Detection mechanic change - Worst thing that happned to WOWS

[Gojuadorai]

SF-Nerf was debated heavily in advance, and is now on the server for a couple of days and i could experiance it for some days now (mostly in CA/CL's) heres my verdict:

 

TLDR; Please WG take it back! I urge you revert that change i love WOWS and this change seriously hurt the gameplay by dumbing down decissionmaking, devaluing good positions, and hurting every cruiser without smoke and every dd!

 

[EDIT] since nobody seems to get it, i need to clarify im NOT talking about open water stealthfiring!!!

 

while i was sceptical about the planned change i wasnt totally opposed to it (hell it would buff german dd's), and i suspected it might not change much, so i dont wanted to make a fuzz about it like did with RPF and then be a fool afterwars

( i know some still debate weather it is good or not but thats not the point the point is it had no large impackt on the game overall)

 

BUT things are diffrent with SF-nerf, it has a huge impact on the game  makes a lot of ships uncomfortable to play (im not talking ZAO here) like most if  not all cruisers without smoke.

the biggest difference is the nearf to concealment value in general and good positioning.

One ship on the other side of the map is enough to denie you a lot of positional advantage even if that ship is not intending to, planes pose an even bigger problem.*clarification of this poit 3 posts below

This forces cruisers to be played even more cautiously which hurts ther DPS output and ability to deal with DD's (which in the first place was not as good as it should be).

 

 

i really hope we can get WG to reconsider their horrible solution, and restore the game to the previous state, and find another solution for the omnious stealthfire "problem" they see.

[ColonelPete]

The visibility to planes was not changed...

[G01ngToxicCommand0]

SF-Nerf was debated heavily in advance, and is now on the server for a couple of days and i could experiance it for some days now (mostly in CA/CL's) heres my verdict:

 

TLDR; Please WG take it back! I urge you revert that change i love WOWS and this change seriously hurt the gameplay by dumbing down decissionmaking, devaluing good positions, and hurting every cruiser without smoke and every dd!

 

while i was sceptical about the planned change i wasnt totally opposed to it (hell it would buff german dd's), and i suspected it might not change much, so i dont wanted to make a fuzz about it like did with RPF and then be a fool afterwars

( i know some still debate weather it is good or not but thats not the point the point is it had no large impackt on the game overall)

 

BUT things are diffrent with SF-nerf, it has a huge impact on the game  makes a lot of ships uncomfortable to play (im not talking ZAO here) like most if  not all cruisers without smoke.

the biggest difference is the nearf to concealment value in general and good positioning. one ship on the other side of the map is enough to denie you a lot of positional advantage even if that ship is not intending to,

planes pose an even bigger problem.

This forces cruisers to be played even more cautiously which hurts ther DPS output and ability to deal with DD's (which in the first place was not as good as it should be).

 

 

i really hope we can get WG to reconsider their horrible solution, and restore the game to the previous state, and find another solution for the omnious stealthfire "problem" they see.

 

IMHO the worst thing so far is the citadel mechanics, that mechanic is far too punishing especially on high tiers which, in part, have led to the massive camp fests you see particulary in high battles. It would be better for the game's dynamics and the game experience to remove the citadel hit and replace a hit to the citadel area with the normal penetrating damage plus module damage effects and/or fire/flooding to whatever citadel space has been hit. This would allow the ships a little more staying power and the chance to get away, unless magazined obviously.

[Sadstories]

I agree with the nerf. It was ruining the gameplay, especially at the end of the game when DDs or CAs were left in enemy teams. They could just start shoting at you and burn you down to ashes without being seen at all. I was once in Yamato and a dd burned 45+k of it while stealth fireing. It was a stupid mechanic, you can't shoot and remain invisible in real life. Of course it was a great skill for my shima, flood target, he repairs, after you burn it down, but still it's much more fair now. And yea better let ZAO appart, it's still working very well, with or without the nerf.

[Gojuadorai]

The visibility to planes was not changed...

 

well i should have formulated that better, the presence of planes amplifies the problem.

With having to consider not only the planes  the presence of planes is an even bigger problem because you possibly cant be in a good position agaisnt both.

(prevoiusly you could position more easily against the planes cause of the greater freedom you had )

 

IMHO the worst thing so far is the citadel mechanics, [...]

 

 this was not changed since game relase and is not  this topic please either state your opinion on the SF-Nerf or dont, do not try make this your topic.

[beercrazy]

its certainly made cruisers and dds a bit worse than before but by god the bb play is even more easier

I personally like the idea of leaving invisi fire in the game as it made bb stay closer to the cruisers and dds so they didn't get caught out alone and then invisi spammed by a dd or cruiser (not that it hurt em much) but now all bbs know they can sail alone and will spot any ship that shoots em

 

wg will not change it because anything that makes bb play easier is going to stay

[KaraMon]

 

 

TLDR; Please WG take it back! I urge you revert that change i love WOWS and this change seriously hurt the gameplay by dumbing down decissionmaking, devaluing good positions, and hurting every cruiser without smoke and every dd!

 

 

Every cruiser = Zao and Chapayew

Every DD = Blyskawica and Akizuki (others were ineffective doing this stuff )

 

It is not issue of stealthfire , some ships like Zao were nerfed heavly only because they were overperforming thanks to stealthfire , same is with Akizuki . No one noticed weakness because they were masked by stealthfire . Now when this is gone it is easy to notice what went wrong with ship design  .

 

Akizuki lacks maneuverability and Zao lack HP and a little turret traverse/RoF

[Gojuadorai]

Every cruiser = Zao and Chapayew

Every DD = Blyskawica and Akizuki (others were ineffective doing this stuff )

 

It is not issue of stealthfire , some ships like Zao were nerfed heavly only because they were overperforming thanks to stealthfire , same is with Akizuki . No one noticed weakness because they were masked by stealthfire . Now when this is gone it is easy to notice what went wrong with ship design  .

Akizuki lacks maneuverability and Zao lack HP and a little turret traverse/RoF

 

you realized i was not talking about stealthfiring itself, but the implications of the solution of its removal?

i dont care wether SF it self exist and i rarely play zao cause i dont like the ship.

i was literaly talking about every cruiser  that had some kind of window (except RN) and DD.

 

can't you see the huge impact it has on the gameplay even if you do not intend  to SF  ?

[G01ngToxicCommand0]

 

well i should have formulated that better, the presenc of planes was a problem in that regard, but with having to consider not only the planes  the presence of planes is an even bigger problem because you possibly cant be in a good position agaisnt both. (prevoiusly you could position more easily against the planes cause of the greater freedom you had )

 

 

 this was not changed since game relase and is not  this topic please either state your opinion on the SF-Nerf or dont, do not try make this your topic.

 

When you say the removal of SF is the worst thing that have happened to WOWS you should expect dissenting opinions and accept that others do not share your point of view. You have presented you point and I have presented a counterpoint - deal with it.

And no, the removal of stealth fire is far from the worst thing that have happened in WoWS, quite the contrary actually IMHO.

It was a bad mechanic because it allowed one player to deal damage to another player with impunity which is a type of mechanic that is very bad to have in a MMO as every play should always have a counterplay which stealth fire never had.

[iJoby]

Although I hate the fact WG has nerfed stealthifire for DD's, I do think it will make us all better players in the months to come, having played Russian cruisers T5 - T8 inc premiums a lot in the last 2 months, you never have/had stealth when firing with these ships, but my results have been pretty good for an average player.

Players will learn new skills and strategies, I actually find the game a bit more interesting.

 

EDIT: Removal of SF (Stealthfire) can also be a negative for BB;s, because DD's and Cruisers will be drawn closer, leading to not only HE/AP spamming but also danger from torps. 

[beercrazy]

 

When you say the removal of SF is the worst thing that have happened to WOWS you should expect dissenting opinions and accept that others do not share your point of view. You have presented you point and I have presented a counterpoint - deal with it.

And no, the removal of stealth fire is far from the worst thing that have happened in WoWS, quite the contrary actually IMHO.

It was a bad mechanic because it allowed one player to deal damage to another player with impunity which is a type of mechanic that is very bad to have in a MMO as every play should always have a counterplay which stealth fire never had.

 

maybe your right with the counter measure but when I one shot a dd from 12k that was shooting me yesterday the dd player had nothing he could do to kill me because I was in a bb and he would never have taken my health down fast enough to stop me killing him

where is the equality then?

[Gojuadorai]

It was a bad mechanic because it allowed one player to deal damage to another player with impunity which is a type of mechanic that is very bad to have in a MMO as every play should always have a counterplay which stealth fire never had.

 

you do not see what im talking about do you?

 

I DONT CARE IF YOU CAN OPEN WATER STEALTHFIRE! (that could be removed i never used it nor seen it as a problem)

 

im talking about the  implications on gameplay of ships that had a SF window on ships they were not firing upon. and thats often a huge problem.

 

e.g.

you have an island youre using to your advantatge to burn down a BB like 15 KM away which would spot you anyway firing without it.

hey but wait theres the dd over at the other cap inside youre SF window who is spoting you, so the BB now can delete you.

got it?

[ColonelPete]

I agree with the nerf. It was ruining the gameplay, especially at the end of the game when DDs or CAs were left in enemy teams. They could just start shoting at you and burn you down to ashes without being seen at all. I was once in Yamato and a dd burned 45+k of it while stealth fireing. It was a stupid mechanic, you can't shoot and remain invisible in real life. Of course it was a great skill for my shima, flood target, he repairs, after you burn it down, but still it's much more fair now. And yea better let ZAO appart, it's still working very well, with or without the nerf.

Nothing was ruined.

Why do you think the number of BB players was increasing?

Because SF was ruining the game? 

Better get a grip with reality.

SF was nuisiance that was easily countered. NOTHING more.

 

That is also the reason I do not think the SF removal will ruin the game. It was unnecessary and gives BBs even more freedom to sail alone and ignore the team.

[Culiacan_Mexico]

...at the end of the game when DDs or CAs were left in enemy teams...

There is a bigger problem here.

[Z_OnkelE]

While I think I can adapt quite well to these new conditions and without issues I do think the changes were executed poorly and did create more new issues. Those problems have been pointed out by several experienced players ahead of the patch but were disposed as theoretical anecdotes.

 

Making it more punishing to push towards an enemy with a ship which has low calibre guns leads to less initiative and more stationary games because the retreat became much harder. Making smokes more rewarding in general also leads to more stationary gameplay. Overall it looks like there are many, many aspects which have been overlooked.

[Kazomir]

The worst thing that happened to WoWs balance was the massive nerfhammer that slammed the CV class after the beta.

 

With the absense of CVs a LOT of bad balance decisions were made which could have been avoided.

 

Hopefully the CV rework will fix things.

[G01ngToxicCommand0]

To the OP, the mechanics in WoWS are interconnected meaning that changes in one game mechanic will cascade unto others.

However the most influential of them all are the requirement that a game of WoWS can not last more than 20 minutes which in turn led to a requirement of the massive increase in artillery hit probability and the damage it deals which in turn led to the requirment of the game's detection mechanics or otherwise it would be impossible to cap objectives and battles would not last 5 minutes before one side had obliterated the other.

This is where stealth fire comes in; the balance between teams will favour the one that has the most ships that can stealth fire because its lack of counterplay and capability to destroy the enemy with impunity and that is not good for the game experience because it reduces the influence on the battle's outcome that the non stealth firing ship have and this gives the players of those a poorer game experience than they otherwise could have had.

Am I saying that there are no consequences for the game by removing SF? No I am not but the negative outcome of it is still better than leaving that mechanic in the game and that, for now, the players will have to adapt to the new situation untill Wargaming have had a chance to observe and analyse the effect of removing SF and then adjust whatever needs adjusting. 

[G01ngToxicCommand0]

While I think I can adapt quite well to these new conditions and without issues I do think the changes were executed poorly and did create more new issues. Those problems have been pointed out by several experienced players ahead of the patch but were disposed as theoretical anecdotes.

 

Making it more punishing to push towards an enemy with a ship which has low calibre guns leads to less initiative and more stationary games because the retreat became much harder. Making smokes more rewarding in general also leads to more stationary gameplay. Overall it looks like there are many, many aspects which have been overlooked.

 

Of course there will be issues caused by removing SF but those issues aren't apparant and can't be resolved unless SF is removed which I am sure Wargaming will do when they have the necessary data to act on.

No one should expect that Stealth Fire will be reintroduced because that game mechanis is simply too imbalanced but rather should accept that fact and adapt to the new situation.

 

If people are honest to themselves, how much differently do you really play now than before the removal of stealth fire?

[KaraMon]

 

can't you see the huge impact it has on the gameplay even if you do not intend  to SF  ?

 

Only issue i noticed after this patch is that average BB Kevin is runing away in panic even more than before

[Gojuadorai]

This is where stealth fire comes in; the balance between teams will favour the one that has the most ships that can stealth fire because its lack of counterplay and capability to destroy the enemy with impunity and that is not good for the game experience because it reduces the influence on the battle's outcome that the non stealth firing ship have and this gives the players of those a poorer game experience than they otherwise could have had.

Am I saying that there are no consequences for the game by removing SF? No I am not but the negative outcome of it is still better than leaving that mechanic in the game and that, for now, the players will have to adapt to the new situation untill Wargaming have had a chance to observe and analyse the effect of removing SF and then adjust whatever needs adjusting. 

 

while i understand and agree i see it as a highly hypothetical thing (appart from maybe 3 ships zao, gremy, blys), i myself (even though BB is my second most played calss) have in over 7K games verry rarely (meaning sub 1% range) experianced a random-game(more so in ranked games) where i have seen a stealthfiring making actually a difference, and even less of those wereavoidable.

 

thats why i consider the secondary effects of this change WAY worse that the benefit of removing Openwater-SF

[Pivke]

 

If people are honest to themselves, how much differently do you really play now than before the removal of stealth fire?

i dont play much differently than before the patch. i just play A LOT less.

and i have limited my self to play battleships only. oh and kutuzov (because of smoke)

[Tirande]

 

 

Every cruiser = Zao and Chapayew

Every DD = Blyskawica and Akizuki (others were ineffective doing this stuff )

 

It is not issue of stealthfire , some ships like Zao were nerfed heavly only because they were overperforming thanks to stealthfire , same is with Akizuki . No one noticed weakness because they were masked by stealthfire . Now when this is gone it is easy to notice what went wrong with ship design  .

 

Akizuki lacks maneuverability and Zao lack HP and a little turret traverse/RoF

 

Except that this nerf more or less came after they buffed the Soviet Shitter DDs from OP to "FingerOfStalin" OP meaning they invalidated Gearing/Z-52/Shima some more by taking a nice ol' fashioned dump on people who don't enjoy the Soviet lines. I personally dislike playing Soviets, I have KhabOPasfuckerovsk and she's just 75% stronger than the rest. Z-52's shells are garbage and either don't pen, bounce or do about 100-300 damage per shell (Khab's actual damage numbers don't go under 700 per shell unless you're incapable of shooting straight with the Finger of Stalin Supreme Glory Arcs) So this is quite blatantly a powerplay buff to the Soviets and a boardwide nerf to ships like Gearing (can't fight as a gunboat due to low speed), Shima (pointless guns that only serve to make you incapable of stealthing for 20 seconds so you can't even try to torp stuff. Said torps are really crappy anyway since you know.. they're spotted half way across the map anyway), Z-52 (It's... okay-ish at best thanks to the German Hydro but in terms of damage output in practice you lose to a Fletcher/Gearing/Khab)

 

Zao is more annoying to play now that you have to sit back at max range with the Battlebabies who don't play the game and instead camp all game farming damage, but going in is suicide since her turrets don't support brawling and her agility isn't enough to keep her alive at engagements under 12km. And frankly, I could care less about lower tier ships, Fletcher is still strong so per extention Black is going to be OP as balls, Gremy is a ship I don't have personally and I'm not too fussed about since it's a T5 and thus one of the BiasNation's sealclubbers... (Nikolai + Gremy are the true clubbers, not T4/5 CVs people; get over it!)

 

And as a special case, Akizuki.... well I've played her a few times and I never attempted to stealthfire on her; she's a problematic ship that gets +2 MM most of the time, is too slow to be an actual threat most of the time and in order to get to the point where she'd be scary you'd need a 18 SP captain... which imho is not something every player will have thus is irrelevant.

[Z_OnkelE]

No one should expect that Stealth Fire will be reintroduced because that game mechanis is simply too imbalanced but rather should accept that fact and adapt to the new situation.

 

I don't think it will ever come back either, but if you think it was such an imbalanced mechanic that needed a change asap, even if that change was totally rushed and introduced new problems, you sound pretty delusional.

 

If people are honest to themselves, how much differently do you really play now than before the removal of stealth fire?

 

I play totally different on the Farragut and the 155 mm Mogami. The mechanics now make me think about the gain/cost relation every time I even consider firing. To me they handle like German DDs and the necessity of this chain of thoughts is the reason those ships are not fun to play for me. Besides those two: in most situations none of my ships needed a low detection range while firing (one exception, see below). Russian DDs do not care, heavy cruisers do not care, BBs do not care.

 

The biggest issue still: being punished if I need to retreat from a cap with an USN DD. That is their domain where they become the feared gunboats. But the cost increased massively without any compensation. All the above mentioned cases show: stealth fire itself never had a huge impact on games but low detection range while firing the guns in a (DD) brawl is important.

[Bladezfist]

I'm experiencing T6 games that play like T10 games after this patch, DDs are super afraid to go on to the cap, even when they do and they meet an opponent they often both don't fire and just immediately smoke and then leave the cap. It all seems like a really stupid way of getting rid of a mechanic that barely made an impact on the game. I guess they don't mind the move towards a more smoke heavy, stationary game at all tiers.

[iJoby]

I'm experiencing T6 games that play like T10 games after this patch, DDs are super afraid to go on to the cap

 

You must be playing a different game to me, I have noticed DD's on T6 games playing well when taking caps, and being more cautious, now knowing when to fire guns and when not too, they actually are playing more stealthy and thus harder to find and kill.