How it works

[Cadelanne]

 

After seeing an other topic about "BBs ruin the game, they're OP", I decided to write something to state how this game is working (at least for me). I think that all this whine around BBs comes from the fact that many people don't understand ships roles. When reading people talking about it I always see tons of comments stating a sort of rock - paper - scissors where DDs are countering BBs, CAs are countering DDs, and BBs are countering CAs.

 

But that's totally WRONG.

 

The reality is that this whole game is based on pushing and securing positions. That's obvious in Domination but it's the case in any game mode. You got a strong position ? Even if it's not a cap, you push ennemy team back, you make it harder for them to angle to everyone, you make them easier to spot, to torpedo, you lower their flanking capabilites. So you WIN. And what does push a position and take ages to be removed when bunkered and protected ? You're right, a battleship !

 

So what I wish everyone would understand is that by design, BBs are the masterpiece. They have the massive alpha damage, they have the pushing, they have the tanking. They're the ships on which the game relies on. Every other ship class (including CVs) is there to support those BBs. Ofc every ship can do stuff on it's own because otherwise it would be quite boring, but ultimatly if you want to win you have to help your BBs. You have to defend them, and help them to get rid of ennemy BBs.

 

The fact that the meta is BB-centric isn't because of a bad balance and cruisers / DDs being to weak. It's just how it is designed. It is designed as "BBs are there, and around them we add other ship classes to help them out". Then you can say it's good or bad game design, but don't be surprised when BBs are strong. It's normal.

 

(before everybody jumps on me, just know that I'm a main carrier)

 

[Shirakami_Kon]

Hm. I like and understand your explanation as a main BB player and aparently one of the minority that tends to do such a thing as push for the team. I'd like to remark what you said that BBs can't do that alone as you said, we need the support of the rest of the ship classes, a BB alone it's a dead ship, like any class of ship alone (maybe BBs are still potentially the slowest ones to die even alone, but yeah).

 

However I also understand a bit players that focus on other classes. I agree that BBs are around what the rest of the game spins around, but I also understand those who don't think so (especially when you see that a vast number of BB players just use the key elements of a BB to live as long as possible at a (way) safe distance and the last thing they show is that, why this game it's designed around the BBs). That's obviously frustrating for players of other classes.

 

And also, even if it's kind of true when you manage to get a few decent BB players it's logic that a lot of players of other classes don't like to think of themselves as just tools to help those good BBs and they are nothing else than that. I like BBs for this case in particular, but if I happened to be more confortable in cruisers I woudn't like to be considered as just "something that helps BBs". The problem here for me is that the main roles of other classes doesn't look to have such an impact or importance compared to the one that BBs have. Except DDs in my oppinion, those are the ones that for me have an equal, maybe bigger influence in battle than BBs. NO one can argue that the ability to cap areas and all the scout and area denial that DDs can do is one of the most vital aspects of the game.

 

But yeah, overall I liked your post and it's nice to have people making posts like this to vew things from different perspectives from time to time. +1

[ColonelPete]

Then the design is bad.

 

You cannot design a class that is superior to others. Everyone wants to play that class. That is like playing chess and every piece is a Queen.

[Culiacan_Mexico]

Every other ship class (including CVs) is there to support those BBs.

 

There is your problem.

[Shirakami_Kon]

You cannot design a class that is superior to others. Everyone wants to play that class. That is like playing chess and every piece is a Queen.

 

Even if it's my main class I agree with that. And that's actually why the amount of BBs per battle started to be a problem some time ago and why it's the most played class.

[Culiacan_Mexico]

...BB players just use the key elements of a BB to live as long as possible at a (way) safe distance... That's obviously frustrating for players of other classes...

Yes that is frustrating, because when did that become the goal of the game? 

[BadGene616]

I'd disagree on a couple of points, but they are semantics:

 

The objective is to win. Taking cap points is a means to an end. There are other ways to win, but I'd agree this is the most efficient.

 

The game revolves around BBS because they are currently stronger than other ships. But making them stronger than other ships means that they dictate the win/loss most cases. This isn't great game design.

 

Anyone can play a bb but this also means they attract a lot of the herpaderp players who are clueless. So resentfulness grows. You cannot support a bb who sits broadside on shooting he using the spotting plane, and no one would support this pleystyle who has a fraction of a brain. (Genuinely had someone doing this tonight and sadly on my team)

 

TL;dr- BBS should get the support of the team, and should support their team by playing well. Trouble is, no one told a lot of the potatoes who play them. And other classes have to be capable of winning games or they are pointless. It is a game and balance >>> realism.

[Catz_Are_Awesom_Siema_PL]

Average player in this game plays a BB and deal 20-25k dmg a game and they are happy about it, so no wonder the game's designed around them.

[Culiacan_Mexico]

...The game revolves around BBS because they are currently stronger than other ships...

If the are the strongest... shouldn't they support the weaker ships?

[LazyInsight]

 

Every other ship class (including CVs) is there to support those BBs

 

The only real support BBs need are destroyers for capping (as it would be kind of tough because of concealment). Missouri has radar, german T8+ have hydro, USN BBs and KM BBs with AFT, manual secondaries + manual AA have a lot of anti air firepower.

 

The fact that the meta is BB-centric isn't because of a bad balance and cruisers / DDs being to weak. It's just how it is designed

 

 

It is as it is because a lot of the cruisers are simply pointless. You know that the best cruiser - the Zao holds its position because its just good at killing other ships, especially battleships. It does not have radar, amazing AA or german hydro; it is just capable of doing a lot of damage at any range while also being quite survivable.

[Cadelanne]

I think you're a bit misunderstanding what I tryed to say, when you're saying that BBs are superior, better than other ship in every aspect of the game. They have lots of weaknesses and need heavy support, there are many things that DDs and cruisers do better than them.

 

However, when it comes to push and hold a position, they are the best, that's where they shine. And then when you understand that taking strong position and take advantage of it is what wins you the game, you also understand why BBs are the backbone of your fleet.

[LazyInsight]

there are many things that cruisers do better than them

 

And those things are?

[Cadelanne]

 

And those things are?

 

Mainly flanking due to their good DPM, but also tagging, chasing (only when necessary ofc), survive when alone, and anti-air. Their radar is also mandatory vs organized play, even tho I must admit you don't see very organized play that often in random battles.

[Shirakami_Kon]

 

And those things are?

 

Yes. That's another huge problem IMO. I liked cruisers a lot when I started to play the game... Until I noticed that except efectively hunting down DDs and details like max speed and things like that there was not a huge difference. And then the German BBs came in. And more specificly Scharnhorst. It's not like that BB it's better than T7, T8 and even most T9 cruisers in their own cruiser role or anything. The only thing I can think in favor of those cruisers are consumables like hidro, radar, AA defensive fire and such, but other than that... And that's a huge mistake for cruisers.

[Nechrom]

That's all well and good if there was a system that ensured some minimal level of teamwork. But as this game is almost entirely made up of Random Battles, a game design which doesn't give every ship the tools to work independently, is bound to fail.

Every ship class should have the same base value when you remove the surrounding factors like teamwork and support. It's not okay to have some classes fall apart when you remove teamwork, while others can stand on their own.

[Cadelanne]

That's all well and good if there was a system that ensured some minimal level of teamwork. But as this game is almost entirely made up of Random Battles, a game design which doesn't give every ship the tools to work independently, is bound to fail.

Every ship class should have the same base value when you remove the surrounding factors like teamwork and support. It's not okay to have some classes fall apart when you remove teamwork, while others can stand on their own.

 

I agree on the part where you say that this requires a minimal teamwork to be applied, and that WG doesn't help that.

 

However, if there's one class that absolutely can't stand on its own at all, it's battleship. Even if some BBs have tools they shouldn't have (hydro or radar) and behave a bit better than their cousins, they're all dead as soon as left alone, where cruisers and especially DDs can have their way out of tricky situations unless they're really heavily committed.

[Nechrom]

I agree on the part where you say that this requires a minimal teamwork to be applied, and that WG doesn't help that.

 

However, if there's one class that absolutely can't stand on its own at all, it's battleship. Even if some BBs have tools they shouldn't have (hydro or radar) and behave a bit better than their cousins, they're all dead as soon as left alone, where cruisers and especially DDs can have their way out of tricky situations unless they're really heavily committed.

 

But I'm not talking about just surviving or "who would win in a 1v1" but who can do the work needed to get a win without a specific play from their team.

And of course it's not black or white. The balance isn't that bad. But the the ones who hold the most cards are currently BBs without a doubt.

CVs are on an entirely different level of lone-wolfery that is just beyond broken. Thankfully you don't see many good CV players.

[Cadelanne]

 

But I'm not talking about just surviving or "who would win in a 1v1" but who can do the work needed to get a win without a specific play from their team.

And of course it's not black or white. The balance isn't that bad. But the the ones who hold the most cards are currently BBs without a doubt.

CVs are on an entirely different level of lone-wolfery that is just beyond broken. Thankfully you don't see many good CV players.

 

Yeah that's right, BB is what have the most tools that are required to get the victory. In fact it's just to explain this that I made this whole post and told that they were the backbone of the team. But I don't understand why you think it's bad design, or a bad thing. BBs need you to protect them, and you need them to win the game. Everyone has a lot of work and can make nice plays. I don't see what isn't fine with this. The fact that you aren't the spearhead doesn't mean that you can't shine as much as it does, or that you're less important.

 

And about CVs, yeah they can rack up damages but if they don't teamplay, they'll just do this and lose. Imho strike carriers are the supportest support of this game. They're the only one having this ability to strike the right target at the right time to save a whole part of the team from total failure. A bit like a goal keeper in a football team. That's more a jokerish thingy.

[Hedgehog1963]

BB is prey on a good day.

[Shirakami_Kon]

BB is prey

 

 

 

 

What?

[BadGene616]

 

Mainly flanking due to their good DPM, but also tagging, chasing (only when necessary ofc), survive when alone, and anti-air. Their radar is also mandatory vs organized play, even tho I must admit you don't see very organized play that often in random battles.

By DPM I think you mean ROF.

They are very different.

Cruiser ap can be very effective but it can also be heavily negated through angling. He is always a lottery and has little alpha damage on an already beaten up enemy due to saturation.

Survive when alone... Depending on what is shooting at them. But this is never a great place to be.

AA is generally significantly lower than bb and often the consumable to support this has to be sacrificed for other benefits. If you play a lot of carriers then you see a lot of carriers in the other team. But taking for example hydro over AA is a common choice. 

Flanking is a moot point, high tier bbs often have comparable speed. It also means you are going off, frequently on your own. And recent map design doesn't really support flanking.

Play high tier USSR CAs and you don't have much agility or turning circle either.

Radar is useful but often relies on team focused fire to be effective. It's rare you can spot and kill a same tier DD solo in one cycle.

 

One final point. BBs are tier matched. This also increases their influence on the game. If you are good in a bb then it's probable that the equivalent ship on the other side is worse than you, due to skill distribution of nothing else.

Get a division of good players in bb and that influence is even greater.

 

it's an indicator of bb op that they have to be tier matched as a class and not with other classes. That's crap design.

Too much in most games rests on the competence of too few players in ships that have become less and less vulnerable to their in game designed counters.

 

There just isn't enough risk attached to playing bb. The cost of the ship and research requirements, and maintenance costs, are too easy compared with other classes.

 

CVS have a brutal economy and steeper research costs. Perhaps this should be applied to bb.

[EdiJo]

My few night cents...

 

The key is to make each class irreplaceable, and this should hugely reward the team in which different classes cooperate.

Each class should have defined a role, which cannot be fulfilled by another class. 

 

• scouting/being concealed should be a domain of DD (CV can scout, too) -> hence absurdly concealed ships like Atago or Belfast are destroying the gameplay. 
• hunting DD should be done mainly by cruisers, and there shouldn't be huge differences in firepower inside DD class. For now Russian or US gunboats are replacing cruiser role, which is not good. Also consumables like radar or sonar should not be posessed by other ships (BB or DD)
• battleships should be threatened mainly by other battleships and by carriers, and from the close range by destroyers. HE spamming by cruisers or cruisers just deleting broadside battleship with AP is just again - replacing role of other class.

 

Matchmaking should build fleets according to "pyramid" rule: least capital ships, more supporting ships. Games with 5-6 BB are a misunderstanding. Number of cruisers should be similar to the number of destroyers they're supposed to hunt. In 12 ship fleet never should be more than one carrier.

 

Tier spread in the game should not be greater than 1. I would allow ONE +2 tier battleship, just to have more variety.

Generally in 2-tier teams the lower tier should have at least 2/3 majority.

 

If those conditions are assured by the MM, there won't be much problem with "BB whining: give me support!" etc., because, for example, the team will know that to defeat enemy BB they NEED their own battleship. Battleships will care about their cruisers, because without them they will be eaten by enemy destroyers. Destroyers will care about their BB, because they will eliminate enemy cruisers. And so on.

 

The main problem of such approach is the endgame, where sometimes randomly left alive ships are deciding outcome of the whole battle... Having "wrong" ship class equals having game lost.

[Hedgehog1963]

 

 

What?

 

Precisely.  I did 148k damage in Leander once.  You have four tiers on me and managed 14k more?

[Cadelanne]

By DPM I think you mean ROF.

They are very different.

Cruiser ap can be very effective but it can also be heavily negated through angling. He is always a lottery and has little alpha damage on an already beaten up enemy due to saturation.

 

I strictly mean DPM. A GK AP DPM is 304k (unupgraded with 420mm), while a Des Moines has 450k AP DPM and a Minotaur 600k AP DPM. You can double check. DPM is a cruiser thing. Ofc you need to have a broadside to apply DPM correctly but that's why I was talking about flanking. About saturation, afaik it only affect superstructure but most cruisers AP shells can easily pierce a BB upper belt.

 

Survive when alone... Depending on what is shooting at them. But this is never a great place to be.

 

If anything they're better at this than BBs anyway.

 

AA is generally significantly lower than bb and often the consumable to support this has to be sacrificed for other benefits. If you play a lot of carriers then you see a lot of carriers in the other team. But taking for example hydro over AA is a common choice.

 

US and RU cruisers always have it. IJN also have it like 95% of the time due to weaker hydro than German. RN cruisers have a way too strong AA at 9 - 10 with way too much range, and at lower tier they compensate the lack of it by a maneuverability making them hard to damage. On KGM cruisers it's a gamble. But it's the only line I'd bother trying to strike unless it's really necessary.

 

BadGene616, on 21 January 2017 - 02:19 AM, said:

Flanking is a moot point, high tier bbs often have comparable speed. It also means you are going off, frequently on your own. And recent map design doesn't really support flanking.

 

You know that concealment is where flanking is at, and cruisers have the upper hand. I can see this kind of flanking happen quite often.

 

 

Radar is useful but often relies on team focused fire to be effective. It's rare you can spot and kill a same tier DD solo in one cycle.

 

One final point. BBs are tier matched. This also increases their influence on the game. If you are good in a bb then it's probable that the equivalent ship on the other side is worse than you, due to skill distribution of nothing else.

Get a division of good players in bb and that influence is even greater.

 

it's an indicator of bb op that they have to be tier matched as a class and not with other classes. That's crap design.

Too much in most games rests on the competence of too few players in ships that have become less and less vulnerable to their in game designed counters.

 

There just isn't enough risk attached to playing bb. The cost of the ship and research requirements, and maintenance costs, are too easy compared with other classes.

 

CVS have a brutal economy and steeper research costs. Perhaps this should be applied to bb.

 

To this I'd say that radar is a teamplay tool, but there's nothing bad in this. I really don't see why having tier matched BBs shows that they're OP. Only shows what I'm stating from the begining, they're the team's backbone, but they rely on the rest of the team as much as the team relies on them.

 

To be honest, I don't know if BBs are really overpowered or not, I don't play enough CA and DDs to know this. But what I'm totally sure about is that if they are, it's nowhere close to what some people are stating. Cruisers and DDs are still a serious thing. Now maybe remove hydro on KGM BBs, remove some AA on US and KGM BBs, maybe, idk. But it's not World of Battleships like some pretends it is. And if anything, I doubt that nerfing their economy is a solution. They were stupid to do this to CVs, and it would be equally bad to do it to BBs. They would still be the same in game, so I don't really see what's the point of this. Making them frustrating to play ? For what reason ?

[CleverViking]

To be honest, I don't know if BBs are really overpowered or not, I don't play enough CA and DDs to know this. But what I'm totally sure about is that if they are, it's nowhere close to what some people are stating. Cruisers and DDs are still a serious thing. Now maybe remove hydro on KGM BBs, remove some AA on US and KGM BBs, maybe, idk. But it's not World of Battleships like some pretends it is. And if anything, I doubt that nerfing their economy is a solution. They were stupid to do this to CVs, and it would be equally bad to do it to BBs. They would still be the same in game, so I don't really see what's the point of this. Making them frustrating to play ? For what reason

 

The main problem with BBs is the amount of them. It's not uncommon to get 5 BBs on each side and I've also experienced up to 7. With their massive range, playing as a cruiser you will always be in range of a couple of BBs which makes for games were cruiser skippers in many ways are more wary of being spotted than DD skippers. Dodging one or two BBs isn't a problem, but more than that and the sheer amount of shells usually equals a hit sooner or later. The difference in how battles play out with fewer BBs is staggering.

 

If there were something to make sniping harder to achieve like(do mind, not all of these at once. that would be too much of a nerf):

-more cover/islands

-remove satelite view of spotter planes to make shots over islands less of walk in the park

-further increase dispersion or travel time of shells at extreme ranges to dissuade BBs to camp the border and encourage pushing more

-Make lolpens less likely, being citted at 20km while angled isn't fun (this is mainly due to plunging fire though) A possible solution would to make cits less likely in general for extreme ranges or make citadels smaller for T8+ cruisers

 

OR set a hard cap of 3 or 4 for BBs on T8+ (without changing anything else). Capping MM isn't an elegant solution and it would affect the diversity in matches a lot but it's the amount of BBs in each match that is the main problem and this would be the fastest "solution".

 

Also, pretending there's not a problem is a bit weird since the devs themselves are worried about BBs 

 

*I do want to add, another solution would be too limit T8 cruisers from T10 games. Entering a T10 match with 15.6km range and 5 BBs (some of which can hit you from 20km+ range) makes for some severely unfun games. I've noticed much less problems as soon as I got the Ibuki and I'd imagine the Zao is in a quite comfortable situation due to its reputation. My dislike for the Mogami mainly stems from the fact that most of my games in her was T10 and to even get in range of anything you have to enter "close-range" for most top tier BBs (even at T6 in Fuso my "happy place" is 12-13km)