How to make the RN CL's more fun to play

[Admiral_Jellicoe]

 

 

 

I think the RN CL playstyle is very boring and unexciting in comparison to other cruiser lines. For survivability they have to sit still in smoke or behind island and hence they have a very slow playstyle. I feel like the whole design is not very consistent and there are a lot of contradicting design choices. e.g.: light cruisers should be very mobile, but like they are now you have to sit still. They turn very good, but their guns turn quite slow. They accelerate very fast, but they stop very slow. I know this last was done so you can't panic smoke at full speed, but combined with its excellent accelaration is feels very artificial and not right.

 

Imo, what they should do to RN ships in order to make them more fun:

•  Suvivability
  
  
  
  1. remove smoke from the cruisers
  
  
  2.  Make their decelaration as good as their accelaration
  
  
  3.  one or a combination of the following (has to be tested in order to balance them)
     
     
     
     1. reduce their citadel size and completely below waterline
     
     
     2. reduce the citadel damage they take
     
     
     3. Remove their citadels (because of their weak armor, they take already heavy damage from both normal AP penetrations AND HE)
     
     
     4. keep the heals on them as they are (maybe slight buff on the lower tier ships)
     
     
     
     
     
  
  


• Gun systems
  
  
  
  1. Give them HE shells too (weak damage, 3 to 5% fire chance)
  
  
  2.  Increase their muzzle velocity slightly (better than US cruisers, worse than RU cruisers, probably somewhere in the range of 880 - 920)
  
  
  3.  Increase the gun traverse speed, together with expert marksman they should have someting between 15-20 i think. This is needed because they have to turn very much to dodge incoming shells.
  
  
  
  
  
• Consumables
  
  
  
  • Same as now, but just remove smoke on all of them (radar from T7 onwards)
  
  
  
  
  

This would be the true spirit of a light cruiser line. For survivability they have to rely on dodging incoming shells with their good mobility and agility. With this slightly increased gun velocity they can reliable hit enemy dd's and ca's at 10+ km (with good aim), with accurate but weak damaging guns. Weak HE so to not make them helpless vs angled ships.

At the moment their design is so incoherent: they have good mobility and agility, but in order to survive they have to sit still in smoke. How does that combine with light cruisers? Light cruisers should constantly sail around the seas and plug the weak sides of the team with their low damage but fast and accurate gun fire. That would be in the true spirit of a CL line.

I think with the above mentioned changes you would get a unique and fun cruiser line. Off course with so many changes they have to go back in testing phase. For that i would temporarily remove all RN cruisers from the game.

[Venatacia]

 

The skill tree doesn't work with them either, very poor choice of skills to chose from.

 

I agree with you, I'm playing my British cruisers like the American Clemson DD, not what I expected the RN line to be like at all to be honest. Hiding in smoke and hiding behind Islands and then the odd suicide charge. I'm at the Leander at the moment and even though I'm stubborn to stick them out they are very underwhelming to play. The odd good battle but most times it's... meh!.

 

[Pekoe_Darjeeling]

RN cruisers - fun for the whole family. Yes very nice.

[tenacious_torps]

More fun? There's an implication there that doesn't seem to reflect reality. 

 

Oth they are fun to sink, made me finally appreciate BBs a bit more. 

[CavScorpion_2014]

[edited]

[xXx_Blogis_xXx]

all it need better range and better arc

[CavScorpion_2014]

all it need better range and better arc

 

  I'd say just better arc, any more and T7+ would starting getting very OP

[Scootsim]

Don't Hide in smoke or behind islands!

 

i keep moving and supporting DD's staying in the 2nd line if possible.  the fast rudder shift and low detection is enough to avoid BB salvos if you are vigilant.

 

i get deleted just as quickly in Pensacola or Russian CA's if i have a bad game .

 

i find the heal more useless as if you have been hit hard enough to need it then there is not much left to heal.

 

maybe two more smoke charges would be better than removing so at least you can make a useful screen.

 

i have had some fun and satisfying games up to the emerald so far .

 

this is just my experience.

 

s

 

 

[Kazomir]

Just include CVs into the games to trim down the BB/DD plague and the brit ships will be quite pleasurable.

[peoplescavalry]

Without a doubt they are the worst line brought out so far,  they are the committee camel of what should be a supple race horse.

[Admiral_Jellicoe]

all it need better range and better arc

 

Why would that make them fun? It would just allow to spam better from within your smoke. No Better arcs alone would make the ships OP, not fun.

Together with removing smoke, better arcs could indeed be a good thing.

[creamgravy]

The arcs are perfect, leave them alone.

[Admiral_Jellicoe]

 

 

 

Don't Hide in smoke or behind islands!

 

i keep moving and supporting DD's staying in the 2nd line if possible.  the fast rudder shift and low detection is enough to avoid BB salvos if you are vigilant.

 

i get deleted just as quickly in Pensacola or Russian CA's if i have a bad game .

 

i find the heal more useless as if you have been hit hard enough to need it then there is not much left to heal.

 

maybe two more smoke charges would be better than removing so at least you can make a useful screen.

 

i have had some fun and satisfying games up to the emerald so far .

 

this is just my experience.

 

s

 

 

What you say is good for T5 and below. T6 onwards people will be good enough to just delete you if you don't use smoke and island to hide your ship. From T8 onwards the RN CL's get a good heal that can repair a good deal of even hard damage.

[Admiral_Jellicoe]

More fun? There's an implication there that doesn't seem to reflect reality.

 

Oth they are fun to sink, made me finally appreciate BBs a bit more.

 

You're right. Actually i don't have that much fun anymore deleting another RN CL in a BB. I just think: 'just another poor RN CL sunk'.

[Pekoe_Darjeeling]

all it need better range and better arc

 

And better players not sailing broadside or yolo rush.

[Pajosaurus]

How to make them more fun to play? Well, eliminate stuff like this.

 

 

The citadel hit by Clemson HE in the above image is more or less on a broadside Caledon, but the two prior ones were below the bridge area when the cruiser was angled around 35-45 degrees. In total I did 5 citadel hits to the poor guy with 102mm HE from around 7.5 km at pretty much all angles. That is simply awful.

 

 

[Fino_93]

I start thinking they simply Need to loose their unque features, give them normale150mm guns with normal shells, remove the smoke and repair and let's balance the rock-paper-scissors concept in the game with CL that are good against the DDs thanks to manouverability and rate of Fire and weak against CA cause they would be punished by the 203mm APs and in par with BBs thanks HE spam against "random citadel hit".

[Babykim]

It would have been much better if they went for heavy cruisers instead of light cruisers. Doing so is one way of fixing the current state.

[triumphgt6]

I think tiers 1-5 need HE. 6 and above are fine as they are - interesting to play. Fiji is really rather good and not as squishy. Better than the Atlanta!

[BadGene616]

Anyone starting this game and trying to rn cl first is unlikely to continue playing. The t1 is probably competitive but t2 and t3 are dire. I'm dreading t5 with the current mm and zomBB meta.

 

May park then until the inevitable buffing.

[Djansolo]

how about giving them smoke sooner? like tier 3, so people learn to use it properly, by the time they really need it at tier 5-6

[fruitnveg]

Like OP suggested, remove the citadel entirely. You did it for DDs and these cruisers have even less armour. It's not like they won't still take bucket loads of damage, but it would go a long way to reducing the prevalence of deletions, making the line (a little) less frustrating to play. Also, the 'special' AP is special only in that it does absolutely nothing better than regular AP. It needs serious buffing if you do not intend to give the RNCLs HE.

[Agantas]

Anyone starting this game and trying to rn cl first is unlikely to continue playing. The t1 is probably competitive but t2 and t3 are dire. I'm dreading t5 with the current mm and zomBB meta.

 

May park then until the inevitable buffing.

 

Personally, I suffered with Black Swan, Danae and Caledon, but did well in Weymouth. I find Weymouth competitive in its own tier. Having graduated from that horrid rust bucket, Danae, I now face Emerald, which is a better ship. The smoke is a useful tool and Emerald arcs aren't as horrible as Danaes (or so it seems after first few games). After 2-3 games, Emerald doesn't seem too shabby, although I haven't faced T7 in it yet.

[Nherun]

I don't think there is a need for a complete overhaul, like the thread starter suggested, though some improvements for Tier 2-5 would be recommended. I honestly think, that the cruisers are very difficult to play, especially if someone decides to pick the British Cruisers as their first line to play. Giving those ships HE and removing them again with Tiers 6+ would be a bad idea, as people cannot learn to utilize AP shells, which need to be used later on.

 

An option could be to generally improve the smoke, maybe let it last a little bit longer, though that would not really solve the problems for beginners. Maybe just implement a pop-up message in-game, telling players that the British cruisers are aimed at advanced players and if they are new, they should try out the cruisers from the other nations first.

 

Another option could be to improve the armor, lowering the citadel, etc. The repair function is often pretty useless if you consider the amount of lost hp you can recover after being hit in the nu... ;) Sometimes mobility just doesn't help, you evade and just get hit by one shell and still take 10-14k damage from it, no matter where it hits the ship in the end.

 

The ships are in their own ways fun to play, at least if have the proper map and enemies, if you mainly face BBs you're usually screwed. I understand that people would like to see HE shells for the ships, but they would need to change a lot of other mechanics, such as removing smoke, maybe adjust further settings. And let's be honest, who is not totally annoyed by the already existing HE spam? Especially if it is an Atlanta/Flint combo or cruisers and dds spamming HE out of smoke screens. Yes you can shoot and hope to hit someone, but that doesn't happen very often. You can only hope that your own DDs send Torpedos into the smoke screen area or cruisers with Radar come around. It's one of those (basically) broken mechanisms in the game and I'm happy that British cruisers did not end up with smoke and HE shells.

[Jethro_Grey]

Anyone starting this game and trying to rn cl first is unlikely to continue playing. The t1 is probably competitive but t2 and t3 are dire. I'm dreading t5 with the current mm and zomBB meta.

 

May park then until the inevitable buffing.

 

You assume that they need buffing...^^

 

Since WG already stated that they are supposed to be more difficult to play, i doubt that they gonna get a buff - at least not one that is nearly in line with what OP suggested.

And if you take a look at the stats for the RN line, it seems not likely at all that WG will touch them anytime soon and even if WG decides to buff the lower tiers, we will not see HE on the RN CL line. Ever.