WG's plan to Facilitate High-Tiered Carrier Seal Clubbing

[dasCKD]

I have recently returned from the test server, and f*cking awful is an understatement to end all understatements. So, emergency post it is. Oh, and quick message to the forum mods : THIS IS NOT A GUIDE. DO NOT MOVE IT.

War Gaming's Cretinous Design Concepts

To be perfectly honest, War Gaming probably had no idea what to do with carriers. This was something that was made evident with the introduction of the Hakuryus strike deck. For those who are not aware, the Hakuryu used to run a strike deck with a flight control module of 0/5/3. Translating for those who are unfamiliar with carriers and putting it into the context of the game, if that deck existed in the game right now as it did back then then the Hakuryu can one-shot two of the three tier X battleships in the game right now with just above half of her strike deck and without the need for any fires and flooding to help them on their way. War Gaming quickly realized that releasing a ship that would have made a tier 2 Imperator Nikolai seem balanced was a terrible idea, and went ahead to start making extreme changes to carriers. Whether these changes were of necessity (taking away the Haky's strike deck/ giving cruisers defensive fire), annoying (taking away the 2 torpedo bombers from the Essex and Midway), short sighted (buffing battleship AA), or outright insane is largely a point of personal opinion. Unless that opinion is mine, which is automatically the validist and correctest points ever made =P. To put it simply, War Gaming has no idea what to do with carriers.

I was evidently not the only one who was interested in this new carrier system. It took about two minutes to enter a game, something I was willing to wait for as someone who is used to waiting for 10 or 20 minutes for a game in ranked thanks to my choice of ship class. Besides, people are curious. I can't fault them for that. I quickly switched over to settings after I finally got into the match, turning on the new mouse interface mode. The minutes that followed were filled my room with the inhuman screeching and foaming at the mouth that would put most demonic possessions to shame, so I'll spare the forum members here the details. Needless to say I nearly had to leave my apartment for the third time today to go purchase a new keyboard. Before I go into any details however, I would like to cover something that the university would have failed me for if I tried to pull off as a student.

 

I'm not sure how many of you have ever played Starcraft or any other strategy game. Left mouse button is for selecting and deselecting units. Right mouse button is for guiding units. Attack, defend, escort, or interact commands are all context sensitive. Anything else can also be manually ordered. Therefore you would click ON a target to order an attack. The reason for this is simple: you point at what you want your units to attack. You may be wondering why I am fixating on something so simple. It's because they manage to screw THAT up! As it is when I was playing on the test server, you don't click ON the unit to order an attack. You click ABOVE a target to attack a unit. You know, where the health bar and the username is. Yes, because when I think intuitive UI, I think that I shouldn't actually click ON the object I want to interact with but instead I should click the object next to it! Genius! Why hasn't Apple, Google, and Facebook offered you billions to acquire your UI designers yet War Gaming? Seeing as how you managed to come up with such concepts that are so beyond human comprehension!

 

Let's switch over to the 6.3 patch notes for now and see what we have for us to look at shall we?

With the release of Update 0.6.3, we added a new control mode for aircraft carriers. It will be of particular interest to real-time strategy lovers. Currently, it only takes two mouse buttons to operate an aircraft carrier. However, if you've already mastered the trick of controlling your carriers the "old fashioned" way, there's no need to worry: the new controls will come as an option.

 

 What you mean is that you switched the RMB to the LMB. I could have done that in 5 seconds with the client we have right now. Tell me dear, are you that stupid or do you think I'm that stupid? Because those are the only two options I could think off right now.

Beyond that, the two-button controls are more responsive

 

No they're not. I played the public test. Same janky design. Or maybe they are more responsive in manual mode. I wouldn't know. YOU REMOVED MANUAL DROPS! I quite frankly can't stomach it for long enough to find out, and I say this as someone who grinded my way through the German tier 5, 6, and 8 destroyers manually.

This change is aimed at bringing more balance to carriers at lower tiers, where the majority of warships come with weak anti-aircraft defences. Information on the availability of the manual-squadron-attack feature (ALT-attack) for a particular aircraft carrier is displayed in the Flight Control module. On Tier IV and V carriers, the travel distance for torpedoes released automatically will be slightly reduced to make their torpedo bomber squadrons more efficient in combat.

 

Oh how gracious of you War Gaming! You just blew off an old man's legs, but instead of super-gluing some splintery wooden rods onto the stumps that used to be his legs you tied the splintery stumps with some soft padding instead! How generous of you! Let's take a look at the reduced travel distances for torpedoes shall we?

Oh no War Gaming! Are you sure you want to improve the autodrop that much? That Kirov might need to start turning about 3 or 4 seconds after the torpedoes are already in the water to avoid literally every single torpedo!

Once a carrier is destroyed, its squadrons will maintain their position after fulfilling an order rather than head for the carrier's final location.

 

Oh my! That is SUCH a HUGE improvement to a carrier's player experience! I see why you were so quick to add this new feature!

 

The rest of the 'fixes' are cleaning up your screw ups that should have been fixed even before the changes went live. It's like waiting for six months before you fix a bug that changes the ammunition types on a battleship just before you're about to fire. Or a bug that makes your destroyers randomly deploy smoke. Or a carrier bug that makes it so that you can't deselect your carrier without an annoying three action procedure so you end up accidentally end up sending your carrier into the middle of the map where all the enemies are. Wait, no. THAT'S STILL IN THERE!

 

The only thing that has improved in this patch is the German destroyers and your pandering to the clueless cretin demographic. I'm not going to go through the cliche of threatening to leave the game or saying that the game is doomed, but to say that this patch makes you look bad is beyond an understatement. Rant over. 

[Comodoro_Allande]

I'm not sure how many of you have ever played Starcraft or any other strategy game. Right mouse button is for selecting and deselecting units. Left mouse button is for guiding units

 

In Age of Empires and other historical RTS games, you select the units with left mouse and guide them with right mouse 

 

But I agree, both the recomendation page and this patch notes saying that "CV playstyle would be familiar for RTS lovers" gave me cancer, there's nothing less intuitive that the crappy CV interface on this game 

[robihr]

this thread is probably going to be locked cause of topic title and insulting wg...

[ThePopesHolyFinger]

tldr

 

What's a Hakuryus anyway?

I hope your cough gets better

[dasCKD]

this thread is probably going to be locked cause of topic title and insulting wg...

 

Quite frankly, they deserve to be insulted considering what they're doing to lower tiered carriers. I don't want this new harvest of carrier players. I don't want them ANYWHERE near my ship or my team.

 

Though I guess I could change it to something a little less blatant.

[Admiral_H_Nelson]

Some very serious (and true) points being made by OP, but I couldn't stop laughing!  Terrific sense of humour, Sir!

 

Every time that I read this bit, I am in giggles: " The minutes that followed were filled my room with the inhuman screeching and foaming at the mouth that would put most demonic possessions to shame"

 

Mind you, I am still in shock myself from playing a heavy session with gunboat DDs on the Test server.

 

Good players will adjust, but life is going to get much tougher for us "average" players.

[El2aZeR]

In Age of Empires and other historical RTS games, you select the units with left mouse and guide them with right mouse 

 

Same with StarCraft actually. Maybe dasCKD is left handed?

 

Same janky design.

 

Well, here goes all my hope I had for this patch...

(Tho there wasn't much to go in the first place considering removing alt attacks for low tier CVs is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen WG do by far)

[procrastinatingStudent]

But guys it's the year of CVs XD

[El2aZeR]

But guys it's the year of CVs XD

 

Wait, again? I thought that was last year, after all we had one major patch without nerfs to CVs! 

[ScratxNeko]

Question, since I haven't gone to the PTS ... can you in a tier 4-5 CV be matched with tier 6+ CVs in double-CV matches? Given the nerfs to low tier CVs, it's probably... umm... pretty much useless to even try. May as well head right back to port, no?

[Verdius]

I am quite convinced Lesta gave up on putting in any effort and resources on CV a long time ago. Their idea of fixing low tiers is to remove manual targeting and strafing. And you can't tell me that this is the most effective way of balancing and ensuring a good and fun experience on both ends.

Can't wait to see someone in a T5 CV getting uptiered taking on ships with both hands tied behind his back. Because instead of actually tackling the balancing they just punish players for using the main and core mechanic that constitutes gameplay and requires skill. Instead of doing actual work and putting in actual effort to address these balance issues they just flick a switch to disable a core mechanic. Oh and they rebound some buttons. This feels like something they could come up with and implement in a grand total of what? 20 minutes? A couple of hours?  And even worse: this is the most major change in CV in the past year. (If you don't count the progressive AA creep and economy rework) You can talk all you want about something being the 'year/years/decade/century of CV' and wanting to improve everything but at the end of the day we haven't seen any progress on that for over a year nor do we have any indication that it is comming anytime soon.

None of the issues were addressed despite many of them being present for a long time. No serious attempts at rebalancing. Where is a rebalancing to make USN CVs competitive with IJN CV's? Like seriously, how did you let this mess go on in the current state for as long as you have? 
I seriously doubt anyone on the WoWs dev team has even played CV in the past year. Clearly they have other priorities, like nerfing anything that isn't a BB.

WG claimed they wouldn't release a new CV until they fixed the current issues. The sudden announcement of Kaga is probably because they have given up and now just want to squeeze every last dime out of CV while they still can.
 

this thread is probably going to be locked cause of topic title and insulting wg...

 

Wounds left untreated fester. The CV playerbase has been surprisingly loyal and patient and with each patch only get empty promises in return for well over a year now.

[Zouron]

I am quite convinced Lesta gave up on putting in any effort and resources on CV a long time ago. Their idea of fixing low tiers is to remove manual targeting and strafing. And you can't tell me that this is the most effective way of balancing and ensuring a good and fun experience on both ends.

 

No, it isn't; it is however in line with their earlier change to tier 1 in regards to making the game more "approachable". That is to remove any form or sort of choice that woulæd give you greater versatility, it seems the belief is that taking away options from the relative safe part of this of the game in regards to learning the basics. I am assuming it is the belief that if people master the basics, they will have an easier time transitioning into the more complex part of the game later (of course they totally disregard the complications from other ships etc. makes the step from 5 to 6 rather extreme and that tier 6 will have a field day even more than they already do against Tier 5s, again much like the Tier 1 changes).

[xXx_Blogis_xXx]

one again they rip cvs,,,

[Dzsetajsan]

I hope wargaming is listening to this. There is a replay that has been done before the midway nerf and somewhat showcases what the original idea in the game was and how things should be balanced around and for why.

 

If you don't want to watch it then I'll just make the point so you can get it aswell. The original intent of the game is rock paper scissors. And there is a bonus the CV what role does a cv have? Well simple it forces you into TEAMPLAY. In the times back then and it is showcased in the video too Not everyone had OP AA whatsoever because there were AA cruisers that had the role to defend you or you had to move in a formation to freaking survive what means naturally that you were mainly punished if your broke the key intent of contest zones as a team move as a team support each other as a team.

Of course people were raging. Even me too in my Khaba for example that with a soo big turning circe and weak AA I always get bombed when there are cvs around but lets look into it why. The Khaba is a fleet escort you are supposed to be operating on the 13km line in the AA bubble of the 18km + fireing range Def AA cruisers if you overextend you can be punished for it that is the role of the enemy cv. Forcing up the roles on the opposing team. 

If you think of it that way what we are seeing nowdays are 2 things.

1 due to the lack of punishment for overextentions people with higher skillcaps and playsessions rampage around the map seriously overextended from their original roles in their op stealtfire builds or OP BT cruiser I gun you down from my smoke powers or OP I'm in a German BB lol secondary builds.

 

Ofc Wg will balance around by not bringing back the natural punishment of overextention the Carrier to level but by nerfing torp ranges as there is no cv to spot it, ships that heavily rely on stealth fireing as (gearing) because there are no cvs, Giving ridicilous secondary power to battleships as there are no cvs to spot the sneakyer dds to compensate for basically the funktion that they discouraged people from the first place.

 

This leads to a conclusion in wot artillary balancing caused the game to get crippled both in vehicle design both map desing a dosen times because they reallyised the feature they forgot all the time was artillary pshycological effect on players as well arty on wot is was the original punisher for likely reasons like the cv is a punisher in wows.

 

WG please while you still got time grab the problem itself and return to the original design it was good. Balance around the fact of what role do you want a cv to have and not of what do people need in the lack of one, and do not go down the Wot failtrain of the pase few years ending up in a sandbox server to fix an issue that coul have been fixed years ago.

 

Sorry this became long I think its worth the read.

 

[JapLance]

To put it simply, War Gaming has no idea what to do with carriers.

 

Of course they have no idea. Carriers will NEVER fit into the scale of the rest of the game. I've said that since I tried this game in the Weekend tests, but WG, for some unknown reason (I have my theory that it was Lesta who insisted in the RTS part of the game), only realised when it was too late to change the game. Since then, screw up after screw up trying to fix what can't be fixed.

[Takeda92]

 

Of course they have no idea. Carriers will NEVER fit into the scale of the rest of the game. I've said that since I tried this game in the Weekend tests, but WG, for some unknown reason (I have my theory that it was Lesta who insisted in the RTS part of the game), only realised when it was too late to change the game. Since then, screw up after screw up trying to fix what can't be fixed.

 

True. Their whole approach to carriers was fault at the start.

[Exocet6951]

I don't know about you guys, but I certainly feel spoiled by WG !

[walter3kurtz]

Couple things.

 

1. Amazing post, bravo.

2. CV interface is crap and even crappier are the dev decisions to change the way CV's play between tiers

3. CV is still very powerful. High damage, high kill potential and high winrate, even for new to average players.

 

Summary: WG have no clue.

[Admiral_H_Nelson]

I am quite convinced Lesta gave up on putting in any effort and resources on CV a long time ago. Their idea of fixing low tiers is to remove manual targeting and strafing. And you can't tell me that this is the most effective way of balancing and ensuring a good and fun experience on both ends.

Can't wait to see someone in a T5 CV getting uptiered taking on ships with both hands tied behind his back. Because instead of actually tackling the balancing they just punish players for using the main and core mechanic that constitutes gameplay and requires skill. Instead of doing actual work and putting in actual effort to address these balance issues they just flick a switch to disable a core mechanic. Oh and they rebound some buttons. This feels like something they could come up with and implement in a grand total of what? 20 minutes? A couple of hours?  And even worse: this is the most major change in CV in the past year. (If you don't count the progressive AA creep and economy rework) You can talk all you want about something being the 'year/years/decade/century of CV' and wanting to improve everything but at the end of the day we haven't seen any progress on that for over a year nor do we have any indication that it is comming anytime soon.

None of the issues were addressed despite many of them being present for a long time. No serious attempts at rebalancing. Where is a rebalancing to make USN CVs competitive with IJN CV's? Like seriously, how did you let this mess go on in the current state for as long as you have? 

I seriously doubt anyone on the WoWs dev team has even played CV in the past year. Clearly they have other priorities, like nerfing anything that isn't a BB.

 

WG claimed they wouldn't release a new CV until they fixed the current issues. The sudden announcement of Kaga is probably because they have given up and now just want to squeeze every last dime out of CV while they still can.

 

 

Wounds left untreated fester. The CV playerbase has been surprisingly loyal and patient and with each patch only get empty promises in return for well over a year now.

 

Great post!

 

1) IMHO Wargaming cannot solve the problem of fitting CVs into the game properly unless they stop this arrogant idea that they know everything and don't need to listen to anyone about game design.

They should be getting experienced CV players involved in a carrier redesign, making use of the vast fund of expertise that these players have.

 

2) I believe that you made a point in another thread about how carrier players would have a shock when they encountered tier 6, and manual drops for the first time.

I quite agree. (Wargaming have previous form on this though.)  Having protected matchmaking up to tier 5 has had the same effect on non-carriers.

You get +1/-1 up to tier 4, then suddenly at T5 you get to encounter ships two tiers higher with a great deal more power, including the Saipan with planes which are four tiers higher IIRC.

 

Wargaming need to provide a training environment (no, no co-op) for people to master the basics - not these stupid gimmicks with matchmaking and taking out manual drops.

 

 

[Spellfire40]

2) I believe that you made a point in another thread about how carrier players would have a shock when they encountered tier 6, and manual drops for the first time.

They wont. They get the shock at T5 when they get Into their 1st game with 2CV per side when one is T6 and wreck them while they cant even defend themself in an uphill fight because they dont even have access to the tools their T6 conterpart has.

[SV_Kompresor]

 

I'm not sure how many of you have ever played Starcraft or any other strategy game. Right mouse button is for selecting and deselecting units. Left mouse button is for guiding units. Attack, defend, escort, or interact commands are all context sensitive. Anything else can also be manually ordered. Therefore you would click ON a target to order an attack. The reason for this is simple: you point at what you want your units to attack.

Riiiiight.....I'm assuming you play by looking at a mirrored image and controls

[SaxonHoliday]

1) IMHO Wargaming cannot solve the problem of fitting CVs into the game properly unless they stop this arrogant idea that they know everything and don't need to listen to anyone about game design.

They should be getting experienced CV players involved in a carrier redesign, making use of the vast fund of expertise that these players have.

 

Exactly this. A blacksmith can make a sword, but the fencer still knows best how to use it, and what a good sword needs. In fact, they should do this for all ship classes and all tiers - rather than making (seemingly) arbitrary balance changes, they should consult the players. Y'know, ask your customers what they want, and give it to them? It's kind of a basic principle of businesses.

 

Riiiiight.....I'm assuming you play by looking at a mirrored image and controls

 

He/she might be left-handed, you know.

[SV_Kompresor]

He/she might be left-handed, you know.

 

True, but the argument is still stupid if by default they're not played like that

[walter3kurtz]

 

Y'know, ask your customers what they want, and give it to them? It's kind of a basic principle of businesses.

 

Problem is WG thinks they are doing just that with the PTS. But we don't know what "data" they use exactly. Also they do not seem to listen to negative feedback (at all).

 

It probably goes something like this. WG think of a brilliant idea like removing manual drops. They throw it in PTS and see how bad or good the gimped CV's function. They come to the conclusion that auto drop can still kill complete potatoes > WG thinks job done. The bigger picture is not seen in this kind of testing,. For that actual player feedback is important. I must say there are some promising signs too, like Alabama and Grozovoi buffs after negative feedback. But usually WG don't show much consideration and just come out with a decree from the gods "we believe it should be like this, period". 

[Admiral_H_Nelson]

A blacksmith can make a sword, but the fencer still knows best how to use it, and what a good sword needs. In fact, they should do this for all ship classes and all tiers - rather than making (seemingly) arbitrary balance changes, they should consult the players.

 

Terrific example. I wish I had thought of that!

 

"Consult the players" - Yes, but only the good ones who know what they are talking about.

They should not ask people like me for design input under any circumstances. As a cruiser guy, I'd be advising that Cruisers get Harpoon missiles, SPY radars and Vertical Launcher Silos for AA missiles!