0.6.6 Operations - Balance

[MrConway]

Please leave any feedback on the balance of the new Operations game mode here.

[BlackYeti]

I've said it in PTS comments and I say it again. The difficulty level is crazy for the standard PVE player (the majority of PVE player are players with ~500 WTR in PvP and barely over 1000 PvE). I'm okay with losing some games but the rewards....THE REWARDS ON A LOSS ARE STILL A GODDAMN JOKE! A 170k dmg battle in a Cleveland (died on last wave), no camo or premium consumables= -15k credtis (yes, a 15k LOSS)!!! I can guarantee  that unless changes are made in a few days nobody will be playing this mode except pre-made coordinated divisions. Reduce the earnings on a win if needed but for God's sake increase the rewards on a loss to make playing this mode worthwile. Because in it's current state an average player will be losing ALOT.

[HaZarD_X]

Operations = JOKE

Give me back my 3gb update on my SSD.

[_Flyto_]

I agree that they are hard for the average player (PVE or otherwise). This will improve as people learn the missions, but if somebody just can't hit enemy ships reliably, then they're never going to have the dps to keep up.

 

They should be a lot of fun for a clan's group of 7, but I'm not sure how well they will work otherwise in their current state.

 

(this after my first campaign mission on the live server, where I had 8 kills and all of the rest of my team had 6 between them when we were overwhelmed)

[lthelis]

had a few games on defense of naval station newport as it the only one i can play atm and i really like the idea of the german and japanese ships attacking but  i noticed that didn't seem much of a threat was the enemy CV been only t5 and after that had gone their wasn't anything that could pose a challenge to the CV on are team if their is one so i say probley have have a t6 or t7 enemy CV's apper in the final attack.

 

also on newport could u make it so both repair ships moved around instead of the 1 so that people can use them alot better to repair

 

 

[Kauvana]

It's a challenging mode, and I like the idea of it - but why make the mode accessible to tier Vs if they'll be facing off against tier VIII enemies?

Also, if you drop to below three ships and reinforcements are sent, these are one tier V and one tier VI DD, while the base is already under attack from aformentioned tier VIII DDs, CAs, and BBs.

[BlackYeti]

had a few games on defense of naval station newport as it the only one i can play atm and i really like the idea of the german and japanese ships attacking but  i noticed that didn't seem much of a threat was the enemy CV been only t5 and after that had gone their wasn't anything that could pose a challenge to the CV on are team if their is one so i say probley have have a t6 or t7 enemy CV's apper in the final attack.

 

also on newport could u make it so both repair ships moved around instead of the 1 so that people can use them alot better to repair

 

 

 

​I think it is difficult enough as it is seeing as having your own CV is not guaranteed, I only seem to get one in 1 out of 5 games. The difficulty at the moment is a mess, because it seems too easy for premades and too difficult for randoms. Especially without a CV.

[ReinYagami]

The difficulty with this is that too many randoms would rather hide behind the defensive line, waiting until they're almost touching the defense point before opening fire....

They then wonder why they only manage to win by the arrival of the AI fleet.

Sadly, there isn't much WG can do about cowards and AFKers.

[Brutal_120]

played a couple of games, defend the base, result 0 wins, 

the AI is far to accurate, 85%+ hit rate, the ships are very difficult to torp, they move as soon as the torps hit the water, you can however get real close and throw them on the enemy deck, but you end up with a 1 - 1 death ratio, the damage taken to complete a successful "throw the Torps on the Deck" is far too excessive, usually ending with a 1 - 1 kill trade off, 

i like the concept of this type scenario, but the WG execution and implementation is as usual, aimed at well above average type players, not for the casual player, 

i will not get involved in this type of game, in short i found it utter ill thought out rubbish, which is usual for WG, so out of touch with the players, 

[BlackYeti]

The difficulty with this is that too many randoms would rather hide behind the defensive line, waiting until they're almost touching the defense point before opening fire....

They then wonder why they only manage to win by the arrival of the AI fleet.

Sadly, there isn't much WG can do about cowards and AFKers.

 

​Actually sticking to the islands close to spawn seems to be the best tactic at least for cruisers. The yoloers that go full spead ahead and then have the later waves spawn right next to them seem alot less successful. On the other hand Island hugging requires someone spotting for you that's why having a CV is so important.

[Titan_net]

 

 

Operations = JOKE

 

This..

 

I took Zuiho and Bogue into Operation Newport because I don't like playing CV in Random Battles. The beginning was OK.. but then suddenly: Sharnhorst, Myoko, Hipper, T7 Fighters.. what the f**k?

 

• ++ Idea and setting are nice
• -- Waaayyyy too difficult
• -- Tier VII/VIII enemies vs own Tier V ship
• -- Super fast evading bots in combination with the forced auto-drop is a giant middle finger to aspiring CV captains.
• -- XP/Money for lost battle is a joke

[HidesHisFace]

I love this new game mode and I really hope it stays. However, it requires couple of tweaks.

 

The difficulty is unbalanced - Don't get me wrong, I like a good challenge, but given the random layout of the teams, plenty of times you can predict a loss just based on a team setup. Some basic class composition should be forced, or better yet, allow players to pick ships just before the game starts, so even random players can somewhat balance it out.

Another issue with difficulty - enemy ships are moving too fast given the fact that they spawn in random spawn point out of possible 3. This gives the defenders very little time to react and can create a no-win situations if the team composition is not perfect.

Basically - 2 issues:

- enemy ships rush your defences too aggressively.

- the mode will quickly lose the fun factor in random teams - too many combinations of ships are pretty much an auto-lose.

 

Another problem that may be the death of this mode - the rewards. The fact that the whole mode is very difficult (and we are not always talking about genuine difficulty, but too random factors) - you will lose most of the time. And rewards for this rare case of actually winning this ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH to justify LOSING credits on a loss. 

There is no real point in playing, if you can't use this to gain credits for other ships - It doesn't matter if the mode is fun (and it is) - as long as economy is a factor in it, it will determine the popularity.

In normal battles, on tier V and VI you basically never lose credits - this alone defeats the point of this mode from game's economy point of view.

[_Flyto_]

A few additional thoughts, after some time,

 

• As noted by many, the difficulty is a nice challenge for organised groups of 7, but impossible for most random divisions. One approach to dealing with this might be to have easy and hard modes, balanced for these two circumstances.
• Another approach: At the moment (at least on the base defense mission) failing the secondary objectives makes the primary objective harder (e.g. failing one secondary objective means you don't get a friendly CV ally; failing another one means that the big enemy attack starts sooner, and so forth). This tends to cause things to snowball for struggling teams as soon as something goes wrong.
  Consider having these things work the opposite way: So that (for example) if you fail secondaries, more reinforcements get sent to make the primary easier. This would allow more groups to complete the primary objectives, while still retaining the difficulty of getting five stars.
• The rewards for losing do seem a little low... But more worrying for me is that the rewards for getting stars for secondary objectives are once-only. This means that once I've obtained five stars on each operation, there is little reason to ever play them again! (and certainly not to take risks for optional secondaries)

[Aragathor]

Because of the high cost/low reward this mode does not encourage replaying a successful operation. After receiving the reward for secondary objectives there is no point in playing again, as the cost is too high compared with a random battle.

[Brutal_120]

played around 12 games of the new operations scenario, used T5 DDs, Minekaze & Nicholas, 

i like the concept, but the implementation in its current state is a joke, the AI is omnipotent, and reacts accordingly,  

the torps are useless, if used as intended, the target ships react to a torp attack instantly after the torp launch, alter speed, course, and evade, well before the torp detection range, the only strategy that appears to work, get real close and throw the torps onto the Enemy ships deck, however results are a 1/1 kill ratio, you may sink an enemy ship, but you die shortly after, and it results in a loss for the team, you can stop near the liberty ships and auto-repair, regardless of ship and class, but the recovery rate is so slow, it is hardly worth the effort, if your team is a ship down, and you repair, the game is lost, as the rest of the team is annihilated  

the economy is flawed, its a pay to play, or wait 30mins to have your ships returned to you, (once again money, not client satisfaction is the WG policy, they have the business acumen of a blacksmiths anvil)

the AI appears to have an 85%+ hit ratio, once targeted, your survival rate is 50%- if you are lucky,

get 7 of your pals to team up for the challenge, its a shame i cannot contact the large number of Ex players in my "Buddy List"  

the games appeal soon dies off, its a pointless exercise, there is a point when a "Challenging Game " becomes a frustrating pile of dung, if this was WG intent, 110% success, at last WG got something right,

lastly i would like to thank WG for a 3GB download of crap, which i did not need, do not what, but cannot get rid of,

very disappointing 

[LOZFFVII]

(1)played around 12 games of the new operations scenario, used T5 DDs, Minekaze & Nicholas, 

(2)[...] the AI is omnipotent, and reacts accordingly,  

[...]

(3)the economy is flawed, its a pay to play, or wait 30mins to have your ships returned to you,

(4)the AI appears to have an 85%+ hit ratio, once targeted, your survival rate is 50%- if you are lucky,

[...]

(5)lastly i would like to thank WG for a 3GB download of crap, which i did not need, do not what, but cannot get rid of,

 

(1) The current operation (Defend Newport) is not designed for DDs, you'd have better luck in CLs, BBs or CVs. I know I did.

(2) I never had this problem. In fact, I had one AI Tenryuu that spawned within 5km of me (in my Kamikaze), I launched all of my torps at him (factoring in changes of direction) and got 2 successful torpedo hits and killed him.

(3) It isn't 'Pay2Play' unless you're paying real money for it, to cut the wait time short it only costs 75k credits, the FREE currency in the game - and 75k is pretty easy to earn in one good Random Battle.

(4) I've only found this to be the case if you're being targeted by 3+ AI ships. If you keep together with your allies, you reduce the risk of being singled out. Also, if you keep maneuvering you should be able to avoid most shots.

(5) Welcome to the world of online gaming! I didn't particularly want RPF or the removal of Stealth Fire to happen, yet they still did!

 

To share my experiences:

Game 1

My ship: Kamikaze.

Team comp: don't really remember, but I remember 3DDs (including myself)

I don't recall everything, but I remember being the last ship alive, hiding next to the repair ships and counting the number of enemies approaching.

Failure

 

Game 2

"Let's try for more consistent damage. There are losts of CLs, so let's try..."

My ship: Graf Spee

Team comp: 1CV, 2-3BBs, 3-4CLs. Possibly a DD, too, but I don't remember.

I was focus-fired by everything as i tried defending the west flank. Eventually only our CV was left alive, but with no planes. He manged to hold on until the 3min mark, where Missouri and Pensacola showed up. He went down, but the battle didn't end until Mo and Pen sank the last AI enemy.

Victory! (!?)

0 Stars earned.

Interestingly, an AI-controlled allied CV and another cruiser showed up this time, although I don't know why - or are they part of the reinforcements with Mo and Pen?

 

Game 3

"Okay...so Graf's guns didn't fire quickly enough to help me in a pinch, so let's try..."

My ship: Duca D'Aosta

Team comp: I seem to recall mostly BBs and CLs, I don't remember there being any DDs or CVs.

We stuck together, focused fired targets until they were sunk, kept moving at all times. Eventually I was torpedoed by an enemy Gneis in the final wave (I should've turned to port, but hey-ho) and as I looked around I realised A) there was one enemy ship left apart from two undetected CLs (Gneis) B) we still had 3 ally ships left C) there was more than three minutes left on the clock.

The last two CLs were a Tenryuu and Yubari.

They were destroyed before reinforcements (Mo and Pen) arrived.

Victory!!!

Five Stars!!!

 

So, no, I don't think it's too hard.

[Brutal_120]

Well done, Capt_LOZFFVII, glad you got your five stars, 

I had further games today, alternate accounts, tried the DDs & CLs, must be well in excess of 50+ games now, still no stars, no wins, nothing, you could possibly say, more sub standard players than was known about, 

but it is not, this game mode will do nothing to increase the player base, in fact it will turn a lot of players away, it certainly will not make WG any more money, if in fact, after overheads, they make much at all, 

WOWP was an unholy flop, if a game is free to play and cannot be given away, well you do not have to be miss marple to figure out something is very wrong,

 

this new game mode is piss poor, not sure whom it was aimed at, Clans maybe, the Die Hards maybe, but it was not aimed at the casual player, or the new to the game type player, it is far too difficult, which makes it very frustrating to attempt to complete, 

WG would have you believe otherwise, and as usual will not listen to the EU player base, the players who have quit, have no voice, and they are the biggest part of WG revenue, which has walked out of the door, just like WOWP 

WG still do not grasp the fact:- a terd with a ribbon wrapped around it, is still a terd!!  

[Blackeon]

Really like this mode and the potential it has, but you still have to cope with the varying quality of random teams. What is does do is reduce the impact of this as it is just your team that varies and not yours+ enemy team (e.g. you team is weak and the other team strong).

As others have said this mode is very hard, which could be ok if the rewards are right but losing is far too punishing.

Also what is the point of making the match harder as a team is clearly struggling and failing secondary tasks?

Does the difficulty of the of the mission shift with the tiers of the team? e.g. if you get more tier 5 does the tiers of the ai ships shift downwards accordingly? If you don't have a carrier does the ai get fewer/no carriers (pretty sure this is not the case).

Really like the suggestion of easy/medium/hard mode with rewards tailored to this difficulty (a certain other game with PvE mode does exactly this, and I notice the info screen currently say "Normal difficulty" so is different levels of challenge part of the plan?)

These things are what it will take to get me reinvesting money into this game.

[TheOneAndOnlyGoldstein]

I got out of my WoWS retirement, and holy crap WG, you haven't changed a bit. Still messing crapup.

 

I got into my trusted Fuso, then, leaving aside a mongoloid CV player who torpedoed me rather than the enemy cruiser, what the actual f*** is with this difficulty.

 

First of all, the AI ships' shots make me look like I'm aiming and firing with the little finger of my left foot: I am on the higher end curve of people regarding aiming skill, to the point that if RNG was not a thing I could hit 85% of the time a ship between 15-17km, but I can always land more than 60% of the salvo against a ship right now regardless of it's position towards me below 14km.
These AI snipe me successfully from 20km away. Cruisers trigger dual fires every damn time when they hit my arse. 'Nuff said right there.

 

The fact that you fight not only numerically superior but also tier 7's, which is full with some pretty powerful ships (not to mention everyone else's AA at tier 6 is garbage, unless you are American) is pure bull.

 

On the AI skill level, even if they shouldn't spot any torpedoes you put in the water, they still manage to "see" and then they evade faster than Eurobeat playing Dance Dance Revolution with the WASD hack keys.

 

Loss earnings are pathetic: 400 exp and 30k credits for 200k damage and 4 killed ships?

 

AI is allahu akbar-ing into you, your defensive line and your allies like they don't even care. If you plan on keeping this, at least add a voice effect going allahu akbar when in sub-3km proximity from your ship for the lulz.

 

Random teams are a guaranteed win, no matter how hard you git gud you are and how hard you carry.

 

AI focus fires you at the same level as I could with my clanmates on TS.

 

Bottom line: there is a difference between challenging and stupid. WG apparently doesn't know which is which. I am pretty sure that neither internal testers nor test server people have attempted the scenario after they made it, because this looks too much like a half-arsed job; either that or whoever tested this has dev cheats.

[BlackYeti]

Seriously, tweak the rewards. Hardcore players are not going to play this mode because they prefer PvP. PvE players are 95% of the casual type. They are going to be losing a lot of silver on this mode so they will rather stick to the ol' trusty co-op. If you plan on keeping this mode this challenging chop off some rewards from the high-end if you must but make the defeats at least slightly profitable. Right now a defeat after a good battle yields -15k creds, no premium consumables used. A defeat after a hard-fought 20min battle is punishment enough, losing money after that is just a kick in the balls.

[Brutal_120]

i might be nice to know, how many players who have completed this game mode, are premium account players, and how many are not, 

i suspect if you are a premium account player, you are placed in a different server with the Ai turned down, hence some players have completed with ease, others have not, 

WG will not want players, whom do not contribute to the up-keep and wage bill they incur on a weekly/monthly basis,  

either way my wallet stays shut, 

 i wonder what the next WG offering will be, "World of Coughupyourcash"

[LOZFFVII]

i might be nice to know, how many players who have completed this game mode, are premium account players, and how many are not, 

i suspect if you are a premium account player, you are placed in a different server with the Ai turned down, hence some players have completed with ease, others have not,

 

Might be a good time to use your free day of premium account then, seeing as everyone got that.

Or the free week of premium you get for completing the first set of missions (I forget what they're called, in the same section as the Hunt for Bismarck campaign).

I'm also pretty certain you get a free day of premium from completing Newport with five stars - as that's the only explanation I can think of why my premium account didn't expire yesterday.

I may currently have a premium account, premium ships and a few spare doubloons lying around, but I do not buy stuff from WG all that often, in fact it's been two months since I last purchased anything. Actually I NEVER buy premium account, what I'm sitting on right now was a combination of two free days of premium account.

 

/feeling a bit defensive as Brutal_120 has clearly noticed I used only premium ships for the operation and has looked me up to see my current premium status.

 

EDIT

I just looked up my account info and found I've got 27minutes of premium time left!

Guess I won't be using anymore of that bonus for a while! 

[Brutal_120]

Hi Capt-LOZFFVII,

 

sorry m8 you have it wrong, have not looked to find out what ships you have, or do not have,

that said, i do not own any premium ships, why would i pay money for something that can be nerfed at will, without consultation,

for the good of the game??????????, or to manipulate the clientele into buying something else they do not really need, to replace whatever was nerfed,

WG would fair far better as a company, if they concentrated on making 90% of the players happy to part with money for premium accounts, instead of bundles at a £80.00 Stirling, this new game mode by difficulty alone, demonstrates the contempt they have for the player base, it could have, if done reasonably, increased WG revenue, but i get the impression, "reasonable" is a dirty word around the WG office, 

challenging is fun, near to impossible is not, so future, game add-ons, game modes, etc, will just be ignored and overlooked, recouping what lost revenue? 

WG have as much idea as "Noddy in a Brothel" 

 

 

[BlackYeti]

I don't think premium account has anything to do with difficulty level or matchmaking. this is just a cospiracy theory that has been around since the start of World of tanks. Highly competitive premium ships on the other hand are a different matter, but not so much at tier 6.

[_Flyto_]

 

Bottom line: there is a difference between challenging and stupid. WG apparently doesn't know which is which. I am pretty sure that neither internal testers nor test server people have attempted the scenario after they made it, because this looks too much like a half-arsed job; either that or whoever tested this has dev cheats.

 

A lot of people tried it on the public test server. Most of the feedback was that it would be too hard for random groups. AFAICT nothing changed.