Patch 0.6.6 brings a significant nerf to all airplanes

[Babykim]

 

2017 - the year of the carrier?

 

The 0.6.6 patch notes are out on the RU server, with a significant nerf to all airplanes, especially Japanese carriers and the Saipan. Basically, before the range at which the airplanes were spotted depended on the number of planes in the squadron. Now this range will be the same for all airplanes, including spotter planes and catapult fighters.

 

This means, e.g. Saipan planes and Japanese squadrons will be spotted sooner upon the attack, and unspotted later after the attack. Consequently, more AA fire and loses.

 

Spotter planes and catapult fighters will be spotter earlier.

 

Base spotting range of airplanes will be increased from 5 to 8 km from ships and from 4.5 to 7 km from airplanes.

 

Minor change, the manual AA marker will stick after the squadron becomes unspotted. A surprise attack on a busy enemy will not catch his manual AA unawares.

 

Whatfor?

 

[Echelon2k]

Setting a fixed spotting distance for all planes is to combat the "I am spotted by a plane i can't see" - issue and i doubt it will hit CVs very hard. Most will hardly notice i think. Altough at this point any change that affects CV player should be double and triple checked as to NOT piss off the few ones left.

As for making the marker stick, well thats just a QoL change.

[Babykim]

Setting a fixed spotting distance for all planes is to combat the "I am spotted by a plane i can't see" - issue and i doubt it will hit CVs very hard. Most will hardly notice i think. Altough at this point any change that affects CV player should be double and triple checked as to NOT piss off the few ones left.

As for making the marker stick, well thats just a QoL change.

 

It is not only the general increase, but also the fact that smaller squadrons were stealthier. Moreover, the durability of the fragile spotter planes and cat. fighers gets a big hit.

[Z_OnkelE]

Though I support the idea to NOT drive away players from carrier gameplay, this change also makes sense in my book. But I would have liked to see it go more in the direction they chose for the stealth fire nerf: if a plane is visible, the spotting ship should be visible either; or at least should not have the ability to stealth fire the plane when in direct line of sight.

[Drunken_Jedi]

The only way this is going to cause problems is for say a full strike US CV which relies on sneaking its strike package into range without the enemy CV seeing them... thus giving the player longer time on target to attack before enemy fighters are on scene. Might hurt strike Lexington more than anything else.

[Babykim]

How about simply staying longer and visible in the aura and hence losing more planes, I mean every single time? In any carrier. This alone is a big nerf.

[Dampfboot]

Honestly this I am spotted by a plane I can't see was very annoying. If it hurts CVs, maybe they need some adjustment. We are still waiting for the promised big CV rework whilst WG is busy releasing premium carriers.

[Babykim]

Honestly this I am spotted by a plane I can't see was very annoying.

 

I cannot believe this in view of the relative size of the two objects involved: a plane and a warship. Come on!

 

Besides it will stay this way. A plane will spot you sooner than you spot the plane.

 

This whole change is a massive buff to AA. Simple as that.

[Skyllon]

Whatfor?

 

To cater to all whiners: I'm being spotted by the plane but I can't see it...

[Redcap375]

Oh well, Its another nerf, however slight (depending on your point of view). Not even gonna flinch as I completely expect it from WG.

 

Its that simple 

[Redcap375]

 

I cannot believe this in view of the relative size of the two objects involved: a plane and a warship. Come on!

 

Besides it will stay this way. A plane will spot you sooner than you spot the plane.

 

This whole change is a massive buff to AA. Simple as that.

 

He has a massive point 

[Ubertron_X]

My best guess is that they want to tackle two to three issues:

 

1) Planes shadowing ships indefinitely, which sometimes can be hard, especially on cruisers (permanently lit up and unable to re-cloak). At least now you have a chance to know what is spotting you and try to evade.

2) Fixing inconsistency of AA range vs plane spotting range. What good for is a 7.2km AA bubble if planes become visible/invisible only at 4.5km? (solo ship buff for BB and CA)

3) Evasive manuvers can be started a little earlier as planes are spotted earlier. (mainly BB and to a lesser degree CA and DD buff)

 

Of course most of the above is an indirect CV nerf.

[Verdius]

If it hurts CVs, maybe they need some adjustment.

 

CV have been in need of adjustment for over 2 years. 

In spite of the 'year of the carrier 2016' and the 'no prem CV before rework' promises WG made.

[BruceForce]

I just started using the AA range module on some ships seems carriers seemed to have become a bit more common. Guess I can take those off again...

[El2aZeR]

I can see why this was done (after all everyone hates getting spotted by that one floatplane that you can't see), but they should've either unified this to ~6km or increased the air detectability of some cruisers as well. If they just change it like this CVs are going to have to deal with even more stealth AA.

[xXx_Blogis_xXx]

not a big problem , but still , wg focus only on cv nerfs?

[Horin728]

The spotting change isn't really that big of a problem (at least I think so, we shall see ingame). The sticking of manual AA however is. Does it stick even if you recall the squaqdron back to your CV and re launch? Does this mean that if the enemy team focus fires my (SINGLE) TB squadron in an USN CV it wil get automatically focused down by everything the entire match? 

 

2017 year of the CV indeed... Bloody AA power creep.

 

Let's just wait and see if the AP bombs change anything...

[tajj7]

Can't see this as having a major impact, and if it slightly nerfs IJN CVs compared to US CVs that seems a good thing to me considering how horribly unbalanced they are.

 

Plus the whole being constantly plane spotted but I can't see the plane thing is annoying. 

 

And the Saipan will be fine.

 

And the overall impact will be minimal so not sure how you can claim this is a 'significant' nerf, most plane attacks work best anyway when you attack someone who is already distracted so CV players will just have to focus on that more. 

[Takru]

And the overall impact will be minimal so not sure how you can claim this is a 'significant' nerf

 

Right now your planes are not spotted at the maximum range of a ship's AA range but inside it. Once 0.6.6 is live, they'll be spotted outside the max range (unless you're in a Minotaur) which flatly increases the time those planes have to spend inside your AA bubble(s) if they want to attack you. More time within AA bubble = more dead planes on average.

[ilhilh]

Can't see this as having a major impact, and if it slightly nerfs IJN CVs compared to US CVs that seems a good thing to me considering how horribly unbalanced they are.

 

Plus the whole being constantly plane spotted but I can't see the plane thing is annoying. 

 

And the Saipan will be fine.

 

And the overall impact will be minimal so not sure how you can claim this is a 'significant' nerf, most plane attacks work best anyway when you attack someone who is already distracted so CV players will just have to focus on that more. 

 

...says the CV expert.  Sure, it won't impact your game very much, but it will impact people who actually play the class!

[creamgravy]

Can't see this as having a major impact

 

When I was rocking a full AA spec Neptune the top CV players would always spend time setting up a big sneek attack to nullify my long range AA. (Classic tactic agasint Minotaurs)

 

It's a huge CV nerf.

[tajj7]

 

Right now your planes are not spotted at the maximum range of a ship's AA range but inside it. Once 0.6.6 is live, they'll be spotted outside the max range (unless you're in a Minotaur) which flatly increases the time those planes have to spend inside your AA bubble(s) if they want to attack you. More time within AA bubble = more dead planes on average.

 

 

...says the CV expert.  Sure, it won't impact your game very much, but it will impact people who actually play the class!

 

Yeh I get the concept, a few more dead planes, but the impact will still be minimal, we are talking 3km, which planes cover in a matter of seconds, and no AA bubbles are 8km, they are at best 7.2km IIRC, with the vast majority being way less than than that, the average is probably 4-5km, which was the previous spotting range anyway.

 

So we are actually talking about 2.2km of AA bubble extra they may get shot in, by a handful of ships that have to be specced for AA, hardly dramatic. 

 

Just be more careful about where you fly your planes, what you attack and how you attack, I might not be a 'CV expert' but even to me that seems pretty obvious.  Plus as I said it reduces the gap a little bit between the US and IJN CVs.  

 

Jeez people love to make mountains out of molehills. 

[ilhilh]

 

 

Yeh I get the concept, a few more dead planes, but the impact will still be minimal, we are talking 3km, which planes cover in a matter of seconds, and no AA bubbles are 8km, they are at best 7.2km IIRC, with the vast majority being way less than than that, the average is probably 4-5km, which was the previous spotting range anyway.

 

So we are actually talking about 2.2km of AA bubble extra they may get shot in, by a handful of ships that have to be specced for AA, hardly dramatic. 

 

Just be more careful about where you fly your planes, what you attack and how you attack, I might not be a 'CV expert' but even to me that seems pretty obvious.  Plus as I said it reduces the gap a little bit between the US and IJN CVs.  

 

Jeez people love to make mountains out of molehills. 

 

Except, with many CVs it is very possible to run out of planes and all this does is speed up the process.  Sure, your 85 plane Kaga is probably going to escape pretty easily, but other CVs will struggle more.

[tajj7]

 

Except, with many CVs it is very possible to run out of planes and all this does is speed up the process.  Sure, your 85 plane Kaga is probably going to escape pretty easily, but other CVs will struggle more.

 

Not it doesn't, don't attack ships or fly near ships with 7.2km AA range? Even in my limited CV learning you can see what ships to attack and not attack.  Attack those ships later when they have been burnt down a bit and their AA mounts are gone.

 

How many ships honestly have effective 7.2km AA range, and how many of those ships will be specced that way? How many of these ships will you meet every game?

 

Now with that number tell me that is a huge impact, cos it clearly isn't, it's statistical insignificance. 

[Hauptbahnhof]

Except, with many CVs it is very possible to run out of planes and all this does is speed up the process.  Sure, your 85 plane Kaga is probably going to escape pretty easily, but other CVs will struggle more.

 

Actually Kaga is worse in some ways then other CVs, because it has a very unbalanced reserve plane loadout. It runs out of divebombers and fighters really fast but it's almost impossible to run out of torpedo bombers.

 

With the captain skill you will have 10 fighters and just 18 reserves + 7 dive bombers and just 7 reserves. The Torpedo bombers you get 12 with a monstrous reserve of 31!

 

Not it doesn't, don't attack ships or fly near ships with 7.2km AA range?

 

Alot of the T8/9 cruisers you will face have less then 7.2 km airdetection, and cruisers tend to spend 90% of their game in smokescreens at these tiers anyways. Any advice on how to not fly into ships AA bubbles when you can't even see the ships??? :S