way to overlook the important, and focus on the irrelevant

[Isalani]

It's kind of funny how WG keeps focusing on the wrong stuff, while doing nothing about the things that really need changing.

BB's are too strong, as is evidenced by the huge playerbase. Yet WG consitently keeps buffing them (indirectly mostly this patch, except for range upgrades in lower tiers cause now that CV's can no longer seal club players need another class to default to).

Along the past year they've removed any dependency BB's have on other classes. They now have enough AA to deal with planes on their own (and nerfed CV's into the ground) and even though getting consistently hit by DD torps evidences bad play WG nerfed that anyway, and added a BB line with hydro just in case ;) Let's not get into how nerfing CV's effectiveness and economy skewered game balance.

With CV's around stealthfire is less common since, well, planes can spot. With CV's around DD's are less problematic to BB's since, again, they have planes that can spot both torps and DD's.

 

Stealthfire had to go since it's no fun getting shot and being unable to do something about it.

Do you think it's fun when my DM gets double citadelled even though I angled perfectly? There's nothing I can do about THAT so when are you going to change that? In fact, by changing that, you would also allow a more dynamic cruiser playstyle which in effect would nerf DD's and CV's without having to change any numbers.

 

By hey, that would once again require a certain amount of teamplay. We can't have that now can we...

 

I hope WG doesn't actually pay its designers, cause I know people who would do a better job for free :/

[RUSSIANBlAS]

WG know that selling big name BB like the Tirpitz then giving them a safe environment to play in gives them epic revenue.

 

I'm guilty of that too as I love playing BB but I'm competent with all classes nowadays and I prefer DDs or CVs in an attempt to hard carry a team.

 

Shira is likely to get nerf batted and I'm still waiting for the final acts of Russian treachery to be played out (Giving BBs Defensive AA). 

 

 

[CleverViking]

I agree, it's a bit telling that I have close to 60% WR with both DDs and BBs but around 50% with cruisers. BBs punish cruisers too hard (especially in top tiers), sure it's fun to sail around and delete ships but I think they should work on how easy it is to cit cruisers at higher tiers. 

 

If you're far away you get plunging fire going through the deck, regardless of angling. If you're close you get overmatched, Neither does it help that 5 BBs a side seems to have become the norm. Personally I have less issues dealing with BBs at lower tiers and not just because people at T8-10 are "elite players" but because there seems to be a major jump in lethality in higher tiers for BBs most likely due to BB guns improving but CAs not really getting all that much tankier,

 

Especially the cits where you did nothing wrong is annoying, but there is also no other ship in the game that gets punished anywhere as hard for making a mistake as cruisers.

[RUSSIANBlAS]

Extensive testing in Ranked with Atago shows that directly bow or stern can't be citadel'ed by a T8 BB.

 

Any sort of angle however puts you at risk of Devastating Strikes 

[Admiral_noodle]

I wish people wouldn't just state "BBs are too string". I don't think they are too strong. In terms of game influence ONE BB isn't really the difference. Neither is one dd usually.

 

The problem is there are too MANY BBs because they are POPULAR - mostly because they are iconic ships.

 

That is also less true in the mornings. I don't know why.

 

Nerfing BBs into the ground is just going to turn people away from the game.

 

The BB problem goes away simply if BBs weee less popular. And to do this I propose making cruisers MORE popular by;

 

- transparent teamplay rewards and ribbons (defensive fire smoke others spotting etc)

- cruiser only missions

- better credit gain for cruisers over BBs.

[CleverViking]

Extensive testing in Ranked with Atago shows that directly bow or stern can't be citadel'ed by a T8 BB.

 

I was referring mostly to GK and Yammy when talking about being overmatched though I'll freely admit I don't know their exact penetration values.

 

You still have to admit that cruisers get punished harder by several magnitudes than other classes.

 

DDs have smoke and the best agility and stealth in the game, even when spotted they'll likely get away without taking too much damage. BBs can tank quite a lot of damage with proper repair management. CVs really only stand at risk from other CVs until late game. 

 

While BBs can take massive damage as well, most half decent players will almost never get hit by torps and you can bowtank pretty much everything. HE spam can kill BBs but I recall a Fletcher match where I had 210 HE hits (45k damage) and 9 fires (31k damage) which sounds less impressive when you think that BBs can get salvos of 30-40k damage.

[mtm78]

- transparent teamplay rewards and ribbons (defensive fire smoke others spotting etc)

 

- cruiser only missions

 

- better credit gain for cruisers over BBs.

 

You know who to pitch this to right....

 

[RUSSIANBlAS]

The problem is at the top tiers yes. It takes above average skill to do well vs swarms of super powered BBs.

 

I blame WG selling T10 super camo. Means potatoes can kick around in their Yams and GKs all day with no punishment. 

 

I don't even get T10 BBs, they're boring as hell in the meta...

[CleverViking]

I wish people wouldn't just state "BBs are too string". I don't think they are too strong. In terms of game influence ONE BB isn't really the difference. Neither is one dd usually.

 

 

The problem is there are too MANY BBs because they are POPULAR

 

While I do agree that the number if BBs is the main problem, I still think that WG should look at cruiser balance. Problem is that if they made cruisers tankier or more agile they would probably become OP as well. I'd be happy with a cap on BBs but that would also have issues. Introducing more islands in top tier maps would do a lot to decrease the amount of static sniping at 18-20km but that might be too much of a buff for DDs. *shrug*

 

I think we can all agree that not doing anything isn't helping at all. I remember them saying that they hoped the revamped skilltree would help with BB population and that they had ideas if it didn't work but AFAIK we haven't heard anything yet,

[RUSSIANBlAS]

IFHE buffed some cruisers I guess...

 

Maybe giving them all preferred XP but that's not a buff per say.

 

Cruisers "can" work at high tiers but you need to be a decent player and you're still very much at the mercy of lol BB punching a new hole in you. 

 

Make the maps smaller or more islands i can agree with. Trash maps like Tears and that other Desert one with the stupid island between A and B cap with NO cover elsewhere only promotes BB sniping...

[CleverViking]

I think your bloom idea from the other thread could be a nice buff if implemented carefully. Most cruisers have decent concealment but they can't disengage in time before they have 3 BBs shooting at them. That in addition to a bit more cover should make cruiser life much more approachable at top tiers.

[Isalani]

The problem is there are too MANY BBs because they are POPULAR - mostly because they are iconic ships.

 

Iconic ships like the Montana, FDG, GK, Izumo, ...

Oh wait, they never even existed :/

Also, the BB population wasn't this big at the start of the game even though the real iconic ships were there already. Players just want to be top of the food chain instead of trying to make a much less forgiving AND less effective class of ships work for them. Reducing max BB's in a game will most likely just increase queue times for this very reason.

 

The issue isn't even that BB's can punish cruisers very hard. It's that they are the only class that can punish another class this hard. If DD's could kill BB's just as easily, and CA's could oneshot DD's as easily as BB's can oneshot cruisers, it would still be fine. BB's just overpower the class they counter much harder then their counter overpowers them. And WG only made this worse by nerfing their counter and giving them unnessecary tools to avoid damage from them. Also, BB's like montana and Kurfurst can easily oneshot DD's that get spotted too close, even with AP (there's tons of vids online where a montana oneshots a DD that gets overly enthousiastic ;)). CV's were sort of the middle ground that balanced things out a bit. BB's were much more vulnerable to them, while CA's were very well protected against them. But CV's are rare and far between in high tier matches due to, indeed, WG nerfing them to a point where people would rather just pick up a BB cause that's the top of the food chain class atm.

 

There shouldn't be a top of the food chain. In a game without cruisers, BB's should suffer bad at the hands of DD's and the DD's should reign supreme because their counter is missing. But they don't if they play properly, and that's where the proverbial sh*t hits the fan.

[Spellfire40]

I think your bloom idea from the other thread could be a nice buff if implemented carefully. Most cruisers have decent concealment but they can't disengage in time before they have 3 BBs shooting at them. That in addition to a bit more cover should make cruiser life much more approachable at top tiers.

And said cruiser get 20 k games? Even worse for DDs. You know how many 100mm or 127mm  hits you need to get 50k? In return BBs wreck their conter often enogh with pen AP hits. How about BB caliber AP always overpens DD so they at least have to chose the right ammo to kill DDs?

[Culiacan_Mexico]

The problem is there are too MANY BBs because they are POPULAR - mostly because they are iconic ships.

 

There were fewer BBs being played per game 18 months ago, were BBs less iconic then?

[CleverViking]

And said cruiser get 20 k games?

 

I'm not saying that cruisers should use the bloom to shoot one time and then stealth, relocate and shoot one time. Rinse and repeat.

 

I'm saying that having the ability to disengage by dissapearing from view quicker or hiding behind an island (of which there are painfully few in some high tier maps) would increase cruiser survivability. If you combo the buffed bloom with the "Priority Target" skill you'll know when crap is going to hit the fan and have a better chance to dissapear from view before every single BB on the map decides to take a shot at you (gotta love top tier BB sniping gameplay).

[Cosseria]

The game goes where the majority of the players is pushing it: so I expect nothing but nerfs to anything that makes BB play uncomfortable. That causes a free surface effect when anything that's not a BB becomes too difficult or too unrewarding to play, as more and more players quit other classes.

[Isalani]

I think your bloom idea from the other thread could be a nice buff if implemented carefully. Most cruisers have decent concealment but they can't disengage in time before they have 3 BBs shooting at them. That in addition to a bit more cover should make cruiser life much more approachable at top tiers.

 

Won't solve anything. Or will you enjoy to play a class where you can fire one or 2 salvo's before having to stop firing for 2 minutes while repositioning? Also, this is a class that has poor burst but the highest sustained dpm. Kind of counter intuitive.

 

Nerf turret traverse on BB's. By quite a bit. That way it'll take them much longer to react, giving cruisers more time to take risks and disappear before they get raped. It's just one possible change.

Buff DD torps. This solves 2 issues. BB's now have a REAL counter again, AND ijn DD's are fixed. EDIT: it would help with the smoke meta as well. I actually like this suggestion (surprised myself there ;))

Just a few options that might help. I don't claim to have all the answers either. I'm a network engineer, not a game designer. I just know what they're doing atm isn't helping...

[CleverViking]

Won't solve anything. Or will you enjoy to play a class where you can fire one or 2 salvo's before having to stop firing for 2 minutes while repositioning? Also, this is a class that has poor burst but the highest sustained dpm. Kind of counter intuitive.

 

You completely misunderstand the way I intended it to be used. I did not mean for it to be used offensively and preemtively in every engagement (see my above post). It's more to give you more of a chance to get out of dodgy situations where you'd previously just get fucked from 3 different directions. How you approach cruiser gameplay wouldn't change because of this. 

 

You have to remember that there are other ships and that the enemy won't always drop everything to shoot at just you. You have to remember that great players can have consistent amazing games in cruisers and if you buff them too hard we will just shift the power to cruisers instead of BBs. Small incremental buffs are in general better than large sweeping ones as the latter just tend to make more problems.

[mtm78]

 

There were fewer BBs being played per game 18 months ago, were BBs less iconic then?

 

To the EU, well yes. Because GE BB's weren't in the game then. We got a fairly heavy German representation in game ( in player numbers ). 

[ghostbuster_]

And said cruiser get 20 k games? Even worse for DDs. You know how many 100mm or 127mm  hits you need to get 50k? In return BBs wreck their conter often enogh with pen AP hits. How about BB caliber AP always overpens DD so they at least have to chose the right ammo to kill DDs?

BBs mostly overpen DDs. Normal pens are not common. 

[Krikkio82]

I wish people wouldn't just state "BBs are too string". I don't think they are too strong. In terms of game influence ONE BB isn't really the difference. Neither is one dd usually.

 

The problem is there are too MANY BBs because they are POPULAR - mostly because they are iconic ships.

 

That is also less true in the mornings. I don't know why.

 

Nerfing BBs into the ground is just going to turn people away from the game.

 

The BB problem goes away simply if BBs weee less popular. And to do this I propose making cruisers MORE popular by;

 

- transparent teamplay rewards and ribbons (defensive fire smoke others spotting etc)

- cruiser only missions

- better credit gain for cruisers over BBs.

 

I disagree on allmost everithyng. I want a balanced class game, where you can have success on every class. More money and cruiser only mission sounds so bad to me.

 

Last patch notes make me go mad. No more stealth fire (I agree with this) and nothing in return (4 real WG???). Result is: CA and DD nerf and indirect buff to BBs (again....)

 

BBs has allready best statistics of the game, you don't see them on top XP gain every game cause of overall low XP award but a BB is allrounded best ship by easy.

 

I would say also it's look to me that BBs have often the most brainless captain in game. If you give at many of them a cruiser they will last 3 min. Just to say that BBs has best statistics with, IMO, worst playerbase

[Admiral_noodle]

You already can have success in every class though.

 

My individual WR for BBs and cruisers is very close AND I have over 100 games in imperator...

 

My dd WR is poor but I'm new to them so probably making tactical errors. They are so much fun though.

 

Of course BBs have the best damage. They have the biggest guns. It's not about raw damage.

 

It's about "carry ability" in each class. For me overall I can carry as well in a cruiser as a BB. I get similar xp and credits in both classes as well. BBs would be overpowered if my WR was much higher in BBs than cruisers. It isn't. Nikolai *is* overpowered. And thus my WR is higher because my carry ability is higher.

[Skurfa]

Well, cruisers having a shorter range than BB's, and being required to really handle DD's creates a requirement for BB's to move closer to the battle to aid said cruisers, by tanking and shooting at the enemy BB's.

 

The further away from the brawl the BB's are, the harder the job for the cruisers if they get into the brawl, risk of insta deletion after being focus fired upon by the entire enemy fleet of enemy BB's that sees you as an easy target.

 

And now they want to increase the range of BB's?

 

Maybe we need a month or two where cruisers and DD's move behind the BB's, to force them into battle.... or start battles with BB's going full speed ahead and being unable to turn for the first 60 seconds 

[Isalani]

You completely misunderstand the way I intended it to be used. I did not mean for it to be used offensively and preemtively in every engagement (see my above post). It's more to give you more of a chance to get out of dodgy situations where you'd previously just get fucked from 3 different directions. How you approach cruiser gameplay wouldn't change because of this. 

 

 

 

You have to remember that there are other ships and that the enemy won't always drop everything to shoot at just you. You have to remember that great players can have consistent amazing games in cruisers and if you buff them too hard we will just shift the power to cruisers instead of BBs. Small incremental buffs are in general better than large sweeping ones as the latter just tend to make more problems.

 

Nah I didn't misunderstand, I was getting a bit wound up and pointedly turned your words around ;)

I do remember that some players still have decent games in cruisers. I myself manage 60%wr and 100k+ avg dmg in Moskva. Not great (but I don't claim to be a great player) but acceptable.

But moskva is half a BB anyway. With Hindy I barely manage 90K en 50% (been UL with potato teams tho) :/ So yes I fully realize that with the wrong buff I'd go godmode in those ships.

I also agree that there is no need to suddenly buff cruisers to a level where they become the new fotm. 

It's just, well, as I already pointed out, BB's counter CA's much harder then any other class' counter. And that ruins the basic rock paper scissors balance which in turn has shifted the player base and caused further adjustments that only increased the problem. (WG should've never made it easier for BB's to deal with DD's, they should've fixed the problem right there and then).

 

[CleverViking]

It's just, well, as I already pointed out, BB's counter CA's much harder then any other class' counter.

(I'd +1 but I've run out)

I'll agree on that. There's also the issue that BBs have few threaths at higher level of play. They have good enough rudder shift to torpedo beat if you play carefully (i.e. good BB players rarely ever get hit by torps), they take a long time to burn down, CVs are non-exsistant and even when they do show up BBs have good enough AA to fend them off somewhat.

 

It's hilarious that the biggest threat to a BB on the top tiers are other BBs.

 

I'm not at all saying that BBs are unbeatable but all these changes add up and BBs are undeniably the most forgiving class to play as well as one of the most heavy hitting.