too situational.

[darky_fighter]

German BBs can be played now like DDs as they have sonar. Strange world.

 

Watch this replay and enjoy:

http://wowreplays.com/Replay/15321

[Pajosaurus]

 

Because they can't actually buff the IJN DDs, since that would inconvenience the BB players. Can't have any of them actually be better than the bottom few ships of their respective tiers. I've yet to see a sign that WG doesn't hate IJN DDs. Above T5, Fubuki has the best performance and claimed to be the only bright spot after Minekaze, and she's still only a third from the bottom (winrate, last 2 weeks). Shimakaze has a better winrate than Midway, and a better survival rate than Gearing. She's the second worst in those stats. In average experience, damage, kills, kills/deaths, she's plain worst. So naturally WG buffs cruisers to make it even harder for them.

 

I am currently grinding IJN DDs (started with them a long time ago, but resumed the tree recently) and I am at Fubuki right now. The problem is that the player base, believe it or not, HAS gotten better over the past year. Oblivious sailing with no course change is much rarer now, especially at high tiers. Happens from time to time, sure, but not the extent it did earlier. In the meantime we got buffed hydro and radar and for whatever reason IJN torpedoes have ludicrous detection ranges (opposed to US torps). Taken together, it became extremely hard to use IJN DDs and expect any sort of consistent results in them. 

[Shirakami_Kon]

Not related to balancing things by consumables but well, it's about consumables. I noticed something strange in the last patch notes. I read the English and the Spanish ones and both say that US fighters get 30% more ammo, and the Radar reload decrase (it doesn't say how much though).

 

However, in the Spanish patch notes there's a third thing. It says that cruisers will have an extra consumable slot so they can have both Hydro and AA Defensive Fire at the same time. But there's nothing about that in the English patch notes. It's that a mistake in the Spanish patch notes? The English ones forget to add that? I think having both Hydro and AA Defensive fire it's a nice adittion enought  to let players confused about if we will get that or not.

[Ishiro32]

 

I'd like to see that too 

 

I am at work, I promise I will fix by edit it later when I will get home.

[Woofbark]

Sounds like you are a DD player who is worried about radar buffs.

 

The only thing I don't like is the habit of giving premiums extra consumables because they have to be stronger than regular ships, I wish they had followed the old WoT strategy of making premiums at best equal to silver ships but given them premium matchmaking to compensate. This would be so much better as you wouldn't have pay2win and you wouldn't have so many potatoes in T10 matches playing a premium they bought after 10 games. 

 

I also think KM BB's should not get Hydro. As a KM cruiser player Hydro is good but limited due to the short range so you can't just charge with it as you will be deleted by BB's. As a BB that can't be citadelled and has twice the HP of a cruiser plus a torpedo belt and powerful secondaries, Hydro is much more powerful. 

 

 

[mtm78]

 

I am at work, I promise I will fix by edit it later when I will get home.

 

[AnotherDuck]

Previous meta was Shimakze Or Go Home - this will definitely skew the potato ratio of any statistics...

 

Was Shima ever an above-average performing ship?

 

The Torpedo reload booster is an interesting one and probably one of the few historical consumables. It is designed to replicate the quick reloading gear fitted to the Kagero and Hatsuharu classes which allowed a very quick reload compared to any destroyer that had gone before. It is a very powerful consumable if used correctly as it can often catch players completely by surprise if they were expecting a torpedo salvo 2 minutes later and receive a very nasty present 30 seconds later! It allows you to increase your damage potential, effectively firing twice in one reload and with the prevalence of radar smoke is often a bit pointless.

 

I've used it a bit, as before I had Torpedo Acceleration on my Kagero captain but not Concealment Expert, and with that the close range torps are a little too close range. However, the long range torps aren't quite as bad with TA, and as you mentioned, you can often catch others by surprise (I've had some funny moments with that). Not having smoke also works better if you have longer range torps.

 

Considering the performance of the ship (and generally considered straight out worse than Fubuki), I wonder if it would be better to place the TRB on the Engine Boost slot rather than on the Smoke slot.

[DominusEdwardius]

Could always put it on a third slot that seems to be the trend of late! ( although I should probably mention that the quick reload feature on the Hatsuharu/Kagero isn't just unique to these ships and can be found on other IJN ships (IRL), mostly those not in game namely the Asashio, Yugumo, Shiratsuyu and Akizuki classes. However the same mechanism can also be found on various cruisers like the Takao, Aoba, Myoko, Furutaka and Mogami and by extension Ibuki and Zao so if you ever needed to buff IJN cruisers that could be a historically realistic way )