Has Wargaming lost control or interest? (arguments by developers)

[Miessa3]

Well War Thunder has ships in beta last I checked, and judging by how WT savaged WoWP, I'm sure WG will be watching intently.

 

You can't call that competition as WTs Ships are Boats in reallity. You won't get big massive (Battle)ships shooting away at each other with 100+ mm guns....... just torpedoboats and such small vessels braling each other with light weapons and maybe MGs. thats no real competition it's basically another game.

 

@ Admiral_H_Nelson: You got a grammar error in your new sig. It should be "Wargaming is a monopoly" Jeah i know I'm a grammarnazi

 

Edit: Ninja'd

[1MajorKoenig]

 

What we need is a the Battlestations franchise to come back!

 

Ooooh yeah!!!

 

It is funny: even if the game is old and clearly inferior in regards to graphics and so in it is still lots of fun!

[Admiral_H_Nelson]

@ Admiral_H_Nelson: You got a grammar error in your new sig. It should be "Wargaming is a monopoly" Jeah i know I'm a grammarnazi

 

Many thanks for pointing that out. I've now changed it!

 

I forgets that not everyone talks like what we Londoners does, init?  

[it3llig3nc3]

At least in my opinion, most of the current problems with the game (too many BBs and DDs, not enough CAs) can be traced back to the lack of carriers. Carriers force(d) teamplay: If you were a battleship or a destroyer away from your fleet and you got spotted by bombers? Bye-bye. Obviously, this was frustrating and extremely binary, so carriers got nerfed, directly and indirectly. Unfortunately, this led us to today: carriers, especially at high tiers, only appear in ~10% of matches.

 

Battleships, especially American ones, have enough AA on their own to give any carrier who dares to make an attack run a bloody nose - in my not-even-fully-AA-specced Missouri, I can shred a third of a Hakuryu's strike wing before they even drop their payload, then another 1/6 as they leave. The lack of carriers is also a direct cause of the lack of cruisers, as their primary role was as to act as a screen against aircraft with Defensive Fire. Thanks to the low carrier population, there is almost no point in playing American cruisers anymore. That's why currently, matchmaking is dominated by BBs, with the large number of DDs as a reaction to this.

 

Another problem with the current state of carriers is the statistical outliers. According to pure statistics, carriers at high tiers, especially IJN ones, have fantastic win rates and damage per game, but that is because most of the CV players at those tiers are the people who live, breathe, eat and sleep CVs. There aren't many newbies to balance their performance out, because many of them quit on the way due to carriers being unfun to play unless you put an immense amount of work into them. And since WG seems to do a lot of their balancing based on statistics, carriers look fine.

 

If there were more carriers, many of the current problems would be fixed. Battleships would be curbed by increased the presence of one of their main counters. Cruisers would see play again because everyone will want a Defensive Fire bot at their side. Stealth fire would be nearly eliminated thanks to being basically unable to do anything about those planes spotting you from above (unless you're Minotaur).

Increased CV presence would impact destroyers (at least non-US ones) negatively, though. Russian ones would probably still be fine. Japanese ones would need even more love than they already do, though.

 

The main problem with bringing CVs back is that just restoring them to their old state of dominating everything is a no-go. The system definitely needs a full overhaul, because as it currently is, it won't work. Maybe then, we won't need stupid "solutions" like RPF or removing stealth fire, either.

 

I'm glad to see that someone else sharing my view about the ROOT CAUSE of the issue.

No patchwork, nerf, buff or micro adjustment will help changing the situation for the "BB problem" the "Cruiser problem" or any other matter - most probably those will make things worse, even if temporarily they show some short term relief.

If this game was DESIGNED, CREATED with 4 ship classes present it HAS TO HAVE 4 ships classes in almost all battles!!!

 

The main problem I have is that even after reading a lot about proposals on how to "fix" the carrier class I'm not sure what is the best for an average player. (as CV advocates are expert players and they have difficulty to think in the shoes of newbies or average joes). If WG could win average players to play carriers more it would immediately restore balance of ship classes...

But who could tell us what would convince an AVERAGE WoWs player to play carrier?

 

[Mucker]

How to make cruisers great again: Remove the citadel!

 

This will significantly reduce the chance of 1 salvo deletions by BBs, but they keep their vulnerability to normal pen damage. Then consider giving them heal earlier then T9, and we are on the right path.

[Krikkio82]

 

I'm glad to see that someone else sharing my view about the ROOT CAUSE of the issue.

No patchwork, nerf, buff or micro adjustment will help changing the situation for the "BB problem" the "Cruiser problem" or any other matter - most probably those will make things worse, even if temporarily they show some short term relief.

If this game was DESIGNED, CREATED with 4 ship classes present it HAS TO HAVE 4 ships classes in almost all battles!!!

 

The main problem I have is that even after reading a lot about proposals on how to "fix" the carrier class I'm not sure what is the best for an average player. (as CV advocates are expert players and they have difficulty to think in the shoes of newbies or average joes). If WG could win average players to play carriers more it would immediately restore balance of ship classes...

But who could tell us what would convince an AVERAGE WoWs player to play carrier?

 

 

I don't know man. Many cruiser have same AA defense rating as BBs have, some even worst, much worst. On the speed the manouvrability between BBs and CAs is not that gamechanger. Instead torpedo belt, HP pool and strong heal are not so bad. DD and CA had learn to rely allways more on Stealth and with the add of CV popularity I don't see world getting so much better to neither of this 2 classes...
Even more: CVs has bigger influence in game, no DD no BB can make a huge difference like a CV can do. Good CV VS Bad CV player and it's 85-90% of times GAME OVER (it's plenty of people that have shokaku 85% Win rate). CVs popoularity could be fun but also really dangerous.
Many CVs go 4 lonely players. But lonely player are also brave one that try to win in a passive meta. And I don't want to punish them more...

[Culiacan_Mexico]

I really would love to hear your opinions on the Topic. 

 

Profit > Balance > Historical

 

Follow the money.   

[genai]

How to make cruisers great again: Remove the citadel!

 

This will significantly reduce the chance of 1 salvo deletions by BBs, but they keep their vulnerability to normal pen damage. Then consider giving them heal earlier then T9, and we are on the right path.

 

Just undo this update:

 

http://forum.worldofwarships.com/index.php?/topic/31875-0314-notes-and-downtime/

 

More precisely this part:

 

"As you may already know, the 0.3.1 update redesigned some armor mechanics which caused a sharp increase in the armor value for certain ships, and significantly increased the number of ricochets for AP shells. In the last update, we changes the angle of a guaranteed ricochet slightly, and after that change, AP shells effectiveness increased rather satisfactorily. But now we think that was not enough. The less than desirable effectiveness of the AP shells is clearly displayed when large caliber shells ricochet from relatively weak armored cruisers, and we often have a situation where cruisers get rowdy and go for battleships head first, completely fearless of their big brothers, and sink them scot-free.

After we implement this new update, there’s going to be less ricochets. Battleships will now crush the bow part and detonate on the bulkheads of the ship, therefore, chances for the shells to explode inside the ship’s hull will increase significantly, as will hits to the citadel, when shooting with large caliber AP shells."

 

Thats when it all went to hell and CAs were food and started dying... and then turned into long range boring crap as band-aid when they disappeared.

Good old days... game was much fun before that update and there was plenty of real teamplay, and every cap was capped and contested asap. When CAs could angle towards BB and not be deleted... and had no issue being and fighting at 10-12km from enemy BBs and CAs, that allowed them to support DDs and caps and screen for torps. Getting nostalgic here...

 

edit: was wrong link

[mtm78]

Maybe somewhere halfway between? I mean charging past a BB in your Myoko so your rear torps could kill it and surviving with > 50% hp left isn't really intended either.  For me, when angled you should be way more durable. So you can't just charge down a BB, since that requires being straight bow on to close the distance. 

 

I agree the game was more fun then, not this static camping gameplay we see now because BB's are deleting cruisers way to easilly. 

[Krikkio82]

Yes, getting deleted even if angled in a cruiser is such a bullsh** 

I mean, we don't want GOD cruisers but like it is theese days is crap

[Miessa3]

 

Many thanks for pointing that out. I've now changed it!

 

I forgets that not everyone talks like what we Londoners does, init?  

 

You're welcome! And your mistake wasn't that bad, I've seen worse.

Some are really rubbing me the wrong way. ^^

Here take this Video for a good laugh if you want. :3

[Bersigil]

Maybe somewhere halfway between? I mean charging past a BB in your Myoko so your rear torps could kill it and surviving with > 50% hp left isn't really intended either.  For me, when angled you should be way more durable. So you can't just charge down a BB, since that requires being straight bow on to close the distance. 

 

I agree the game was more fun then, not this static camping gameplay we see now because BB's are deleting cruisers way to easilly. 

 

I have my doubts that we will ever see a substantial change on core mechanics. It would require a complete rebalancing of every ship in the game. Lets take the cruisers as example because they are most suffering due to the current BB overpopulation: They are the class with the most models in game (5 full trees, not counting premiums + french incoming) and they have totally different stats. Just think of the brits: if angeling would really help them bounce shells, they would be totally op thanks to their smoke and heal. But you cant take away the smoke or heal(defining characteristic). And if you only buff the armour of the Cruisers without smoke, the british ships would be unusable in comparison. Now this is just one simple example - and probably not even a good one - but it illustrates the problem.

In all honesty: I have not a clue how to solve the current situation. And I don't criticise WG for not having a clue either. But I do citicise them for not admitting the problem anymore when they once did and pretending there is no problem.

[WhoCares01]

So much talk about statistics, but so few actual facts - well, here are some, based on the 2 months stats from http://maplesyrup.sweet.coocan.jp/wows/ranking/ 3/18/2017 :

 

I only did the calculations for high tier ships, as low tier is "corrupted" by tier 1 cruisers etc.

Unfortunately the site does not have stats from the Russian server, so I could only cover EU/US/Asia.

 

As one can see, the EU is close to 10 BBs per battle, US (or better North America) at 9 and Asia below 8 (second to cruisers at 9.2!). So for WG things are not as "black and white" as they seem to us at the EU server - they have little reason to change the balance for the Asian server, no?!

 

I took a closer look at the tier 7+ BBs on the EU server:

 

No real surprise, it's the German BBs that are off-balance. To be precise, especially Gneisenau and Bismarck are to be blamed - these two ships together make up >20% of all high tier BB battles played on the EU server! Not really that much of a surprise either, considering the strong German community - but how can WG address this imbalance?!?!

To be honest, I think the only way to address this, would be by self-restraining players - next time you hover your mouse over Gneisenau or Bismarck, occasionally move it over to a DD or CV instead. Cutting the number of Gneisenau and Bismarck battles by ~1/3, ~300k battles, shifting them to other high tier classes, would already cut the number of BBs per team (24) from 9.7 to 8.9. But something tells me that this does not reach the anonymous masses - I doubt us forum visitors would be able to leave a significant mark in those stats, and I can already hear the screams "Don't tell me which ships I shall play! I want to play my favorite ships!"... (but I started already, not playing BBs in the last two month - no other ship either though ).

Maybe WG could secretly transfer them to the Asian server

 

A closing world on CVs - I don't play them but I can still have an opinion

Currently we have a high tier CV battle in about every 2.5 sorties (or <40%). My point is, if we were significantly above 50%, I'd consider the game/balance broken as well. I like battles with as much as without CVs - as such, whatever change they may make or you might ask for, the "CV battle rate" should not go (significantly) above 50%, or 1/24 (=4.17%) CVs per battle - granted, that would already be an increase of ~30% total CV battles played (from ~300k to 400k)...

[mtm78]

I have my doubts that we will ever see a substantial change on core mechanics.

 

So, changing concealment system doesn't count? Hahaha... wew... 

 

Just think of the brits: if angeling would really help them bounce shells, they would be totally op thanks to their smoke and heal. But you cant take away the smoke or heal(defining characteristic). And if you only buff the armour of the Cruisers without smoke, the british ships would be unusable in comparison. Now this is just one simple example - and probably not even a good one - but it illustrates the problem.

 

Why would RN be unplayable if the other nations ( or better said, the actual CA's... not CL's ) have better damage mitigation through angling? Why? Makes no sense at all. They have smoke. They overperform from tier 7 up and they are flimsy as hell it wouldn't make them unplayable if other cruisers are better armored because their armor is not a intrinsic part of their gameplay.

 

And I don't criticise WG for not having a clue either.

 

Happy to see you accept developers not developing a balanced game

 

So much talk about statistics, but so few actual facts

 

It's a nice start, unfortunately BB Kevin usually hides his stats and isn't counted by MS. If WG says 40% that's closer to what I expect it to be

 

No real surprise, it's the German BBs that are off-balance. To be precise, especially Gneisenau and Bismarck are to be blamed - these two ships together make up >20% of all high tier BB battles played on the EU server!

 

Don't forget many BB Kevin when they get past Bismark think they are being called stuff in chat because people see their 45%- performance, and they go hide their stats if they haven't done so earlier. So there are more BB Kevin ( or .. BB Kurt? ) with a FdG then public stats show, same goes for CurryWurst.

 

And that's not even including the BB Kevin's in the other line's. 

 

 

[Admiral_H_Nelson]

I have my doubts that we will ever see a substantial change on core mechanics.

 

True. But if some other software company came along and wrote down all the problems in WoWS and then designed a new game which avoided them then.......

Hang on. I see the problem. There aren't enough forests to provide the paper needed!

[steviln]

 

 

It's a nice start, unfortunately BB Kevin usually hides his stats and isn't counted by MS. If WG says 40% that's closer to what I expect it to be

 

Are you now ok with BB Steve playing his Bismarck but not BB Kevin? Why have you suddenly let BB Steve alone and chose to focus on BB Kevin instead?

[WhoCares01]

 

S...

 

It's a nice start, unfortunately BB Kevin usually hides his stats and isn't counted by MS. If WG says 40% that's closer to what I expect it to be

 

 

Don't forget many BB Kevin when they get past Bismark think they are being called stuff in chat because people see their 45%- performance, and they go hide their stats if they haven't done so earlier. So there are more BB Kevin ( or .. BB Kurt? ) with a FdG then public stats show, same goes for CurryWurst.

 

And that's not even including the BB Kevin's in the other line's. 

 

 

If you look at the tables I posted, you will see that it shows  40.3% BB battles, so I don't see how you would think that I contradict with that WG statement?!?!

With respect to the hidden stats, for 466k total players counted in that 2 month period, there are 15.7k hiding their stats, <5% - I don't think that those have a significant impact...

 

 

[mtm78]

Are you now ok with BB Steve playing his Bismarck but not BB Kevin? Why have you suddenly let BB Steve alone and chose to focus on BB Kevin instead?

I don't want to discriminate, so I sometimes switch from Steve's to Kevin's heck I even thrown in a BB Kurt just now didn't I  

 

If you look at the tables I posted, you will see that it shows  40.3% BB battles, so I don't see how you would think that I contradict with that WG statement?!?!

With respect to the hidden stats, for 466k total players counted in that 2 month period, there are 15.7k hiding their stats, <5% - I don't think that those have a significant impact...

 

Ahh wow it is 40.3%, somehow I had a figure of 35% in my head, guess I didn't check the table correctly sorry

 

My experience, using wows-stats which shows statistics of your current game in a browser window, is the vast majority of hidden accounts are tied to BB players. I would reckon a very large majority of the hidden accounts could easilly be added to the BB Kurt population.

 

 

[Bersigil]

[mtm78]

Well, there where a few ships that made substantial use of stealth fire. And even they didn't do it every fight. But every CA/CL and every BB uses (or shoud use) angeling each and every fight. So there is a difference in magnitude.

 

SF is not the biggest impacting factor off this change, that would be the additional 20 seconds being visible after 'local' engagements.

 

That depends on how much you buff the armor on other ships. I have my doubts that WG would nail a balancing of this proportions whithout throwing the game out of whack for at least half a year.

 

Depends on how well they test it internally and in ST, and if they listen to the feedback of the ST group. If they take the time and don't rush a change into the game which they then have to fix over a subsequent number of patches they could pull it off.

 

No game is ever balanced perfectly. The moment the meta shifts, the balance suffers. So its a constant work in progress. But that requires the developer to see the problem, admitt its existence and then work on it. And right now I dont't see WG even taking the first step. If they did, there would be hope that one day we would find a way to balance the game.

 

No argument from me. Though I have a little bit of hope left. All depends on the next patch. This one won't get changed no matter the feedback, so the only chance dev's have in my book is in how they deal with what will happen when this hits live. 

 

 

[EsaTuunanen]

I only did the calculations for high tier ships, as low tier is "corrupted" by tier 1 cruisers etc.

It should tell lot that in match tiers of Gremyashchy I've come to keep 5/6 BBs in team as normal long time ago.

With MM with less than 4 BBs in small minority.

[steviln]

I don't want to discriminate, so I sometimes switch from Steve's to Kevin's heck I even thrown in a BB Kurt just now didn't I

 

And propably WG have found out that they are dependant on that bunch to make the game turn a profit? Seems to be the only logical explanation for their latest decisions, and removing manual drop on tier 4 and 5 seems to be to prevent potential BB Steves to rage uninstall the game after reaching tier 4 in their BB. 

[WhoCares01]

...

My experience, using wows-stats which shows statistics of your current game in a browser window, is the vast majority of hidden accounts are tied to BB players. I would reckon a very large majority of the hidden accounts could easilly be added to the BB Kurt population.

 

 

That sounds more like observation bias - looking on the latest videos posted on wowreplays (while it is still there...  ) it looks more like DD players have something to hide - low sample size though...

[mtm78]

It's a damn shame WG doesn't want to give Jammin the decryption key 

 

[krabbenkutter]

That sounds more like observation bias - looking on the latest videos posted on wowreplays (while it is still there...  ) it looks more like DD players have something to hide - low sample size though...

 

yes we dd-players have something to hide. OUR SHIPS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!